The idea that medieval peasants somehow had more free time than the average modern american still is absolute bullshit

Paleontologists will tell you otherwise. One reason you had all those giant cathedrals going up in the Medieval Era stemmed from the enormous excess labor just wasting around in between harvest seasons.

Agricultural surplus creates free time. It’s the whole reason why people opt for farming over hunter gathering.

There’s a staunch libertarian view on Lemmy, wherein people will advocate for personal liberty ahead of technological progress. The Country Mouse has it better than the City Mouse, because he can own a gun and drive a big truck and smoke weed without the neighbors ratting him out to the cops. The lack of basic amenities - subways and school systems and high speed internet and big medical centers - is worth the increased personal autonomy.

The “Serfs had it better” trope takes this to its logical conclusion. Rolling back the technological frontier 500 years is worth it, because the surveillance/police state and the corporate oligopoly even on the fringe of society is seriously that bad.

I don’t agree. But I can’t really argue against it. This is just a personal preference. Its not any kind of objective truth.

So you’re not really a serf if you’ve got plumbing? The labor relationship with your employers isn’t the issue?

The dark cowboy rides again.

you can often get them for free

The maintenance cost of a “free” horse is anything but

I’m also intrigued by the “costs $1000 and $750/year to maintain” claim, as the horse people I know spend closer to 20x that.

she wanted to keep him as someone she can spend time as a person and not a sexual object?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you can do both. That’s the entire idea of having a boyfriend/girlfriend.

Smart

I spend so much money on Patreon and I never regret a penny of it

Why would you pay for YouTube and then get an ad blocker? Seems redundant.

Also, YouTube has begun integrating ads server side, making them more difficult to parse out.

A shit one is even cheaper

My wife is predicting a civil war.

I don’t think the police or the military are particularly divided on who to support. A coup maybe.

But liberals won’t be putting up a fight once the media starts labeling them Hamas/Hezbollah and you can’t post your pink pussy hat on Instagram without getting put on a list.

Any countries who are not sliding into fascism that would be interested in hiring two well-educated adults?

There’s always Ireland. Mexico is looking pretty good right now, given the flood of cheap imports and the resurgent manufacturing sector.

Depends on who wins. They’re only insurrections and riots when brown people and leftists do them.

The next J6/Charleston will be covered more favorably than the '64 March on Washington was, now that Bezos et al have shown their colors.

You live through enough of these “Most Pivotal Elections” and the effect is muted.

I remember Bush winning in 2004 vividly, the soul-crushing realization that Americans were ready to continue the relentless slaughter of Arabs for another four years with a fuck-you kicker to anyone LGBT looking to come out of the shadows and get married. (Nevermind the shady vote counting in Ohio).

That was after the 2000 election was stolen in full view of the public by a nakedly corrupt court.

“How could so many people be so blaise about this shameless disregard for democracy, civil rights, and rule of law?”

But then 2008 rolls along and suddenly I’m surrounded by conservative revanchists who want to talk about secession, because a black guy just won the presidency. And it begins to occur to me… “Oh, I’m just living in a fascist country”.

Now, having familiarized myself with US history a bit more, another fascist winning in one more corrupted and propaganda soaked election cycle makes perfect sense.

It is now easier to identify political whackadoos and disengage

I would have said that four years ago, but between Elon’s Twitter and COVID anti-vax hysteria, it feels like crazy people are coming out of the woodwork.

The trillion dollar piece of one of a kind manufacturing equipment where I get my raw goods.

glances at who builds all the processors and hardware components

Time to start learning Chinese and/or Korean.

Be Polish. Live at the crossroads of three major continental zones. Incorporates traditions from Arabic, Latin, and Nordic languages into a unique synthesis. Everybody hates it. Nobody wants to speak it.

Be English. Live at the ass end of nowhere, and become a haven for vagrants, dissidents, pirates, and exiles. Incorporate traditions from Latin, Germanic, and Frankish languages into a unique synthesis. Everyone hates it. Nobody wants to speak it. Become worlds most spoken language anyway.

Moral of the story. People will have to learn your shitty incoherent language if you build a big enough navy.

Little known fact. The .ml server is run out of an old Soviet bunker in Leningrad, powered entirely by burning copies of the Victims of Communism leaflets in a converted T-34.