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Usually 8-5 with an hour lunch break
Because the hour lunch used to count as working, IIRC.
capitalism
I would argue that feudalism is a lot more time tested than this garbage system that even in theory is so flawed that it regularly results in global economic crises. Feudalism on the other hand has been considerably more stable throughout the centuries and whether or not you are forced to serve a nobleman or a CEO is not a big difference. So, stop getting scammed and get back to the fields, peasant.
There is no stable alternative. There is always going to be class struggle. Materialist conditions and human rights must always be fought for and defended, else you’re gonna lose them.
I have serious doubts that I’ll see one in my lifetime, unfortunately.
Not with that attitude you won’t
You should stop getting your evaluations on alternatives to capitalism from the capitalists and their countries
There is no need to be passive-aggressive
Good luck overthrowing capitalism and bring that fragile lol
Which communists? The USSR was infiltrated and the US then spent millions getting the bumbling mass of ethanol known as Yeltsin to win an election. They (the new capitalist government) even sieged the parliament building and sent tanks in Moscow to disperse the huge waves of protestors. It then lead to one of the worst humanitarian crisis in the modern age almost overnight.
And in China they are assuredly not capitalist, this becomes very clear once you read Deng Xiaoping. It’s Schroedinger’s China: when they do something bad they’re communists, and when they do something good (like lifting people out of poverty) they’re capitalists.
Cuba is still socialist, DPRK is still socialist, Vietnam is also reforming and opening up kinda like China did but a bit differently so still socialist
Are we really denying that the “Chinese Characteristics” of the PRC’s “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” is Capitalism? Btw, I think the good parts of China are the socialism bits.
capitalism is not bits and pieces here and there, it’s an entire mode of production with its own base and superstructure. In that sense China can’t be called capitalist. At best we could say it has “capitalist elements” but even then that’s a stretch when getting down into the details of what these elements actually are.
I mean, some (most? Idk) of the means of production are owned by the state (ostensibly a proxy for the people, I’d rather it was more direct but the government has consistently high approval so I’ll give it a pass) and those are clearly socialistic.
But there are certainly factories and what not owned by capitalists, and as that accounts for much of the production that goes on in China, and as these products are not destined to serve the public weal but rather to be sent abroad as bits and bobs to be sold and promptly thrown away as serves global capital, I really don’t get the desire to not call this capitalism.
China, to me, has a very clear mixed economy with elements of both socialism and capitalism.
But as I’ve argued, having elements of capitalism like commodity production (and the subsequent export of these commodities) does not make China capitalist by themselves, which is also the original point I was making, that China has not “turned” to capitalism* like OP might have implied.
Markets are not inherently capitalist, and these capitalist elements in China allow them to build their productive forces which are required to achieve socialism, they’re also the same commodities they build for the Belt and Road initiative, for example 😁
Capitalism can be summed up in many ways, and one of them is production for the sake of finding a market and making money. There is capital in China (in the marxist definition) and people can make money, but while these capitalist want to simply make more money, for the Chinese government the goal is to build up production and achieve socialism, hence why the superstructure of China vs. any country in the imperial core is different. In the first case (capitalism) we’ll just keep producing and creating markets infinitely, the “anarchy of production and socialisation of labour”, and in the second case they’re using some methods (with the consequences that come with it -> if you make a factory to produce stuff, you will have to find a market to buy that stuff so you can produce more stuff) as a stepping stone until they don’t need to any more.
Of course the superstructure is predicated on the base, and in China for example land is leased to businesses, but never sold, and the government can take back their property at any time, including whatever is on it. It’s fundamentally different to capitalism in the west.
This was super helpful comrade, thanks for this post
The CPC controls all capital in the country. They are coordinating and intervening in the economy with the goal of building a socialist society. This is very different from the US and it’s client states. Capital is controlled by the bourgeois, with no obligations other than a gluttonous desire to accumulate.
