This is the way he’s always been and it’s only getting worse.
Employees have always had to manage him not the other way around; a perpetual petulant toddler banging his hands on the table; ruining everything he touches with his Reverse-Midas-Touch so they keep him at bay.
If you have money, then in the business world you have intrinsic value.
When you have enough, you reach the tipping point where it doesn’t just need to be the only thing you provide, but it outweighs others ways you hurt the business.
The less your ideas are useful and the more money you hoard, the faster it changes.
It can go quickly downhill when the CEOs wealth is tied to stock price.
And ends disastrously when they go somewhere that workers aren’t used to them. Because the CEO was never told they used to be babysat just for their money, they legit believe they’re a genius
It’s impressive then that the starship stack is stainless steel not carbon. Musk planned a giant carbon fibre rocket. The engineers he hired got him to change size and change material
You have to think who gets that wealthy and is like "Let's go to work!" You have to be psychotic to have more wealth than you can ever spend and not go fuck off somewhere and enjoy it. I would never go back to a job even if I was running the place, I'd just do whatever I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
See, idk if I could do that the rest of my life. I’m dreading retirement, even though it’s a long way off, as I have no idea how I’ll handle it…
I could do maybe a month of nothing then I start getting antsy and depressed. Working gives structure to my life, and while I really hate getting up and going to it, it’s better for me than the alternative…even when I don’t have to worry about money.
I feel you. On the other hand, you might find something different to pass/spend your time with. Maybe you return to your job. Maybe you start a new company, maybe you start to do arts and crafts, or…
I feel you. On the other hand, you might find something different to pass/spend your time with. Maybe you return to your job. Maybe you start a new company, maybe you start to do arts and crafts, or…
Yea, but would you pretend to be a business genius while in actuality being the world’s biggest spoiled dork? Like Tommy Boy but without the charisma and infinitely more needy for a positive reception. I think, even as delusional as I am, you and I would recognize we’d likely need a different role.
Musky boy gives us the Cyber Truck, and a dancing jackass in a leotard and helmet for a robot…
No, but I’m neither rich nor a narcissistic prick, just a regular asshole.
Always thought Musk was a piece of shit, glad my initial thought is being proven correct.
That’s a pretty sad revelation. We’ve been so beaten down that we can’t imagine being happy pursuing whatever we’d like to do day after day without “creating value.”
And we only get this one go at life. One life to live and we’ve been so sapped of the entire concept of “living” that work is our life. How sad that is.
It just seems crazy. I don’t know, it just feels so wrong to hear people think this way.
Ehhhh. I’m a Stone Mason working in conservation, my job is really satisfying and rewarding. I enjoy my work generally, and passing on the skills to the next generation is an extra bonus feel good. I wish I was able to structure my own life enough to not want to go to work if I was independently wealthy, but currently struggling with possibly adhd or autism spectrum stuff, and while I would love to be able to work on stuff for myself I need external structure…
Yes, I know that last sentence was a bit fucky, I’m in bed and lazy, not changing it.
Mr. “If one times one equals one that means that two is of no value because one times itself has no effect. One times one equals two because the square root of four is two, so what’s the square root of two? Should be one, but we’re told it’s two, and that cannot be.” Terryology Howard?
Refuting thousands of years of knowledge and science and saying we’ve, ‘been doing math wrong this whole time’ takes a whole nutter level of nutter.
See? He and Elon need to get together and compare science notes. Imagine the new Tesla/SpaceX Cyber Rocket Truck those two could come up with together!
This is the way it should be everywhere. I’m sorry but tipping before the order is even delivered creates a fucked up incentive with the drivers and the people getting food. Especially when apps like DoorDash make it very apparent. Who tipped well before they even pick up food. The tip should always be rendered after service.
This has always annoyed me about food delivery services. Tips are supposed to be reflective of the service delivered. How can I know if that service is going to be good before a driver is even assigned to my order? Prompt after the delivery to add a tip.
Secondary note, if a company cannot pay their employees a living wage without tips than said company shouldn’t exist. Nobody should have to rely on tips to…you know…exist.
if a company cannot pay their employees a living wage without tips
Actually, where I live, we don't have a tip, but companies won't even if they can. The sad truth is that businesses won't without pressure. They just call it a social problem, weakness of their country, whatever.
So, I deliver for DoorDash from time to time, and it’s made me change how I view tipping in these apps.
I’m not tipping for quality of service (it’s hard to be ‘good’ vs ‘great’ on pick up, drive, drop off as a service, and if the driver manages to do that badly, DoorDash will make it right for you and ding the driver). Instead I’m tipping based on quantity of work, e.g., the distance I’m asking the driver to cover or the size/weight of the order if it’s something like groceries. While this is something that DoorDash should be doing, it’s not and is left to the customer to close the gap voluntarily.
DoorDash likes to act like they’re just connecting customers to people that want to make a delivery, but they’ve set up the system to feel like DoorDash is the service provider rather than the drivers. In reality, drivers should be setting their fees as independent contractors and DoorDash should only be providing the interface.
close but not quite. Tips are given for excellent service. It’s an extra added bonus for going above and beyond. It should not (and as far as I’m concerned) is not used to pay a person’s base wage.
If a server’ wage plus tip does not federal minimum wage, the business is required to make up the difference. I’m not saying the $7ish an hour federal minimum is a liveable wage.
What makes this extra stupid, is this means the first $5 or so each hour in tips only removes the obligation from the business owner and does nothing to help the server.
That only applies to employees. That does NOT apply to contractors. There is no minimum wage for contractors.
There is no “tipped minimum wage” for most delivery drivers. DD does not have to pay one thin dime if the driver doesn’t make enough tips to reach minimum wage.
Further, the contracted worker is responsible for their own expenses: the IRS says a mile of travel costs $0.655. DD’s usual $2 base pay covers only the first three miles worth of travel expenses, even if the actual travel is much more than 3 miles. I regularly see 12-mile trips with $2 to $2.50 base pay. The driver pays $8 to make these trips; the first $6 of the customer’s tip just goes to expenses before he actually earns anything.
minimum wage at restaurants in washington state is $16.28 starting next year. It’s $15.74 right now. They still expect a 18% tip. Should I just say fuck it and not tip?
my mindset is that if minimum wage is already a given, then I should be tipping a lot less than standard. Though doing so gets you shit treatment in future visits because tipping is more of a bribe than a remark on good service. Remarkable how all this works, isn’t it?
