Technically there have been ruins and tombs with traps and riddles. Take a look at some of the info about the Curse of Tutankhamun’s Tomb alone, including stuff like an anthropologist named Field having his house burn down, then flood after its rebuiling (purportedly because he had accepted a mummified hand as a paperweight which came with a cursed bracelet attached).

Granted, there’s no Myst or Tomb Raider-style tomb puzzles unless you count translations of ancient dialects used by the original architects/artisans/scribes/etc., but a lot of death has been associated with burial sites/tombs, whether or not you attribute them to curses or long-dormant mould being disturbed and breathed in…

I was going to say dead people in general, but yes, the poor will almost certainly die.

I’m a little annoyed that it took me nearly half an hour to find an image of Delcy Rodriguez where she isn’t looking directly at the camera, but it looks like we’re on the same wavelength lol

I’m still holding out hope that they get half-drowned Clockwork Orange-style, despite how unlikely it is…

This is great news, congratulations to Malawians for this positive step.

Asking the important question.

I can’t help but feeling as though the exact same pearl clutching wieners are behind this as the growing attempts at overall porn ban, as though restriction of access to the content will somehow cut the legs out from under the already widespread (albeit uncommon) practice.

To wit, people aren’t choking each other during sex or risking David Carradine’ing themselves while wanking because of some shit-production porn, they’re doing it because it’s enjoyable to them (choker and choke-ee). I’m not going to kinkshame except to say that there’s no method of getting a head-rush that I’d personally recommend, but based on what sex-choke enjoyers that I know have said, it makes them cum extra-hard. So… there’s that, the mega-cums.

Surreptitiously collect information about it, and it’s confidential parts while researching its competitors. Extend feelers to said competitors anonymously, seeking to sell said information, all while actively interviewing for work elsewhere. Don’t just dump them, sandbag them on the way out without exposing yourself.

Might be time for the King’s citizens to invest in smuggling. If European coyotes can get an entire person across the Channel, it’s not impossible.

Blatant fascism in the United States of America.

This isn’t my belief, it’s the general state of affairs. The reason for its cost isn’t rational in the sense that you’re hoping for, they want for you to either produce the capital needed to push through the ceiling, or stay where you are. It isn’t supposed to be fair, it’s been purposely contrived to keep people “in their proper place”.

The algospeak to skirt around rules, I can only anticipate that getting much, much worse. Other users, Mods, and even local authorities have been trying to put a lid on that shit for decades, and I haven’t heard any news of significant gains. The whole affair seems more akin to turning over rocks and having the bugs scatter.

Yoink, putting that to good use later.

Social infrastructure FTW, a far more respectable way to run the ship. I’ll keep with the boat analogy to use another idiom; “a rising tide lifts all boats” society shows wisdom in encouraging the kinds of conditions where their citizens can succeed without significant barriers, and improve the whole of it afterward (instead of the banking institutions which extend predatory high-interest loans) with their success. Hats off to Sweden.

Fair point to feel a little harangued by the cost of education, but the incongruity isn’t quite so irrational it seems. This has always been the way of things - dues must be paid, costs must be levied to keep people in their place, this is the order of things, and has been for a very long time. The idea of a free education at any stage is a relatively new concept, historically speaking, and even then public schools’ cost to its users (kids, parents who decline to send their children to prestigious private schools for financial reasons) are levied via taxation instead of fees outright. It always costs money, but the amount paid, and the personal/professional advantage gained vary widely.

Sort of broadly applied throughout history, it’s a kind of way to establish and maintain the strata (see definition 3B) of society. You or your family must have the funds to send you to school, and if you can’t pay to learn, you don’t, and you go to work when you’re deemed old enough. If you’re lucky, you apprentice with family, if not you labour at any task which earns your bread, so to speak. The only real break in this system has been subsidy to ensure that less wealthy families’ children can attend school to learn to read and basic math (as well as PE, science, literature, art, etc.), and people’s ability to generate loans specifically tailored to post-secondary. It sucks ass, but please believe me when I say that it could be much worse.

Describe for me how far from a city center or incident you think that you would have to travel - minus the car/uber/taxi/bus/train. 5, 10, 15, 20+ miles until zero cameras and a Superman telephone booth costume change?

Pre-19th century: would literally make out like a bandit, assuming they knew how to fight & had supernatural powers

20th century: would make out like gangbusters until the invention and widespread use of CCTV

21st century: without active electronic/optics countermeasures, it’s all over, anonymity of secret identity impossible to keep

Same scenario goes for villains, who were previously able to simply outrun/outwit pursuit by authorities, often within the same country. Wire services made this more difficult, depending on the pursuers in question, then moreso with radio, then moreso with telephony & TV broadcasts, then moreso with the advent of the internet. Current tech can analyze recording of subjects and lift face shots, as well as highly specific information like gait (now sometimes touted in the same way as debunked “bite mark analysis” circa the 1980’s courts/justice system). A hoodie would be workable only under the loosest conditions, the second that anyone pulled off the hood, or the subject in question were photographed both with/without it on, it’s all over.