Yeah. I’d even say we went beyond late stage capitalism. We are now on the cusp of a feudalistic society more akin to the corporate dominance in Blade Runner or Eve Online, maybe The Expanse, then anything resembling capitalism. Corporations are more powerful than nation states, many people are indentured to their workplace via healthcare needs or non competes, etc. So there’s that. This is an entirely new thread though so I’ll stop it there. TL;DR - This shit sucks.

Kevin, if thats even a real person at this point in media, is just pushing stories and discourse aligned with corporate speak. Let’s consider it less stupid and more complicit, which I argue, is even worse.

I bought an older Samsung and only use it for doom scrolling, 2FA, and podcasts. Its fine stripped down to nothingness. My next purchase, once the cracks from me dropping it spread, will be an older Pixel so I can run GraphineOS. I’m hopeful that like my Linux experience, it’ll extend the devices life given my use case. Like buying old laptops and kicking windows to the curb in favor of Linux buys you tons of time and product life.

I am not an economist. I am not an expert on anything consumer. It is, however, plainly obvious that companies are trying to squeeze blood from a stone at this point. They can’t make money anymore with pay to own and innovation like they used to for a variety of reasons. From greed to enshitification. If you look at it with a different view, everyone is poorer because they are greedy, they’ve ruined everyone’s lives but must make numbers go up. So they find new and terrifying ways of screwing you over for diminishing returns. Like this. Relying on turnover sales and nothing else.

Im going to start physical mailings and cold emails. I’m over this job market, its AI/ATS nonsense, and the people who think its OK.

I have yes. It’s a hefty sub fee IMO.

Thanks for the suggestions and info everyone. I have some testing to do!

Tree fiddy is the only price I’m willing to pay.

I’m not quite sure how to jump into this, so here we go.

I’ve found myself unable to get new work but am in a position that I know my job is gone in 3 months. Academic, no funding.

I’ve been using Claude to parse through job postings and help me tailor a CV or resume. I never, if at all, even get a rejection email. I’m sad to say but leaving academia is going to likely be a survival issue. The prospect of having to get passed AI screeners is insane to me. AI is ruining so much in ordinary everyday life so rapidly that I’m frankly shocked…and I did climate disaster research so I’m hard to shock.

Ok folks telling me to just get a Linux Distro.

PC Gaming - Enshrouded, Valheim, BG3, Dragon Age: Origins, and No Man’s Sky, generally Steam platform. Classics like Caesar III, TIE Fighter.

Work - Data Analysis, Lots of word documents, spreadsheets

Internet - Light browsing, podcast listening, music streaming

What distro and why?