Circuitos

On Wal-Marts

User DonTago on Reddit elaborates on what Wal-Marts really are.

“I know it is fashionable to hate on Wal-Mart and all, however, I believe that Wal-Mart is simply an inevitable result or endgame of American’s ultimate desire for convenience, cheapness and efficiency. The development of the car-centered “world of tomorrow” after WWII put the death-nail in just about all down-towns across the US. People in the 60s were convinced by now the world would look like THIS . You saw it in cartoons like the Jetsons, landing on the moon, modern conveniences like the microwave, etc. People really felt we were in the future, so they were willing to discard the tradition of small downtowns for the 60s shopping centre and one-stop grocery stores. Walmart was the predictable outcome of a mega-combination of those two ideas.

Once people had the luxury of doing all their shopping at just 3 places, then 2 places, the next logical step would be they would want somewhere to do all their shopping at just ONE place. Consumers would refuse to go backwards at that point, where they previously had to stop at 6 or 7 different stores just to do their errands. Hell, it was the future after all, forget that shit. Also, we constantly demanded more, but at cheaper prices. However, we failed to notice [or failed to care] that our demand in cheapness inevitably resulted in a reduction in quality of our products.

So, only now we look back at the traditional model of a town, these hollow shells that exist now, and we sigh. Many blame Wal-Mart for the death of our towns. However, I believe it was not them, it was us. We demanded it, we created it. We saw it as our destiny. We wanted our flying cars, our 5 second pizza, our mega-screen TV, our Back-to-the-Future world. Well, our future arrived, but we don’t like it. And now we are forced to lie in the bed we have made for ourselves.”

Enjoy the insight.

“The F-35 Lightning program cost is 396 billion dollars. Also known as ~2.32 Apollo programs, 90 Large Hadron Colliders, ~2.64 International Space Stations, 26 ITER program reactors, 132 Human Genome Projects, 264 Square Kilometer arrays, ~172 Envisats, 37 Hubble Space Telescopes, or 880 Space Shuttle launches (not all at once though).”

Doctorheredoctor on Reddit.

How the Stinking Rich Ate the Economy»

“If a $100,000-a-year household thinks itself to be middle class,” the neoconservative writer Irving Kristol once wrote, “then it is middle class.” This sentiment is widely held, but it makes no mathematical sense. Any family whose income exceeds that of 90 percent of all other families cannot sensibly be called anything but rich. To believe otherwise would oblige you to judge your child mediocre when his teacher gives him an A.

“The fact that the Grammys still exist means we’ve all failed to download enough music illegally.”

Jason Mustian

Clayton Cubitt having a Tumblr = good news.

claytoncubitt:

Unknown contemporary cartoon update of the 1911 ‘Pyramid Of Capitalist System’ (via Royal Constantine)

If anybody knows who the artist is, let me know, Google and TinEye only turn up uncredited copies. Every time you post an uncredited copy of an artist’s work, a kitten dies.

Las gilipolleces que piden los grupos cuando se van de gira. Léalo en profundidad si desea multiplicar su odio actual hacia cualquiera de las bandas listadas.

“In some cases, a promoter will refuse a demand (crossing out the request on the document), though stars usually get what they want, whether it’s clean boxer shorts (Jane’s Addiction), prune juice (Kansas), or an arrangement of tulips, roses, gardenias, and lilies (Janet Jackson).”

Via Marco Fernández.