Your statement is accurate and reasonable for servers, who are employees of the restaurant, and are guaranteed to earn at least minimum wage.
But we are talking about delivery drivers. Drivers are generally contractors, not employees. There is no minimum wage for contractors. Further, contractors are responsible for their own expenses. The IRS says a mile of travel costs $0.655. DD typically pays a base rate of $2 per delivery, whether around the block, or 20 miles away. That $2 fee covers 3 miles of expenses, which is about a 2-mile delivery, plus travel to the store.
Typically, the driver ends up paying all of the base pay in travel expenses. The only part of his compensation he actually gets to keep is the tip.
I’m fine with a tip for over and above service, but otherwise yes I agree.
Worth noting that this will absolutely destroy the gig economy (which I’m kinda also fine with, tbh) and things like food delivery we see today. There is a reason very few businesses delivered prior to the delivery apps.
Never offer cash tips on delivery platforms. People occasionally claim in their delivery instructions that they will pay an additional cash tip; nobody actually does. Talk to any driver and they will tell you the same: cash tippers are non-tippers.
Drivers can’t even see your offer of a cash tip until after they have accepted the offer. If you don’t offer a tip at checkout, your cash-tip offer is completely indistinguishable from a no-tip offer.
Then maybe they should have corrected them when they were just starting out on all the crazy, rather than endorsing the dude that’s literally the closest thing this world has seen to the anti-christ.
considering his cult worships as the 2nd coming… he himself described himself as “the chosen one”, parrots reiligious one-liners while leading those who do worship him- and yes, that is the appropriate term- away from the teachings of christ.
Yea, it’s an archetype, but it’s funny how some predictions are oddly specific for such a broad recurrent archetype:
“… a despicable person will arise… a man of contempt… to whom the royal honor has not been rightfully conferred. He will slip in when least expected and will seize the kingdom through flattery and intrigue.” Daniel 11:21
“He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior… He will use every kind of evil deception to fool those on their way to destruction, because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them.” Daniel 8:25, 2 Thess 2:10
“But then the court will convene, and all his power will be taken away.” Daniel 7:26
From these, the Antichrist’s description is starting to sound like Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil and how that is scarier than fictional supernatural evil with horns and pitchforks.
yep there are many like him around the world, and I’d wager to say that most of them are actually potentially more dangerous than Trump because they’re smarter and actually have an agenda of their own. What really did the USA in was not the person Trump, but rather that the whole republican apparatus and especially the corporate media went all in with him after it became clear he’d win the primaries. With the 2 party system, that means that basically half of the country was set up to deify him in a way that they haven’t really tried with previous republican candidates
Man there was this (satirical, but not inaccurate) blog about how trump actually matches many features of the anti-christ, but I can’t find it now, only a bunch of blogspam copying it
Remember, the Antichrist is not just "really evil person". It's "really evil person who convinces a lot of people that he's a good person and a prophet".
The term is open to interpretation, but it certainly doesn’t simply refer to non-christians.
Some interpretations view the antichrist as a specific individual or figure who opposes Christ in some hypothetical, end of days type situation, while others see it as a broader symbolic representation of a certain figure or person that represents the complete opposite of Christ’s teachings or the spirit of Christianity.
“Anti” can mean “opposite” just as much as it can mean “against”.
It may be there are worse people but they are more akin to satan (e.g Hitler was atheist (well not really he believed in the occult but didn't go down religion). Trump claims to be some sort of Jesus figure to religious so hits some.of the "pretends to be Christ" points of.the antichrist
(Edit Hitler religious views are very complex but I still. Stand by point he less acted like "Christ" figure than trump)
I’m going to take issue with your simplification and classification of Hitler, and the wider Nazi ideology here because I think this is very important given some of the patterns we see repeating from the early 20th century. There was a lot of nuance to the public and politically expedient viewpoints that Hitler professed regarding religion throughout his life versus his private viewpoints which colored the ideological mechanisms of Nazism.
It is tacitly incorrect to state that Hitler was an occultist, or an atheist by modern convention.
**Regarding Occultism:**He detested the mysticism, neo-paganism, and occult underpinnings that Himler brought to the party (specifically the SS). Hitler made it very clear that he considered these viewpoints to be sophistry and repugnant to his own view of the world, but he allowed them in so far as he supported Himler as a leader of the party.
**Regarding atheism:**Hitler, likewise, considered atheism to be an ideological evolution of Jewish Bolshevism that he believed was essentially responsible for the rise of Soviet Communism. It is well documented from close confidants who surrounded Hitler, and wrote about his views contemporaneously that he believed atheism was an ignorant and dangerous return to the animalistic hedonism of humanity.
Why am I bothering to quibble over these distinctions? Well, for one thing because truly dangerous political leaders generally possess the intelligence, as well as tactical forethought to manipulate and twist at the very heart of the tribal labelism that proliferates through the uneducated masses of society. They then warp these convenient in-group / out-group dynamics to fit the needs of their political ambitions. We see this today, although in a much lazier fashion, with the alliance of convenience between the neo-conservative and christian nationalist movements that have proven to be a foundational undergirding to the “Trump Cult” as it were.
We should all understand the complicated historical relationship of religion and politics from the 20th century. Especially regarding the manipulation of those relationships which lead to the rise of authoritarianism on a scale never seen before or since. Lest we go down that same road again, except the next time will invariably be the last time because the power of the technological panopticon we are now capable of creating would enslave humanity or destroy our species.
PS: If you’re interested in understanding the complexities of the religious and ideological positions espoused by Hitler throughout his life as well as the Nazi party as a whole this Wikipedia article on the subject is actually really good.
Someone mentioned this somewhere else in the thread, but the antichrist isn’t just a super-duper evil dude; he’s an evil dude with a religious following. He’s a guy where people voluntarily worship him. Not because they’re forced, not because they’re apathetic and just going with the flow, they willingly worship him. Additionally, trump has had pastors claim him to be sent from God, or that he is some kind of savior, which, iirc, is another characteristic of the antichrist. As evil as the others are, I’m pretty sure trump fits the bill better than they do.
