Why

Soulless money grubbers, the nation.

• https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1gnp2ph/big_tech_employees_quiet_after_trump_is_elected/
  • "Once vocal in opposing Donald Trump’s policies, Big Tech employees have remained notably quiet following his re-election, reflecting a shift toward reduced workplace activism. In recent years, companies like Google and Facebook implemented policies to curb political expression internally, limiting open discussions and dampening employee protest culture. The muted reaction underscores the effectiveness of these new restrictions as companies work to keep political discourse at bay."
  • "Tech employee married to another big tech employee. We are just exhausted and more or less give up getting dismayed about it. Why bitch? This time around we feel defeated...we plan to keep our heads down for the next four years and hope our country doesn't implode."
  • "Yeah 2016 felt like an accident. Like at a country we didn't mean it, but apathy and other factors let him sneak a win, so we spent effort holding it together for 4 years so that we could get back on track. But 2024 is no accident, it's a well informed and considered choice. And if this is what America actually wants, knowing what that means, then so be it. I only have so much energy."
• https://old.reddit.com/r/dankmemes/comments/1gno2nc/they_hit_you_then_you_have_to_pay_them_for_saving/
  • Ambulance hits cyclist, picks him up and takes him to the hospital, bills him $1800 for the trip.
  • Not because of the literal events, but because the story resonates.
• https://old.reddit.com/r/cursedcomments/comments/1gnuyj1/cursed_ambulance/
  • Again, it's about the culture that the story reflects.
• https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1gnuyqe/trump_prepares_to_withdraw_from_paris_climate/
• https://old.reddit.com/r/NotHowGirlsWork/comments/1gng2dj/these_people_are_dreadful/
  • Those people will not be found to be engaging in threats.

2025-02-17

America is obsessed with money. And I say that as someone who grabbed the ring and held on for a while. I was making money very fast, but it's a disease. America makes money not just the most important thing, but the only thing. It is how we judge people and defines who we venerate. If you're not killing it, you're seen as a failure. And there's only so much room at the top.

And then we take as much as we can squeeze out of everyone except the top fragment, and pass it upward. Systematically.

I was there. The year I was 51 I pulled in half a million dollars, and the path up was clear.

I tell the story that I quit because I was diagnosed with hypertension, and that was certainly the punctuation mark at the end of my long sentence. But it was always a matter of powering through the broken glass and barbed wire because I had no choice. In America, you make money or you suffer. There is an 80 year old with a back so bent that she can hardly see ahead of herself who brings carts in from the parking lot at my local supermarket.

And we have so much money. Our GPD per capita is consistently among the highest in the world, and the highest among diversified large scale countries.

But it's all about creating winners and losers, and reinforcing the message that the rich are winners and the poor are losers.

When I was 12 years old, my elementary school teacher taught us French, using a video course that integrated French language study with a grounding in French culture and history. I saw that France is different. That it cherishes philosophy, fine art, and literature the way that America idolizes money. I wasn't mature enough to make a value judgment about the two at the time, but I still have that reference point in my head.

In January this year, I visited Paris and Toulouse. The first place I went in Paris was The Pantheon. I think it is the most underappreciated historic monument I have ever seen. The two final resting places with the most revered placement are Rousseau and Voltaire. I saw the places of Marie Curie and Victor Hugo, and an entire shrine to Jean Moulin.

You can tell a lot about a society by who it venerates. Can most kids name a poet laureate? What about the guy who made a lot of money on mass production of automobiles? Do they know of Smedley Butler or Henry Kissinger? Edison or Tesla?