On the other hand, good fences make good neighbors, and paywalls are a way of drawing healthy boundaries. If I write a book I am not donating that book to the world free of charge to use as they please and train an AI to replace me. I would like to be paid for my work somehow. If I and a team of researchers and engineers and finance folks and HR folks and janitors work together to build a vaccine distribution system, we don’t get that for free.

Paywalls are a useful mechanism for ensuring that people aren’t abusing you and your work.

Problem isn’t paywalls. It’s that how you do things matters. If you hoard all the food and paywall it at high prices so you can buy fancy cars, that’s not ok. If you set aside food for a local community supper so that kids can’t use it for their trebuchet practice, that’s sensible.

Can we get a Vorkosigan series show? It would be cool

“how dare you take the only choice available to you” energy.

Individual members of any society or any military are not stand-ins for all the evil of that society or military. If they are, I guarantee your own membership on some groups - whether by choice or chance - would condemn you as harshly as anyone on earth.

There are no unflawed people or systems. Don’t become an abuser because you were abused.

Awesome, who taught you how to organize your community and which community volunteered their HUGE amount of spare time and effort for your benefit?

Some of us had a fucking choice between dying homeless or learning to survive in the military, and you removed about it now is a weak-ass bitter excuse for venting your frustration at the wrong goddamn people.

When I was young and homeless and ignorant and had no self esteem

You took me in, gave me food, clothing, safety, training, community, challenges, a paycheck

From your patience when I screwed up I learned to keep trying

From your teaching I learned a path to survival

All you asked was a few years of work and maybe for me to take risks

But even then you taught me how to take risks as safely as possible

Oh wait

No

Sorry, that was the military, ha! Whoops, you didn’t fucking help one bit. You just sat on your ass whining with no solutions.

Oh well, maybe next time!