I would agree, although a human with an AK is still a human with an AK. Even unskilled, undertrained, under supplied infantry should be taken seriously because they're still a large number of bodies that can pull triggers.

It's true. I wonder how many ancient Babylonians, Greeks, Chinese, Egyptians, Persians, Romans thought:

"Surely, this empire will last forever! Look upon our works, ye mighty, and despair!" (EDIT: LOL It appears we're all of one mind remembering this poem. We must be doing something right. XD)

Especially in modern times it's insanely difficult to imagine the geopolitics shifting drastically, but it's happened before, it's happening now. The difference being that the rest of the globe is now much more invested in your shenanigans with your neighbors, but it's still happening.

What does one do amidst a regime change?

I'm glad I've never had to seriously consider it until now. ...but it unnerves me that I probably need to start.

Used to work in a public library. Majority of the job was walking people through "forgot password" which was never a simple affair, and getting to see what a Hotmail/Yahoo/AOL inbox looks like with like 90,000 unread because they gave their email to every store and web form they ever encountered.

Near drove me to madness.

Considering what M$ has done to Minecraft, that's immensely AWESOME to know! I really need to put some time into Minetest / mineclonia...

They tried this with firefighters before way back when, and then realized that fire doesn't seem to care who's subscribed or not lol. Can you imagine? "The fire and EMS lobby" would be powerfully pushing for reduced safety and maybe even starting fires themselves LOL.

Edit while looking up the first thing: Oh my word... mercenary firefighters are a thing for the rich and we're living in clown world.

EDIT: Link went to NYT because it was top result, but screw that lol. Fixed.

I can see it now though...

Privatized emergency services be like:

"Thank you for calling 9-1-1, this is Janeanniesomebody, can I have your 14-digit emergency insurance number, date of birth, and mother's maiden name please. Okay thank you, one moment while I verify that..." (Click)

"Your call is very important to us. Want to skip the line when it matters most? Did you know, for only $49.97 a month, you can get Emergency-Services-Plus+! Whether you want help fast, or to regret being covered for the rest of your life, we have a plan right for YOU!

"Remember, emergency insurance means you can have peace of mind that, when you're in mortal danger, we're only a phone call and 45-minutes-to-1-business-day away! Not signed up yet? Press 1, and we can help!"

((Trendy upbeat hold music))

"Did you know? We're always hiring!"

(Receiver pickup) "Thank you for calling this is Devaidengregjimmothy, dispatch specialist, how can I help you today? Hello?......Hello?...."

"Look guys, their industry makes their boss abusive to them which makes them abusive to their staff, so it's just how it is because money..."

This is like "Well my drunk granddad had anger issues after the war so he beat my dad who beat me something fierce and I turned out fine " of the professional world.

Some people think enough money or status is worth disrespecting other human beings who are just trying to do their already shitty enough job, and that's concerning.

I.T has to hit their "ticket targets" to stay on the "lights come on when they flip the switch at home" track, it's how they make their money and what they're paid to do.

Playing coddling psychologist for grown adults who could pass a bar exam but can't handle basic respect doesn't make things any easier lol.

To any of those types reading this:

Stressed or not, it's amazing how fast things move when you work with IT as teammates instead of underlings, using your level brain instead of your emotionally unstable mouth.

Correct. Grease down the drain is simply not based.

Everyone from neighbors to sewage workers to the environment will have to put up with it.

Even with our grievances against the ownership of some things, I think we should all be agreeing with "Don't crap (or otherwise ruin) where you eat." Or has the world really reached such a point of madness where that idea is contested too?

Hang on let's think about this from all sides: It's probably a benevolent move by management to curb the insane overwhelm of the lunch rush!

...That way it can more easily be handled by the two gradeschool kids working double shifts to run the entire Wendy's. /s

Lol

I'm convinced primary education as a system is engineered to teach you how to be a patriotic, service-consuming, rentable employee first and foremost. (Humans As A Service?) Secondary education just levels that up so you require more expensive proprietary tool licenses for the potential privilege of doing more complicated jobs. (Funny how all the critical-thinking specialties are derided for not making tons and tons of money.)

Thank God for the good teachers that inspired us in spite of all the odds against us (and them).

It also blows my mind how much schools and universities are struggling for funding, but take the bait and use hyper-proprietary black-box commercial software for everything from OSs to coursework. Professors outside of CompSci will be shocked and confused to see a student using Linux, and courses love to use stupid niche features of Microsoft Office so your LibreOffice work won't be good enough.

I would love if we kept the floppy form factor but with SSD flash on the inside.

I loved the solid feeling of disks and that "kachunk" of the drives.

They were also easy to label!

This is why my digital art pipeline is FOSS at every turn. I dropped like $300 for Substance Designer / Painter's indie license. I was so excited to learn it.

...and then it got "rolled into the AdObE FaMiLy" and is subscription-only (right after they promised angry users they would do no such thing and we didn't believe it for a second) and now it's mega bloated "iNdUsTrY StAnDaRd" lock-in-ware like the rest.

So I basically just learned my lesson about commercial software rug-pulls.