It was also a work of fiction.

Or propaganda.

A lot of 80s/90s TV was selling a lie because it was primarily written by the upper middle classes portraying the lives of the working class.

They had little idea how things actually worked.

Cranberries evolved so they wouldn’t be eaten.

Most fruits want to be eaten so that birds disperse the seeds.

Their preferred method of dispersal was dropping into flowing water, so that they could find somewhere nice to grow near water.

The astringent taste was to stop birds eating them. They became buoyant in water to help them float down stream.

Humans appeared and loved that dry flavour.

Became one of the most eaten fruits on the planet.

Humans even harvest them by flooding and using their own buoyancy against them.

They will get their revenge.

This is the internet. It’s OK to swear here.

Exquisite.

Also the first twin stick arcade game I played.

So, like none of these folk read The Running Man then?

Or many of the hundred times this idea has been used in Sci-fi.

In all fairness, commenting here is like reciting the specific summons to raise Contrary Mary.

/s

Not viruses as such, at least according to the inventor of the term, rather they are already part of our inheritable structure, our DNA (so to speak) seeking new ways to be inherited.

We are our memes.

Thank you.

Pretty sure Gaza doesn’t need the Green party declaring genocide on them, they’re already dealing with one.

I use both, but honestly, some mastodon users can’t help but be outright patronising and hostile to newcomers.

The whole “we don’t do that here” vibe clearly puts folk off. Weirdly, it isn’t the long term users that do that, bug more recent converts.

Why do you think that is?

It could just be the focal length of the camera lens too.

good explanation of focal length and face shape

It’s always been about context and provenance. Who took the image? Are there supporting accounts?

But also, it has always been about the knowlege that no one… Absolutely no one… Does lines of coke from a woven mat floor covering.

deleted by creator

He’s been arrested, not sentenced. That’s the innocent until proven guilty bit.

Not sure where you are from, but I suspect not the UK.

Yeah, and fractions of that stone? Pounds.

So like 10 stone 5 pounds.

Or, conversely, just switch to Linux.

Take an hour or so to have a look around the place.

Go on the internet if you have any questions.

People are smarter than you assume and if you want Linux to grow in popularity we need to stop pretending any if this is difficult.

I think some folk want to pretend using Linux is hard so that they can feel more… Uh… Technical for using it.

You know we use pounds as a weight measurement too, right?

Some countries use imperial measurements, others metric, but the UK enjoys both.

Oh come on mate, I left an open goal for you there.

You could have scored an easy one by saying that their understanding of economic factors in the new media landscape is a relatively new field for study.

You could have talked about the aspects of social discourse and relationships between the maker and the viewer.

Fuck, you could have even framed what they do as artistic expression

But nope, you are too tied up in the misplaced metric of financial success.

And here’s why lectures about that would be next to useless… Their experiences are not transferable. You can’t copy what they do and expect success. That’s because novelty is a factor and you cannot teach that.

Compare that to the scientific method where everything relies on being exactly able to reproduce results.

Sure, there are plenty of purposes for academia, but what you suggest really isn’t one of them.

And their net contribution to human knowledge is…?