Insurance (am American)
Totally. Make a claim and suddenly your rates skyrocket. I’m trying to figure out what I have been paying for.
In some ways, Australia is actually worse than America. Not like, in terms of how “good” the overall system is. We’ve got you way beat there. But in terms of it being “a scam”.
We have a really good public healthcare system called Medicare. But, if you’re over 30, you’re required to take out private health insurance anyway, or you pay the “Medicare Levy Surcharge” if you have above certain thresholds of income. This levy is not marginal, so you could theoretically take home less pay after getting a pay raise if it puts you over the next threshold.
Additionally, if you later do sign up for private health insurance, you pay an addition levy of 2% on top of the normal premiums for every year you waited. So sign up at 40 and you pay 20% more for insurance than you otherwise would have.
All this means more funding being funneled into the private health sector, taking resources away from the public system, increasing wait times for non-urgent procedures—except for those willing and able to pay to cut the queue. If that’s not a scam, I don’t know what is.
WTF? This makes no sense whatsoever
These guys have been ridiculing the AU government for years about everything
I wish they had the budget and time to do the same to the US government
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Welcome to the Australian Government!
Their logic is “it gets people out of the public system to take burden out of the public system”. Neglecting completely the economies of scale that would be involved if the public system got all of that funding.
They have a similar attitude towards education. Private schools get a lot of funding (though thankfully not the scammy consumer-side incentives) from the government on the theory that they take students out of the public school system.
“Welcome to capitalism!”
FTFY
conservative governments in Australia have been trying to kill off medicare and other public services for a long time. the problem is our progressive governments have refused to push back hard enough as it always results in election losses.
Basically the people are stupid, the media influences them, and the government is too spineless to take the risk needed to fix things.
TrueAnon did a pretty good episode on this. Insurance was pretty straightforward before financialization kicked in on it - in the future get ready for pay-as-you-go insurance contracts where the rates change on a daily basis.
Most security on consumer hardware
Let’s take android for example. There are legitimate security implementations like SELinux, full disk encryption but something like samsung’s knox is useless outside of enterprise use and kills OS level modifications
The only reason I haven’t rooted my phone is because of the Knox circuit. Rooting it trips the circuit, and it can’t be reset. Once the circuit is tripped, my bank won’t ever recognize my phone again, because it’s “insecure”.
Knox is used by Samsung own functions. Your bank app only does a root check. Which can easily be hidden with Magisk. If you trip Knox, you lose the Samsung exclusive security features baked into the OS. That’s it. Google Pay and USAA both complained about root access and refused to work with Magisk hiding off. With it on, they function as normal.
Integration into Knox requires enterprise device management and a custom app.
Huh. I’ll have to give it a try then. My prior phone, which had been rooted, wouldn’t work with my bank, and my bank claimed it was due to the Knox circuit.
When Knox is tripped it sets off the root check. Your banks misleading statement is due to their own confusion. Knox is no longer active so it can’t guarantee there is no root access. The OS basically says it’s untrusted/insecure due to lack of Knox and always says it’s rooted regardless of that actually being true. You can hide root for all apps that check. Do note that while you can return the functionality of third party apps, Samsung baked in apps can be hit or miss. It’s a game of cat and mouse. I speak from experience.
Additionally here are some other conversations about it:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/tripping-knox-and-banking-apps.4390167/#post-86279609
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/knox-efuse-and-banking-apps.4565143/
My understanding was that knox is only used for samsung pay, secure folder and similar samsung exclusive crap
I haven’t owned a recent scamsus tho so idk
Subscriptions.
People pay every month but most don’t use the sub to it’s full value, and forget how expensive it becomes over the years. And you don’t own anything on a subscription, you just borrow it.
Also trial periods that prolong automatically into subscriptions.
I’ve got a reminder on my phone to “cancel PBS” but I can’t figure out where I subscribed to it.
Yup, BandCamp all the way. Once you buy a song you own it, you can play it anywhere you darn well please. Even if BandCamp goes under, no worries, still got my music.
