Na they all drive everywhere. I never saw a lot of people walking around either. I walked from downtown to the Hollywood hills. That was the 90s though. US was underwhelming to visit. I personally like Asia better.
Na they all drive everywhere. I never saw a lot of people walking around either. I walked from downtown to the Hollywood hills. That was the 90s though. US was underwhelming to visit. I personally like Asia better.The centre of L.A was just about empty, just the homeless and drug affected walking around, it was strange I expected it to be bustling and busy. It was nothing like Sydney during the day. Never went into the centre at night time.
Probably the safest o[tion.The centre of L.A was just about empty, just the homeless and drug affected walking around, it was strange I expected it to be bustling and busy. It was nothing like Sydney during the day. Never went into the centre at night time.
Unfortunately it's in Australia just not to the degree it is in the US. Ket is very popular, it's cheaper than a night out on the alcohol. They have priced alcohol so much that young people just buy drugs as it's cheaper.
I think they are more worried about nitazenes getting a hold.
Yes, but the fact you are trying to stop it, at least shows you aren't encouraging it.The drug pushers will just find another way to get the stuff in.
mick
In the days before social media, no one ever knew about the freaks in the world apart from those immediately around them.Never thought I'd advocate this but I think this young fella and his ilk should be conscripted into the marines. And it wouldn't be a rainbow coloured marine corps either.
And be triggered....and made money out of. Monetised.In the days before social media, no one ever knew about the freaks in the world apart from those immediately around them.
Now the whole world has to put up with them.
Mick
Don't holiday in the USA unless you plan to go soon, especially with children. Good read.So who knows what will happen on Jan 20th ? This writer must have had some dark 4 am thoughts and put them to paper before he fully realised the implications o what he was thinking.
Or maybe not.
I have a cunning plan ...
By Charlie Stross
Because we are obviously living in the silliest, darkest time line—or maybe the darkest, silliest time line—Donald Trump's pick to lead American healthcare next year, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is an anti-vaxxer crank. And this week the New York Times broke the news that Kennedy's Lawyer Has Asked the F.D.A. to Revoke Approval of the Polio Vaccine. They add, "Aaron Siri, who specializes in vaccine lawsuits, has been at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s side reviewing candidates for top jobs at the Department of Health and Human Services."
(Suffice to say, this is a terrible idea: it's about the safest, cheapest, life-saving intervention 20th century medical research has given us, and polio is a horrible, awful disease that cripples people for life.)
Donald Trump is on the record as saying he's open to abolishing childhood vaccine mandates. All of them. Because he's a moron and a narcissist whose first instinct in a pandemic was to tell outrageous lies then try and work out how to use it to make himself rich by promoting ineffective medical treatments we can't discount this as a possibility.
I emphasize: this is a thing that actually happened in 2020, during the previous Trump administration. So there is every reason to expect it to happen again, harder and faster.
I am a writer. I am always looking for a new Torment Nexus angle these days. So, in anticipation of a resumed Reign of Trump—I mean, Reign of Malignant Idiocy—here is my 2025 business plan:
So anyway, once you've got post-polio syndrome you've got a choice, the bestest choice, the biglyest choice the medical free market can offer you: rent my spinal cord implants or suffocate!
- Wake up tomorrow and discover that I have become a psychopathic malignant narcissist and an evil fairy has gifted me few billion dollars to invest in misery. This is, alas, a necessary precondition for the rest of this plan (and the least likely part of it.) Just remember, folks, if I don't do this, one of Trump's cronies is absolutely bound to!
- Encourage RFK Jr. to force the FDA to cancel the product license for all versions of the polio vaccine. (He'll probably nuke all other vaccines at the same time, just because he can, and try to ban childhood vaccination programs. It's a shibboleth of the far right: fascists think they're strong, they're powerful, and their immune systems reflect the purity of their belief system. Medically illiterate idiots, basically.)
- Polio, of course, will get stuck right in, with predictable results.
- Now, nobody makes iron lungs any more, because childhood polio vaccination rendered them unnecessary. But a wave of childhood polio will be followed by a wave of permanent tetraplegics who need a mechanical respirator to keep them breathing. So phase one of my evil techbro business plan is this: spin up an MVP! Bring the old 1940s/1950s iron lung up to date by adding modern extras like a tongue-controlled interface for the occupant's phone. Add instrumentation like heart rate monitors, period trackers (to police the potentially-pregnant-persons and ensure they aren't having any illicit abortions--this is a J. D. Vance mandate), and eyeball tracking to ensure they're paying attention to the advertisements the iron lung constantly shows them while they're awake. Or they can pay a reasonable daily subscription to go ad-free.
- Iron lungs were horrible. With RFK Jr's help we can bring the horror to a new generation! But Dilbert Stark's obsession with bad 1990s cyberpunk will save us. Neuralink know about brain/computer interfaces, right. Or at least sticking electrodes into paralysed primates, consent be damned. He's spent a buttload of money pursuing the highly dubious promise of mind uploading, and this is going to rebound to my profit. I plan to headhunt Space Karen's butchering quacks and pay them to come up with implants for muscle stimulation in the paralysed! Take inputs from the spinal cord and make those muscles twitch, including the paralysed diaphragm so characteristic of post-polio syndrome.
- For monetisation, once my people have bribed their way to getting the product licensed by the FDA I'm going to upsell the iron lung users on my new implants to keep their lungs working, and by up-sell I mean email them "your Iron Lung service will be retired in 28 days. Please accept a complimentary 10% off discount voucher for the spinal surgery you'll need in order to access our new BreatheEasy™ technology."
- Now, surgery is expensive and these patients all have a preexisting condition! But my finance arm provides a subscription plan on reasonable monthly terms. Billable to your healthcare provider, that is, your family, with alternative options if you're happy to let us harvest some of your duplicate organs from time to time. (Who needs two kidneys anyway?)
- Of course we own all the current patents on negative pressure ventilators—that is, iron lungs—and will sue the pants off anyone who tries to build their own. We're also going to invest our profits in buying up all the positive pressure ventilation tech, that is, the intubation gear you see in ICUs worldwide.
(See, it ALL makes sense if you just look at poliovirus as our profit-sharing buddy who's fun to paralyse with, and remember: the medical industry is capitalism, capitalism is virtue, and anyone who says different is a dirty communist rat who will be investigated by the President's Own FBI.)
Trailing question: how can this business model be rendered more profitable? And what variations do you think the Trump administration will be most amenable to?
Reams of words.
TLDR beyond this: "I have become a psychopathic malignant narcissist and an evil fairy has gifted me few billion dollars to invest in misery."
The cultural marxist smear words of the establishment didn't work. People used their eyes and thought independently.
Poor old basilio, indelibly imprinted by the cult, a passive vessel for the ideas of his mental colonizers.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?