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seravid posted:There may be consequences to those who defy the establishment, so better stay quiet and keep loving the poor and the planet some more? Refusing to do the procedure wouldn't really accomplish anything, so might as well be the one to do it and make a few bucks? Yes, yes, you've shown all of us here how extremely woke you are. Thank you for being hard at work raging against the machine that is the TV Tropes sub forum.
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Jan 2, 2017 01:17
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Astroman posted:Let me guess--if YOU were there, you'd be tearing down that system from the inside! ...seriously? Ben is using Laura and that sucks, but her life has been heaven on earth compared to most of the world in general and Elena in particular. Elena is a slave, tortured repeatedly, and Ben knows this. Every day his plan doesn't move forward is one more day she risks abuse or death. Is it worth the collateral damage? For Ben it is and, so far, I agree. Do not confuse this for approval of Don loving Draper. PJOmega posted:Yes, yes, you've shown all of us here how extremely woke you are. Thank you for being hard at work raging against the machine that is the TV Tropes sub forum. You are welcome. Thank you for sharing your reactions to my posts.
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Jan 2, 2017 03:09
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seravid posted:Is it worth the collateral damage? For Ben it is and, so far, I agree. His plan involves making himself the perfect corporate lackey to get promoted to an executive level: That is to say, providing enough benefit to the company to be worthy of access to the highest levels. To save....one person. So giving EvilCorp years of his technical brilliance for their use oppressing the masses, to save one person that signed a lovely exploitative contract. That's the stupidest loving plan in the history of forever. It'd probably be easier to light their whorehouse on fire and jack her in the confusion. And also wouldn't take years to setup.
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Jan 2, 2017 04:20
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Look, they probably won't even use the mindrape helmet. I mean they are a biotech firm after all! e: That one executive who used that line of reasoning was hella dumb. CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Jan 2, 2017 |
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Jan 2, 2017 04:26
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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:e: That one executive who used that line of reasoning was hella dumb.
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Jan 2, 2017 04:49
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Mulva posted:His plan involves making himself the perfect corporate lackey to get promoted to an executive level: That is to say, providing enough benefit to the company to be worthy of access to the highest levels. To save....one person. So giving EvilCorp years of his technical brilliance for their use oppressing the masses, to save one person that signed a lovely exploitative contract. That's the stupidest loving plan in the history of forever. It'd probably be easier to light their whorehouse on fire and jack her in the confusion. And also wouldn't take years to setup. Well, I'm hoping the rescue operation will eventually lead to the complete dismantle of the system (and that this shift isn't caused by Elena's death). If Ben does save her and they jet off to one of those co-ops he was talking about and the show ends, I'll have to reconsider my position.
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Jan 2, 2017 04:55
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seravid posted:...seriously? Haha wait, you're saying Ben is somehow a better and more noble person than Don Draper, and Laura totally deserves to get gaslighted and used like an object by him? You're trolling, right? seravid posted:Well, I'm hoping the rescue operation will eventually lead to the complete dismantle of the system (and that this shift isn't caused by Elena's death). If Ben does save her and they jet off to one of those co-ops he was talking about and the show ends, I'll have to reconsider my position. I think you're going to be very disappointed...
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Jan 2, 2017 05:21
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^^^^It's more likely to end with him entering the board of director, yeah.Astroman posted:Haha wait, you're saying Ben is somehow a better and more noble person than Don Draper, and Laura totally deserves to get gaslighted and used like an object by him?
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Jan 2, 2017 06:30
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ITT people believe the character who let a kid die from a burst appendix out of spite is "the best person in the show"... and I'm the one trolling. Elena is the best person in the show 
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Jan 2, 2017 18:22
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seravid posted:ITT people believe the character who let a kid die from a burst appendix out of spite is "the best person in the show"... and I'm the one trolling. Only because we know very little about her to be fair. She's basically a tabula rasa at this point. I'll concede though she could end up being rescued by Ben and totally horrified with what he did to save her.
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Jan 3, 2017 00:49
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Astroman posted:Only because we know very little about her to be fair. She's basically a tabula rasa at this point. I'll concede though she could end up being rescued by Ben and totally horrified with what he did to save her. We don't know much, but we've seen enough to know she's kind, selfless and tough as nails. I appreciate the end of hostilities. In the spirit of friendship, I remembered that episode 4 gives us a glimpse of Ben's future. After learning of Elena's "death", not only does he not become a glorious revolutionary, he actually fully integrates into the system: settling with the wife, looking at baby catalogues and deciding to stay in the 35th floor and keep building new and creative tools of oppression. Ben Larson becomes his true identity. This can be handwaved as the fourth episode of the first season not being the right time for the protagonist to want to smash the Corp, but for now it does paint him as a huge piece of poo poo.