Same with DVDs. Yeah, I’ve definitely gotten movies I regret purchasing, but I think long-term it’s more economical.
I was really surprised when I shipping forwarder I use after I upgraded from the “free” tier to the $10/month tier to save a few hundred dollars of state taxes, when I downgraded back to their “free” tier five days later once the package was out of their hands, the answer was “Your subscription will end at the end of your current paid month”
I expected worse
American Colleges.
The notion that capitalism is the end-all be-all of how society functions/works.
It’s more that this has been the most effective way of allocating stuff so far. Other systems have not been as effective so it is how most are doing it right now. There is no reason to believe that will not change.
Imagine believing a system that prioritises individual accumulation is better at mass allocation of resources than a system that actually scientifically and politically is built for mass allocation of resources. Such is the state of a westerner.
I didn’t mean it like that. My comment was about how a lot of billionaires, governments and politicians seem to believe that capitalism is the only system that can ever exist in a civilized society, and how there can be no alternative (some prominent influential figures that held this belief or something similar were/are Larry Kudlow, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Ronald Reagan).
There’s also the fact about how in the 20th and 21st century there was a significant effort to undermine any alternative ideologies in the western liberal democratic world. The various anti-red campaigns by the US, Thatcherism that destroyed the significance of unions in order to completely remove any possibility of a revolution (and turn workers into free-market commodities), there was also this very recent event in 2021 where during Rosa Luxemburg peaceful memorial event in Germany, police suddenly came up to disrupt it, presenting false motives.
There might be something better, a society or a system that serves the many instead of the few, but such non-capitalist system would go against the interests of the rich and the ruling elite, so there’s an active heavy pushback against it. Even when it comes to politics, the political left is definitely outnumbered at least in my country rather than political parties that lean to the center or the right, which are the parties that keep the status quo or even strengthen the elites further.
I’m approaching this from a leftist point of view, and my arguments are probably not perfect, but at least that’s how I see it. Capitalism is definitely better for people than Monarchy/Aristocracy, but it could definitely be much better for the people.
Agreed it could be better the problem is in many cases the alternatives work out worse IRL.
Up to this point yes gut it us possible that will change.
Sure; nothing is ever set in stone, the future is always the future, and none of us can know what’s in it.
Still, in the context of the current political climate, I think the “fuck capitalism” crowd leaves something to be desired. For instance, I’m all for nationalizing medical insurance as other capitalist countries have done.
However, the “no more private business ownership” crowd I think is asking for serious trouble. The preface is that if you get rid of capitalist influences democracy will not be as malleable and will always serve public interest without powerful capitalists to corrupt it… I think the case made by history is the opposite, without capitalistic forces the concentration of power in government leads to the destruction of consumer choice and inevitable corruption. In either system, the sticking point is an actively engaged and educated (and even more so, well informed – degrees are not the goal, it’s the information) public keeping an eye on the system, and I think that’s where the 20th century United States failed itself leading to 21st century problems.
The problem is that current companies are authoritarian organizations as seen from the inside, there can still be competing companies and media without this internally authoritarian structure. Imagine every company was 51+% owned by it’s workers, and they elected their senior/management staff. That would for what I understand capitalism as end it, but obviously would be vastly different from the few socialist attempts in history.
Here’s the problem I have with that argument… Anyone arguing for this can go make such a company, but nobody has (or maybe few people have and it worked or didn’t and I missed the memo). It’s not a problem of large corporations or government suppression either. There are new successful small companies all the time, but they’re not “51% owned by their workers.”
So like… If you want any buy in outside of the bubble that already supports the idea, go actually do it. AFAIK, it’s not illegal, there’s nothing stopping such a company from existing other than A) nobody has sufficiently tried or B) it doesn’t actually work.
