The hunger games books are better than the films. And they describe the world a lot more than the films show. This is normal, of course. But in this case, the books describe the rock bottom material conditions of people in the hinterlands. The unbelievable wealth of the capital is as stark of contrast as possible. You can see it in the film, but it's not spelled out. The hunger games world is what we have now, but more extreme. It's resource extraction and brutal poverty where katniss is from, with basically 1800s technology. Within the walled city, it's the future.

And it seems like our material conditions are propped up by our imperial power abroad.

Hey, it could be worse. It has been worse. In the 1330s, during the plague pandemic, the pope issued a decree that cats were doing witchcraft and were to be exterminated. So everyone went out and killed all the cats. Low and behold, the plague, which spread through rats, went from bad to extremely bad.

Yea, the stupid thing about this is that it all just boils down to intellectual property. There is some scary hints at other possibilities, but the main fear is they steal our business. The weapons designs could be a real threat if there was some future potential for war, but that's kind of on us to start.

“Communist party branches have been set up inside western companies, allowing the infiltration of those companies by CCP members - who, if called on, are answerable directly to the communist party, to the Chairman, the president himself,”

Very cliche and intimidating claim.

Wait! Where did the facial hair come from? Is this not a face swap?

I swear, kids are naturally wired to explore all possibilities and be different. And also, they don't want to do the boring same thing everyone already does. It's the reason a space colony would fail. Kids would be unable to just "leave it alone" regarding the critical systems that keep everyone alive.

I saw in a kids book the other day a bit about the crazy school principal who loved gardening, and the big punishment he would give is making kids work the garden with him. Eww, yuck, boring! Sometimes I think it's an uphill battle for sustainability, because we have to teach people to want it. Without the education first, people naturally want to spray garbage everywhere and make others clean up their messes.

It looks great! But what inconviences lie inside?

For real, it looks amazing! The biggest complaint they found was one unit doesn't have a hood fan? And what's the worry about rainwater not draining from the roofs? Have they evidence? It looks like they probably figured out a way to drain water off the patios.

By the way, the hanging garden tower looks awesome. I love the vertical farm look.

That's the thing about this virus. By the time you know you have it, when you caught it is ancient history, and you could have infected dozens of people already. So yea, it could have taken months before anyone knew what was going on.

I don't know. I just like regular water. I always thought sparkling water was a gimmick to sell us something that should be free.

If they rename bases, then we campaign to close those bases.

Thanks for the rephrase too. I read it three times and thought, "so he won't fund it if they give bases confederate names"? Makes sense he loves the confederate side. Someone will cave though, probably him. We can hope though.

From the Wikipedia link :

Sensitive to any renewed accusations of excess in 1876, Temple, who was now Famine Commissioner for the Government of India,[2] insisted not only on a policy of laissez faire with respect to the trade in grain,[9] but also on stricter standards of qualification for relief and on more meagre relief rations.[2] Two kinds of relief were offered: "relief works" for able-bodied men, women, and working children, and gratuitous (or charitable) relief for small children, the elderly, and the indigent.[10]

Yea, there's that line in the text above specifically about how employees don't need to pay independent contractors overtime or minimum wage.

I'm guessing the ballot measure California just passed isn't too far off from this in implication.

That's OK. I'm still trying to figure out what (or where) bipoc is.

Yea, and one positive aspect of Trump being gone is there will be no obvious leadership anymore for the right wing. Some will still read his tweets. Some will still be on fox news. Surely there will be some rising star Republicans as well trying to get a foothold for 2024.

Its going to be a confusing time to be a republican.

This stuff happens regardless of who is president. I'm not convinced presidents know about these things or even have the power to stop them.

I don't know, man. I think it's pretty cool. He obviously didn't get much good advice. But imagine being president and having all the living ex-presidents together for a meal. You would definitely learn some things.

For all of the "intelligence" they do or have, they're pretty stupid to understand nothing about people's motivation for civil disobedience. It's like they think it's a terrorist cell with an evil mastermind and loyal, brainwashed followers.