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Jan 3, 2017 01:55
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I bet they could make a lot of hay with the plot point of "Where does Aaron end and Ben begin?" and what would happen he goes full Ben and can't come back?
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Jan 3, 2017 03:39
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At first I thought this would be a lame flashback ep, but it turned out to be a good one. Laura is hardcore  Corporate kidnapping policy is also hardcore 
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Jan 6, 2017 03:55
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So I wonder if the horrible truth about her father is that he wasn't kidnapped but instead tried to defect back.
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Jan 6, 2017 04:09
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muscles like this! posted:So I wonder if the horrible truth about her father is that he wasn't kidnapped but instead tried to defect back. Or defected successfully to another corporation 
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Jan 6, 2017 05:00
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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:Or defected successfully to another corporation From a writing standpoint it's either this or defected to the red zone rebellion. Anyone have an answer for what "CNR" is an acronym for?
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Jan 6, 2017 05:06
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The ex-Inazagi lady said she was "accompanying" the guy before he died, so defection seems like a safe bet. Appendicitis Girl lives!  PJOmega posted:Anyone have an answer for what "CNR" is an acronym for? Containment Recovery (Protocol)
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Jan 6, 2017 06:49
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This episode went a long way towards showing Laura as "One of (or The Only) Good Ones." Which makes Ben's deception of her all the more low.  It was also pretty shocking how blase the kidnapping family, especially the grandmother, were about casual torture of a teen girl. And it almost makes you understand why the people in the Green Zone pay for their own walls and security when you see how utterly corrupt the "police" in the city are. I'd love to see a bit more about how the people in the rest of the country outside the Green Zones life day to day. Like glimpses of life that could almost be seen as normal from our 2010s perspective, parts of the country that still carry on as if it's still "regular" America of 50 years before. Like I'm sure there must be one or two cops out there fighting the good fight and trying to get justice, or govt officials trying to do the right thing. Most of our perspective is the completely morally corrupt Green Zone monsters, or people in the slums of the city who are so desperate that they will commit any crime. You could almost do a whole second show about that alone. They're giving us "future history" and worldbuilding in dribs and drabs, which is certainly a valid way to do it, but I wish we could see more about how we got from here to there. It's like taking a person from the 1920s and showing them 2017 with no context. It would probably look like we live in a dystopia to them, but for those of us who have lived it and grown up in it, this is normal life.
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Jan 8, 2017 21:53
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Astroman posted:It's like taking a person from the 1920s and showing them 2017 with no context. It would probably look like we live in a dystopia to them, but for those of us who have lived it and grown up in it, this is normal life. I doubt they would think us some corporate dystopia. In the 1920's wealth inequality and worker protections were worse than today. We also have all these nice safety regulations and civil rights and such. If anything they might fund the world of Incorporated more familiar.
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Jan 8, 2017 23:26
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galagazombie posted:I doubt they would think us some corporate dystopia. In the 1920's wealth inequality and worker protections were worse than today. We also have all these nice safety regulations and civil rights and such. If anything they might fund the world of Incorporated more familiar. I think the culture shock would be pretty intense. Everyone is less formal now, people wear radically different and (to them) more risque clothes. You can go to a mall and walk past a shirt that says "gently caress YOU" or whatever in the window of Spencer's. LGBT rights and mainstreaming would be a huge change, as well as race relations. Not that they were "right" back then, but they would see it as shocking for women to be married, men to be pregnant, public displays of sex, teens having sex, etc. Social media and people oversharing online would be alien to them. The entire culture of mass media and internet, tv in the home, VR, screens everywhere and fast pace in general would probably seem overwhelming and negative. Media celebrity personalities, reality tv, and the 24/7 news cycle would probably seem horrible to them. The speed of cars and existence of highways would be disconcerting. We don't live in a corporate dystopia, and general worker and social rights are better than 90 years ago, but I think it's reasonable that a person back then would see this as a future where things got worse.
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Jan 9, 2017 00:08
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Astroman posted:Not that they were "right" back then, but they would see it as shocking for women to be married, men to be pregnant, public displays of sex, teens having sex, etc. Toplowtech fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Jan 9, 2017 |
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Jan 9, 2017 00:47
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Vitamin P posted:There's no reason to think the 'haves' have appeared in the show yet. Just turn off your brain because nothing in this world really makes any sense. Why is China better off than the US when climate change destroys their farmlands as well? Why is everything turning in desert when climate change is likely to actually increase precipitation? Who are these mysterious shareholders that don't live in the green zone? Why doesn't the board of directors or the CEO of a company have any stock? Who is actually trading corporate stock in a market when the corporations are more like nation states? Why is there only a green and red zone? Shouldn't there be a yellow zone for corporate janitors/foot soldiers and the like to live in? Ironically despite all the evil, the biggest and most important thing the corporations are doing is an unquestionable good. Being able to grow crops in the desert will go a long way to towards fixing this hosed up world. Gamesguy fucked around with this message at 08:24 on Jan 9, 2017 |
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Jan 9, 2017 08:22
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Also to be fair, Ben's idea behind the mind reading device is so that they can enforce their NDA policy by selectively wiping parts of the minds of people they fire/who quit of just corporate IP instead of totally brainwiping them of all memories and throwing them on the streets. This is more humane, but of course with the morals of the corporations it probably won't be used this way. Same with the crops in the desert.