Obviously they already exist and looking at cooperatives like that they mitigate most of the problems of private enterprise at least somewhat. The argument I’m making is that Private companies (especially large ones) are extremely dangerous to any system that tries to be democratic and because of the danger they pose shouldn’t exist at all. I mean look at how much of US government is just captured by private companies and what effect that has (had) on politics in the country and on it’s foreign policy as well.
The lack of education and an informed public is not the cause of the problems, it’s one of the many symptoms. It’s not like Bezos bought WaPo for sport. It’s not like de santis and trump get fossil super Pacs by accident. It’s not like super Pacs exist because voters love companies throwing tons of money into political messaging…
This is what I mean with Private enterprise is dangerous to democracy
These side effects were written into every liberal governments constitution by Bourgeoisie to protect their wealth from before democracy even existed. Sure there always were some concessions made towards people that weren’t wealthy but obviously it was always the wealthy who had the greatest influence.
I don’t care what particularly replaces it but this system must be changed so much to get rid of these perverse incentives that it should probably be called something else too.
Marx obviously is a good way of analyzing these failings of liberalism but he certainly is not the be all end all. Did you know for example that North eastern Syria has a constitution actively building a direct democratic rule in the region Constitution and Principles . The principles are anarchist or libertarian socialist in nature and certainly address the issues you had in terms of state authority and rush toward corruption and monopolization.
Theory and even practice of socialism obviously doesn’t stop at Soviet or CCP “communism”.
Religion. Whole cloth.
Username checks out.
Found the atheist
Sure a lot of people use religion as a business but just because some people take advantage of it doesn’t make it a cult. The real scammers are the people who take adcantage of it and those people deserve the death penalty
What exactly is religion not as a business?
I think it’s the opposite of what you’re saying (mostly bad, with some good apples), and in my years and years in and around all sorts of church’s it’s been the opposite - the good ones stand out, can get persecuted for it, and have an uphill battle ahead of them.
The system is set up in a way that the Leadership and participants would have to actively push against it in order to not be exercising power over others inappropriately. The Bible makes the promises: invest 10% of your income to the church, listen to the men in charge, obey your husband.
I wouldn’t say anything. You could provide a sense of belonging, guidance etc but many cults also do that.
Now, many also promise eternal salvation and the like and that is 100% a scam. Literally the same as snake oil.
Anti-theist, thank you. Kill your god.
I would rather kill you. Anyway I can’t kill an immortal being
Imaginary friends die all the time. Especially heavily-plagiarized and wholly unoriginal ones like “Yahweh”, and the countless others that came before. 🤣🤘🏼
Imaginary friends die all the time
Speaking from experience? The funeral of your imaginary girlfriend must have been tough
Aw, cupcake, you’re trying so hard. Go touch some grass, little church mouse. 😘
Go get a life and stop making fun of peoples beliefs
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That would just be a life philosophy like Stoicism. Religion implies there are non falsifiable beliefs involved.
If the wisdoms are wrong or sub optimal, but the followers treat them as dogmatic then its an issue.
DLCs: Games are expected to have DLCs nowadays, so game devs purposefully hold back some ideas for potential DLCs, often crippling the main game as a result.
Subscription services: For pretty much anything, but especially those automated monthly payments, which you won’t bother cancelling, even if you feel like you’re not using the service to its fullest.
It’s got to the point some people complain when there isn’t DLC. They just want to play the same game forever. Also, paid games with free to play style bullshit. At least as scummy as these free to play games can be you can at least try them out.
Also, DLC is almost a complete misnomer nowadays. Everything is content and is downloadable.
Toilet paper
Toilets.
I just use your neighbor’s garden and blame it on my cat.
care to elaborate?
Haha I thought it would be funnier to say that and not elaborate further. But yeah, even though I use it, essentially it’s a western thing - a large portion of the population use bidets or “bum-guns” that are installed into toilets. It’s actually a lot cleaner, environmentally friendlier, cheaper, but arguably at first hard to get used to from a western perspective. But yeah toilet paper has huge industry and money behind it so capitalism perpetuates it.
