First they made the m&m less sexy and now this -.-

Not Jewish and I’ve only been to Israel once, so take my anecdotal experiences with the appropriate amount of salt…

So as with any religion, there are a lot of different sects in Judaism. Some are more radical and traditional than others. The most fundamental Jewish communities in Isreal sometimes have a pretty negative outlook on outsiders and foreigners in general and stick to strict fundamental religious principles. So there are stories of them messing with tourists, like throwing rocks at their cars and spitting at them. I didn’t experience anything like that myself, but was warned about it happening in certain areas.

My theory is that the American group wandered into one of those areas and got roughed up a bit.

This is a frequently repeated quote attributed to the late philosopher Frederic Jameson. On its own it doesn’t make a statement about capitalism or what it is at all. (If you wanna know more about Jamesons theories on capitalism you can read about it in his books)

Jameson’s quote points out that people often find it easier to picture possible world ending doomsday scenarios, than it is for them to think about alternatives to living in a capitalist world to try to avoid these scenarios.

You can even test this yourself. Ask people around you about the end of the world and many will point out reasons like climate change, demographic changes, environmental destruction, pollution, world wars, nuclear holocaust, asteroid impacts (shoutout Roland Emmerich) and even biblical scenarios for an eventual end of the world as we know it.

But ask them if they think there are other ways to live, so that those things won’t happen and usually they will just give you a version of “this is just how things are, not much you can do about it” or “the world could be different, but there is no use in trying because this is just a utopia and I have no idea how to change stuff anyways”.

Regarding your last paragraph, imo this kinda misses the point. I agree, there are structures that exist parallel to what most people consider capitalism, but ask people in most self described capitalist societies and they will not really recognise the difference and will just see it as an anomaly at best.

Btw, this is all coming from a European perspective, albeit heavily informed by US media.

It is so much easier and comfortable to just close your eyes to the troubles of the world, but it also means that you won’t see what’s coming and will not be able to act. So this sort of sensory overload with negativity and craziness is kinda the point. The more people are tuned out and overwhelmed, the easier it is for assholes like Musk and Trump to push their agenda through. It’s also talked about in 1984, where the quote comes from

I feel like the original quote applies here pretty well, no real need to change it…

War is peace

Freedom is slavery

Ignorance is strength

Another company Microsoft bought and ran into the ground. It’s really incredible that they managed to get their lunch stolen. They had basically a monopoly and gave it away without a fight. Hell, the colloquialism for video calling someone was to Skype them for a looong time.

And then one small competitor comes along and it’s all gone. How can you fuck up this bad? Especially during the pandemic, in which they should have further entrenched their monopoly…

Don’t be daft. These people dream of making movies and love doing it. They know if they don’t do it under the terms the studio demands, the movie doesn’t get made. They have no leverage and will be replaced by someone willing to work on the studios terms if they don’t agree.

So they can either work in a field they are very passionate about and be exploited, or do some soul crushing bullshit job in an office like the rest of us.

That is the German name for flea markets. It’s when people sell old stuff they don’t want or need anymore in their garden/some square/the street.

Guess the creators are Germans…

This joke has gotten pretty old by now and only helps downplay the seriousness of their dangerous ideas.

Fuck Banksy he’s a sellout and not a graffiti artist. There is no deeper meaning behind his wannabe deep, wannabe social critic shit, just pretentious bullshit for instagram aesthetics. The only things he’s good at are marketing and selling himself to rich twats with questionable taste. Even my 80 yr old grandma, who is as much a part of the establishment as it gets, is a big fan.

He also could be considered a plagiarist. Check out blek le rat, he did his style and a lot of his images before banksy was even a thing.

R.I.P King Robbo, he knew all along.

Great image, love the vibe.

So basically what they are saying is that Europe is quite innovative, they just don’t have a capitalist enough culture and enough money in venture capital to exploit that innovation as much as the US?

Seems like a win for Europe to me, most shit venture capitalists touch turns into toxic garbage and most unicorns fucking suck.

Fair enough, I haven’t seen it yet. Also didn’t really notice how Decaprio heavy the list was until your comment.

No particular order. Also, it’s movies that I watched, can’t speak on essentials that I might be missing.

It’s kinda hard to make a list on essentials tho. Because your personal taste obviously plays a big role. I can’t see my girlfriend liking more than 10 percent of those…

Schindlers List

Gladiator

No country for old men

The grand Budapest hotel

The big Lebowski

The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers

Star Wars (the original one)

Requiem for a dream

Pulp fiction

The good, the bad, the ugly

The lives of others

La vita é Bella

All quiet on the western front (1930 version)

The dark knight

The Truman Show

2001: Space odyssey

Alien

7 Samurai

Princess Mononoke

Trainspotting

Boyz N the Hood

Scarface

The Godfather 1, 2

The Matrix

Clockwork Orange

Shutter Island

Kingdom of Heaven

Wolf of Wall Street

Honorable mentions because they are popular and everybody always talks about them (I like a lot of them, too. Don’t consider them essentials tho):

Inception

Interstellar

Fight Club

Harry Potter

Return of the King

Rest of Star Wars (whatever people consider the good ones at last)

Saving Private Ryan

Django Unchained

Toy Story

The Lion King

Don’t forget about all the Nazis with their robot dogs that make up the police force over there.

There just isn’t another way to keep the place nice and safe without them.

How about chess? I know you said you are not really looking for video games, but chess to me is a bit different to video games.

I had a similar problem to you a few years ago during Covid. I was very stressed and lonely and didn’t know what to do with myself. I am completely addicted to chess now. To the point that I play for like 4-8h a night sometimes. Time passes fast, especially in the shorter time modes. And if you are looking for a more low stakes, slow paced distraction you can play correspondents chess and think about your next move for 1.5 hours.

Bonus: if i tell people that i play chess for over an hour every day, they often assume i am a genius, even tho I’m just a 800 elo idiot like most people

Not sure we can sustain any mega corps if I’m honest… but I get your point

Don’t get me wrong, fuck Jeff Bezos’ pampered ass. But growing a giant dystopian mega corp out of 250k is kind of impressive.

I know quite a few privileged people with more money than that and every chance in life one could hope for. None of them would be able to achieve anything close to what he did. They simply aren’t ruthless and megalomaniacal enough.

Interesting… where I’m from most cabs are Mercedes limousines. I never heard about people thinking less of Mercedes because they are popular with taxi drivers.

Yeah, that thing about red states sending their homeless to you guys is absolutely fucked. Makes policies that would actually help seem like they don’t, because more desolate people keep showing up, even though you guys are doing your best.

Also agree about the billionaires obviously, and I think the whole silicon valley tech culture also doesn’t help. FAANG employees with their big salaries can just afford way higher rents and costs of living than the average american, driving up the prices. But I’m sure as a resident you know all of those issues better than I do.

I hope it gets better for you guys, it’s an incredibly sad situation, especially in such a beautiful city like SF.