A legitimate question. It's easy to snidely say, "Why, are you posting from a smartphone that was invented in Silicon Valley?" and that's a legitimate response, but let's look at the question more deeply:

Historically, people have specialized into blacksmith, shepherds, farmers, etc. By and large this is a good thing, because by dividing and conquering, we can accomplish more together. (Of course, there can be problems, but by and large it's a good thing). Silicon Valley engineers are by analogy one of these specializations.

One of these specializations was "leadership," convincing people to do coordinated action, like building the pyramids or canals or other things that wouldn't exist without a strong hand forcing people to work together. I say "leadership" but somehow historically, "leadership" always meant violence, and "working together" always meant theft or slavery. If there was a surplus of grain or gold or anything, the violent leaders would swoop in and take it.

In the modern era, bureaucrats have replaced these experts in violence. Trump is severely limited in what he can do compared to King George (and every modern country's leader is the same). However, the specialists in coercion are still there, and when there is wealth on the table, they will swoop in and take it. These coercion specialists are concentrated in the banking industry and the MBA specialization. If they see something nice, or something they can exploit, they will, and the result is we can't have nice things.

And that is where enshittification comes from.

It wasn't Silicon Valley that fucked things up, Silicon Valley just builds stuff. It was the New York bankers who come and try to squeeze the maximum profit out of everything, even at the cost of quality (or anything else).

That is when things get enshittified.

I was thinking the same thing. It must have a whole raft of licensing fees on it. If the price keeps enough people out of the market for it then these will turn out to be some of the most valuable minifigs of all time. I wonder what it costs if you buy the same pieces (less the figures) via parts orders.

Also (outside of California) wrongful imprisonment is a legal justification for the use of deadly force.

But California is intentionally destroying their former high-trust society as a pretext for totalitarianism, so ... whatever ... get out like everyone else with a brain.

Not too long ago U-Haul was offering free one-way hauls TO California because the escape rate was so lopsided.

For you, the proper adjustments is taking a statistics class.

Yes, I just called you ignorant. It shows here. Don't worry, it's fixable.

If vibe coding worked really well, then we'd see tons of AI slop apps filling the app stores, just like we have AI slop books filling Amazon.

That's because the social media feed has become a trash roll of ads and memes. If you want to actually see what your friends are doing, it's not in the social media feed.

Your idea here is what, royalty has higher IQ? Richer people have higher IQ?

The error bars in the studies cited (and the best they can get is 'suggest') are so large that even 'suggesting' is too strong a claim. Statistically speaking, there's no difference in IQ test results for races once proper adjustments (income, education, etc) are made.

That's true here, since John Dna has stolen naming credit for the discovery of the molecule of life from its true discoverers.

"Roblox is a shit hole of creeps and wannabe child rapists. My teen has been on it for years"

Awesome self own there

"What? You are reading for fun? Don't you have a life? What's wrong with you? Why aren't you engaging in drinking, drugs, sex, and other behaviors that will lead to teen pregnancy?"

I really wanted to do this one, though.

I am in every way anti-DRM, but it's ubiquitous. A lot of publishers won't publish on GOG for this reason. I agree that Epic is arguing in bad faith. The enemy of my enemy is convenient, nothing more, so I am not delusional about Epic but I still enjoy their actions.

TBH I usually forget to go look at the free games they are typically so underwhelming, though there have been some legitimate greats too.

There are only two features of Steam beyond buying installing games which I care about, and one of them sucks. I like that it handles updates for me, but that is also the bad one, because practically none of the updates are differential. I want them to make that easier so that publishers actually do it. I know that it requires significant support from publishers when they use packed data files, but even that is something that could be addressed. (If the files are compressed individually instead of using compressed archives, then binary patches are feasible.) The other feature is Proton. Anything else including friends, achievements, and even reviews is all optional to me. I enjoy some of those features, but I would still use Steam without them.

I see I'm still living rent-free in some heads.

U MAD [I'm alive] BRO?