The most effective method to improving our democracy is using our democracy. US history has demonstrated this repeatedly.

Meaningful progress has only ever been made in the US after mass movements engaged in direct action and protests (often met with violent state repression), and even then the legislation that’s made is usually much less than the people wanted. This is not a sign of a democracy that functions for the people.

You can only continue to call this system a democracy by setting the bar very very low. Pointless to argue semantics though, better to argue substance. We won’t get to a better - more representative - democracy by working within the current system; we need to apply external pressure. People don’t feel that voting in this election will save democracy because they don’t feel there’s enough of it left to be saved. Voting in this election can at best stave off a total collapse to fascism, but that’s it.

No they hate this truck. It needs to be 3x the size, get 10 miles to the gallon, and be filled with useless smart features before it meets their standards.

We’re lucky we don’t have ancient Roman style privatized firefighters that would stand around and wait for payment before putting out your fire.

Words mean what people who use them think they mean, and Americans using the word Libertarian mean right-wing anti-government and pro-business folks. This may not have been the word’s original meaning, but language changes.

This is an idea explored in The Egg by Andy Weir.

That’s what irks me the most, when people act like abstaining from an election is a grand act of protest that will change things for the better. I understand the reluctance to vote, but that should never be accompanied by a reluctance to act.

Imagine enforcing shitty copyright laws on yourself like some code of honor. We developed the technology to make infinite copies of any media and then spend endless resources fighting it because it undermines our parasitic economic model.

Imagine for a moment that society embraced the full potential of digital technology. We could have a library of all human art and knowledge ever produced available for free, instantly, everywhere. If book libraries didn’t already exist and were proposed today the excuses for rejecting it would be the same. The answer is also the same, change our economic model to support people’s basic needs unconditionally and directly subsidize the production we need/want (like art).

Craigslist was always on the fringes, before Facebook marketplace came in there were a bunch of separate and disconnected online marketplaces. Facebook marketplace had the advantage of already having a massive user base (larger than any of the existing online marketplaces), causing it to become the largest one right out the gate, which then of course makes it the most attractive option for sellers since they will reach more people.

What’s your opinion of the Bolsheviks?

What matters more for public health risk is virility, and mortality tends to have a negative correlation with virility. In simpler terms, the more deadly it is the worse it is at spreading. It’s not a hard rule but is true more often than not, though I don’t know any details about avian flu. I assume if the CDC has determined the public health risk is low that it’s probably because it’s not particularly virile.

I would be wondering what I did to make his job more difficult.

That also reminds me of this scene from Invincible where during the copying process their experiences are sort of “blended” making them see from both bodies at once, only here they both live and are separate afterwards.

Edit: is it obvious how much of a sci-fi geek I am lol

If anyone’s interested in a hard sci-fi show about uploading consciousness they should watch the animated series Pantheon. Not only does the technology feel realistic, but the way it’s created and used by big tech companies is uncomfortably real.

The show got kinda screwed over on advertising and fell to obscurity because of streaming service fuck ups and region locking, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s at least partially because of its harsh criticisms of the tech industry.

The animated series Pantheon has a scene depicting exactly this, and it’s one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen.

Edit: Here is the scene in question. It’s explained he has to be awake during the procedure because the remaining parts of his brain need to continue functioning in tandem with the parts that have already been scanned.

These are the exact kind of targeted ads I see when I disable my adblock. I’m a white male in rural Kentucky so I guess advertisers assume I watch Tucker Carlson and buy trucks (as if I could even afford one).

It’s at least an assurance that I’ve been successful at protecting my privacy enough that advertisers don’t know specifics beyond my surface-level demographics.

I believe this is from Carl Sagan’s book The Demon Haunted World. A fantastic read, and one I recommend to anyone who will listen.

I would suspect this is an intentional dark pattern. They’re probably hoping most people will get tired of waiting and click cancel, which sets it back to the default of allowing all cookies.

Fascism isn’t binary. It’s not yes/no, it’s analog, the dial slowly turned up.

My biggest concern is that we’re crossing a point of no return from which there is no way back except for violent overthrow of the regime. My biggest fear is that we’ve already crossed it.

I haven’t run into anyone who considers emulsifier a scary chemical word. Most people I know with any baking skill know what the word means and use egg yolks for that purpose all the time.