I get mileage outta this one in particular too. Still sometimes get turned around and bamboozled, overall I’ve kinda learned to treat the info as more like…the Platonic ideal of a perfectly modeled store, lol. The many changes and failures and surprises just make me even more grateful that any of that info is in there and works well. Really convenient.

Damn, I never considered how much the marketing of the earlier eras must have contributed to toxic gamer culture, particularly misogyny and eventually inceldom.

I’m a little uncertain how much credit to give it, I feel like that kinda stuff was commonplace in advertising in general. But that was a long time ago and it’d be easy for me to just think that since I saw it in gaming and beer marketing that it was “everywhere”. Maybe it was way more uneven than I’m thinking, or something. Sure feels relevant.

It has puzzled me too. I think it’s a combination of:

• above average raw charisma (people subconsciously want to relate to him)
• VERY generous / manufactured audiences
• our strong subconscious tendency to want to laugh along with others
• deliberate abuse of the “this is so funny I can’t help but break character” move, the most egregious and hateable thing the man does

People look at me like I slapped their mother when I say I find him 0% funny or likeable.

Mine’s even slightly weirder - I’m trash at navigation in a car, on streets. Even if it’s somewhere I’ve been a bunch, once GPS became commonplace that part of my brain seems to have basically switched off or decayed somehow.

But outside, backpacking or even less demanding stuff, I have a great sense of direction. Plenty of successful solo trips, etc., very rarely feel turned around or confused. There’s probably a contribution caused by the differing level of effort, but it’s hard to put into words how my subconscious automatically provides a ton of help in the latter situation and zero in the former.

Clever reversal bud, sure got me.

You’re defending a stranger who went hostile and attacked the poster of a meme in a place for memes. Spend your time however you like, I just can’t imagine how you or the original commenter I replied to are able to take the littlest stuff - posted to a JOKE community - and extrapolate out (AKA invent) a bunch of serious takes, and then disagree with those fictional takes. The OP posted almost nothing, to a meme community. What y’all are doing is Don Quixote stuff (or more accurately, straw man bullshit), but like I said, spend your time however you see fit.

Yeesh friend, kinda jumped down OP’s throat here, no? Seems pretty uncharitable to go from their posted meme to “this cartoonish fantasy world of yours”, and then take that even further.

I mean, OP never really described any kind of “world” at all, just expressed disappointment. So I mean.

…it’s kinda your cartoonish fantasy world, by definition, isn’t it? Whatever thing you’re imagining here? Weirdly hostile take.

That’s a great point. And truly, it speaks to what may be the root of the problem - skin in the game. Skin in the game shapes how we solve problems. When leaders make it plain they have none, people notice and reasonable problem solving falls apart.

At some point, I personally blame Jack Welch at GE decades ago for pioneering & normalizing this (thanks Behind the Bastards) - companies shifted from prioritizing outcomes for stakeholders to only prioritizing outcomes for shareholders. Historically I think that was because better outcomes for all stakeholders was seen as the primary driver of better outcomes for shareholders. Jack Welch realized they aren’t nearly as coupled as everyone thought - over the short term only, a crucial distinction! To be fair, someone else would have, too, if he were never born.

For an example, he pioneered the tactic of closing profitable manufacturing plants that were not as profitable as he wanted - and despite the net loss of profit, and the sudden deep trauma to a town full of human lives - investors liked it. It’s the origin of “line goes up”.

Oversimplifying a complex issue of course because I don’t want this to get any longer, but that behavior really does make two different systems of inputs and outputs that are often in competition with each other. One system for investors, and one for everyone else. And a growing number of people see it, see the different outcomes, and are rightfully enraged.

With that said, angry people are easy to manipulate and abuse, which is counterproductive and bad, and I’m not so much disagreeing with you as offering another point of view. Cheers!

I appreciate your measured takes and inside point of view, more of both are always welcome (not that you need my invitation lol, you’re basically famous around here).

The problem I see, though, is all the most morally defensible and procedural fixes require the healthy functioning of institutions that have been weakened, dismantled and / or perverted and turned against us. And a frightening number of us see that now and feel that normal channels for change are closed. I’m not at quite that point myself, but I know how bad it is for so many and I don’t blame anyone who reads our current situation that way.

Our institutions no longer fix our problems, and that’s growing worse, not better - the deck is getting stacked more and more heavily against us as time goes on.

I’m not advocating mass violence. What I am saying is that executives who create conditions like these, for people suffering under an increasingly-dysfunctional and hopeless system like this, should absolutely expect their lives to be in danger on the daily - out of just pure pragmatism. I’m not putting a value judgment on that, I’m saying it is flat out inevitable.

CEOs frequently measure any and all human events as costs to be managed. Especially these insurance executive pieces of shit. I don’t see why a certain number of fairly predictable CEO murders resulting from their hideous behavior should be any different.