That’s an interesting read, thank you! Although I would still say most points on this list still apply to many fascist dictators
I’m not sure about the point regarding “one term”, surely the bible didn’t know about the system of presidential terms? How exactly does it say there? Same about oil, what is the biblical equivalent?
It’s all from the Benjamin Corey post I linked in a reply to the comment you’re replying to. The BIble is talking about different oil-- either food, or lamp oil. 'One term’s is a happy coincidence, the bible says ~3.5 years
The bible has a bunch of different references to oil, as it was used a lamp fuel(and some rituals).
This one refers to Revelation 6:6
And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
From KJ or this one from the NIV
Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “Two pounds of wheat for a day’s wages, and six pounds of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”
Referring to how the price of food would go up, but oil and alcohol would not.
I'm not saying it's "special". Hypocritical, counterintuitive, ironic, sure...
What I'm saying is that Trump represents the very antithesis of what Christianity preaches. He is a very high-profile and public embodiment of their "seven deadly sins". Which, to me at least, is very anti-christ-like. I'm not sure why you need that spelled out...
I mean, if we’re being all passive-aggressive I’ll also happily point out that the seven deadly sins have nothing to do with the antichrist technically, they are not even mentioned in the bible afaik. So bit of a crappy argument really
Pretty sure while the cult of Hitler was insane… and definitely… more… hitler never actually claimed any pretense to being any sort of Christian-god-sent whatever.
Nazism was a sort of its own thing, and not particularly Christian, where the cult of Trump definitely is.
While Jews were far and away the largest group that suffered in camps and the holocaust…they were
The Founders were steeped in the Age of Enlightenment. Modern Americans wouldn’t even recognize it as Christianity. Like The Jefferson Bible
… completed in 1820 by cutting and pasting with a razor and glue numerous sections from the New Testament as extractions of the doctrine of Jesus. Jefferson’s condensed composition excludes all miracles by Jesus and most mentions of the supernatural, including sections of the four gospels that contain the Resurrection and most other miracles, and passages that portray Jesus as divine.
You could label their morality puritanical but I think cynicism would also equally apply. If you view humans as naturally greedy and selfish, society needs to codify expected behavior to keep it in check.
Jefferson raped other people’s children and sold his own. Washington was not only a slaver but used his victims’ flesh as a cosmetic. (Washington’s famous “wooden” teeth were actually harvested from enslaved humans)
Secular government is a good idea on it’s own, not because 18th century R. Kelly and Leatherface said so.
yeah, it seems what they meant is freedom to be a christian without the pope and absolutely nothing else. no nonbelievers, no non-abrahamics, hell, not even any abrahamic believers who believe in other religions. protestant, mormon, or cringe catholic, take your pick or go to literal hell.
and the best part is when they use the excuse of religious freedom as a shield for their bigotry. like i’m sorry, if your holy book literally calls for gays to be stoned to death that’s a call to violence, it doesn’t deserve to be protected or tolerated.
I feel like this is inaccurate. What other religions were on hand in the late 1700s? The native religions, of course, but the white guys did not care about that.
Of course there was an emphasis on avoiding dependence on any one organized religion. That was one way of keeping power in the right hands.
And in the 1970s and 1980s, it depends where in the US, but in many places or was and is very common to be Christian. If there is an strong majority, there’s no need to explicitly weaponize because society itself is already pushing your agenda. But that doesn’t mean harm wasn’t caused.
I hope you get up on the other side of the bed tomorrow. It sounds like you’re going through a rough time in life, but with luck perhaps it’s only a one day phenomenon.
Also, if you want to troll, try to do a better job than that. I got kind of bored reading it.
There is the story of Sodom, two times in Leviticus, the obvious coverup of Johnathan, the reference in Ezekiel (which according to modern prot studies of the bible is a big freaken deal), two times in Paul’s letters, and a derived part of Matthew.
Homosexuality is attacked more times than all of the diet rules combined.
yeah, it seems what they meant is freedom to be a christian without the pope and absolutely nothing else. no nonbelievers, no non-abrahamics, hell, not even any abrahamic believers who believe in other religions. protestant, mormon, or cringe catholic, take your pick or go to literal hell.
If by “they” you’re referring to the folks who wrote the Constitution (many of whom were Deists, not Christians), that’s very much historical revisionism. The religious right certainly thinks that’s what they thought, but it isn’t true.
i did think that but i stand corrected by @Jase. seems like the founding fathers were actually based (at least on this topic) and it’s just the people who like to speak for them who are corrupting this message.
that said though, there are a lot of calls for religious freedom nowadays that shape up like this: basically, “i should be able to practice my religion and i guess i’ll endure yours because you’re in power, but we’re gonna do something about those unbelievers, right? …right?”
Politics mixing with religion has been terrible for both.
No it hasn’t. Religions benefit almost immeasurably from infiltrating politics in so many ways, ranging from exemption from all discrimination laws, to having their private schools funded by tax money, to controlling the majority of hospitals in the country, to being allowed to rape and marry children consequence free.
Eh, that’s the church as an institution. I mean religion in the more abstract sense. Political leanings becoming tied to a religious stance has become ridiculous, and has watered down Christianity quite a lot, to the point where even Trump gets to go pray once a year and call himself the Christian vote. It’s also been remarkably divisive, as naturally, a lot of Christians aren’t that, and hot political debates somehow become religious debates.
Tying religion to politics has allowed politics to slowly pull that horse further and further, to the point where “Christianity” now means southern fundamentalism to a lot, maybe even most, people. I think without political influence, we’d be a lot closer today to how Christianity started, and is meant to look.
Not that I disagree with the sentiment that things would be better for all of us if thr GOP hadn’t courted the religious right, but I did want to mention that Christianity in the 1st century looked a lot different than it has in the 20th or now.
The religion has changed dramatically over the years. And it was usually a collection of disparate sects. The new testament canon as we know it wasn’t agreed upon until around 400, and the standardization of mainstream belief, the Nicene Creed, had only been adopted a generation before.
And of course the split during the Reformation in the 1500s changed white a bit. Even decade by decade you see different movements, changed in interpretation (slavery being ok vs not), and such.
We don’t have any of the original biblical sources, and none of them are believed to be writings directly from Jesus or his disciples themselves. What we have is filtered through other parties and further filtered through the canonization processes (OT and NT both).
So it’s a bit tough to really pin down what Christianity was “meant to be”. But I wished it wasn’t what it is in many parts of the US.
