Who’s the “other guy”?
Literally who are you advocating for? Who do you think will apparently fix the state of American democracy in 2024?
Who’s the “other guy”?
Literally who are you advocating for? Who do you think will apparently fix the state of American democracy in 2024?
Of course Biden didn’t, but I genuinely think Trump will be way worse. Anyone who thinks Trump, in control of our military as President, wouldn’t be making even worse choices, clearly wasn’t paying attention last round.
And it’s not just Israel/Palestine. It’s Ukraine/Russia and China/Taiwan. Biden isn’t changing the status quo, but he’s not actively making the situation worse. Trump adores the military and sees himself as a strongman (admittedly not when licking Putin’s boot), and is going to immediately want to flex the military. He’ll pull Ukraine support entirely. He’ll antagonize Iran or maybe actively bomb Hamas targets in Palestine. He’ll antagonize China or maybe recognize Taiwan’s independence. That would be a disaster.
I want change. I want a better system. I desperately want us to take our hands off the lever. But that change needs to be better and lasting change. It needs to be done such that when enough Democrats take their hands off the lever, the lever does get pulled hard in Republican’s favor. I will actively pull the lever in the “kill people” direction because if we let go at all it will be yanked in the “kill everyone” direction, and when it comes to ideals versus practicality, I go with what actually results in less harm.
I get the ideal, but the practicality of American politics and the electoral college is just shitty. I’m genuinely curious what you think would happen in 2024 if people don’t vote Biden? I’m assuming you’re advocating for the Green Party, whoever their candidate ends up being. Trump doesn’t need huge margins to win. Biden had over 6 million more votes but the margins in many key swing states were less than 25,000 votes. Anyone farther left of Biden isn’t pulling votes from Trump, they’re pulling votes from Biden, and when the margin is that small, it makes all the difference. A Green candidate taking even 3% of a given state is enough to give it to Trump.
I believe enough change from the inside is possible that it can invalidate the lever. There are progressives within the Dems, that could get us to a point where there’s no electoral college, or a voting system that isn’t first-past-the-post. States are independently joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Once such systems are in place, then it doesn’t matter how hard the Republicans pull the lever, we have a bunch of working levers. But we’ll never get to that point in the first place if the Republicans get to pull the lever all the way. The party that actively wants to destroy our democracy is not gonna give us a second chance at any lever if we let them pull this one further.
You have roughly equal amounts of people pulling the lever in the “kill one person” direction and the “kill many people” direction.
The only people interested in pulling a lever that adds a third rail are the “kill one person” crowd. The moment enough of them let go, the lever goes in the “kill many people” direction because that crowd has no interest in a third rail, they quite like the “kill many people” option. You’ll never get enough people to join the third option from both crowds simultaneously. No third party has seen any real form of success in nearly 200 years within the current system. Changing the system is necessary but taking out hands off the lever is a disaster.
If you’re in the US, with a two party system, not voting for the less evil is actively enabling the greater evil.
You think Trump or any GOP candidate wouldn’t do the same? Or worse? They’re certainly not going to do anything better than Biden.
Voting on principles is for the Primaries. Try and get the best candidate possible that you actively believe in into the race. Election Day however is when it’s time to put your adult pants on, accept the world is messy, and vote for the least worse option possible, because otherwise you’re just abetting the worst option.
He basically was willing to discuss all the areas where the Israelis were making concessions. He wasn’t willing to discuss any of the areas where the Palestinians were supposed to make concessions. So it seemed like he had just said no.
But what I subsequently learned - about 18 months ago, I had a dinner with a former Palestinian negotiator who’d been part of the delegation. He said the whole Palestinian delegation had decided among themselves they should accept it. They went back to Arafat, and Arafat said no. I subsequently heard from another Palestinian on that delegation who said Arafat thought he could still do a better deal under Bush because he thought maybe Bush will be even more forthcoming.
Holy shit, so Arafat alone basically blew the best chance we had.
Jerusalem should just be made a UN protectorate or independent third city-state at this point as part of a two-state solution (like the Vatican).
And yeah, I know everyone will hate that idea, but hey, at least then everyone will hate the idea.
Many just won’t vote.
Which is still absolutely absurd, because any Democrat who doesn’t vote for Biden is implicitly granting his Republican opponent a vote. This opponent may be Trump, but even if it isn’t, it’s still a Republican whose position on Israel and the conflict will make Biden’s response look measured.
Many people are angered by Biden’s response, but for pro-Palestinian supporters it’s cutting off your nose to spite your face to not vote this cycle for Biden. You’re actively allowing an even worse option.
That would be a great plan if we ever elected scientists to our legislature. Or even had politicians who listened to science.
We don’t, so here we are.
