Of course it's different, and economies of scale are generally more efficient. 50 Independent Burger joints would likely be healthier and higher quality, they would do more to keep money flowing around the community rather than funneled away to corporate, and their ice cream machines wouldn't break

But you wouldn't have 50 - you'd have more like a dozen. Most local restaurants find the best place they can, because they want the store to succeed

Franchises want coverage - they want as many locations as possible. They want a new McDonalds next to the Wendy's, even if there's three other fast food restaurants all within sight already. They'll dictate every detail of it, because they win even if the store barely breaks even

Such as the famous McDonald's always broken ice cream machines. Billionaire shareholders in both companies mandate these machines, which must be repaired frequently by licensed technicians. They even shut down a couple that built a $40 device that was able to fix the glitch that causes the problem

And that's how it works from top to bottom. At every stage, the billionaires must get their hidden taxes. Like the ice cream machines, it generally costs more in every way to society - we would not be using decades old ice cream machines known for breaking down all the time, we wouldn't oversaturate towns with competing fast food franchises, we probably wouldn't be subsiding the food itself

I keep joining discord rooms because I just want to search for something specific real quick... I don't want to dig up my real account or join, I just want to take a peek inside and dig up the answer to my question

Almost every time I sign up with a username and get just enough time to start looking for what I need before it decides to kick me out for "suspicious activity"

At this point I just search the project name when it happens... I'm usually there to evaluate a project, and if that's not enough I just drop it

But again, it's all for their personal benefit. A human Their money is managed to grow by any means, and that has a lot of knock on effects

They generally either put their money in funds with the highest returns (which often use unethical and illegal but accepted practices, and the best ones require large minimum deposits), or they directly own large percentages of a company and use that influence when it suits them

I see where you're coming from, but I think the line is blurry. Their direct personal actions don't capture the full extent of their actions, but this also assumes full responsibility for their ownership, where honestly it's impossible to know what level of emissions the companies would have if the billionaire's wealth machine wasn't involved

I wouldn't say this is totally unfair to say though - at the end of the day they own what they own, and letting others do your dirty work doesn't absolve you of responsibility

The fact that their life would barely be affected if they added emissions to their criteria for investment makes this worse - these are the figures the billionaires should be looking at to make decisions

A billionaire is a business themselves. One person can't even passively possess a billion dollars without tons of support staff

If you separate the direct actions of the person from the actions of the staff required to maintain and grow their wealth, you're missing most of the reason why billionaires are so harmful to society

For me it was a mix of that, plus "great, so you're going to close everything maybe was using, sometimes restart some of it, and everything is going to be on the wrong screen and virtual desktop. Now that I've spent several minutes getting back to where I was yesterday, let's see what garbage I don't want that you've added"

Linux has its own inconveniences, but I don't regret the switch... It gets better every day while windows gets worse

No, I also made the switch and honestly it's pretty much worked out of the box for me. I've got the integrated graphics with a discrete card too - I was worried initially, but it seems to handle it fine

I've had some sound issues, and a few games run worse or need some tweaking to run, but after dual booting for a while I'm considering wiping windows for extra storage

There's inconveniences, but with windows getting worse and Linux getting better I'm feeling pretty good about the deal

I started by adjusting my expectations for myself

It's impossible for me to become carbon neutral at this point in time - I might be able to survive in the woods, but without buying the land I'd eventually get arrested, and my homestead torn down.

So it's a matter of harm reduction, or balancing the scales in the right direction. So I made a goal - I want to build a solarpunk community out in the mountains somewhere. I also want to spread good ideas, while reducing bad ones

I will never achieve either if I'm not in a good physical and mental state. So I forgive myself for indulging when I need to

Do what you can when you can. If you die and cut your footprint to zero, you won't save the world... So at least attempt something that could help

But most of all, my guiding mantra is "if everyone in the world was like me, it would be a utopia". Be the kind of person who could be part of the world you dream of

No, they're not people. They're royalty

So the CEO gets less than half their salary for the year?

Sounds like a great deal for the company. Until, you know, the whole thing collapses because they laid off the workers who kept the whole thing running

Ah, but that's the beauty of it. Why are they here? If it's to troll, don't give them what they want. If it's for social interaction... Why are they venturing out of their echo chamber?

Every interaction with a community pulls you slightly closer to the group consensus. You can fight it to some extent, but we're wired to fit in with the tribe

Social rejection is wired similar to pain in our brains - it's far more salient, far more memorable and impactful, than normal interactions.

The highest form of this is rejection by the community - it hurts most when everyone's attention is on you and they all reject you. Even a single person quietly reaching out afterwards is like a lifeline - it stands out to you. It takes hundreds or thousands of "normal" interactions to counteract one extreme negative one

A supportive community back home doesn't counteract the impacts from an away game. Don't go to their turf, let them come to ours. Do not feed them - we have better content, they'll lose members to us, and if we do it right they'll shrink until their echo chambers can no longer sustain themselves

I just pass the create table statements after the instructions. It does pretty good up to 2 or 3 tables, but it will start to make mistakes when things get complicated

On the plus side, it'll generate tedious code very well - double checking it is less draining than writing it yourself. Especially because I make more typos than it does - I often use it to get a starting point, then write the business logic myself

What do you mean? It works the same way, the opinion of the community will pull you closer to the group consensus. Too much exposure will have horrible things you don't really believe spilling out of your mouth

Don't go there, don't spread word about it, don't feed it in any way. It's like flood water - pull others out of it if you can, but minimize your exposure

As to shutting them down if you have the ability? Shutting down a cesspool is good - it fragments the echo chamber, and some members won't make the migration. The only question is if I trust the one making that decision to remain impartial