The banks can also technically short the stock as well once the buyout was public, knowing how shit the deal was they can make money on the downside at the expense of all the pensions, 401ks etc that had initially bought the stock. There also isnt a limit that prevents shorting the stock more than shares are in existence. Hence why the gamestop situation was close to breaking the whole stock market a few years back when they started turning everything around for the companies bottom line. With the stock now able to make it think a bout a billion more shares over time the out for the short side has been sort of given without completely nuking the market. But as when the shares are diluted is up to the board it allows gamestop to take advantage of the short side to create more cash on hand for themselves threw timing their market offerings to coincide with when swaps that are housing those shorts come due. In the toys r us case the executives and board were happy to take their golden parachute from the buyout and let ordinary people’s pensions and 401ks carry the bag for them in the form of the stock going to zero and eventually being delisted from the market.

Of course, and no, I’m sorry, I feel like I got a bit aggressive at points trying to explain my viewpoint which probably made it seem like my intentions were to be apologetic to the administration. I completely see where you were coming from, I should have taken some of my own advice and looked into your sources more instead of jumping to conclusions. I feel like everyone is getting so tired from this administration that we are all at a short fuse and my coping is to try and look for something good or actionable in everything so I dont completely loose my sanity during it all. I truly hope we are all able to get past this shit administration as quickly as possible and look forward to a world where everyone can be accepted, respected and live with dignity without having to hide or be scared of who they are. Stay safe out in this crazy world.

Listen i am sorry I did not see that this was getting painted in between the lines previously, I saw a preview for one of the articles you posted (I’ll link it below and maybe you can see what im talking about it could just be how my lemmy client is showing it) which had people putting paint/chalk over the white portions of paint on a freshly painted crosswalk which would decrease the reflectiveness of the crosswalk and i saw the commenters point about trying to not mess with areas that help pedestrian safety. I dont like any of the messaging Ron DeSantis is spewing to justify his actions, but this thread opened a conversation about whether or not people should be messing with crosswalks and so I wanted to engage because it feels like a bad spot to be putting art in. Like people should drive for the conditions, not be going to fast when conditions are bad but the reality is there are a lot of people who dont so why should we not be more mindful of safety precautions surrounding where we display messaging or art. We can call out the heinous shit the Republicans are doing and try to point out there are better ways to display memorials or art i dont see how that is incompatible. If all we ever do is focus on the shit without trying to find the little nuggets scattered throughout that we can use to be more effective fighting oppression in the future, or be more safety minded for when we do, that sounds like a sure fire way to be burnt out on the doom and gloom right now and not realize we can still make change. Small things add up and even things that might seem insignificant help build momentum in people’s minds that enable people to push for bigger change and support bigger movements. But if we always argue assuming negative intent from others we dont get to see that, i.e. I dont think the original commenter was trying to support DeSantis he was just trying to point out how people could be more safety minded and got shit on because people assumed he was justifying the Republicans messaging. It feels like discourse everywhere is losing nuance as people get burnt out from everything, which it probably the point to this barrage of shit from this administration. Anyways hopefully my comments are clarifying where I am coming from, I’m honestly not trying to be insensitive or support the trash in this world. Maybe I should have looked at those articles directly to gain more perspective so we weren’t arguing in circles here, and im sorry I didn’t thats on me.

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/florida-paints-pulse-crosswalk-black-protesters-colored-rainbow-rcna227073

Alright this is good context, I didnt see the condition of the crosswalk from before all this was done. I still feel like there are better ways to create a memorial but in contrast to the shitty condition it was in yeah I can see how if anything the chalk was creating more visibility to that area. I still feel like a crosswalk is not the best place to put a memorial and I think thats the point i was trying to get at and where i thought the original comment in this chain had a decent point, like put it before the cross walk, further down the street on the side walk itself, the curbs, the walls near it make a billboard next to road. But yeah that crosswalk was in such a bad condition already this wasnt effecting much. I had seen some pictures else where in the thread were it looked like people were putting chalk over the white paint itself and that to me is such a bad idea when as you said in your other post you could at least put it in between the painted sections of the cross walk.

For any movement to cohere they have to fundamentally agree about the nature of reality. As long as you continue to insist that the artwork in this image displays some legitimate traffic risk, we’re not living in the same reality.

