New York Times - Feb. 1, 1933 (Archive.org copy so you can zoom in and read it more clearly)

Agreed. The humor of the comic is in the hyperbole.

Definitely. Innocent until proven guilty. But then, the conversation does still have to happen, sometimes. That’s how people (on both sides of the debate) learn the difference in the first place.

I’m unfamiliar with the show, but thank you so much for engaging with the nuance of the situation, here. I agree with what you have to say regarding context surrounding “Moliendo Café”. Context matters. OP’s comic is a bit too “strawman” for my tastes.

There’s discussion to be had, for sure, but this comic squeezes all the nuance out of a complex topic just to score an easy gotcha.

i dont know that ill say IP shouldnt exist.

And the authors aren’t really saying that, either.

To be clear, I don’t agree with all of the authors’ positions. I also think it’s worth noting that the authors are not advocating for an elimination of the patent and copyright systems without replacing them with systems better suited to ensuring creator prosperity while also allowing for speedier human innovation.

It’s worth a read, if you’re interested in the subject matter. It challenged my opinions on intellectual property, but didn’t change them entirely. Things they discuss, such as patent trolling and patent squatting, are worth contemplation. How can we change IP law to disincentivize such antisocial intellectual property law use by bad-faith actors?

ETA:

The economic burden of today’s patent lawsuits is, in fact, historically unprecedented. Research shows that patent trolls cost defendant firms $29 billion per year in direct out-of-pocket costs; in aggregate, patent litigation destroys over $60 billion in firm wealth each year.

(From the above article… and that was in 2014!)

This is a great read on the IP topic. I highly recommend it:

Against Intellectual Monopoly

This is the co-author’s site and it does contain the full text, although physical copies are available directly from the Cambridge University Press.

Here’s a summary:

“Intellectual property” – patents and copyrights – have become controversial. We witness teenagers being sued for “pirating” music – and we observe AIDS patients in Africa dying due to lack of ability to pay for drugs that are high priced to satisfy patent holders. Are patents and copyrights essential to thriving creation and innovation – do we need them so that we all may enjoy fine music and good health? Across time and space the resounding answer is: No. So-called intellectual property is in fact an “intellectual monopoly” that hinders rather than helps the competitive free market regime that has delivered wealth and innovation to our doorsteps. This book has broad coverage of both copyrights and patents and is designed for a general audience, focusing on simple examples. The authors conclude that the only sensible policy to follow is to eliminate the patents and copyright systems as they currently exist.

ETA: It’s written from the perspective of believers in the broad capitalist structure. The authors are serious economists that support the free market in no uncertain terms.

We will always love to see others enjoy a part of our culture (as long as it is not in an exploitative and fetishistic way).

I think this is a big part of the reason why some people get all white-knight about cultural appropriation. It can be quite difficult to know, as a cultural outsider, and from a glance, when something is being done in an exploitative and/or fetishistic way.

"To understand revolutionary suicide it is first necessary to have an idea of reactionary suicide, for the two are very different. Reactionary suicide: the reaction of a man who takes his own life in response to social conditions that overwhelm him and condemn him to helplessness.”

“I do not think that life will change for the better without an assault on the Establishment, which goes on exploiting the wretched of the earth. This belief lies at the heart of the concept of revolutionary suicide. Thus it is better to oppose the forces that would drive me to self-murder than to endure them. Although I risk the likelihood of death, there is at least the possibility, if not the probability, of changing intolerable conditions.”

“But before we die, how shall we live? I say with hope and dignity; and if premature death is the result, that death has a meaning reactionary suicide can never have. It is the price of self-respect.”

– Dr. Huey P. Newton

Wow. What an asshole.

I think the chip on your shoulder has a chip on its shoulder.

Perhaps to you the saying is a platitude, but that seems subjective. To someone who hasn’t considered the impacts of their consumption habits, or the ways that different economic systems can serve to reward different patterns of human behavior, it can be a thought provoking statement.

There is no ethical consumption.

If you view ethics as a binary, then sure. If you view ethics as a complex and nuanced spectrum, well, not so much.

Capitalism doesn’t encourage anything.

What a reductionist take, especially considering the paragraph you’d written just above it.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/the-3-2-1-backup-strategy/

This person lost 3 months of work because they couldn’t be assed to backup their data despite having three months to do so.

Never trust an OS, or a piece of software, to protect you. Protect yourself.

Looks like someone forgot about the 3-2-1 rule. Teachable moment.

WRT the first panel, I feel that way too.

That said, is this ragebait?

This is really clever if you’re okay with convincing yourself that you know exactly and completely what other people believe… Otherwise it’s a reductionist hot take filled with logical fallacy.

Don’t worry, it only has ≤5 lines of text because the card is cropped. The artist credit line at the bottom of every card would mean that it indeed does have >5 lines of text. You just know how to extrapolate from incomplete data!

I wiped my ass with a wadded up ball of 25 toilet paper squares for years because no one wanted to tell me about more efficient and effective ways to do it. Bathroom knowledge is like your paycheck. They say you shouldn’t talk about it with your peers, but it needs to be talked about.

These days I can clean my whole ass, even on the most explosive days, with less than 10 squares, and I’m saving so much money.

There’s also the issue that after the moon landing we didn’t really improve that much and much of the knowledge faded

Just in case you hadn’t seen this follow-up:

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gold-apollo-says-it-did-not-make-pagers-used-lebanon-explosion-2024-09-18/

And some info even suggests that this B.A.C. company was a shell company owned by Israel:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/middleeast/israel-exploding-pagers-hezbollah.html

By all appearances, B.A.C. Consulting was a Hungary-based company that was under contract to produce the devices on behalf of a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo. In fact, it was part of an Israeli front, according to three intelligence officers briefed on the operation. They said at least two other shell companies were created as well to mask the real identities of the people creating the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers.

B.A.C. did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers. But the only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary. Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN, according to the three intelligence officers.