I self host gitea and have a script that mirrors any GitHub repo that I star. Super useful.

I fork from my own mirror in gitea if I want to tinker. Keeps me from having a GitHub presence at all unless I’m contributing upstream.

my picks

I have retirement money strictly in retirement funds. Other money in index funds and non-US currency baskets, and I play with call options when I know more than the market.

My suggestion was more a thought exercise for the reader, yet genuine advice at the same time. We love to complain about capitalism, but we are often complaining about it in its current form, a post 1971 era filled with ever increasing corruption, which is the greater problem.

felt deliberately misleading

It wasn’t intended as such, I still think it’s a valid point.

Why would you advocate to be fucked like that lmao?!

We are being fucked either way. We take it up the ass from big tech constantly - so why not buy stock in knee pads and condoms if we have no option but to take it? It’s all just a waiting game for the music to stop anyhow.

current administration / crime family

It’s all been crooks for 50 years. They get more and more brazen over time. At this point it’s the entirety of DC in on it. The current admin is certainly more brazen than the prior - but I don’t think he’s any more crooked than the rest. He’s just dumber than the rest.

Your simplistic take just functions as bait to have others financially raped and abused yet further

I think you’re simplifying in the other direction. I’m not wrong that investing in good growth companies rewards you. I’m not wrong that identifying good companies can often be as simple as “what company’s products do you use”.

You’re taking the issue of corruption in the markets and making that the basis for refusing to invest in markets

Perhaps in volatile industries, invest in a mutual fund that covers that particular industry. In this case, digital streaming.

that his is not how most see investments

Sure they see the retail investor side of it, business do good, number go up.

not what you were describing either;
Netflix does not need more help getting started

Netflix isn’t raising money anymore. They are in publicly traded growth mode. If you want to own a slice of Netflix, you can buy it. No different than buying an interest in the ice cream shop up the road from you (if the current owner wants to part with a portion of the company in exchange for cash). You buy an interest in a company because you think the people that work for it do well and the opportunity for growth exists.

When a publicly traded company is finished growing and instead changes its strategy to simply making income - it starts paying dividends. For instance, General Mills, Pfizer, and Verizon are some examples. All of them are paying dividends equal to about 5-6% of their value. So if you think they’re good companies, you can make more interest on your money by purchasing shares of those companies whom pay nearly double what a high interest bank account does (with added risk!)

People who invest in that type of business do I purely with speculative intentions.

I mean, in my income based stock example - sure they’re speculating that the company won’t die, but they aren’t speculating on massive growth. Just steady income.

I would argue that many speculate buy simply holding USD vs Gold - you assume the United States won’t default on debt or make money printer go crazy, devaluing your investment in the “good faith” of the us govt.

Sure am happy to listen. Fundamentals always bubble and burst but in the long run, products consumers like do well. That’s my experience.

Investing is simply loaning capital to someone so they can build and pay for things which generate production.

It’s like if your town wanted a park, but you didn’t have the money, you’d borrow it from someone and pay interest. You’re borrowing from investors, who lend to you with expectation of yielding extra for them assuming the financial risk. That scenario is more like a municipal bond, but similar scenario for the stock market.

If you want to start a farm, or buy a house, or build an apartment building for your town, you’d need investors to pull together capital to pay for it. In most small business scenarios, the investor is a bank. But for some small businesses starting up, who need large amounts of capital and are high risk, they raise money through others in exchange for a piece (shares) of the business. Over time, the business if successful would go public - which means opening up those shares for the general public to trade.

I understand the “people shouldn’t make money” argument, but it’s a proven effective way to grow. Its flaws seem centered around when politicians are in bed with the investors. Then crooked shit happens. We have systems in place to protect and prevent, but they simply aren’t working in the United States anymore due to widespread corruption of our government.

I disagree. I think my original comment was spot on. If you find a product that you like, investing in the company that makes it is an informed strategy.

By investing some extra money with them, you’re owning a piece of the company.

If/when the company goes up in value, your shares in the company are worth more. The inverse is true as well.

If you’re in the US, check out brokers like Charles Schwab or robinhood. You don’t have to have thousands of dollars to get started.

This is terrible advice.

Investing in companies whose products you enjoy is a very reasonable and successful strategy of investing.

The entire stock market is not a casino where random shit happens. There are conservative investments too.

Are you trying to prevent people from enjoying the fruits of capitalism? I don’t understand why you’d do that.

Saruman wasn’t supposed to be a role model, true. But neither was the guy complaining about rising prices from his couch while the free market delivered infinite content on demand.

I can hate the game and offer advice on how to play at the same time.

My state requires age identification.

Non-US owned/friendly porn sites (xvids) simply work like normal. They don’t care.

The big US name site (ph) blocks the whole site and show a video saying that age verification sucks so they’ll just block the whole states’ users. VPN bypasses easily.

Not sure how other sites handle. I just checked those 2. I’m not a big pron guy tbh.

If people invested $1.50/mo into NFLX stock every month in addition to paying the subscription, it would have net out to be free over the past 10 years.

I’d you can’t beat them, join them. It’s a public investment market.

I went back to full arr stack and usenet when it became too fragmented and unreasonably priced.

Just start doing it and find out what works.

What an odd post. You’re asking a question, then pretending to understand the history.

We didn’t “pirate” by copying CDs bro. We were just copying them like you copy a file. And like we copied cassette tapes and recorded songs off the radio.

“Pirating” as it relates to modern music, (discounting pirate radio) was coined when mass distribution was enabled by the internet.

Also, tape recorders on the sides of the stage weren’t considered pirating. The artists allowed it if it happened. The Grateful Dead popularized this.

That was the write thing to do.