The separation of church and state has forced American denominations to compete in a marketplace for souls/money, and they have become ruthlessly efficient corporatized entities, using marketing and business-process management, and exploiting tax advantages and high switching costs.
Meanwhile, in Europe, you have official state Catholicism or Protestantism-flavors, which are moribund, inspire little passion, and most everyone is either atheist, agnostic, or un-passioned.
Such an interesting statement. I can kind of see what you mean. Would you happen to have more reading material on this topic? It would be very appreciated.
lmao, so the church and state shouldn’t be separated because the government is inefficient and its inefficiencies should remain to be inflicted upon the church?
that’s… actually kinda based, lol. i do appreciate the objective and the unconventional method to achieve it. however, i think there’s a difference between being a government entity and having control over governance. the latter should never be given to the church, because that’s one hella fast way to surpass all the damage they have managed to do under the american system. for example, while your statements seem accurate for western europe and the nordics (emphasis on “seem”, i don’t live there) but over here in hungary the “christian democratic party” is literally the only party our government is in a coalition with, and they get to pass discriminatory laws basically as fast as they can come up with them. the closest analogy i can give is imagine if all the shit that’s going on in those red states was going on country-wide with no one left to oppose it.
that’s also what europe looked like before the “age of enlightenment”, which is separation of church and state is so important in public consciousness, even if not technically implemented.
still, i do like your idea, and yes, inflicting bureaucracy upon the church would be helpful. maybe it’s not a separation of church and state that we need, but protection of the state from the church’s influence.
The separation of church and state has forced American denominations to compete in a marketplace for souls/money, and they have become ruthlessly efficient corporatized entities, using marketing and business-process management, and exploiting tax advantages and high switching costs.
This is not a product of separation of church and state, but of the atrocious combination of hyper-capitalism and tax exemption for religious organizations.
Yeah it is one of the unexpected results. It is an imperfect analogy but Europe Christianity has become a domesticated animal that knows not to cause trouble. American Christianity is a mean badass sewer rat that not only fends for itself but can’t be killed. I really doubt anyone could have predicted this before it happened.
This reminds me of one of my favorites quotes, which is about the 2020 US presidential election, and I’m not even from the USA, but it’s suitable in so much scenarios in life: “It shouldn’t be this close.”
I think that’s a pretty simplistic take considering we just swapped our candidate less than 6 months before the election. I agree with the article’s take that Walz has potential to unify the differing democratic coalitions, and don’t see any evidence of your claim.
Walz’s elevation earns the left a big victory. Yet because Walz himself isn’t of the left, the pick seems intended to serve a unifying purpose: a candidate who appeals to all different stripes of Democrats for different reasons. The fact that Democrats across the political spectrum seem thrilled by the pick — with effusive support coming from people ranging from Sen. Joe Manchin (WV) to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) — seems to validate the theory.
It’s important to be clear: The VP selection matters way less for elections than people think. It’s much more important to select a potential president than an optimal running mate.
But you can see why Harris sees picking Walz as smart politics. It allows her to simultaneously hand the left a win without necessarily tacking left — potentially keeping her coalition united even as she works to win over the general election’s decisive centrists.
I think its important to recognize the value this VP pick can bring, and I’ve not known vox to try to suggest something like that without reason.
Edit: I’m also going to add that your reply is a disingenuous attempt to falsely turn this into a binary unified or not unified condition, not that the article is making such a claim. I entirely reject your statement.
Just wondering how the heck Walz can be considered “not of the left.” Looking at his accomplishments with universal background checks, free school lunch etc it seems he’s accomplished more left leaning goals than 99% of his colleagues
We are not using global standards, this is a US paper about US politics.
There may be only one or two successful politicians in the entire US who meet the “global standards,” which would make calling him out for “not being of the left” really fucking stupid.
Certainly from a mainstream political standpoint he appears to be fairly liberal with some progressive policies. However, the writer is using the term ‘leftists’ to mean socialists or left-wing “radicals” (whatever that means).
His stance of Israel is really what will be the clincher for leftists, as is the case with Harris. On the plus side, they are both taking a softer line in terms of how they discuss the genocide in public, but of course neither of them would ever utter the phrase with relation to the Palestinians – that would be too radical.
Therefore, there’s a lot of doubt as to whether either of them will break from Biden’s policy of continuing to send bombs and military hardware to Israel, as both are apparently very much in the “Israel has the right to defend itself” camp.
The author is making a distinction between progressive and leftist, and this interpretation may vary from reader to reader, considering in many ways the two views share many similarities. I personally have no issue with the classification, calling his accomplishments progressive or leftist makes little difference to me, but it could be viewed differently by others who may have drawn a line between the two labels. Manchin and AOC rallying behind Walz does appear to lend credence to the idea that he could be a unifying force.
I read your comment after the person you were replying to had deleted their comment. So I don’t even know what you’re talking about. But imma upvote you anyway because your comment is still awesome.
Might encourage a few of them to donate a little more. Actually no, they will just create a new business entity and funnel the funds there under another name
Yeah, it doesn’t get much better. Silver’s great when it’s just about numbers, but less so when it’s slightly more intangible. This column might be the peak example.
Shapiro has Israel baggage that I am so glad I don't have to hear about online for the next forever. Kelly had a messy divorce that I'm sure nobody wants to have dredged up. Walz seems relatable to a great number of people.
Shapiro’s Israel issue would have been a toss-up issue. Some independents wanted him to be very pro-Israel, others no so much. Probably wouldn’t have made a huge difference.
On the other hand, might have made a difference in Michigan among the large muslim minority who may not have come out to vote.
I really just hope Walz is not going to be another Kaine.
Okay, but lots of Democrats won’t vote for a pro-genocide administration. Someone who volunteered to be a soldier for their regime would have been seen as proof to them that Kamala was just as bad as Biden on Israel.
Not all Democrats will vote blue no matter who and Harris’s pick seems to be an acknowledgement that she can’t afford to piss off the uncommitted movement.
As evident in Cori Bush getting primaried then losing. AOC dialed back her anti Israel stance for fear of getting primaried herself. Saw an interview where she spoke candidly about that.
Yeah, people on social media, including Lemmy and Reddit, think that Democrats are definitely not pro-Israel. Many are. The party includes a wide range of opinions on Israel.
