I’ve been struggling to make sense of it. The white queen is the Roman goddess Fotruna and the only depictions of her with a bared breast I’ve found are modern art. Usually a bared breast is either meant to represent nurturing/charity or an indication of sexual violence.

Sure, it could mean be a symbol of her being nurturing, but in the context of this set, I wonder if it is a reference to Nazi depictions of ancient mythology such as the Night of the Amazons where they used a warped image of the mythology to display women naked amidst their “master race” propaganda. Fortuna was also popular in Germany at the time given Carmina Burana was written in the 1930s.

Ultimately I came to the same conclusion about decadence as you, but I’m not sure if there is anything more to the symbolism than that.

Found an auction site that lets you zoom in on these in high resolution. Check out the details!

ATORITARIANERISMMMMMM!

15-18 yos? The oldest of Gen Z are about to turn 30. Not saying they’re justified, just that Gen Z isn’t just 15.

Have you tried soap or wood carving ASMR? I think that’s the only one I could kind of get into, but I’d also rather listen to music, a podcast, or a history doc to relax or fall asleep to.

We need centralised R&D free from market influence for the benefit of all life.

So you’re actually saying holding on to capitalism past it’s useful point was the mistake because it created the conditions for these things to happen?

Pretty sure $1000 is the line where it becomes a felony. Walmart has been known to keep track of theft and wait until they have enough evidence to bust you for a felony. “If we hit them with a felony, they go to prison and they can’t steal anymore,” is the justification. Really, they just don’t see us as humans.

“…following unprovoked attacks on innocent mariners by Iranian-backed Houthis,” Central Command added.

Maybe they just felt like it. I bet they also didn’t offer any warnings or demands that would lead to them stopping those unprovoked attacks.

Communism is when capitalism.

Best video I’ve seen all week.

I have a boss who will remote to a meeting that takes place right outside his office, then come in-person to the next meeting that immediately follows in the same room. People like the flexibility.

It’s all good.

No, no, your comments were clear. I was agreeing with you!

The loading screen tips also begin to change as you progress, going from normal tips to lines like, “So, you think you’re a hero?”

I’ve had the same happen too. Most of the time, people just need someone to listen and help them find what they really care about and how they can do that for work. It really sucks when its someone you love to work with leaving, but it’s also really nice to see them follow a path where they are much happier.

Funny thing for me was that it was some of these coaching sessions that helped me realize I was also on the wrong path. Returned to school for a degree I actively avoided before and ended up in a career that fit my values and desired work structure much more.

Seriously, it’s way more expensive to replace someone unless they really suck. It’s best to invest in the people you have whenever possible.

My background is US.

Ah yes, self-titled world’s police.

your march towards authoritarianism worries me

Yeah, you may want to rethink that one given how the US acts.

Yeah, I poke fun at your comment, but I mostly want to push back on this idea of “authoritarianism.” So here comes a bit of a rant, but hopefully a compelling one. The problem with authority isn’t that it exists or that it is used, but who holds that authority, how it is used, and who benefits from how it is used.

Leadership stems from authority. Parenting stems from authority. Social contracts are upheld through their authority. Saying “no” is using a personal form of authority. The bartender cutting me off is an authoritarian act! You know what else is authoritarian? “Bringing democracy” to another country. (Seriously, how is that in any way democratic?)

Authority is just an active extension of power. Both authority and power are neutral. They aren’t inherently good or bad, but they can be used for either. Good and bad themselves are mostly a matter of perspective, who do they affect and how are what we care about. How are people affected by authority, how that power is used, and who are affected by it are a few of the aspects that help shape what we view as good or bad use of authority.

So if whether authority and power are good or bad is dependent on how they are used, then it matters a whole lot who has that power and what their interests are. Do they share their interests with you? Do they share them with most people? Are they using that power to mainly benefit themselves or to benefit others?

I would say that it doesn’t matter that power and authority exist and are used, they are a part of existence. Who has that power and their interests are what actually matter. Authoritarianism is an empty concept, lacking any real substance. Every decision you make is authoritarian. Upholding social contracts is authoritarian. Staging revolutions and quashing them are both authoritarian. ALL governments are authoritarian otherwise we could do whatever we wanted!

You live in the US, can you walk into a grocery store and a small amount of food because you need it? No, because it against the law. You must use US dollars. Can you go pay in a foreign currency or trade in other goods? No, unless the owners of the store forbid it. Can you diddle or traffick kids for other people to abuse? No, US laws forbids it (but they’ll excuse it if you’re rich enough, because money grants power). Can you walk into Congress or any business and use your authority to make them operate exactly as you want? No, you don’t have that power.

Instead of focusing on the empty word, authoritarian, a word that is essentially, and often baselessly, used to mean “evil thing we don’t agree with,” we should instead be looking at who holds the power that lends that authority, what are the interests of those with power and whether those interests align with ours.

You don’t like a government because it leans too far from your interests? That’s a good reason not to like them. That’s a good reason to go authoritarian on their asses. You don’t like a government just because they use their authority? That’s hypocritical. You use your authority all the time and may even do so to overthrow them…if you had the power.

This should not be down voted.

Those of you that are down voting this comment just because this skepticism doesn’t match your worldview or what you were taught from a textbook (which never tell the whole story) should stop and do a bit of research on your own. There is plenty of accessible evidence that points to nitrogenous fertilizers harming the environment and contributing to global warming without even digging into primary scientific publications.

It doesn’t mean that the comment about chemical fertilizers are wrong, that’s a more difficult claim to check (fertilizers increase crop yields, but could we support our populations without them if we didn’t focus on overproduction). That said, it’s what’s driving much of the recent research into alternative fertilization methods right now. Chemical fertilizers are damaging and we need alternatives.

We did an experiment in my microbiology teaching lab once where we made cell cultures from some food we had blended without washing first, comparing spinach to raw hamburger.

The spinach was worse. MUCH worse. It also had nastier types of cultures that popped up. I have always washed my veggies thoroughly since that day.

I used to have a boss that told me you never fire the person who made that expensive accident because you know that’s one person who will never make that mistake again.