Never heard it called a “bum-gun” before. Thank you for the mental image of someone pointing a supersoaker at their asshole. 😂
I went to Thailand for a holiday, came back a bum-gun convert. For ~$50, we installed one onto our toilet and haven’t looked back - there’s no need when everything’s spotless.
Bidets are amazing. I had one for years until I moved (current toilet would be rather difficult to install an attachment to) and holy crap do I ever miss it.
Shampoo: Washing away the natural oils in our hair, causing the body to produce them in higher volume, causing our hair to get greasy, creating a need for shampoo.
Recycling: Only about 10% of plastic is actually recycled, the rest is sold to countries without environmental laws, and they are dumped irresponsibly. Composting is simple, effective, and would reduce landfill use by about 30%, not to mention creating a useful end product. Yet it is rarely promoted.
Mattresses and box springs: They are worse on our spines and end up causing neck and back issues. Sleeping on a firmer surface, even a thin mattress or pad on the ground, alleviates these issues.
Lawns: Turning a useful piece of land on which we can grow food into a barren wasteland and making it into a chore that requires expensive equipment and encourages chemical use.
Sales tax on food: Some countries and US states have them. It’s a tax on existence. Also, taxes on gym memberships and personal protective equipment. The government simultaneously claims it wants healthy, safe citizens, and charges them when they try to be healthy and safe.
The only purpose of lawns was originally to flaunt wealth: “see how much land I can waste and how many people I can employ maintaining it for no purpose whatsoever”.
Why this continues and is even encouraged in places, to this day, is a mystery to me.
I think it’s because it gives people a feeling of being in control of something.
A lawn is a great usable space for all sorts of recreation. So many sports are played on mown grass. Millions of people use and enjoy their lawns. They’re not just a burden of maintenance. Just look at what happened during lockdown, people with gardens were very lucky and not just because they had “control of something”
If I don’t use shampoo my scalp turns into the Sahara desert with 100% chance of snow showers.
Depends on your hair, also, some shampoos are good at cleaning your hairs without that intense feeling of sucking the oil from your hairs. I like silicon-free shampoo because I have very, very fine hairs, and it gets either too dry or too greasy.
There is a trend called “no poo” where people try to minimise shampoo use. https://www.nopoomethod.com/ Mailab did a funny video on it in German. https://youtu.be/rcpM3uW86Uk
You do that and then you start smelling like shit, no one would like to be near use, at least use natural shamboo, I had snowlly sculp, with a slightly chemical shamboo 2 times per week and with one natural for the rest of the days I’m fine now and smell like an exotic garden.
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Yes this does happen at first. If you can stick it out for a few weeks your body will adjust. For me it took about a month. Also no shampoo doesn’t mean not washing or scrubbing your hair. I use a comb to exfoliate the scalp skin.
I stopped using shampoo years ago because I’m allergic to a lot of the stuff that goes in them. I use baking soda and apple cider vinegar (you rinse in between so you don’t make a volcano). My hair has always been brittle and frizzy, but now the texture is really nice.
And for the record, no my hair doesn’t stink. You can use vitamin E oil after with essential oils if you really want your hair to smell pretty.
I’ll give baking soda and vinegar a try. How often do you do that?
Everyday. You can put the baking soda on dry or mix it into a paste. Make sure you massage it into your scalp (not too hard). Then you rinse that out and put on a rinse of vinegar water. I comb my hair out at this point and then rinse out the vinegar then apply a little vitamin E oil after I towel dry it.
As far as lawns go, thanks to lead paint and leaded gasoline from the mid-20th century, that land isn’t even one you’d consider suitable for growing food unless your house was built after the 1980s. At least, as long as you’re trying to avoid getting lead in your produce.
Really feels like our grandparents’ generation did a lot to fuck over our current generation. So many of these issues trace back to when even the Boomers were children.
I’ve never heard of this before. Do you happen to have a source on that?
