Have fun with that. But last I checked, lots of us don't have the freedom to just migrate across the globe to a region that isn't collapsing and this would spell misery and anguish for countless people across the globe.

(Yes, if the U.S destabilizes, further global power imbalances will follow.)

So giving up and pretending to take the high ground over it isn't exactly in anybody's best interest.

Yeah, not to mention the anxiety of "If I don't satisfy them with some answer now, they're gonna drag me into a 'little talk for a moment' later that'll feel like an interrogation."

I think we really need workshops on training and resilience on how to talk to bosses and not break under pressure.

Lord knows these sociopaths have plenty of "management training" on how to coerce, intimidate, and interrogate employees!

It's in europe tho.

Hahaha you had us U.S kids in the first half, not gonna lie. :D

The newer trend with fancier jobs here is "unlimited paid time off"...Which sounds so amazing!

How it actually shakes out is there's no actual number of how much you can take, you're just guilted and looked at suspiciously and passed over for promotions by using any amount whatsoever.

I'm sure someone can correct me though because I've never had that. My last job gave me a rate of "A week's shift's worth of PTO per year."....I worked 19 hours a week.

(Also PTO isn't "sick" days, it's paid time off...sick and "I'm just not putiup with it today" used up the same resource.)

Thanks, that worked like a charm! I was looking everywhere for an answer! :D

Y'all ever try NoScript too? Freaking wild how some sites need to use like 30 shady JavaScript modules just to function.

It's a burden, but it blocks things like the "invisible facebook pixel" for instance...

Plasma "get new stuff" does need an overhaul though, after a poorly-coded theme could wipe a guy's drives. So careful what you install and always have backups, kids!

THAT BEING SAID:

I remember Win98 letting you customize wallpapers for individual folders.

I remember being a Win-ME kiddie that was thrilled with all the fun wallpaper/icon/sound/screensaver themes it came with. . .even though Windows ME lol.

Then XP was so bright and vibrant and fun I didn't care too bad that it let you choose from THREE dazzling color schemes. I also loved that StarDock cursor freeware that gave me a bunch of obnoxious animated cursors.

Vista's desktop applets seemed so neat except for the "massive security hole" part.

And here we are with 10 or 11: [Pulsing blue light] "We'Re sEtTiNg Up YoU'Re bLaNd DeSkToP...get hypnotized by spinny circles and forget you once had choices."

It's going so backwards, and they think they're so ahead of the curve by letting you tint your theme based on wallpaper color. Pffft.

Since I switched to Plasma I've had SO MUCH FUN setting up my desktop however I want it. I have a laptop install that feels like "Vaporwave XP", but my main rig is all efficient and sleek and pretty, and I get the urge to flip it all around every few months. It makes personal computing feel personal again!

Mimicking old themes is especially fun because you're still on a security-patched system that works the way you expect, but with improved nostalgic feelings!

I really want to learn to make my own splash screens and icons and cursors some time. The fact that I easily can do this and the community could enjoy them is SO COOL.

I miss when it was commonplace for people to customize and personalize their computers. It would say a lot about them. Now most normie folk don't even know how to change the wallpaper...

It's amusing, the foolishness of people who crap on "lesser jobs." These are the same fools who then throw a fit when everyone listens to them, and nobody sees the point in taking their trash, or serving them their daily ultragrandelatte / whoppermac burger / whatever else.

It's all propaganda to drive down and excuse low wages.

About overrated cool/sexy jobs:

That's how I feel about infosec. I still often think "That'd be so awesome, knowing computer sorcery and being a cyber ninja, and knowing my stuff was solid because I could verify it myself. Maybe stopping bad guys from turning vulnerable machines into terrorist-funding cryptominers, exposing spyware..."

But the main earning opportunities seem to be based around checking boxes to secure evil corpos and being on call 24/7 because the ShiJinPing bot swarm got riled up again.

Nah I'm good. I'd rather just learn it as a hobby.

Once computers got all suit-and-tie everything got a lot less interesting.

It's a shame the "eyes" countries are so gulag-happy. Meaningful hacktivism would sound so rewarding. Bet those folks are all in suits and ties now too. :(

The independent currency was still worth standard currency... So the ones already hoarding all of that existing make-believe-number money just bought up and schemed us out of new make-believe-number money.

How did we not see this coming? :(

I remember rooting for their upstart little browser and being excited getting an invite to gmail, and thinking their OS was a cool alternative to the big mega-maniacal Apple stuff...

...now I just feel like my younger self had been taken for such a fool.

This is exactly why I'd shut down any of that ridiculous "Kids just know computers these days" crap.

"No, Phyllis, just because 6-year-old-Timmy can crust up your iPad with boogers to consume endless dopamine-pumping content doesn't mean he has any idea what is happening behind that screen. At all."

That's where the psy-op is though. So much of our communication even in our local communities is done online anymore.

So just putting that uncertainty in your head of "I bet a large percentage of people we interact with are just Pooh-bear sock puppets" might be enough subtle false-flagging to heavily polarize entire societies, when we remember China excels at taking bad things and applying them "at scale."

At a time when we're deprived of and seeking community and social bonds, it's isolating, it's depressing, and it's doing a ton of potential damage.