This has been described multiple times throughout this thread that describes why this can be a traffic risk. Without a reflective paint you impeed visibility in low light conditions, fog, night time, heavy rain, etc. Without the right paint you reduce friction in wet conditions that can cause accidents for those on motorcycles or bikes. Unfortunately this administration is clearly not going to repaint this memorial with the appropriate paint to facilitate that, which means its going to pose a risk unless those repainting it can use something appropriate. Its not the art itself that is a problem but the quality of paint used to make it. I have no problem with the memorial when its done right but to ignore that it does carry risk with its current implementation that people are using is being obtuse and means you are fundamentally ignoring parts of basic physics.

Like seriously no one is trying to applaud the conservatives efforts to erase this monument, we are only pointing out better ways to do this in the future. Like make your gripes make sense please because it seems you are to hung up to admit the reality that this memorial was implemented in a sub optimal way originally, there is no reason why we cant accept something wasnt done right the first time and strive for it to be done better next time. Like why continue to paint the crosswalk when people could be painting the sidewalk or using chalk on the sidewalk instead. that doesnt fuck with road safety and continues to keep a memorial in place. Like seriously, how is pointing something like that out incompatible with your reality?

Yeah, like your point was reasonable, which is why i wanted to step in. I dont think that its tuning into reddit per say but I do think people are just getting extremely tired of this administrations rhetoric, which is completely understandable, but if we have any chance of fighting it we all need to be able to take a step back and view others with out the bickering or they win out easily and allow us to be fractured to easily. Plus your point of using other means for memorials or painting is better as it removes the administration’s ability to just act like this is being done for safety reasons and forces them to admit its out of bigotry. Eh I’m probably preaching to the choir by saying this to you. Hopefully we all can take the steps back when needed I know even I fall into the trap sometimes. Have a good day, though.

I assume the original memorial crosswalk had reflective paint used on its markings, if people are just using chalk or regular paint now it would end up reducing the reflective properties of crosswalks which would effect low light visibility. Im not sure if people have been doing this for other crosswalks but if that is the case the person you are responding to does actually have a bit of a point, we are better off just painting walls, steps, or making signs as they originally suggested, considering the state isnt just going to accept and standardize rainbow crosswalks under this administration. That also removes the hiding of motivation for the police from this being a safety act to being purely bigoted which is important. Don’t allow the fascists some reasonable cover to do what they do, force them to do it with their motivation on clear display.

I dont understand why you all are getting on this persons case. They brought up a pretty reasonable point, traffic markings are better when they are standardized. There are avenues where having a memorial doesnt detract from that standardization. They gave reasonable alternatives in addition. They arent sitting here praising the motivations behind the enforcement yet you all are acting like thats the commenters motivation.

Literally the only other pavement marking that comes anywhere near looking like or being placed in the same way on a road is a stop bar. And guess what, car drivers routinely mistake the plain crosswalks for stop bars, thereby blocking the crosswalk

So because people already have issues with standardization we should allow less of it? This doesnt improve the argument you are trying to make. Stop being reactionary because of the subject matter here and take a step back first.

Making the claim that painting a pedestrian crosswalk in bright colors somehow makes them less visible or recognizable has got to be the dumbest argument I’ve heard this week.

Its honestly pretty sane in this context when you step back instead of getting reactionary. Is the paint being used reflective? Is it causing the crosswalks to be less reflective in low light conditions? Its not like all the painting being done is standardized. Not all places in the world have cross walks painted out and in night conditions where we constantly have headlights blinding people and some that arent bright enough to compensate for those differences those painted crosswalks could have an impact on safety if the decrease visibility of them in low light conditions.

In the case of the original crosswalk memorial that got defaced by the fascists I am assuming there was reflective paint used, so if people are using something with the same reflective properties as regular road paint I dont see an issue at all with a colorful crosswalk. But when you have people without that style of paint covering up crosswalks it can become a safety issue in night conditions and you arent going to see stats/studies for this as there is not enough sample data to even make that case. Not every rule or standard needs to be written in blood sometimes we can use common sense before allowing people to get injured enough to make a study and dataset to back a point.

Having a memorial that is off the road one would be more visible and also take away the hiding of motivation when the fascists try to deface it by acting like its just a safety thing. Which they recommended, paint walls, the faces of steps etc.

Like I get this is a sore topic due to the state of shit right now but we need to stop fighting with those who are trying to be helpful or offer other valid viewpoints. If we want to fight back against the rising fascism around the world we need more unity which comes from being open to dialog not just being reactionary. All being reactionary is going to do is push people away and make us more fractured and disorganized.