Eh, I learned it primarily by word of mouth from gardening enthusiasts who are buying homes. But here’s one article about the phenomenon: https://www.hgtv.com/outdoors/gardens/planting-and-maintenance/when-to-test-garden-soil-for-lead-contamination-and-how-to-garde
I don’t have a lot of statistics to back it up except that it seems worse on the East Coast and Rust Belt
Ok thanks for the info. I’m actually in the process of buying a house built in 1955. I’ll definitely be sure to test the soil just to be safe.
About mattresses. I hike and backpack and I can attest that sleeping on the ground (meaning earth and grass) with a tent and a pad is fantastic. But you can’t really do that in your house. I’d love to, cheaper, less noise, less hassle, but the floor is hard. Even with a big air mattress I find it extremely uncomfortable. I’d love to try a hammock, but without an expensive stand you can’t comfortably set it up in a house. Advice?
I regularly sleep on the floor in my apartment, on a mattress approx. 6 inches thick.
Works perfectly for me :) I have no idea, what kind of mattress that is. I inherited from the guy that lived here before me.
We all have different body dimensions so there’s definitely not a single solution that works for everyone. My optimal setup is some of those interlocking foam exercise mats, with a thin mattress on top of it. One important thing is to flip the mattress and let it air out once a week or so. Sweat and moisture can’t evaporate from underneath like it would with a traditional setup.
I tried a hammock a few years ago but wound up with worse sleeping posture because of the way my back curled. But I also have a friend who loves hammock sleeping.
The trouble with shampoo is that our hair and skin is not build to handle the pollutants most people get in contact with throughout the day.
Soap and shampoo may not have been necessary in the past, but they are now because water alone and even some natural remedies that would otherwise be preferable, can’t reliable wash that gunk of your skin/hair
There’s so many bad stuff in a lot of cosmetics, but sadly we do need soaps to wash off some of the other bad stuff from outside.
I like shampoo (gentle shampoo about once a week) and, more importantly, conditioner and styling products because I like my hair to look more organized and smooth. I’ve seen plenty of pictures from the past with people with my hair type and generally speaking it’s bad. And mine was pretty bad before I figured out it needed conditioner left in.
I have met two people with curly hair who did water only and both had good hair, both had fine textured loose curls that were angelic and blond.
I don’t think body or hair cleansing products are scams, nor are moisturizing products. Or perfumes. They all do what they say they do.
SOAP, natural soap should never be used in hair. Soap scum is no joke - soap will lock the dirt onto your hairs in a nigh-unbreakable film of soap scum if you have minerals in your water (like most of the world does). And in soft water it will strip more oil than shampoo. Never use soap on your hair. If you are really so anti-shampoo then yes, nothing but water. Just rinsing it out will do a lot. It’s not “chemicals” that trigger overproduction of oil, it’s the removal of oil and sebum. Soap is worse for your scalp than shampoo by every possible measure.
As far as pollutants go you may be right. I haven’t considered that, just the fact that my head always felt greasy before I stopped shampooing. And you can use a soap without chemical additives every few weeks without triggering your body to go ham on oil production.
“For here or to go?”
They ask this because the tax is different. Yep. You get taxed more if you eat it there. Why? Fuck if I know.
In-game shops
Cryptocurrency
Why do people think this?
Some coins shouldn’t be in the game, but overall crypto has good reasons to exist.
First of all, I don’t like my bank because they don’t pass on value. Crypto carries its value around all by itself.
Secondly, I don’t want PayPal, or anyone like them, to pass on money that could have just been crypto.
Crypto were a good idea on paper, they could have rid us of centralized banks and provide fully anonymous transactions, instead we got massive exchanges that require your identity to do anything, massive speculation, money laundry, ponzi schemes and GPU shortages.
At this point I don’t even care anymore about what it could have been, fuck crypto.
