Software patents… under some circumstances this would cripple many small USA companies, or legalize protection rackets where they must pay money

“By clicking the ok button to activate this (critically important) site, you agree to allow us to make suggestions to the auto AI sales on your behalf”

My imagination thinks that in an AI shopping future, anyone who reads an article similar to this automatically buys a Micky Mouse plushie.

Did not want to ? That easy to fix: please go to your settings to turn off auto-shopping. Refunds work too, just ship it back

I can see how bacteria may have developed our ancestors to be their hosts.

It’s like cats. People think they are the masters. People also think the gut biome is there to serve them. Silly people

I have read elsewhere that this is likely an older service, used for a long time, which was used in domestic crime. It was tracked down by the secret service because it was providing help in forgery of fake currency.

It makes sense why the secret service, which deals in counterfeiting, was involved.

But it was spun by the White House for other reasons

I was thinking something else, like

The Boys Showrunner, Eric Kripke, says the superhero ultimately exists to protect the status quo, to keep things as they are or once were during more nostalgic times, while the supervillain seeks change. A superhero is pro-establishment, working to uphold the system, and viewers can be trained to believe some exceptional being will fix everything.

The earlier superhero movies made in the USA helped support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there were strategies and meetings to deliberately do just that.

I think the later Marvel movies drifted away from typecasting the villains and made the plots less American centric. But it did not loose the parallels to the popular movies in Germany made in the late 30’s.

I have been thinking the superhero movies were having many fascist themes themselves. And their popularity was helped by a growing authoritarian movement in the USA.

The actual comics do not have many of the above issues, the movies reinforced certain themes.

I say this as someone who liked the comic books for many decades

Putting a device on airplane mode removes the distractions. If I play a video game while the lecture is going on, well that is on me, or the lecture, or both.

If it was good enough for my parents, it’s good enough for me!

Most of the population moved and changed careers. Not just in America but worldwide

The reason it impacted Americans more than other countries was there was more land area to move. While there was as much changing jobs in France, Germany, Japan, Canada during the period. There was less distance moved, and more social connections were kept.

In America the left lost due to two things:

1. An industrial and computer revolution that redistributed most of the population over two generations. This broke the grassroots movement mechanism the civil rights and later efforts depended on. Internet chat rooms were not a replacement.

2. Allowing the people in power to count votes and decide who won elections over 30 years

This too would appeal to his mega supporters