Your first mistake is thinking that people like Thomas actually feel empathy for other people that aren’t them. There’s been studies on this - wealth, especially extreme wealth, physiologically changes how your brain processes things like empathy, altruism, etc.

Especially when so many states are decriminalizing weed, this could definitely make a lot of state prosecutors very very happy.

I suggest we all start revering Ahura Mazda.

Not these Teslas, from what I understand. The type of glass they use is EXTREMELY resistant to shattering.

Ahhh, but if you read the article, this is different. This redefines it to “if you PERCEIVE there to be a threat of death or injury” - meaning that any suburban cowboy can just blast the bear wandering through their backyard and not hurting anyone because “well I figured it would hurt my kids if it came towards the house”. Kinda like how Wyoming relaxed hunting laws to allow farmers to kill pretty much whatever wolves they came across.

Honestly, same here. I despise what they enabled, and continue to enable. I also despise that they’re facing homelessness and serious healthcare issues because nobody should have to face that, regardless of how repugnant I might find their beliefs and actions. I honestly hope that they manage to get out from under this and continue to live long, healthy, and happy lives, because I believe that everyone SHOULD have these things.

I’ll be the one to point out that TMI is exactly what you want to happen in a “nuclear disaster”. Nobody got seriously hurt that we know of, the problem was found and dealt with quickly once identified, and we’ve implemented TONS of extra safeties to make sure that can’t happen again without massive alarms and Serious Lights. Could it have not happened at all? Absolutely. But in a disaster, it’s the perfect “disaster” - nobody died, nobody got seriously injured directly, the plant got screwed up, and $2b to clean up ANY disaster site is honestly pretty damn cheap when we’re talking radioactive heavy metal remediation.

So, Fukushima was a story of incompetence and bribery, not under-engineering. It was perfectly safe when built. In the 30 years after that, the owners bribed investigators again and again to cover up deficiencies that were known.

I’m not sure what the nuclear plant being occupied by Russians who forced the entire safety team out at gunpoint has to do with the plant not being safe. The team was willing, by their own words, to keep working even with the Russians occupying the plant, even just keeping a minimum skeleton crew there to safely shut down the plant if necessary. That was shot down, almost literally - and Ukraine has been VERY careful about shelling that plant for political and infrastructure reasons even though enemy combatants are using it as a shelter to launch their own artillery strikes from.

So give me exactly what your criteria are on “shithole nations”.

Also, our entire aid spending is less than 1% of our budget normally.

Rage Against the Machine doing this concert would just be Tom Morello beating every one of them to death with his guitar.

Yup, this is how I do it. Had ONE manager try the whole “we actually NEED you to come in, we don’t have enough coverage” thing the day I was scheduled to start my vacation, so I sent them a picture from the window of the plane I was on.

Pretty much this. It’s the radium craze, or the ozone craze, or a whole bunch of other fads - everything has to have AI/LLMs integrated in some way or it’s not “interesting” to shareholders.

Or, the company keeps withholding documentation until your own money runs out. They know how it’s played, and unless you get your local Department of Labor involved (if indeed you even have a DoL that’s not just countywide or whatever), they know that they can just run the clock out by withholding documents, delaying court dates, etc while remaining well within the “oh we just plain forgot your honor” line.

Reconnaissance aircraft? C’mon man, get your head in the game. Combat aircraft are sexy. Give me a Mirage any day.

Pretty much this. Elon was never interested in what he SHOULD HAVE BEEN: making an inexpensive electric vehicle that’s widely available. Tesla had the tech to do so, but they were being driven to make insane decisions like moving the gearshift to a touchscreen (gee, I love taking my eyes off the road to shift gears), or making “futuristic” doors that actually cannot physically open from the inside (whoops, guess those just can’t be recalled since DOT has literally no teeth).

Pretty much this. We already had a second Civil War, sorta, in the Coal Wars, and it pretty much shows how BAD it can get. Now imagine how much worse a guerilla war would be in the age where anyone can find information on pretty much anyone else with the use of a few very basic tools. They don’t need to know your schedule, just where you work. They don’t need to know who your kids are, just where they go to school. They don’t need to know how many people are in your house, just where it is - all publicly available information (or at least easily extrapolated from it).

Even if he doesn’t, he’ll still be President on January 6th. I’d be surprised if he doesn’t post guards either way.

Also, I think Tesla saw the way the wind was blowing on standardization. Eventually, the DOT will enforce a standard plug, and if it’s not YOURS, suddenly you have to either remanufacture the cars you’re making, or otherwise refit them to work with the new standard.

Pretty much this. It’s this-quarter thinking: if we develop a cure, what are the profits gonna look like this quarter. Not next quarter, not in 3 years when it’s proven effective and sells on the market like hotcakes, this quarter. Short-term profit-seeking is killing us all.

I mean, I get it on one hand - her (still a puppy, so untrained) hunting dog got away and killed a bunch of one of her neighbor’s chickens. That’s expensive, and not ideal behavior.

On the other hand, you know what you do with that? You reimburse your neighbor, and rigorously train your dog so it doesn’t happen again. If you can’t spare the time to train them, you give them up to a shelter so they can hopefully find someone who does have the time.