Social media has died many years ago. What we are left with is corporate media.

Even these says, now that Java got Virtual Threads?

I haven't been following recent Java releases, but unless Java has some equivalent to Erlang's OTP library (at a minimum), I stand by my statement

Should have put on the (2011) label

This is such an obvious fact and the fact that not more people see through this is insane to me.

The "trade deficit" is an arbitrary number unrepresentative for what the US makes the most money with.

Well, given the difficulties working with this highly radioactive element...

Because C++ wasn't invented yet.

Profit-chasing never makes systems more efficient. It’s competition.

The inherent misconception of the author is about “seriousness”. His hypothesis is that taking Discworld serious is “good”, while taking LOTR as serious is “bad”.

No, it’s really about taking either universe at face value, which is the problem. And with Discworld, its overt absurdity and humor forces you to think about it more deeply.

LOTR doesn’t make an effort to explain what it is about. But knowing just a little about history and the author goes a long way.

Money is power, and power needs to be in checks.

"Billionare" is not a word which should exist.

We are not far off from trillionaires. Saying billionaires shouldn’t exist at this point sounds pretty radical to spin in positively

An easier solution would be money not being power.

Makes you think that waste is a universally emergent issue which gets worse with the size of an entity. Not making any distinction between governmental or corporate structures.

Everybody cries when the government raises taxes. Yet, when corporations increase prices despite not having higher cost, we just accept it as "business as usual".

As corporations rival the power of nations more and more, some people should rethink their attitude to public and private enterprise.

In theory, competing firms keep each other honest. In reality, the managers care more about their petty kingdoms than the health of the corporate empire. If theirs goes bankrupt, they use their skills to build a new fiefdom elsewhere.

> As corporations rival the power of nations more and more

See: British East India Company. I don't really have a relevant point to make here but corporations being more powerful than countries actually seems to be the default state that has already been dealt with somewhat, rather than a novel growing problem.

True that. There are plenty of historical companies which have absolutely dominated politics. "Standard Oil" being another example.

What's different in our time, is that it is not just one company, but a whole range of mega-companies (Particularly in technology). It has changed from a few powerful and malicious actors to a systematic problem, fueled by the dynamics of the financial markets and passive investment.