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Jan 9, 2017 08:27
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Astroman posted:Also to be fair, Ben's idea behind the mind reading device is so that they can enforce their NDA policy by selectively wiping parts of the minds of people they fire/who quit of just corporate IP instead of totally brainwiping them of all memories and throwing them on the streets. This is more humane, but of course with the morals of the corporations it probably won't be used this way. Same with the crops in the desert. Weren't they specifically marketing the device as a way of surveilling people's dreams? I'm pretty sure that's how they introduced it back in the first episode.
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Jan 9, 2017 09:52
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Gamesguy posted:Just turn off your brain because nothing in this world really makes any sense. Why is China better off than the US when climate change destroys their farmlands as well? Why is everything turning in desert when climate change is likely to actually increase precipitation? Who are these mysterious shareholders that don't live in the green zone? Why doesn't the board of directors or the CEO of a company have any stock? Who is actually trading corporate stock in a market when the corporations are more like nation states? Why is there only a green and red zone? Shouldn't there be a yellow zone for corporate janitors/foot soldiers and the like to live in? Global precipitation will increase, but a pretty severe reduction in rainfall for the Southwest US and Southern California is definitely in the cards for even optimistic scenarios. If Incorporated takes place in a world that went down a business as usual route (or even increased emissions) then it's actually pretty reasonable for sections of the US to be desertified.
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Jan 9, 2017 11:02
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Open Source Idiom posted:Weren't they specifically marketing the device as a way of surveilling people's dreams? I'm pretty sure that's how they introduced it back in the first episode. I'm going off his presentation. That was how he pitched it. Though the humaneness of it was seconded to lowering security costs.
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Jan 9, 2017 15:54
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just catching up on this and SPERM COUNT: LOW
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Jan 10, 2017 00:02
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Polygynous posted:just catching up on this and SPERM COUNT: LOW That makes sense for a corporate designed template and an advert designed template. Corp wants its executives to have families. It creates dependency and is once more anchor to maintain control. Adverts would definitely target things like that in an attempt to disenfranchise the user and have them pay for services to treat BEING A lovely LOW TESTOSTERONE MALE.
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Jan 10, 2017 00:18
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This latest episode is incredible and Laura is the best character. The moral ramblings in this thread have been going for long, but yeah, I haven't been thinking of any philosophical debate, just the fact Ben is essentially being a complete poo poo to another person who thinks he loves her. I am actually wondering if the arrangement is purely for means for an end, though. I guess we'll learn just how much of a sociopath Ben is eventually. Or we get a dumb scene where we can only guess if Ben did a deed for his care for another person or to protect his secret. Can't help but think that any actual positive change in the world could start through Laura instead, but Ben is so focused on saving his old girlfriend (who by now isn't even an interesting character at all). I keep wondering how they'll use the mind wipe device in the plot. Used on Ben to erase his history and force him to embrace the company? Used on Laura for Ben to avoid detection? Julian (head of security) is pretty drat great too but I've always had a soft spot for Dennis Haysbert.
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Jan 12, 2017 02:53
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Nice to see Karl Agathon from BSG again
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Jan 12, 2017 04:47
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Is Helo a horrible bad guy? At first he seems that way, but then we find out he's a vet who puts his time in the military on a higher pedestal than the corporations, and he wants to open a clinic to look good in a sort of Al Swearingen "I'm gonna do these good deeds for PROFIT" angle as a local crime boss. Verdict: NOT SURE YET. He might be One Of The Good Ones, like Laura. We now see a glimpse of Ben's endgame: rescue his princess and blackmail a rival exec to "get him out"--not defect per se, but probably give the guy the mind reading tech in exchange for new identities and safe passage out to a farm in a non corporate zone. Which is easier said than done, since we now know the corporations have sovereignty and have legally almost completely replaced governments and privatized the military. Presumably the only thing they lack to make them full nationstates is contiguous land, as they operate in each others territories selling different products...for now. Probably once they can reclaim the deserts with saltwater irrigation, they'll start carving up the US into actual fiefdoms, and fighting conventional wars over land. Which will make a retreat for Ben and Elena almost impossible. And that's if Julian doesn't suss him out, because he's onto Ben now!
