That's exactly how it happened. I volunteered at this place in Vancouver called Anime Jyanai in the late 90s, literally dubbing anime from one VHS to another. They rented bootlegs, screened it at a local college, it was a whole scene. People got exposed to all these cool shows, fell in love with them, and then went out and bought the official merch. The industry didn't lose money; they got a free global marketing campaign from a bunch of kids with VCRs.

Congratulations to Brazil for picking Lula. You dodged a fascist bullet, saved the Amazon, and told the Bolsonaro crime family to kick rocks. A rare win for democracy and the environment.

The luck is that Doerkson was a last-minute interim leader picked to stop the party from collapsing. Then his opponent miscalculated by calling a snap election to catch them off guard. The gamble backfired, the Conservatives won, and Doerkson got the premiership handed to him. It's a factual description of the political situation. But a bunch of conservative mouth breathers who can't read are in here crying that it's an insult.

This is the dumbest historical take ever. 'It's in the name.' Okay, so North Korea is a democracy? The Nazis literally killed the actual socialists! Hitler purged the Strasserites and the communists. They were a fascist, far-right party. The name was a marketing gimmick to steal votes from the working class.

You pulled up to a book tour and you're mad it was a book tour?

"No way, why should I leave? He's the one who sucks."

Yeah, there's this thing called a 'framework', you use it for deciding what's actually important or relevant. And I don't think H3 fits into that for someone used to covering politics. If you don't cover internet gossip, you probably have no idea who or what H3 is, and honestly, that's a blessing.

This dude has the hard, unyielding eyes of a man who knew his actions were just, and who didn't give a shit what it cost him.

Yeah, we showed Americans what a real leader looks like, and now they're worried Americans will want high standards.

If God literally stamped 'YAHWEH' in the sky, in a way that defied all physical laws, I would absolutely take notice. The difference is, I wouldn't instantly assume it was the God of the Bible. I would question if it was aliens, a mass hallucination, or a massive technological hoax. You're right that atheists assume the universe is a closed system, but that's because every single time in human history that we thought something was 'supernatural,' it turned out to have a natural explanation. If you want to prove God exists, you have to provide evidence that stands up to scrutiny, not just a sky-writing trick.

Maybe Tezuka didn't get famous off piracy, but the entire global anime market did. In the 80s and 90s, Western fans were trading bootleg VHS tapes and photocopied manga scans because there was no legal way to get them. The corporations didn't build the global fandom; a bunch of nerds with VCRs did. If they had their way, half the world wouldn't even know who Tezuka is.