Avatar

azertyfun

azertyfun@lemmy.blahaj.zone
Joined
2 posts • 22 comments
Direct message

Read my message again. The optimization is “use euros or dollars (or yuans or whatever is most applicable regionally)”. Your “optimization” is a solution looking for a problem.

permalink
report
parent
reply

oh believe me I am very much into that urbanism shit, but we have to admit that “pure” urbanism isn’t as visually evocative to those not in-the-know (though it is true that before/after pictures of rehabilitation projects are nice to look at)

i will also say that greenery on buildings is just a facet of beautiful architecture which is wildly overlooked as a necessary part of sustainable cities. beyond the practical purpose of summer heat management for greenery specifically (and other practical aspects of non-minimalist architecture such as the water stains that appear on “minimalist” architectural designs which forego overhangs), there are psychological and cultural effects to good looking, distinct architecture. used well and especially in poorer areas it also has ripple socioeconomic effects. it’s the reciprocal of brutalist architecture in social housing which had its own devastating effect on quality of life by virtue of ugliness alone.

we aren’t robots or numbers on an excel sheet, and by god if prehistoric nomadic human tribes had time to make art while hunting woolly mammoths, we can afford to put a some plants on public buildings. i have a dream, and that dream is a city skyline that isn’t blue-gray but a vibrant green.

thank you for coming to my tedx

permalink
report
parent
reply

Capitalism is a system that sustains itself even if literally everyone knows how evil it is. This is part of the fundamental conceit.

Capitalists literally have nothing to gain by “hiding” some truths, as if the masses were living with a veil in front of their eyes that one can just pull back to radicalize them. We were all there in 2008. We all saw behind the curtain. Literally nothing fundamentally changed and no movie is going to come close to having that cultural impact.

Also capitalists aren’t any less prone to the tragedy of the commons than any other group of people. One corporation would end capitalism next quarter if they believed it would make them richer this quarter.


The truth is much simpler than any conspiracy theory: Hollywood is largely systematically incapable of competent social commentary. There are occasional brilliant exceptions, but rampant nepotism, incompetent corporate meddling, and a strong history/culture of “character stories” means that Hollywood doesn’t know how to make a story about anything other than a character story.

Anyway if the topic interests you here’s a one hour essay on how Apple failed to adapt Foundation, with a truly masterful ending on an anticapitalist message.

permalink
report
parent
reply

and set earlier in the summer*

I hate it. I fucking hate it. With every fiber of my being. I spend every winter counting the days until the sun stops setting before I stop working. Our entire lives are scheduled so we are inside under neon light from 9-6, why are we trying to maximize how much of that is during daytime?

On the day that we go back to permanent ST I will turn to hard drugs to make up for the dopamine deficiency. No joke very few things in my life fill me with more dread than having to suffer early evenings for the rest of my life.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Someone please tell me what the difference is between this sentiment and “I’ll get an AI-generated PFP because it’s cheaper”. As far as I’m concerned either way it’s " expensive traditional art" vs “mass-manufactured knockoff”.

Do people have no respect for jewelers or not understand the work that goes into a good timepiece? Or is it that art is contempt-worthy when is used as a status symbol (in which case what about a $500 timepiece?)

permalink
report
reply

Yeah and a motorcycle is almost as heavy as a car… if you compare a Honda Goldwing (379 kg) to a Citroën 2CV (475 kg).

I didn’t say anything useful, but we sure cherry-picked ourselves out of the general statement that cars 5-10 times heavier than motorcycles!

permalink
report
parent
reply

The anti-gun crowd is also ignorant of the practicalities of automatic vs semiautomatic. What they mean is “civilians shouldn’t have mostly unrestricted access to firearms, especially ones with no use for hunting” and getting hung up on technical minutia misses the point entirely.

permalink
report
parent
reply

My country made it illegal to sell at a loss (for that exact reason) and IIRC wish and/or temu got in some kind of legal trouble for it. So did IKEA when they tried to use their restaurant as a loss leader - illegal here!

Then there’s the matter of shipping subsidies from the PRC, ain’t no way cross-continent shipping is 0.02 € on a 5 € item for which the last mile is handled by the national postal service which I know for a fact charges anyone more than one euro for delivering a damn envelope.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Because Paris is its own jurisdiction.

Paris’ mayor, Anne Hidalgo, is incredibly unpopular in the rest of the Parisian Metropolitan Area (whose government is right-wing under Valérie Pécresse). Much of these areas are still car-dependent beyond belief with bad-to-awful public transit, meaning they are progressively getting cut-off from car-hostile Paris. Paris is completely unaffordable to live in, so it is normal for the working class to have a 1h+ commute into Paris.

This understandably breeds resentment from most people who have never heard of the term “induced demand” or think that the lack of rail transit it Hidalgo’s fault.

permalink
report
reply

Your sleep paralysis demon should send their resume to a few Hollywood producers if they ever get bored of only traumatizing one human at a time. A+ storytelling.

permalink
report
parent
reply