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Jan 12, 2017 05:50
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Euff. This show is so good. I know I'm usually the one who jumps in and answers this question, but what's the likelihood of the show getting renewed for a second season?
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Jan 12, 2017 10:37
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The 29th amendment bit intrigued me. Spit balling but given the Chinese commercial about caring for America's poor, other nations may still have their states intact and may have approached the disasters with alternate solutions and not with America's unmatched market ideology.
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Jan 12, 2017 10:56
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Open Source Idiom posted:Euff. This show is so good. Isn't it a Ben Affleck-produced vehicle? Probably pretty good, especially these days. Also it is actually really loving good in almost every aspect. Ben (hehe) Larson is such a piece of poo poo though, drat. The only thing moral about him is his motivation, I think technically nothing that happened to Elena is his fault? Inazagi also seems a lot more sinister then Spiga - child-indoctrination schools, weird psychic fat-guy forcefeeding ceremonies, experimenting on the "inferior"... Gamesguy posted:Just turn off your brain because nothing in this world really makes any sense. Why is China better off than the US when climate change destroys their farmlands as well? "Better off" in this world is relative I mean half their population could still be dead or something. Perhaps they survived better because they were already authoritarian to begin with, China is already doing some insane environmental leaps because of that. Gamesguy posted:Why is everything turning in desert when climate change is likely to actually increase precipitation? Because that is what most people think when you tell them about "global warming" and weather changes are a visually effective way to show sudden change. Gamesguy posted:Who are these mysterious shareholders that don't live in the green zone? Uhh, who says they don't? Gamesguy posted:Why doesn't the board of directors or the CEO of a company have any stock? ...who says they don't? Gamesguy posted:Who is actually trading corporate stock in a market when the corporations are more like nation states? Probably the same set of incredibly elite rich people that are doing it now, except there is even less of them. Gamesguy posted:Why is there only a green and red zone? Shouldn't there be a yellow zone for corporate janitors/foot soldiers and the like to live in? Lol is there now? Shitload of janitors and foot soldiers in a slum. They probably sign for basic medical care and to stave off starvation, not because of better apartments. Soldiers probably live in barracks anyway. Gamesguy posted:Ironically despite all the evil, the biggest and most important thing the corporations are doing is an unquestionable good. Being able to grow crops in the desert will go a long way to towards fixing this hosed up world. Sure but I don't think they're just going to distribute that stuff for free.
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Jan 12, 2017 16:29
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DarkCrawler posted:Sure but I don't think they're just going to distribute that stuff for free. The maid explicitly lives in the slums. She commutes to and from the Red Zone for work. I imagine all service industry workers have to. Perhaps the guards live in on-site barracks, though. It'd make sense to give the people guarding and enforcing the laws of the Green Zones more of an incentive.
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Jan 12, 2017 17:34
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"Just don't forget Aaron" - end of ep 1 
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Jan 12, 2017 19:17
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Was anyone else surprised at how large the corporate center was in that aerial shot?
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Jan 12, 2017 22:01
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That was a heck of a stinger.
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Jan 12, 2017 23:38
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Is it just me or did Tahmoh look like he's transforming into Luke Evans?
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Jan 13, 2017 04:58
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DarkCrawler posted:"Better off" in this world is relative I mean half their population could still be dead or something. Perhaps they survived better because they were already authoritarian to begin with, China is already doing some insane environmental leaps because of that. China is also far more fragile environmentally than the US with far more people to feed with less arable land. In any sort of remotely realistic global warming scenario it's the poor countries like Bangladesh that get screwed. The US would come off relatively unscathed since we can afford to build massive seawalls and relocate agriculture to North Dakota. quote:Uhh, who says they don't? We've never ever seen one of these mysterious shareholders. Laura's mother, despite being a CEO, was mentioned to have a pretty fragile position. The exec that got NDAed obviously didn't have any stock or his family would have been able to stay. Today most stocks are owned by mutual funds, pension funds, and life insurance companies. If all you have is a few ultra rich owning everything there would logically be very little or no trading. Bill Gates doesn't waste his time trading his Microsoft shares for shares in Apple. quote:Lol is there now? Shitload of janitors and foot soldiers in a slum. They probably sign for basic medical care and to stave off starvation, not because of better apartments. Soldiers probably live in barracks anyway. It's a massive security risk and demotivator to have your basic corporate grunts living in the same place as the refugee masses. It wouldn't cost much to setup a separate zone for them with cheap housing, corporations have built cheap worker housing since forever. That doesn't really matter. GMOs aren't distributed for free today either but they still greatly increase yield. Contrary to what this show and popular media portrays, modern farmers don't actually save seeds, they buy it from a seed producer.
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Jan 13, 2017 08:01
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