For at least a couple more years we will. It took us a bit to set up our system. Probably will take you a couple as well. Takes time to build a distribution network too, since you can’t really import it from growers in other states, so for a while ours will probably be cheaper.
But it’s still a huge win and it’s better for us all to have more states legalize it. And in the meantime we can just both suck Indiana dry of marijuana money.
Michigan native here. Give us back Toledo you fucks.
Presumably people who bought NFTs. If you’re going to trick yourself into thinking your dumb, AI-generated piece of shitty “art” was a worthwhile investment, you might as well enjoy the perks of being in such an exclusive, stupid club.
In my experience, ad personalization is still so bad it has no impact, like in your last example. But at least now I’m not seeing random shit. I don’t really bother to try and counter targeted ads, and the vast majority of the ads I get are for products I actually already bought or never intended to buy but was researching for other purposes. Yes, Google knows I spent a lot of time researching drills, but guess what, Home Depot isn’t telling them I bought a drill, so I’ll get drill ads for a month. And yeah, I looked at a bunch of luxury sail yachts, private jets, and cars, but it’s not because I suddenly make more money. It’s because I’m interested in design and engineering. But Google just stupidly assumes I became a billionaire overnight and gives me 100’ yacht ads.
I’d honestly be more worried about a random ad getting lucky and pre-emptively catching my interest. Targeted ads are so reactive it’s not a problem.
Read the article. The UAW has just signed a ~5 year contract, expiring in 2028. He’s calling for other unions, between now and then, to align their contract expirations with the UAW’s. This is not something that’s possible to do in a short period of time, because it relies upon various other union contracts ending, and realistically by the time we get to 2026/2027 no union is going to sign a sub-2 year contract.
It’s kind of dumb, I kind of think they’re doing it for PR, but it also is a reasonable strategy.
Is the next goal to try working towards a national ban?
Yes.
Are they stupid enough to not realize that would be political suicide?
Yes.
Some have expressed an interest in targeting contraception next. Keep in mind, many believe in replacement theory and want to restrict immigration (of people of color), which is the only thing currently keeping our replacement rate positive. So the fulfillment of their dream to eliminate immigration without also tanking our future economy is basically by forcing people to have babies. Ideally white babies, but they’re probably not too picky on who is picking crops, flipping burgers, and building cars, because they can also keep gerrymandering the shit out of states to keep minorities from gaining proportional voting power.
I mean, good journalism costs money and journalists deserve a living wage. Everyone hates ads, so what does that leave reputable sites that don’t want to just be shills?
Maybe for that specific article it’s ironic, but it’s not like the Wired web page is bothering to check what the headline it’s serving is before asking readers to sign up.
“Free and open internet” still costs a ton of money. Not everyone is able, nor should be expected to volunteer their time to provide content or services to others for free.
Exactly! And it’s not like crossover content doesn’t happen between publishers already without blockchain. Look at Fortnite. All it takes is a promo code.
The belief amongst some is that reddit basically did a rug pull. People could and would buy these crypto points with real money, so reddit likely made money. Odds are it just was not successful outside of niche subreddits, hence:
Its newer Contributor Program, which rewards users with actual money from the Reddit gold and karma they accrue, is one such example. “Part of why we’re moving past this product is that we’ve already launched, or are actively investing in, several products that accomplish what the Community Points program was trying to accomplish, while being easier to adopt and understand,” Reddit’s director of consumer and product communications, Tim Rathschmidt, told TechCrunch.
Crypto also hopefully seems to be on the decline, and it’s possible Reddit did not want to appear to be behind the times.
And where these are most popular, the police would choose not to do anything anyway.
I just bought a big ass TV, and I’ve just started buying discs for movies I truly want to own for a few reasons.
You own it, period.
Even if you trust Amazon, do you trust your ISP to stream 4K reliably on demand? I don’t. Fuck Comcast.
A physical collection just kind of looks nice, especially if you fork out for Steelbooks and only buy your favorites. Steelbooks on eBay are like ~$30.
This is what happens when you don’t teach your kids the Laws of Thermodynamics in school…
No, it’s not a terrible argument. Anyone can have a pitch or idea. That does not mean it’s automatically a viable product/service or a viable business.
It’s a valid question, how do we define “founder”? To play devil’s advocate, I’m curious if the people who think Musk didn’t co-found Tesla also agree Aaron Schwartz didn’t co-found Reddit. He joined later, after reddit was already incorporated by Hoffman and Ohanian.
In business, “founder” is already an honorary title. It has no inherent power. Co-founders often ensure they get C-suite positions as a company grows, have stock/shares, or other legal powers, but none of those are guaranteed just by being a “founder”. So practically, there’s no difference between calling Musk a “co-founder” versus “honorary co-founder.” Let’s just focus on calling him a piece of shit for the very definitive and obvious things we can point to.