I remember listening to a podcast they would make, a lady and a guy and Nate Silver. I think it’s that podcast that makes me not really like him or his ideas aside from the numbers and the team he surrounds himself with. I look at 538 and I trust it for the most part but if it has Silver attached to it, I think of it as editorial
He seems to have gotten more right-wing in recent years, although he doesn’t talk about it too explicitly (maybe he was always like that and I just didn’t know).
I remember him downplaying the J6 insurrection during one of the podcasts which was the point where I lost a lot of respect for him, and frankly him leaving isn’t a big loss as he seemed to be just over election modelling in general by the end.
Silver’s claim that Walz is a Tim Kaine pick is just dead on arrival. I’m sorry, I appreciate his actual model, but his argument here is just too speculative.
Yeah, I typically like Nate, but today’s column seemed sloppy. I don’t see how Walz is the “safe” choice - he’s further left than Shapiro. I also didn’t get what he was saying about Minnesota values not translating. I think Walz was a bold pick and I’m happy with the choice.
Seconded. Walz isn’t “safe” if you look at his policies. He’s pretty far left and is just fine implementing social policy, gun control, and using government money to fund social programs. That’s pretty radical if you’re a Republican. While he isn’t a policymaker as the VP, he’s a tie-breaker and he’s a future presidential candidate should Harris win.
He doesn’t even understand that “Minnesota Nice” is not a compliment. It refers to when people who have lived here their whole lives and have close often going back to high school. When someone from out of state moves to Minnesota, their co-workers, neighbors etc will be friendly, act interested in the newbs lives, and even offer things like “we should get together sometime”. That is in no way an invitation to actually do anything. If the newb proposes a date “to get the kids together”, the Minnesotan will hem, haw and make up excuses.
Harris should refuse Fox because they have claimed in court to be an entertainment channel and not a news organization. If she does use her ABC time she should post that on a giant screen behind her podium.
Considering how quick they are to point out that Biden legitimately won the 2020 election now that they had to pay out, Harris should hammer the point that Biden won in 2020 to poke the bear that is Trump. We’ll see if Fox is willing to be sued again and not call him on it or cut him off.
This is a very good point. If she ever ends up on Fox (hope not), it would be negligent not to use this attack. T**** lost, and he still can’t admit this basic, important fact. A fact his lawyers, all around the country, could not escape, in even the most friendly jurisdiction. Some of them are now disbarred because of this. Fox News paid an incredible sum (and lost Cucker) because of this.
Read article that she refused and told Trump he needs to stick to the debate he already agreed to on a prime time channel. Not all of us have cable but lots of people can pick up ABC. She said she be there whether he is or not.
She already is sticking to the scheduled debate that will be next week and starting that they can schedule additional ones. The whole Fox News stunt likely is an attempt to avoid debate at all.
To be clear Fox has never argued that their entire network is entertainment and not news. They have made that distinction between what they call opinion shows like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity’s old shows and their actual news segments. Fox does produce a legitimate news broadcast that is considerably less biased and inflammatory than those opinion shows. Unfortunately that broadcast is not nearly as popular as the garbage shows they’ve had to make the arguments you’re referencing about.
Not entire network of shows is entertainment there’s the 2 hours a day when they give their preferred hosts a break. I don’t really know the hours spent on actual news but I have the impression it’s in low single digit hours. I also assume they put more emphasis on right wing topics during those times, as factual as they may be rather than a balanced news source. If I’m wrong I’ll gladly be corrected since I don’t really watch broadcast TV anyways (corrected typo)
I don’t give a flying fuck about the bullshit excuses of lying propagandists. And no, their “news” segments are not “legitimate:” the fact that they’re “considerably less biased” than the rest of it is just damning with faint praise. The “news” segments may not tell outright lies like the talking-head shows do, but they damn well lie by omission in terms of which stories they choose to cover and who they choose to quote.
I don’t think anything I said could be considered praise of Fox News. It’s simply more factual and measured than the profanity laden emotional outburst you chose to go with. Fox can suck a whole bag of dicks for all I care, I just think it’s important to have your facts straight. After all, not doing so is exactly why most of us have a problem with Fox to begin with.
I just think it’s important to have your facts straight.
Then why didn’t you? The fact is that even what they call “news” is still extremely biased. The fact that it’s “less” so, compared to commentary shows that are so far off the deep end that I’d have to invent new superlatives to adequately express how biased they are, does not change its position on an absolute bias scale.
You called that shit “legitimate,” and that just isn’t true.
Are you really getting your panties in a bunch because I’m not agreeing with you hard enough? Or is it that you’d rather virtue signal than acknowledge facts? The main takeaway of what I originally said is that Fox has never said in court that their news segments are entertainment that has no obligation to stick to the truth. The person I responded to made that claim and it is factually incorrect. That argument only applies to what they call their opinion segments. If you take issue with that then you’re ignorant of the facts and that’s all there is to it.
If you want to interpret the rest of what I said as an endorsement of the quality of their news segments then that’s your own business. Those were clearly relative statements which you are choosing to be intentionally obtuse about so please take this opportunity to take the rest of your unnecessarily hostile comments with you when you fuck off.
“We’re happy to discuss further debates after the one both campaigns have already agreed to,” he added. “Mr. Anytime, anywhere, anyplace should have no problem with that unless he’s too scared to show up on the 10th.”
I will confess that a month ago I said replacing Biden with Kamala would be a mistake. I was so wrong. She is absolutely killing it. She is bringing exactly the right energy and tone this campaign needs to take on Trump. She is not taking any of his shit but doing it with so much class it really does highlight how disgusting Trump and his goons are.
I was in the same boat. Basically the second they announced it a wave of relief washed over me and I realized this is what we need
Edit: I wasn’t expecting so much interaction. I’m glad that she is gaining everybody’s support, and giving us a bit of electricity needed to get through this final push towards election time!
I’m honestly not a big fan of her and would have preferred to see someone more progressive get the nomination, but I honestly had the same feeling as you now that we actually have a chance at defeating Trump.
Doesn’t matter when the DNC leadership puts their thumbs on the scale to prevent them from gaining any traction by doing things like excluding them from debates, giving funding to one candidate over another, or feeding stories favorable to their candidate to the media.