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Massive exchanges - you’re free not to use one, there are so many ways to get around using the biggest
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Massive speculation - the established cryptos (btc, eth) are alright in that regard nowadays, still far from stocks of course, but it’s gonna get better over time
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Money laundering - there have been countless reports that cash is used for the absolute majority of money laundering, not crypto
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Ponzi schemes - they exist everywhere, and it’s not that hard to not fall for one, just stick to btc and eth
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GPU shortages - growing pains, has largely been fixed, shouldn’t happen again
You’re just picking out the worst points you can, I suggest you look at things more objectively, life’s better that way
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Turns out, banks aren’t a terrible idea after all. Losing your password or mistying on a transaction is no biggie, thanks to banks. With crypto you are always one typo away from losing your whole life savings.
Might not be an issue to a great crypto bro, until it actually happens and than is an issue.
Plus, banks actually serve an important economic role. When you put money in a savings account, the bank can lend it out to someone else as an investment, allowing enterprising individuals access to startup capital to build productive businesses or even just mortgages to buy homes, while also providing a quite safe means of storing your savings. Essentially, they connect those who have spare capital with those who need capital. And sure, there’s a lot of tomfoolery that goes on in the industry, but the core idea of banking is good.
That is true, but technically speaking crypto does the same, just in a really dumb way.
When you buy crypto, you essentially give away real money for something worthless, so the real money is free, while you have nothing except the expectation that some bigger idiot will give you real money for your worthless coins.
But contrary to banks, there is no check whether it’s useful to give the money to that person (e.g. checking whether the investment is sound) and there are no guarantees at all that you’ll ever see that money again, as the owners of bored apes can attest.
That’s just because you haven’t heard of monero !monero@monero.town
Lol, no it’s just as flawed.
I disagree, Monero has real world usecases
The real-world usecase is to make very few people very rich IRL. Just like any other crypto scam.
Tell me you know nothing about Monero without telling me you know nothing about Monero
That’s right, luckily I don’t.
Even when crypto has a use it is still bullshit because most of crypto is an elaborate scam. It’s hard to see Monero having value when the entire field of crypto is built upon fraud. If the coinholders of Monero never held any other crypto it could be different but it isn’t.
Monero was created in 2014 specifically because of all the problems you mentioned upon crypto. Monero specifically stops those scams through stuff like stopping asics to prevent individuals to get hold of the majority of the blockchain.
If the coinholders of Monero never held any other crypto it could be different but it isn’t.
I actually didn’t like crypto because most implementations were stupid but MonerO The Monero faq explains why Monero doesn’t have a lot of the scammy parts of cryptowas the first coin I discovered that I actually like
The problem is the investment in monero is still the same cryptobros whose “money” is tied up in the scamcoins including the stablecoins which are obvious scams. That makes the whole thing bullshit.
Cryptobros actually seem to hate Monero
Herbalife, fucking herbalife.
This weekend, I went into what looked like an indie smoothie shop and dropped an ungodly amount of money on a delicious sounding shake… only to watch the lady drop a scoops of powder and ONE freeze-dried strawberry into a cup with ice. Tasted like ass.
Yet they do have regulars to that shit, and nobody is taking them out of business. I want my fucking $11 back. So anyone reading this doing a class action against Herbalife, I want in…
But I doubt it, since it’s a scam that’s so normalized we don’t realize it’s a scam anymore.
First time I tried one they mixed it wrong and it just tasted like chalk. All I knew was it was some kind of smoothie shop my wife took me to that a family friend of hers owned. Then I saw the price after tasting the chalk and pretending to like it. Never wanted it since
If it wasn’t Herbalife, it would be some other food service-grade ingredients. I’m not sure it would be any better, but I’m also not sure it would be any worse.
Last I saw, Tropical Smoothie Cafe (national chain) does fresh or frozen fruit exclusively for $5-6, and Herbalife does cheap flavored soy powders for $11
There is a massive quality difference. They don’t even advertise readily that there’s soy in in them; I had to look it up. Thankfully I’m not allergic. And that’s the thing. They sell fake shit and intentionally hide that fact.
