Is there some sinister reason why the low point was 1905 or so?

Yup, the 1950s was only better for white people, but there’s a reason that white people look back on it with fondness.

But, I’d guess that even for black people it was better than the 1930s. When the economy shinks, they’re the first to lose jobs. When it grows they’re the last to get them. In the 1950s things were booming so my guess is that black unemployment was low. Still, for working class white males the 1950s may have been a peak, for most other people things have just been getting better every year since then.

Imagine how good it could be if everyone got some of the things working class whites got in the 1950s: strong unions, good labour protections, high tax rates on the ultra rich, etc.

On the other hand:

• Many of the pro-worker policies from the New Deal are still in place, and my union is strong
• The owner of that factory over there is in the 90% tax bracket, isn’t it great how he’s paying society back for his good fortune?
• Every other major economic power in the world was just absolutely flattened in a war, and our country wasn’t touched
• Because our country was relatively safe during the war, the best and brightest migrated here, and we’re now benefiting from their ideas and inventions

My best guess is that he’s actually a hardcore MAGA grifter, but part of that is being an attention whore, so he’s happy to put out tweets where people dunk on him as long as it results in more attention.

It’s not just over the top, a lot of it appears to be engagement bait where he sets himself up for people to dunk on him. Check out some of the tweets I’ve posted in this discussion.

Maybe he is both serious about being a MAGA acolyte, but also playing an over-the-top character that gets him more attention, even if it’s just so people dunk on him.

Confoederatio futura. It’s like Confoederatio helvetica but for the futura font.

He didn’t say he “rides” the motorcycle, that’s just how he sits on a Harley. He sits on it as if someone else owns it and he asked if he could have his picture taken with it.

Pop it in your calendars? Maybe I’m using calendars wrong, but mine aren’t filled with things I should avoid doing. But, I’m willing to learn. What date should I put “Don’t Buy Subnautica 2” on?

Seeing the underwater world was so much fun. I got it to play in VR and only did that a couple of times, but I completed the original and Below Zero because the exploration and underwater scenes were just so good.

Restaurant chain Hooters goes bust and files for bankruptcy protection

Yeah, saying “it’s the companies (that I buy things from) that pollute and not me” is like saying “I don’t contribute to climate change because I don’t cook red meat, I go to the restaurant and order a steak and they cook the meat. It’s the restaurant that’s destroying the environment!”

Absent Indians using AI? The AI ouroboros?

This logic does no justice to the objective financial harm being done to the creators/owners of valuable data/content/media.

“Financial harm” is a loaded term. People expected to make money and then didn’t, but is that a bad thing?

What if the US president declared that it is now a legal requirement that every American subscribe to a new paid tier of Facebook, and that declaration was rubber stamped by the lawmakers. Anybody who didn’t capitulate would be doing “financial harm” to Meta, but is that really a fair way to frame that? If a bully wants your lunch money and you resist, are you doing “financial harm” to the bully?

The way I see things, the initial copyright laws were a relatively fair trade: a 14 year monopoly on something, that could be renewed for another 14 years if the author was still alive. In exchange, everything after that term became part of the public domain. So, it would encourage people to produce writing, and the public would benefit because a reasonable amount of time later what was produced would be available to everybody at no cost. Modern copyright terms are a massive give-away to Hollywood, the record labels, etc. So, while it’s true that infringing copyright does reduce the potential amount of money a copyright holder might hope to receive, morally it’s closer to fighting off a bully than it is to theft.

The 1950s economy was the result of:

1. The New Deal
2. A world war which destroyed the infrastructure of every developed economy except for the US.

The New Deal was only possible because of the Great Depression. Only that level of chaos was enough so that left-wing politicians could push through radical reforms that moved power from the elite to the workers. The reforms of the New Deal remained in place after the war, at least for a while.

The second world war saw the destruction of the industrial capacity of the UK, Germany, France and the USSR. Meanwhile the only attack on the US was an attack on military targets at a Navy base in a distant territory.

So, if you want an economy similar to the 1950s, arrange for a world war which somehow leaves the US unscathed but destroys every other similarly developed economy, then arrange for a great depression which destroys the economy to such an extent that radical reforms can be enacted to hand power to the average worker.

Yes, of course nothing bad would happen if we switched to a 20 hour work week. But, the people with the power aren’t going to just allow that to happen. The 40 hour work week only happened with a massive series of strikes that were brutally put down by the cops. The change to a 20 hour week isn’t just going to happen because some workers think it would be cool.

That’s absolute bullshit. When the 40 hour workweek was “invented”, men were working 12 hour days in factories and their wives also worked. The wives sometimes worked in factories, often worked as domestic servants for richer people, or did home-based work. Home based work was often laundry or cooking for other people, not just their family. They’d sometimes also finish goods that were produced in a factory. Both partners were working 12+ days. And, while women did most of the home cooking and cleaning, it wasn’t as though that’s all they did.

This system ended because the workers used their power and went on strike. The result was the Haymarket Affair and is the reason that most countries, other than the US, celebrate a worker’s day on May 1st. The striking workers were attacked and beaten by the cops, and then because a bomb was thrown at a cop, the leaders of an anarchist group were rounded up and hanged after show trials.

Eventually the striking workers got what they were working for: an 8 hour day. But, it took decades after the Haymarket Affair for it to happen, and it wasn’t something that happened because everyone agreed it made sense. It was a long and bloody fight where that was the compromise that reduced the bloodshed.

If you want a 20 hour work week, join a union, prepare to go on strike and prepare to be beaten by the cops.