Let’s start with Buc-ee’s, which is kind of a truck stop. They’ve just started building them in Colorado, but apparently they’re not going to build any more, because Colorado is not a “conservative” state:
The CEO of Buc-ee’s says the beloved convenience chain will focus expansion on conservative states as the beaver-themed brand faces scrutiny over its repeated trademark lawsuits.
Arch “Beaver” Aplin III, also the Texas chain’s co-founder, made the remarks last week during the grand opening of Buc-ee’s first Arkansas location in Benton.
"We have a lot of opportunities. We're growing. We're building in a lot of places, but when you find a conservative, business-friendly state with a phenomenal workforce, it makes a difference," Aplin said in a video shared by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders on social media.
"And I'm starting to realize life's too short to try to build in places that people don't appreciate what you're bringing versus a place like this, where people do appreciate what you're building,” Aplin added.
He then explained that Buc-ee’s-worthy locations must meet three of the brand’s key values.
"So that leadership, that concept, that idea of conservative, business-friendly, family-oriented concept works so much better if it trickles down from the very leadership," Aplin said. "From the very top at the governor's office, at the congressman, at the senator, at the mayor (and) the representatives."
The trademark lawsuits that the piece mentions are Buc-ee’s suing every mom and pop that uses a beaver as a logo, because that’s Buc-ee’s logo, too. Here’s one example of a convenience store in Beavercreek, Ohio, which naturally would use a beaver in its logo. It’s apparently not enough to have a successful store, you also must fuck with other folks. I only hope Buc-ee’s, which is the very definition of a ho-hum commodity business, is destroyed by Loves, Pilot, and every other big truck stop.
Moving on to AI, one of the readers here recommended Ed Zitron, and Zitron has just published an AI Hater’s Manifesto. Unlike the bulk of the tech press, Zitron actually considers the alternative to spending trillions of dollars on tech that will perhaps displace some workers, but in the end, like every other tech silver bullet, won’t replace all workers:
Please, point to the time in history when we have invested a trillion fucking dollars in making human workers better.
Point to a time when we have considered any other idea but investing in the performative fuck-fest of a modern "corporate culture" built to enrich and empower business idiots that make important-sounding projects and con other people into doing the actual work.
Where is mentorship in corporate America? Where are labor standards? Where are the social services that would make human workers truly excel at their jobs — a good night’s sleep, a healthy body, a good income, basic fucking dignity in the workplace, and their labor respected and empowered. I’m old enough to remember when everybody was chiding workers for “quiet quitting” — by which I mean “doing the work you are asked to do and not taking on extra responsibility for free.” I’ve read article after article insisting that we do not need medicare for all, that Universal Basic Income is a bad idea, that we must means test welfare, that people must have a “good work ethic” and that ultimately someone’s worth is derived from their contribution to the economy, hundreds of thousands of words dedicated to critiquing and prodding and judging every kind of worker other than the vaunted Chief Executive Officer or the Glorious Startup Boys.
Everyone seems so obsessed with sinking billions of dollars into the theoretical chance that machine learning might be able to replace human beings, and that more money makes it “smarter” and “better” at tasks, but the idea of unionization, healthcare as a right, investing in the education, and actual talents of the workers would be communism.
In almost the opposite vein of Zitron’s critique, Bill Gates shows that he’s unhumbled by his disgusting appearance in the Epstein files, by publishing an essay just assuming that AI will work, and saying that we need to create “human reserved jobs” with “reserve” in the sense used in “game reserves” to make sure AI doesn’t take over say, being an aide in a nursing home. AI robots, Gates says, should never take over the jobs like nursing home care or telling patients they’re going to die of cancer. That’s for humans, he thinks.
Gates wrings his hands in the essay, but fails to point out one simple, obvious thing we could do if we’re going to have a lot of AI agents taking human jobs: shorten the work week. If each employee needs to work less, we’ll need more employees. Repeat as needed. Of course, Gates won’t advocate this, because he and his other tech bro übermenschen despise workers. They want us to work like dogs and stop consuming resources they could hoard to have ever bigger yachts and private jets. They want a world where teenage girls have such few options that (allegedly) they’ll perform sex acts on old, ugly tech moguls on a private island. They want $160 blowjobs in trailer courts in Ohio when they’re traveling. They are disgusting human beings who should be taxed and shunned.
