I sold two lemonades at my street corner.
With a DOUBLED sale rate from yesterday, and a continuous rate of growth from the past two days, I’m already looking to internationalize the business and establish 800 new offices!
(Not mocking you, just investor logic)
Uhoh. I have a slim model, will I be okay?
A variety of things, but to pick one: Some companies have been collecting all parts of particular sources to serve as monopolies. Others collude with their former competitors, using timed price fixing to apply higher prices with no alternative options available.
All of these actions are illegal, though often hard to nail down and prove. They get much easier if an investigative team can read every email written in regards to pricing.
Even Donald Trump has allegedly attempted to combat these schemes, though it remains to be seen if that’s just lip service to his voters.
Reminds me of an “ecchi” story idea I had where there’s a professional voyeur cameraman that’s treated women like objects his whole life, but recently come to know someone that he genuinely adores, and realizes he hates it when people objectify her or swarm her, and his favorite photo is just of her plain smile.
Prices rise independent of logic. Many times, it’s been shown to be caused by greed; current events just serve as an excuse.
Audit all supply chain companies.
Some things we could encourage: Design social spaces with more repeat interactions. Many toxic people feel they can just move on to another part of the crowd. But if everyone knows them, and that they’re an asshole, It’s not so easy. See the example of “beep”, a user in the comics community who repeatedly cropped out the artist of comics.
I could also envision ways to reinvent forum moderating. For instance, one idea I had for moderating toxicity in a video game is that bans would not last a very long time, but for them to be lifted, the offender must upload a video, or present themselves live on webcam, of themselves describing what they did and apologizing.
If it’s too much, there’s more subtle approaches; like that old study on DOTA 2 where they’d present a post match survey, asking people to rank their teammates - then their own level of team contribution - and it would lead to reduced toxicity in their next match.
I would warn that you can see different results across language barriers. Some games actually have much nicer communities in other languages.
It shows you there are different circumstances leading to the vein of toxicity, but the causes might be much larger than a moderation team could tackle.
I picked up People of Note, a rhythm JRPG, in part to be the first to deliver ProtonDB reports. Wasn’t expecting a musical number at the beginning of the game, but does prep me for what I’m in for.
I have a lot of nostalgia for Final Fantasy 7. Amazingly, when I played Trails in the Sky many years later, I did kind of feel that nostalgia for a well-made JRPG. I guess I’m saying it’s possible.
On the first one:
Using the bathroom of the gender assigned at birth: https://www.them.us/story/lucien-bates-round1-arcade-trans-man-bathroom-illinois
Using the bathroom of the gender not assigned at birth: https://reason.com/2025/04/10/florida-cops-arrest-transgender-woman-for-using-womens-bathroom/
They are, by circumstance, condemned for doing either. Effectively, they are barred from using any bathrooms, though the law does not like admitting that result.
On the second:
The Trump admin now requires the gender of a passport to match the gender assigned at birth. Immigration control officers operate off of far less to enact “Kavanaugh stops” to target and harass anyone whose passport gender does not match their visual appearance. Think of it this way: If a black man could wave a magic wand to not be black for the duration of a traffic stop, do you think they would?
On the third:
https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/fbi-readies-new-war-on-trans-people
Not quite the same sentiment, but a system of “codetermination”, as followed in Germany and in Elizabeth Warren’s proposals, would make it so worker votes would have a controlling stake in large companies. It’s not a share of profit, but it means they can override unhinged decisions in the boardroom.
Mindblow: Find websites pertaining to local affairs.
There are very interesting events I go to in my local area, but we don’t often think about how much of our lives on phones are built around what’s happening 300 miles away from us.
Find a website where some interesting event or discovery might lead to you actually saying hello in person to someone.
How about the right to use a public bathroom, or the right to have a passport in some country, that allows them through security checkpoints unimpeded?
This plus the right to, yknow, live, which is rejected by a terrorist organization called the FBI; which literally classifies them as terrorists.
I want to strike the execs who see a halfway interesting project and want the team to get 8,000 more members so they can release by Christmas.
I’d smack them with their secretary as a bludgeon, genuinely tell them to cut funding in half, and point out “CHRISTMAS HAPPENS EVERY YEAR”.
That seems smart.
I do want to allow for more adult-ish games on Steam, but when browsing them, you DO sometimes get review comments stating “Oh, god! This is not at ALL what I expected!” So having a fresh branding plan to subtly prime people makes a lot of sense.
A missed sales window should not be the immediate and direct cause of dropped paychecks. That strikes me as extreme financial insolvency.
But hey, I suppose I’m preaching to the choir there.
Yeah, I mean MGS3 technically isn’t “Solid Snake”.
Cloning aside I’d like for major series like that to be okay with having more protagonists. It’s been one of Ace Attorney’s major issues; even when a new kid came around, he got show-stolen so much by Phoenix.
40%
To me, that’s the real issue. I’ve heard of and yearn for these situations where a population overthrows a corrupt government. But SO much of America is brain damaged enough that they intentionally, willingly, without a gun to their head, voted for this and believes it to be okay.
There is a heavy propaganda machine affecting them as well as a deep religious institution. We don’t even see much of it often on international media. Even then, while it can move the needle, it also points to a sizable percentage of that 40% not being ignorant or scared of Kamala, but openly Evil as well as stupid. Even when Trump says the most insane shit, they’re still worried that a Democrat will burst into their home with a loaded Immigrant and kill them all.
This is actually why they had the idea to reinvent the character without wealth. The comics “Absolute Batman” are really good. Bruce grew up as a construction worker. The Joker is a billionaire.
Very happy for all the Layton fans, but in looking at old colleagues I’m sad that Ace Attorney has been left in the dust aside from console remasters.