Entirely possible. I said I’m skeptical that it is better than standard models, not that I’m sure. But, in the absence of other evidence, I’m inclined to believe the economists who actually understand economics, rather than some rando on Twitter saying “called it!” - stripper or not.

“Good people get along and do good things and get credit for it” is not how you make a thrilling drama, lol. I would much rather watch an actor who is a sociopath play a character who is also a sociopath in House of Cards.

Lol. That would be such a boring TV show.

However, when X user and stripper @botticellibimbo correctly predicted the economic decline in 2022 based on her recent profits at work, economists began to examine the Stripper Index more closely.

Reminds me of that joke statistic - economists have predicted 28 of the last 5 recessions.

Like, it’s fun to talk about “The Stripper Index” because it feels naughty. But is there anything that differentiates it from the Amusement Park Index or the Ice Cream Index? It’s all discretionary spending, and presumably should all point in the same direction. Add to this that (1) sex work is taboo - and therefore may be more likely to be influenced by any number of things, like religious or social media trends, and (2) that much of sex work occurs in black or grey markets, where reported earnings are dubious at best, and I really doubt that this is a significantly better economic indicator than the tools actual economists already use.

I’d be down to watch a dark comedy about kkk wizards.

Then we’d find another way to identify the top of the social heirarchy and watch shows about them

Right. Like, first of all, stop watching tv.

Second of all, there is tons of TV about normal people. Like, most of it.

Third, yes, the rich and powerful are overrepresented on tv. Why? Because people like to watch that shit. They know what their own lives are like, and they are boring - people want to watch a show that is interesting. Being rich and/or powerful is an easy way to make a story compelling, and gives writers an obvious way to make up ludicrous plot points.

Not explicitly, since MAGA and Trump don’t have any real policy platforms. It’s not principles or ideas - it’s a vibe. Ask 10 Trump voters what Trump stands for and you’ll get 10 different answers.

But certainly, at least some of Trump’s powerful and influential supporters want to move more towards a dictatorial style of government.

It’s a good enough reason for me.

Iirc, he was doing that up until about the moment that this photo was taken. He started soloing because he was too awkward to make friends at the crag. He gets really good at it, doing it purely out of an enjoyment of doing it - before this photo, he was living out of a van, basically jobless, no social media, just dedicated to climbing.

Then the news of his solo ascent of half dome gets out, 60 Minutes does a piece on it, and gets this photo. Turns out a lot of people are captivated by the feat. Suddenly he has offers coming in from every direction to become a pro athlete, to endorse products, to do commercials, etc. So what does he do?

He figures that if he was going to do the climb anyway, then he might as well have a camera pointed at him to get paid. This allows him to not have to work part time jobs, and climb full time. He starts really raking it in, and what does he do? He buys a slightly nicer van, then donates what he doesn’t spend on his still very modest lifestyle to efforts to alleviate global poverty.

Speaking about the potential influence he could have on others, he has noted that free solo rock climbing is typically a self-limiting experience. A random 14 year old might think they want to go free soloing - but every human has a natural self-preservation instinct that will kick in after you are about a dozen feet off the ground, and said 14 year old will quickly realize that what they are doing is a terrible idea. It takes years of practice and mental exposure to get to the point where free soloing even very easy routes isn’t a completely paralyzing experience - at which point, we would say that such a person has sufficient experience to make their own decisions about the level of risk they are willing to take on. His point has been borne out - I have yet to hear about any people who have died soloing right after they watched Free Solo.

Geologic time includes now.

Dreaming Spanish, if you are trying to learn Spanish. I seriously think it is the future of language learning, bar none.

Yeah, like, I think this is a bad move for Duolingo as a company, since their code quality will rapidly go downhill with the current state of AI generated code.

But also, if you are a contract employee, you should be prepared to be let go at any moment. That’s sort of the whole point of being a contract employee - you are only employed for the contract. It isn’t unethical in anyway for a company to not rehire employees who knew up front that they might not be rehired.

I mean, the issue is that this is clearly from a webcomic that no one here reads. And web comics typically have huge amounts of lore about their characters and relationships that can’t be conveyed in a single image. Maybe it actually is funny, if all of us had read the last 1000 pages of the web comic leading up to this… But we didn’t. So we are left with two possible, not mutually exclusive scenarios:

1. This comic sucks.
2. OP sucks, for posting a comic that requires more context than anyone here has.

Upwork is a website where you can search and hire freelance software devs - and there are other, similar sites out there as well. Vetting the person you hire will be a whole process in itself.

Judged by whom?

Right, but if they keep talking while the other person is trying to talk, that’s rude.

Yeah, I mean, there is a solution. Liberalized zoning and Georgist tax policies. The problem is rarely that there is a lack of space to live - it is that that space is poorly utilized. And this is true because (1) it is illegal to build what people want where they want it in many places and (2) investors and homeowners speculate on land value without providing value to anyone else.

No, because women can get their sexual needs more or less without trouble. A male sex robot owned by a woman would make me feel the same way though, similar to the man’s-arm-shaped pillows. It is sad, because they can’t get a their emotional needs for intimacy fulfilled and are resorting to hollow physical proxies

No. But you are an extreme minority, and your existence won’t change overall cultural views of sex robots.