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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

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  • This is kind of a shit metaphor because if we extend it to how piracy actually works it highlights how stupid DRM is in the first place. A lock on your house has to be picked by each individual robber, unless they all show up on the same day. A cracked game would be like if only one person has to pick the lock on your house, but they don’t actually take anything they just make a perfect copy of your house without the draconian 12 step lock you installed and gives copies to whoever wants one. If you never noticed all the people sharing magical copies of your house with each other you would never know you lost anything, because you didn’t. Only your blind greed was injured by the thought that those people might have been willing to pay to use your house if only it had been locked down against those damn house copiers. On your next house you make the locks even more invasive and complex, to the point they block half the driveway or make the oven and bathroom unusable. Then that same one person spends an extra half day to pick it and makes a copy but without the crazy lock so they actually get a better house than you’re selling. Whether people like it or not, digital media has always been on the honor system, and always will be. DRM just punishes people for doing the honorable thing and paying.



  • Fire is a natural and necessary part of many ecosystemsm. It keeps parasitic insect populations down, stuff like ticks and chiggers, and some plant species rely on fire to prepare the soil for seeds and even is required for some plants to release their seeds. In dry ecosystems like the western USA it also consumes old dead plant material, reducing the fuel available for future fires and reducing fire severity overall. Many foresters and fire fighters advocate for increasing prescribed burns, essentially forest fires that we light on purpose in cooler and wetter times of the year to consume the fuel without risking a catastrophic fire that is difficult to control. I just think that’s neat.











  • To me the ring feels more like heroine or cocaine or something, you know one of the drugs that just make people feel good. The hobbits had no real ambition for more than a good life, and they pretty much all already had that, so when Bilbo or Frodo used the ring it was like “heh, nice” and then they went back to their great life with no desire to use it again. Of course they’re basically microdosing while they carry it so they eventually start to incur the cost. Frodo only really starts to get corrupted after months of grueling travel and suffering, and losing hope of ever returning to his life in the Shire. Everyone else has all these obligations and ambitions that weigh on them, and much like regular people they’ve given up varying degrees of their happiness to further those goals, so the ring would feel like getting back everything they’ve sacrificed and being happy again, or for the first time for some. The metaphor is a bit of a stretch, but I think it fits broadly with these magical artifacts that corrupt people. Just like cocaine, heroin, meth, morphine, or whatever, they give people a feeling that they can’t just get over. It’s biology, they hijack the reward system so we have no choice but to push the feel good button unless we can overcome the urge through willpower or getting whatever feeling the drug or magical artifact is replacing naturally. Some people only get so corrupted but some just keep going, chasing the dragon and replacing more and more of their life with the fake feelings of the drug or magical item.