There’s certainly good smoothie places that are no comparison. But that’s not what these places would be. If you’re setting up a smoothie shop and decide to use Herbalife, it probably wouldn’t otherwise be replaced by fresh fruit. Instead it would be replaced by some other protein powder, which will typically make shit smoothies.
Fully agree with you though on the allergy warnings
I’ve never in my life been to a smoothie place or shake that primarily used powders.
It’s always:
- ice cream, ice, flavoring sauces, some real like chocolate/coffee (pretty much every local diner)
- fresh fruit, yogurt/banana (smoothie places like Tropical Smoothie)
- Packaged liquid flavors plus frozen fruit (a couple smaller restaurants)
Smoothie King is a large chain that uses protein powders. But while they don’t use Herbalife, they are at least adjacent to it.
I’ve never heard of them. Looks like the nearest one is 4 hours away from me, and there are zero in my home state or any state I like to visit.
Actually, a quick google seems to suggest Smoothie King primarily uses frozen fruit for their smoothies. They offer “nutritional add ins” that are protein powders. This is like Tropical Smoothie.
Maybe I wasn’t clear about Herbalife. The ENTIRE smoothie is protein powder. Here is a typical herbalife smoothie. The entire smoothie. Others are the same with artificial flavors. Then one freeze-dried strawberry dropped in lets them say there’s real fruit in it.
Here is a (genuinely random) sample from Smoothie King. A little protein added at the end, but primarily frozen fruit. This is reinforced by the fact that they sell fruit “smoothie bowls” for a comparable price. Herbalife has no fruit on hand to sell.
Some people jusrt like to be seen carrying these cups. I read about someone who put their Starbucks coffee in a generic travel mug, and their friend said to them “how will everyone know youre drinking Starbucks?”
Except, isn’t Herbalife something that’s never branded? My cup had some smallbiz-seeming name on it. Definitely not Herbalife.
I subbed to an anti-MLM subreddit in the past, and that’s the exact shifty behavior they removeded about Herbalife having. I just hadn’t seen it.
Im gonna be honest, I know of Herbal Life in name only, we dont have it here.
Their Schtick is that people start Herbalife “franchises” under another name, but then serve Herbalife. I believe they are generally not supposed to use the word “Herbalife” anywhere on their merchandising.
Thanks.
The way mobile providers charge. The likes of Vodafone, any random Telecom, T-Mobile and so forth. It’s a huge scam, bordering theft sometimes. Want samples? Here we go:
“Your credit expires in x days. Better recharge now to not lose it!” (Banks should start doing this /s)
“Your credit has expired. Better give us more money within our generous deadline, or else we are forced to delete your number. We love you.”
“Your data has expired. We now charge you a horrendous amount every minute, because we are too greedy to warn you in time. For technical reasons we also cannot stop you from using data after your allowance has been used. Fortunately you still have credit, huh?”
“Your data expires today. We don’t insult your intelligence by telling you when. Surely you remember when you bought the package, right? It’s not hard to count 24 hours. We also do not send any SMS anymore to save the environment.”
“Your data has expired. You need data to buy a new bundle. Our app charges data for our convenience.”
“Social media data only works for WhatsApp, but not for Signal. But who uses Signal anyways?”
“Use our customer friendly support chat. Conveniently it uses data. ‘Hello, I am your smart bot speaking. How can I help you? I might understand you if you type one of the three questions I have been programmed to answer. Do you want to know more about our products?’”
Edit: added point 2, minor corrections for clarity
They all copy the “best” ideas from their international arms and their competitors
It’s a tight run race to the bottom
Imagine the array of mobile internet of shit devices we would have if phone companies had a reasonable payment plan based on only the data you actually use.
I’ve never prepaid my phone by credit. Anytime I prepaid a phone it was an unlimited monthly deal. Eventually I switched to post pay and it’s about the same. Either way it’s fairly cheap for me.
