Link & Meme Archive 2/1/21 – 4/1/21

This thread about falling in love with the spouse you’re in a marriage-of-convience with and trying to figure out how to come out to them is the most wonderful thing I saw in March. I’m sorry you have to have an FB account to see it, I couldn’t find any other format that preserved this thread in all its glory.

Here’s the exact opposite, an entire thread that’s just :(

“15 years ago, I co-led a team trying to give 100% free Internet access to all of San Francisco starting with the poorest neighborhoods first. The network would be anonymous, with no ads, no cookies, etc. Approximately a $20-25 million gift. The result? We were chased out of town.”

Good news everyone! The redistribution is actually working.

“We can now show that if you count all government transfers (minus administrative costs) as income to the recipient household, reduce household income by taxes paid, […]Not only is income inequality in America not growing, it is lower today than it was 50 years ago.

While the disparity in earned income has become more pronounced in the past 50 years, the actual inflation-adjusted income received by the bottom quintile, counting the value of all transfer payments received net of taxes paid, has risen by 300%. The top quintile has seen its after-tax income rise by only 213%.”

(a note from a friend: “the real wealth inequality is between the top 1% and the bottom 99%, so this hides that by using quintiles.” Maybe so. At least this functions as a proof of concept.)

Weed will always be legal, this is America!!

16 months ago, I logged into World of Warcraft Classic the day it launched, created a level 1 mage, and created a raiding guild called <The Tail End>. Yesterday, 40 of us marched into the final dungeon in the game and finaly beat the final boss. There were several times over the ~1.5 years where the guild almost came apart, and I wondered if it was worth the stress to keep this thing going. But here we are. I know it’s just a game, but it was a heckin’ cool experience. :)

Al Jazeera to launch rightwing media platform targeting US conservatives. If this can restore sanity to the Right Wing of America, I’m sooooo for it.

An interesting post about the diversity of political opinion. Includes exerpts from “Black Voices for Trump 2024”

Another FB-only photo thread. This one of house of questionable taste. Personally, love this. These people knew what they wanted, and they pursued it all the way to the end, and damn the haters. :)

New Industries Come From Crazy People

“Men like Young are necessary for any industrial society. As stewards of the major businesses and institutions, they keep the lights on and drive incremental progress. It is fortunate, then, that nearly every society encourages or tolerates the ambitions of such men. […]

However, if we wish to achieve industrial breakthroughs and large-scale economic innovations, then we must also tolerate men like Boulton and Edison. Most societies will not do this. The natural reaction is to shut them down as dangerous threats to social order and economic life, and this is not completely wrong.”