I’d invest, if the billionaires had left me any money to invest with.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I’d invest, if the billionaires had left me any money to invest with.
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And most of those who voted for Trump still believe in “the trickledown effect.” Talked to several Trumpees at work, they felt the economy was doing poorly and one or two thought the country needed people like Trump and Musk to take charge.
That graph makes it look like the problem is professors, oil workers, dentists, etc. People who might just barely have the resources to get a permit variance on their house aren’t the issue.
Guillotines are SO slow, inefficient and archaic, totally unsuited for these modern times.
No, in 2024 we have WOOD CHIPPERS, readily available at your local home and garden stores. Look for the fall sales!
Richy-rich assholes get fed in head-first. RWNJ politicians get fed in feet-first.
Maybe we should invest in Tesla Tumbrils™…
I can’t wait to see him given the first test ride, and with the bonus that he won’t need it for the ride back.
I’ll post it again, ‘Billionaires should not exist’ Bernie Sanders was CORRECT!
There is a classic comic illustrating the true trickle down theory in action (not a pretty sight, but all to accurate:
A billionaire is urinating, it is spilling onto the floor, leaking down into the floor below, dripping from the ceiling and trickling down on the worker.
cross-commented on infinite thread:
Dear PZ, I know you have a lot of plates spinning on the end of sticks, but most other decent sites we visit have dropped their ‘xhitter’ links/icons. PLEASE, do the same and abandon that toxin.
thanks
Nice graphic but some of the French data is extrapolated from a single data point. Can you really trust the ‘data’?
Remember when my brother was making plans to create a “Discount Guillotine” website as a joke an a portfolio piece for his web design skills. Maybe I should talk him into updating the idea.
My dad used to always refer to them as “the French revolutions” because there were a bunch of them, culminating in the big one and the terror. Not as many people wound up in the embrace of La Guillotine as most of us would think. It was just a big deal because it was popular entertainment and some big names were chopped. Imagine if Melania and Kid Rock got tumbril rides – you would remember that and assume the whole show was bigger than the headliners.
Before the revolution kicked off there were big enough insurrections in The Fronde and The Vendée that they’d be considered civil wars.
The essential point I wish to make is that the system and structure of government had been being weakened in many ways for decades, leaving the central authority of the monarchy weakened to the point that all it took was a food shortage and some riots to tip it over. Remember that France was a superpower at the time, with strong military and an absolute monarch under Louis XIV (l’etat really was lui) and by the revolution was experimenting with populist reforms like the Chambre Des Députes, etc. The revolution was in full swing when Trumpian nihilists like Danton and Robespierre realized there was power left lying around to scoop up. They even had their own Alex Jones-like Marat, who was stabbed to death, unfortunately a fate Jones has evaded.
The collapse of the Roman republic can be seen as a similar weakening of the mechanisms of power, attempts to recover the state, and the arrival of predatory nihilists.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Re: guillotine architectures. Nowadays you’d want to use an electronic ram. Much faster to reload. Hydraulics would work too but you’d need a really high speed pump or it would be horribly cruel. Of course, if horrible cruelty is the agenda, then just an angled blade on a $400 log splitter, and a cheap ikea table and you could be in business in under an hour.
I had a dream once in which I was working on a commissioned damascus blade for a guillotine. I was forge-welding the blade out of a bumper taken from a cop car. I suppose those are all plastic now, sigh.
I’d love to dig into the data here. Do you have a source for that graphic, or better yet the underlying data? (I mean, beyond the fine print at the bottom of the graphic.)
Tnx.
The Fronde occurred between 1648 and 1653 – so there were 136 years between the end of the Fronde and the start of what’s usually called The French Revolution in 1789. For comparison, 136 years back from now takes us to 1888; there’s been quite a lot of history since then. The War in the Vendée was an attempted counter-revolution from 1793-1796, and was one of the factors that led to, or at least exacerbated, the Terror.