What we need is ranked choice voting so that we can kick both the DNC and RNC to the curb and form parties that aren’t run by protectionist, out of touch millionaires/billionaires.
Can’t get ranked choice with the current parties and third parties aren’t creeping up in the polls to displace them. It’s why Bernie ran in the Democratic primary. And we have more elected progressive Democrats now than we did because of it. It’s a long game and it needs to grow from the bottom up to get electoral reform.
I was pretty distraught after the announcement, but within a few hours as the wave of support built, I came out of the hole and started feeling positive. So glad that the support fell behind so quickly.
I also have felt unburdened by what has been, as if a spell was cast on me. I had no doubt though that replacing Joe Biden with literally anyone, including his son or dog, would increase democrats chance of winning. I think in my case it was more of letting go of pent up anger towards the rotting carcass of the current president and all those who campaigned for his reelection. Including the lovely folk of lemmy, for whom I still might hold some animosity. To those that rode hard for Biden, a sincere fuck you.
Thank God Dems got their act together. Thank God Biden stepped aside. This is a much better timeline now.
Biden was still the right choice if the Dems were never going to run someone else. Full stop. Trump literally just told Christian voters they’ll never have to vote again if they vote for him this time.
But I never “rode hard for Biden” in the sense that I felt he should’ve been the choice for the Dems. My argument has always been whoever the Dems pick is necessary to save the democratic process in this country (among many other things).
I am relieved the conversation has broken free from simply voting against Trump to having a choice people might actually like. Proof is going to be in the pudding, but I’m cautiously optimistic.
I wasn’t sure she was the answer, but the debate was so appalling, I felt something had to change. I find her far more compelling than I thought I would.
I think the Democrats need to do a much larger PSA about what exactly this means. I’m not sure 100% of Trumps cult, or many moderates, would be cool with knowing that Biden right now could have his DOJ lock up basically anyone in the US, with no reason needed, and then pardon them (his DOJ). This would all be actions that cannot be questioned, or used against the President as he has full immunity to:
pardon anyone for anything
command his DOJ
Those are the 2 examples that the Supreme Court majority gave as examples in their “ruling”, and they gave both a completely made up unconstitutional condition of immunity that cannot be used against the President, or questioned/debated in any way. These 2 items are a gift to Trump in their hope that he takes the white house and will allow him to round up everyone he wants and put them in death camps if he wanted. He orders his DOJ to do it, pardons them all, and it’s all above the law with no possible oversight available. But I think if more people on the right knew that Biden has this power right now, BUT!, if some on the left get their way and they replace Biden on the ballot, and they win, that person would now wield this absolute power.
The most effective way to get the word out would be a demonstration on Biden’s part. He could show how dangerous the power is and get rid of the traitorous fascists who created it at the same time.
yeah like go round them up and put them in a room. you gave me this power. now resign. all of you, or seal team 6 takes you out. boom. then Biden chooses the judges he wants, reverts the immunity and rolls back all the recent crap. fixes everything. easy. no more of a coup than the Nazis have done. but now it’s legal do it. for your very lives, do it, coz you guys are real real real close to fucking it up for everyone else too
What we need is for a Democratic president to do something bananas and claim immunity. I bet at least the less crazy Republicans would suddenly see how that could be a problem. Maybe if Joe set one of the conservative justices on fire as an official act.
But seriously, they have no problem with hypocrisy so that probably still wouldn’t help.
it will happen easily if biden wins. If the court majority becomes 5-4 liberal republicans will absolutely hop on board. Thats why dems should also float an electoral college reform and an amendment to ban gerrymandering. Even a ban on courts creating “immunity rules” should be floated since immunity is something that shouldn’t be handed out as often as the supreme court does it.
The amendment process is long and difficult and honestly being just willing to go through the extra steps makes good headlines.
The supreme court has nothing to do with constitutional amendments. To propose one you need a 2/3 majority vote in both the house and senate (or 2/3 of states calling a constitutional convention, but no amendment has gone through this process). Then, it requires that 75% of the states ratify it.
There’s no chance the amendment will even get 2/3 of the congressional vote, much less 75% of states agreeing to it.
to change some of the rules around the court you need an amendment because they’re in the constitution (lifetime appointments, for instance.)
The 11th amendment was explicitly also added to overturn a supreme court ruling, so historically passing an amendment was not always a problem and if its a problem now maybe some effort should be placed into fixing the difficulty problem as well.
The difficulty is that our governments and voters are so polarized that an amendment banning the government from drowning puppies wouldn’t have a chance in hell of getting passed.
Half of the country wants the supreme court ruling to stay.
Unfortunately you are right on this one. They couldn’t even get Equal Rights Ammendment passed and it was proposed in 1923. It got tossed around and talked about and got close to being ratified over the past century but ultimately didnt make it through.
Then in 2019 Alabama, Louisiana and South Dakota actually sued to prevent ERA from bring ratified when it was brought up again. That’s how much some states hate progress.
It’ll be interesting to see how this one plays out though. Will they kill it immediately or will it sit around in limbo for a century?
Upon re-reading, it looks like there is two paths, but both require two steps?
The first part, proposing an amendment:
An amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress, OR, if two-thirds of the States request one, by a convention called for that purpose.
Then the second part, ratifying the amendment:
The amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths of the State legislatures, OR three-fourths of conventions called in each State for ratification.
I am so fucking sick of these bigots pretending the science of “biological sex” is on their side.
In recent years, multiple studies of the brains of trans people have revealed areas of differentiation from those of cisgender people. And unless these bigots are prepared to argue that brains are not part of biology, they only have two choices: Deny the science somehow or accept that they’re just bigots who want to hate, regardless of the science.
And because unlike bigots, I like to back my shit up:
On top of that, there’s some indications of oligogenic causes resulting in various allele differences that wouldn’t necessarily show up on a brain scan.
In conclusion: Fuck bigots and their attempts to co-opt science in order to support their bigotry.
I’m glad you’re backing it up, but honestly, the answer to this whole “biological science” bullshit is simper- it’s none of their fucking business how someone else identifies. I don’t care what “science” says is a man or a woman. If someone says they’re a woman, it’s not my fucking business to tell them they aren’t.
Absolutely agreed. I only bring it up because the bigots like to claim science is on their side (while usually rejecting science to back up some kind of religious nonsense). So it’s nice to be able to throw actual science in their faces.
