How can it literally be settled if people are still arguing about it?

Same way people can wave a Confederate Flag 150 years after the war is over.

Because both meanings are opposites

“really” -> “extremely” is not the opposite of “really” -> “factually”.

the literal use of literally is functionally lost

It isn’t functionally lost any more than “really” has become functionally lost. It’s contingent on context.

“It’s really hot outside” and “He’s really the murderer” have two very coherent and distinct interpretations.

In the same vein, “It’s literally as hot as the sun out here” and “This Christian extremists are taking the Bible too literally” have distinct and non-interchangeable meanings.

But the term has (ahem) LITERALLY been used as an intensifier since 1769. You’re far too late to the party on this debate. It’s LITERALLY been settled for centuries.

“Literally” is used as a superlative. The “literally means figuratively” thing tends to refer exaggerations. “I’m literally dying” or “That’s literally hotter than the sun”.

It’s a stand in for “really” which has a double meaning

• Adverb form of “real”
• Expressive form, to convey intensity

But yes, we never “lost” the word. Some online grammar pedants simply refused to accept it as a homonym.

Someone’s paying for it.

They don’t even have to be communists, per say. Just being Asian and unaligned is enough. Or Haitian, for that matter.

That doesn’t make any sense.

identical apartments

Under Communism, we were forced by the government to live in Poor People Houses. It was illegal to tip your landlords. If you updated your wallpaper, the local Commissar would murder your first-born child and eat your dog.

Incredible.

So a lottery winner is guilty of crimes?

They’re routinely the victims of them. Lottery winners are a scam target rich environment. North of 5% of lottery winners go bankrupt within five years, far above the national average.

You can just luck out and have an idea like online banking take off

Utterly clueless if you believe the advent of online banking was Peter Thiel’s idea. I seriously doubt you understand how banks form or function.

Some gained wealth legitimately

Nobody gets truly rich by playing within the rules. Show me a billionaire and I’ll show you a list of crimes.

That’s been the Jeff Bezos gambit for nearly a decade. He’s still an absolute POS and we all know it.

The smart ones are the ones we have never heard of.

Behind every great fortune is a great crime.

Billionaire: “We paid some college kids to build a robot that doesn’t immediately tip over when it tries to move.”

Internet Slacktivist: “Black Mirror! Terminator! The Matrix! It’s game over, man! We’re all gonna die!”

Sexy Losers already answered this question

Deport’em All

I thought he was cutting edge because he didn’t use a BlackBerry, he used an iPhone.

Also, the way Obama simped for the tech sector for eight long years might be proximate to why we’re surrounded by Tech Fascists ten years after he left office.

“Nobody looked at their phones during a party in 1999”

Holds up picture of a LAN Party

Phones are a great distraction when you’re in a liminal space with nothing interesting going on.

But parties tend to be the opposite of that. The only reason someone looks at their phone is if they’re trying to avoid the party. And why even show, in that case?

We built the library

Shame you forgot to take ownership of it.

But it reminds me of people refusing to vote for Kamala Harris because her Israel policy wasn’t quite perfect

She was actively facilitating a genocide. What’s more, nobody got to vote for Kamala Harris in the primary. Biden ran virtually uncontested, then fumbled a debate performance and got shuffled off stage left. Harris was so unpopular in the 2020 primary that she polled 5th place in her home state. People refused to vote for Kamala Harris because she wasn’t doing a good job of running for office. The Pro-Israel shit was merely the tip of the iceberg.

And, as a corollary to the Harris mess, consider the current Gavin Newsom campaign.

Governor Gavin Newsom used his veto pen over the weekend to ax legislation aimed at protecting providers of gender-affirming care from being extradited to face charges for doing so by another state.

If this guy runs for President, what sane liberal supports him? He’s working hand-in-glove with Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis to fuck over doctors in his own state. If the DNC is going to air-drop him into the Democratic Nomination in 2028, we’re going to get four more years of Trump pretty much guaranteed.

You aren’t going to beat Fascism by lining up for Fascism-Lite.

It’s certainly a perspective on things.

I like it as propaganda and spin, but it’s defeatist in scope. The idea that only Europeans in Europe can have class consciousness, and they lose it the moment they’re on a new continent hasn’t born out in theory or practice.