178 points

I think the implication of the last panel is supposed to be that the apple seller can’t stop everyone, but if this was really an accurate satire, he’d chop down every tree, sue everyone that picked the apples, and then go back to selling his giant flavorless GMO apples for $5 a piece

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83 points

The hell of it is, some people would still be happy to buy his apples. Look, I ain’t got time or health insurance to be fucking around climbing an apple tree, here’s some cash, apples pls. But that’s not good enough for the investors, who want guaranteed 5% growth every quarter, so now we’ve got to pour kerosene on the extra apples and force people to go hungry.

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17 points

You’ve read The Vines of Wrath.

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17 points

It’s The Grapes of Being A Bit Miffed actually

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-1 points

Fun fact: A stable company may appear to be growing by ~3% a year if you don’t account for inflation.

I guess that’s a silver lining because then investors don’t see a stable company as stagnating.

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2 points

Congratulations, you just discovered nominal value.

Are you really trying to put forth the incredibly naive proposition that the stock market is not aware of inflation?

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22 points

He would fence off the trees, and lobby his local government to require permits for picking apples, permits that have an issuing limit that somehow coincides with the number of apple stands he has. Picking apples without a permit would result in a fine of $10,000, or a year in jail.

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13 points

the apple seller can’t stop everyone

I bet the Once-ler wouldn’t have that attitude.

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7 points

MFer needs a super-axe-hacker. Then he could whack down four apple trees in one smacker.

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4 points

If you haven’t done so already I’d recommend listening to the scrapped movie song “biggering” which was cancelled because it scared illumination

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12 points

Why does it matter if an apple is modified or not?

Modifying plants for better yields, less water usage, higher resistance to pests, better taste, and so on. Seems like a great idea in my mind.

Either way this comic is bad. It’s stupidly easy to just plant an apple tree in your back/front yard, if you have one. Apples aren’t that picky about where they want to be planted.

They should have gone for a better analogy if they are trying to say something.

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11 points

Why does it matter if an apple is modified or not?

In general, I am not opposed to GMOs. All those benefits would be great. But in practice, companies aren’t modifying the product to be better for the consumer, they’re modifying it to sell better, and cost less to produce. That basically means bigger, and less diverse, which actually ends up making them less resistant to pests and disease

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23 points

the problem isn’t gmo. the problem is the profit motivation that will invite disaster.

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11 points

Wait until you learn that we’ve been genetically modifying our food via selective breeding for as long as we’ve had agriculture.

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2 points

And staying “fresh” longer etc.

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3 points

Originally I thought the joke was that after chopping down the one tree, eventually he had a shitload of trees grow (from the fallen apples), but guess not.

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2 points

but if this was really an accurate satire, he’d chop down every tree, sue everyone that picked the apples, and then go back to selling his giant flavorless GMO apples for $5 a piece

Only if he couldn’t figure out a way to rent apples to customers.

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1 point

Yeah, I see this comic and find myself wishing we lived in such a world.

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44 points

I’m not 14 years old enough to get this

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17 points

Me neither. Though I think it’s “something, something, something, capitalism sucks.”

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32 points

Selling digital goods in a nutshell, when things are infinitely reproducible, you’ll never run out of trees.

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30 points

I feel like this is a metaphor, I’m just not sure for what yet.

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19 points

Bottled water?

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1 point

What’s the bottled-water equivalent of chopping down a single apple tree in a forest of apple trees though?

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11 points

The apples represent feet pics. It’s a tough market so the businessman only wants his feet pics to be sold in a sea of feet pics on the internet.

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-25 points

It’s a metaphor about 13yo kid trying to understand why people pay money for anything when you can get stuff for free. The only thing a kiddo comes up with is that some people are bad and will chop trees down. Then they go to lemmy.ml and post dumb shit.

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12 points

What are you talking about

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5 points

He said “Not many people like me.”

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1 point
*

Left demagogy joke

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26 points

they cant stop all of us

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-10 points

And how many bottles of water did you buy this week?

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16 points

Why would a rivvvver need to buy water?

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10 points

None. I just buy a big (>500ml) durable non-plastic water bottle once and use it until it stops being breaks or something. Why don’t more people do this (genuine question, wondering if there are actual reasons)?

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5 points

Actual reasons such as not having easy, free access to safe water refills? That’s the case for a lot of people.

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8 points

im lucky enough to have potable tap water, so none

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