I’m glad to now have it for myself, so thank you for that, but I don’t know that showing them real science will work because they are not coming at this from a rational position. All they see is “man = penis, woman = vagina” and no amount of science will change their mind. Even bringing up basic things like people born with both sets of genitalia doesn’t phase them. “Well that’s just the exception to the rule,” as if that’s a thing in science. So when they say that they have science on their side, what they mean is that they’ve found some scientific studies that agreed with their preconceived, unscientific notions.
As they say- you shouldn’t play chess with pigeons.
What I’ve heard a lot of people do is not make a whole show to convince the other person but to convince people who may be on the fence or uneducated on the subject. Any third party observer who might just be learning about stuff.
Would you rather trust a random screeching about people birth genitals or someone who is posting scientific evidence to back up their claim and being calm and knowledgeable about the subject.
The issue at stake is people’s own fragile identities
Let me clarify: JK Rowling’s childhood learning of “boys have penises and girls have vaginas” runs so deep into her understanding of how she understands being a human that giving it up is scary and threatening.
Tbh I think her hate comes down to two things: she was raped by a man and is paranoid because she never dealt with that trauma in a healthy way and she recognized the right wing as a crop to be harvested. She’s an ideological predator.
Sad that she was raped but immediately declaring all trans people rapists just makes her an asshole. It’s a shame that people actually listen to her crap too.
Exactly, none of this has any bearing on their lives and odds are enormously in favor of the likelihood that these people will never even meet a trans person—and if they did it would make zero difference to them—so the real solution is to let it the fuck go.
All this talk about living rent-free in people’s minds and all that, yet here we are, you know?
They may very well have met multiple trans people and never even known it. Their hatred for trans people is really just for the ones who can’t “pass.” They don’t think about the others. They think of “a man in a dress.” If you showed them a picture of Valentina Sampaio without saying who she was, they’d say she was a woman. And it would be fun to see their reaction when you told them she was trans because at least some of them would see her and be aroused.
Yes, and that’s where the “it would make zero difference” part comes in. Leaving people well enough alone is so easy, it’s crazy how socially inept these ghouls can be.
Except it is important in competition where lines must be drawn if we are to enact protected classes. If we don’t need to then that is a different discussion, but for now there are many segregated competitions of all types that exist, which means you’re wrong.
Sure thing Bob, let me just stack that in-between “Evolution” and “climate change” on my shelf of “Things that don’t fit my bigoted, hateful, and selfish worldview, so I just conveniently ignore them.”
Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but why would you link to an article that mentions “biological sex” in the first sentence when trying to prove that there is no such thing as “biological sex”? I’m almost certainly missing something, so please excuse my ignorance.
You are misunderstanding. They are saying that biological sex is not the same as gender and it’s clear that a trans woman’s brain is much closer to their identified gender than the one assigned to them at birth.
So biological sex is real then? I keep being told that I fell for a lie that there is a such thing as “biological sex” and that there is no such thing as male and female humans. Is this not the case? Is “biological sex” a real thing?
I’ve always been under the impression that there are males and females. I know that sometimes they feel like they are in the wrong body, but I thought they were still males and females. I am repeatedly told by people in the trans community that this is a lie and that sex is not male and female and that this idea is part of their systemic oppression. I’m just trying to get a solid picture of what is going on exactly.
Of course biological sex is real. It’s just a lot more complicated than ‘male’ and ‘female’ because biology is not that simple. So yes, there are XY and XX humans and they can generally, but not universally, reproduce with each other. But that’s not all there is. For instance XXY and XYY are both possible, although often come with a host of other genetic problems (but not always). There are also people born with both types of genitalia, sometimes functional and sometimes not. On top of that, there are conditions like Swyer Syndrome, where someone with XY chromosomes has female genitalia and maybe even a functional female reproductive system.
If trans people are telling you that biological sex is not male and female, that is what they mean.
I really appreciate you taking the time to explain this. It is refreshing to get answers when I ask about this stuff instead of just slurs and attacks.
Is it definitionally correct to say that male and female are two of the biological sexes, but there are more? Or is it not even the case that male and female are biological sexes at all? If not, then what is the proper term for xx and xy people?
Do you know what the reason is for the down votes I am getting for the question i asked you? Obviously I don’t care about the score or whatever, I just want to know what it is about my question that is offensive.
“Male” and “female” were terms we came up with long before we understood things like genetics. They come fourteenth century and they have been with us ever since. Maybe we shouldn’t use those terms anymore, but it’s not something that’s easy to change.
You are getting downvotes because Tucker Carlson has weaponized the “I’m just asking questions” excuse to justify terrible takes on established science. People are finding you guilty by association. It is very hard to distinguish between actual curiosity and trolling, especially when bigots are constantly honing their messaging to appeal to wider audiences. Some people will get caught in the crossfire of our culture wars.
Well, I suppose if stopping the spread of awareness was his goal, then he has done a hell of a good job. It is crazy how many people instantly turn to hate and name calling as soon as they discover you are not already on the exact same page as them. Thanks for sharing this.
If someone’s body has the typical properties for males or females, it’s generally considered as such. If someone was born with properties of both, they maybe considered intersex. Trans people often don’t fit very well into this system. A trans woman for example may have XY genes (a typically male trait) but estrogen and a vagina (typically female traits).
Male and female work well for most people, but there are some people whose bodies aren’t strictly male or female. For those people, medicine generally has to individually consider the relevant traits.
It’s really fascinating stuff, and way more complex than they teach us in school. Hopefully, this is changing though. With how important survival is to evolution and how prevalent this stuff seems to be, I can’t imagine that there isn’t some reason that a species would have so many variations. I wonder how common it is for other species to have variations that aren’t simply the xx and xy equivalent in nature. I wonder if it is possible for there to be a 3rd chromosome type in any other species. It’s so cool that this is all something that is getting more and more awareness.
You know what’s hilarious, i didn’t know about this word or this group of people until you started chanting their name like a home-and-garden sales rep on cocaine. You are doing more to increase their popularity than they are! Your mama would be so proud of you.
Biological sex determines the bits you have in your pants - gender on the other hand is the social construct we humans have created, on top of that, to assign social roles and expectations to individuals.
