The moral of the story is
I probably got Google thinking I was hacking into my own email account. I backed out of their little “harder level” verification like 90 times before I said “Fuck it.”
I don’t know if they still have human employees or not, but at the very least they should be paying professionals to test their shit.
I hate being told “Your data has been breached!” when I’m just trying to go about my day.
You don’t know how miserable it can be.
To be in a downbeat mood and BAM! News everywhere about how some company I’m “supposed to trust” falls to the level of being unfeeling inhuman monsters.
Dude, a “simulation” isn’t real. You’re running all these data points and nonsense and blowing it out your ass…
and like: real people will always throw a wrench in the works.
Why aren’t your stocks doing well?
Hey, mf’er, it’s your own fault! It’s not mentioning to the companies churning out your dividend payouts that you don’t like them being evil.
It’s having stocks in terrible companies and NOT opening up your mouth and being like “Hey, dudes: I’d like it if you’d stop mindlessly killing people. People are willing to pay the money. Which means we can make our whatever without destroying the world and killing everything in our path.”
For reals: Your $15 essential product doesn’t need to be that serious.
You make something that people need even if they don’t realize they want it. You don’t have to cut so many corners that your product becomes a safety hazard.
Pay for a quality build. DO THE RESEARCH. Slave labor is not a good thing. That’s not a materials source that you should be cozying up to. Your little whatever should not pay to contaminate a local water supply.
“I don’t eat meat because every hamburger has a face”-people–or the ones that just say that shit for the giggles–need to also keep in mind the production process of their favorite gadget.
Nobody wants to find out that a company that now makes juice products once caused a government to be overthrown, resulting in the deaths of countless generations. (“Your family incense stops here.” Taps the middle of a once long line.)
So if you’re making and selling your own products… When the manufacturing company asks you what source material you want to use to make your whatever, say the one that doesn’t provide the money that’s used to keep people in slavery conditions. Give a pass to the material that comes straight from human and environmental misery.
Sell your products in a store at an affordable cost. “The price of materials including shipping to your facility + the level of difficulty + the time it takes + a fair amount of profit” is the cost. The level of difficulty and the time it takes is the money you pay employees–and “CEO makes 110% more than everyone else!” should not be a consideration.
Then make an advertisement/social media post mentioning that people would appreciate receiving your essential product, which makes “community gifting awesome fun!” a venue for your product. Give bulk order discounts. (You’ll still be making a profit. And it will be a real profit, and not a result of cutting corners.)
Give up on the idea of “200% profit” margins. Whoever’s urging you to “rake in the money” isn’t taking into account what would happen if the people really did decide to eat themselves some “tasty” wealthy-looking people. (A lot of people watched Hannibal for the foodporn. Just saying.)
[Mental image: Those coin machines at “the fun zone” where the coins drop in and pile up. You pay to sweep the arm to try and drop money. Just a pile of QUARTERS glistening with silver light under the blazing white bulbs. And your eyes get caught on that MONEY and you can’t help thinking about all the things you could buy with that money. And then when you win, it drops tokens or tickets or whatever the bloated local economy of this hellscape for kids happens to be. (How many went home to cry once they realized they wasted their allowance on imaginary money?) And the exchange rate is like “500 tickets for one box of Nerds” or some other evil shit. Just a pure cash grab because “kid zones” aren’t allowed to give out cash prizes.
The parents or guardians or struggling aunts and uncles that just wanted a few hours away from their kids in an adult-centered environment… In a time before “everybody has a cellphone”-times, adults would check children in at a shady “kid zone” and leave to go gamble and drink and go have adult time. And those kids would have to hang out and wait. Like, “Here’s $20 that will last you approximately ten minutes of continuous play and a couple coupons for free meals that might or might not work. Be back in 5 to 8 hours. Deuces!”
A lot of places didn’t allow adults entrance. So that’s something? Except you’d get these kids that I really wished my little sister didn’t keep wanting to hang out with. Like, I’d give her the money to pay for the games and I’d lurk on the fringes of her playing with other little kids. But when she got older, I’d be able to sit on a bench and read a book or something. I’d keep an eye out, but I’d have to let her play with other kids. There was only $20. Not enough money for us both to play. And some of those kids were seriously troubled.
So like, adults couldn’t enter the “fun zone” to keep the pervs out… but some of those kids did pervy things and the “childcare providers” on scene were busy standing at a podium or behind a prize counter not giving a shit unless some kid started scream-crying.
And that “not really a cash prize machine” would take pride of place in the middle of the room. And there’d be some kid with a handful of quarters that would feed all their money into the machines hoping they would get a big win and the arm would sweep all the coins out for them. Forget any kids that want to play after them. The dream was to WIN IT ALL! and like buy a car or something.]
Remember that Buffy episode where Cordelia made that life affirming wish?
I mean, I don’t know if it was life-affirming in the moment. But she definitely let go of her love for Xander.
She didn’t remember the horror she lived through (and died from), but there was some kind of hold left on her soul. No conscious memory, but she didn’t hesitate to move on with her life after the wish world was broken.
And like, in that wish world everyone wore drab colors and tried to keep a low sense of presence because the vampires were attracted to bright colors and bright people. Because before they were turned, they had bitterness and unhappiness in them that was only enhanced by their new existence.
Some people don’t want to see others being happy. That’s a fact.
It’s like “I have so much money that I can’t spend it all in fifty lifetimes, but I can’t feel rich unless you and your children don’t have clean water to drink and you end up with a life sentence in prison if you even THINK about moving your kid to a better school district.” And then they wonder why everybody hates them and wishes they were dead.
~Harper Kingsley
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