I hate you so much right now.

No it is absolutely not theft. It is not theft by law. (There’s a reason why we have both “theft” and “infringement” in the lawbooks: they’re different things!) It is not theft morally. (Theft removes the owner’s ability to use something. Infringement does not. Infringement is a lesser moral crime if it is a crime at all.)

Please do not fall into the trap the IP holders like to lay by equating theft and infringement in your mind. You can have your opinions on whether infringement is bad or not (and the facts are … complicated with both sides being largely full of shit on this), but it is a matter of fact that theft and infringement are entirely different things.

Use the right term for the offence. Don’t let IP holders’ deliberate conflation to confuse the issue get to you.

Oh no! Talentless louts don’t like people who’ve cultivated actual skills that people appreciate!

…

Wait, remind me: Whom does this inconvenience?

For me it would be Das Boot.

I’m pretty sure it is too. For starters the part that’s been layered on top doesn’t have that suspicious 50/50 light/dark thing going on that gives away so many AI generations.

The Ringworld one is brilliant.

Don’t care much about either. My phone does the job for me and I have enough clothing to last me to the end of my life. (You know, about six weeks.) (I jest.)

If I were the kind who’d want children, I’d likely wish to raise them using a scissor lift.

Yeah, small businesses were already suffering at the hands of big box stores, stagnant wages, and online purchasing.

And now there’s a downturn.

Anything made in the USA (though that is not primarily because of cost of living, only partially). I used to stop off at various street food vendors for a snack on the way home every second day or so, but now I maybe do that once a month. And that is cost of living related entirely.

I think you’re missing the point. An American will see the “impact” of the “US President” “globally” while someone in Nigeria will have completely different concerns for what the Big Thing™ will be, and it will be Nigerian-centric, while someone having this same “itch” in Finland will have something Finnish-centric (say, Russia invading again) as their version and so on and so forth.

And yet, historically, when a Big Thing™ strikes it strikes from an unexpected direction from an unexpected place with unexpected outcomes for the overwhelming majority of humanity.

They also tend to think the Big Event™ will be in their geographical area and will think it’s based on their cultural concerns.

Or, alternatively, this is word salad and you’re falling for the oldest trick of the book: “it uses loads of big words and I don’t understand it so it must be profound”.

I know which direction I’m betting on.

Toward the end they mention also the bit about the writing also being bullshit generators, no?

To paraphrase someone far more clever than me: “If you can’t be bothered to actually write it, I can’t be bothered to read it.”

In the summer, beer. Ideally an import (unless there’s a good microbrewery outlet nearby) because most commercial Chinese beers are terrible. For special events, baijiu. For winter, heated rice liquor.

Uh … what?

Before my eyes glazed over and I scrolled to the bottom it seems like this is baby’s first steps into Buddhism with a side of Daoism as written by someone who understands neither. But as the word salad kept getting tossed and tossed and tossed it just blended together into a word soup.

Is there a coherent description of this concept somewhere, or is word salad all we have?

It’s started.

I’ve got new socks on.

Anybody on the outside would think I live in the midst of utter chaos. Yet if they ask me where something of mine is, I can unerringly go to it.

So the only answer I can have for your question is either “无” or ☯.