🔗 What Chafes My Groin #10

Apparently We're Celebrating Unemployment Now

Luc Besson's fantastic 1997 film, The Fifth Element, takes place in a dystopian future where one person, Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg (played by Gary Oldman), owner of Zorg Industries, controls what appears to be the entire industry and economy of the so-called "Federated Territories", employing millions—if not hundreds of millions—of humans.

In one iconic scene, Zorg is seen walking with his back to the camera, as an agitated, unnamed person runs up to him, and the following exchange occurs:

Unnamed Person: "Excuse me sir. The council is worried about the economy heating up. They wondered if it'd be possible to fire 500,000. I thought maybe from one of the smaller companies where no one would notice, like one of the cab companies."

Zorg, completely unfazed: "Fire one million."

Unnamed Person: "But 500,000..." Realizing he had just rebuked his boss, he shuts up awkwardly as Zorg turns around and gives him a scornful look. "One million. Fine, sir. Sorry to have disturbed you", he says, frightened, before turning around and fleeing.

This was a particularly impactful scene to viewers, not just because of Zorg's abhorrent ruthlessness and evil, but also because of how foreign to us was the idea of one person having control over so many lives, so much so that he can make a decision to fire one million of them so flippantly.

For practically ever, we've seen unemployment as a bad thing. We already know, through experience, that rising unemployment levels can significantly damage—if not outright cripple—societies and economies. We also despised those that took advantage of programs like social security to fund a lifestyle of staying on their couches, and we lamented that nobody wants to work anymore.

Well, not anymore we don't! Now, we celebrate unemployment! Fire one million? Hells yeah! Fuck them all. Elon's a genius!

After firing most of Twitter's workforce and making the website even worse than 4chan, America's unelected benevolent benefactor was given the authority to fire as many people as he wanted out of the 3 million employed by the US federal government, and the more he fires, the more people like it. Why do they like it? I don't even know, something to do with the fired employees being lefties, or maybe being unelected, or maybe not actually doing any work, or maybe they were trying to destroy America, I'm not sure because those celebrating don't actually know those who were fired, but they celebrate their transformation from members of the workforce into social security recipients anyway. There's no joy greater than schadenfreude.

I don't even know what people want anymore.

EDIT: By the way, have you noticed the other similarity between Elon and Zorg? Like Zorg, Elon controls giant companies devoted to "tech development", but his biggest goal is to manage a fleet of millions of taxi cabs. Like Zorg does.

In Case of Emergency, Call... Someone

I renewed my car's insurance policy yesterday. As always, my premiums rose, despite having no accidents or claims. The problem with insurance companies is that they take advantage of the fact that their products are absolute necessities mandated by law in order to abuse customers as much as they want. They have a position of power that is extremely difficult to usurp, even for the law itself. That's why when you make a claim and receive payments, even for accidents you had no fault in, you're punished for the rest of your life with rising premiums. And that's why when you don't make claims and receive no payments, you still get punished for the rest of your life with rising premiums. In insurance, like casinos, the house always wins. It's practically impossible to lose money in this business.

But that's not why I'm ranting today. Today, I'm ranting about their amateurism. Let me give you an example:

Comprehensive car insurance policies contain, amongst other benefits, roadside assistance and tow services in case of accidents and other emergencies. These are not directly provided by the insurance companies themselves, but by third-party companies that specialize in roadside services. Every policy has its own provider. I was surprised to learn that many people don't even know they have that service as part of their policies, and resort to ordering tow trucks privately and paying out of pocket, but I digress.

I'm going through an "organization phase" and decided it would be a good idea to stick the phone number of my provider to the driver side sun visor, so that it's right there in front of me if I need it. I took the name and number of the roadside service provider from my renewed policy, and spontaneously decided to take a look at their website.

I searched for the company's website on DuckDuckGo, but didn't find one. Instead, I found articles saying that this company filed for bankruptcy and shut down more than two years ago. Confused, I called their number. An automated phone menu answered, saying "thanks for calling company X" and listing some extensions. I didn't want to waste their time unnecessarily, so I hung up and called the car insurance company to ask them what was going on. The support representative did not have an immediate answer for me, and asked me to wait as she tried to figure it out. After a few minutes, she came back on the line and explained that that company indeed shut down, and roadside services were now provided by a different company. That company has a different phone number. I expect the automated menu of the defunct company's phone line would have redirected me to this new company, but still, this lack of attention to detail, this amateurism, is killing me. Why are your 2025-issued insurance policies detailing a service provider that has not existed for over two years? Can't you be professional?

Finally Back on the Homebrewing Wagon

After a several-years-long delay, I'm finally back on the homebrewing wagon. I stopped brewing beer after going on my 6-month trip of the US, for which I moved out of my apartment and put all my possessions in storage. I thought I had less space for brewing in my new place and was too lazy to bring the equipment back from storage. But then I realized that I actually have a relatively big roof and I can easily brew outside with my powerful, non-integrated, one plate induction cooker.

To make things easier on myself, I decided to simplify my already-fairly-simple brewing process even more:

• Instead of doing 10L batches, I'll start with 5L batches. This means I can use smaller equipment.
• Instead of doing no-chill brewing (where I transfer the wort into an airtight, heatproof container after brewing and allowing it to cool down to room temperature naturally over several days), I will cool the wort down immediately simply by dunking it in cold water in the giant sink I have outside.
• Instead of rehydrating the yeast, which requires cleaning and sanitizing more equipment and takes more time, I will simply dump the yeast into the fermenter and that's it.

Brewing outside under the Sun is a nice change and makes the whole process more pleasant. At least now while it's not hot.