The main issue TERFS (or FARTS) have, is that they argue the only thing that matters is what bits you have in your trousers. Which completely ignores the reality of people everywhere that are societally expected to behave in certain ways because it aligns with what society has deemed “manly” or “girly”. They argue that by wanting rights for trans people, that means, we, as a society, end up entrenching the gender norms feminists have fought so hard to dismantle.
However, that fully relies on the idea that gender has already been abolished and everyone presenting the way they truly feel is just “men” co-opting the feminist movement for their own “deviant” benefit.
Which
A. Completely misses the point about equality and solidarity (why does it matter if AMABs present as women if we all have equal rights?)
B. Disregards the reality of transmasc, transfemmes, enby and anyone else that just wants to live life in a form they feel comfortable with (feminine women and masculine men are just as valid as the opposite)
C. Absolutely dismisses the experience of transmasc individuals as “confused girls” - which is not only bigoted but extremely sexist, it implies that AFABs have no agency and are fully controlled by society - “you see they’re not smart enough to understand social constructs and how their lives fit into them - no! they’re just trying to pass as male so they get the patriarchal benefits the current system provides!” - again completely missing the point of equality.
You may think these are strawmen but if you’re familiar with JKs rethoric you’ll see these are genuine beliefs she holds.
This way, the “Trans Movement” (ie. people presenting and behaving in ways not directly assigned to their birth sex) becomes a hill to die on.
Not because of the purported “safety of girls” in bathrooms, sports and prisons (which JK will gladly demonize in her own fictional worlds of trans criminals and rapists (spoilers - people of any sex or gender expression can be awful human beings - saying they’re the reason sex crimes occur just dismisses the reality of abuse perpetuated by hurtful people))
But because it’s an ideology of absolute societal constructs (how can a man pretend to be a woman if the only thing that makes a woman is her genitalia?)
And look, I too am a gender abolitionist - if we lived in a genderless society that didn’t have gender reveal parties or gendered shoes or clothes or interests or literally anything that divides people into binary groups - I’d be on that shit - but that’s not what folk like JK are fighting for.
They see sex as this immutable quality that not only determines your reproductive organs - but how society should perceive you. You have a penis - you are a man. Oh, you don’t like being perceived as a man and you feel you relate to women in a way that other men don’t? Well, too fucking bad, in the man-bin you go. Rooster between your legs says you’re not allowed to sit in a female-only cubicle - get the fuck out.
That’s why this type of thinking is harmful, the goal isn’t to see who gets the “most rights”, the goal is for everyone to get the same amount of rights, always - so it doesn’t matter if you call yourself a man, a woman or any other label you may choose - what matters is that if you give out love and respect you should receive the same in return.
Edit: Sorry for the massive essay, but assumed you might be interested in the context around sex and gender
Thank-you so much for writing this. I really, really appreciate the time you took to lay this out for me. It is amazing how hard it is to get clear answers on this topic. It seems like it is just constant insults and name-calling for anyone who wants to try to understand. You’re so wonderful for putting so much effort into explaining this. I can’t thank you enough.
Are there any books or recommended reading that you would suggest to go any deeper?
Trans people aside, there are people who are purely biologically not XY-male or XX-female. You can have X, Y, YY, XYY, XXY, and XXYY. And more, but the further you get from a pair, the lower the viability. Not to mention things like hormone insensitivity, where you may not develop primary or secondary sexual characteristics, or having sensitivity and developing too much in a certain way.
It’s all very complicated, and honestly when it doesn’t affect me I don’t worry about it. Let people live their lives the way they want in peace and everyone will be much happier.
Something I’ve learned that complicates it further is that a single person doesn’t always have consistent chromosomes throughout their entire body. It is entirely possible to have an XX liver or brain or any other organ while the rest of you is XY. It is called microchimerism, it can happen when some stem cells from a baby get into the mother and start to develop as one of her organs. It can also go the other direction, so anyone who formed in a womb can have it. Generally, people have no reason to be tested for this, so most people have no idea if they have organs like this or not.
Quick correction, you cannot have just Y or YY. The only full monosomy you can have and survive is Turner syndrome (just one X). Not having any X chromosome is 100% fatal, the X chromosome is necessary for development regardless of sex. Additionally, while you can have XYY (Jacobs syndrome), you cannot have YY for the same reason you can’t have monosomy Y.
Biological sex exists, it’s just not binary, and the mental part of this has a massive psycho-social component to it that few take into consideration. Brain research on this is still in the chicken vs egg stage it seems based on those papers.
The “healthcare” system isn’t broken, it works perfectly.
You’re just mistaken about what its purpose is.
It’s one of the most beautiful examples of capitalism working as intended: When you’re hurting or dying, your demand for healthcare is unlimited, and you’re in no position to compare prices or services, so cost is determined by the maximum amount that can be squeezed out of you during your remaining lifetime.
To spell out the point here - healthcare isn’t the point of the healthcare industry under capitalism - profit is. Any healthcare delivered is going to be the bare minimum required to separate you from your money.
Most healthcare systems in the US are non-profits. To run a non-profit, you still need revenue to operate no matter where you are or what you do. They have to pay their own bills just like anyone else.
Bring on the downvotes. Then go ahead and take all of your local hospital’s funding and see what happens.
Edit: maybe people misunderstood my point? People are replying and saying that profit shouldn’t be part of healthcare. Yes, but that doesn’t solve the problem of funding. Every hospital gets money. Pick your favorite country, the hospital still gets money.
Yeah that’s not what it’s about at all. Hospitals need funding. Hospitals do not need a profit motive. Remove the profit motive and socialize the costs of healthcare. Just like every civilized country does it.
You say I’m wrong and then you go on to reiterate my exact point about money. Hospitals require funding and they are funded in every developed nation. Nonprofits do not have a profit motive. They argue with your insurance company for more money, just like every other developed nation, regardless of whether it is directly single payer or a system like Germany or Japan, which largely rely on private companies.
you’re arguing for profit to remain a focus within the healthcare industry. That’s anti-people, and why everyone is downvoting you. Everyone knows a hospital requires funding, we just want our tax dollars to pay it.
You’re largely right about nonprofits not contributing enough, but that’s a systemic issue that reflects the poor quality of the system and how it’s funded in the first place, such as the way we allow insurance companies to take huge chunks of our money.
The short answer is no. You may stop reading now as the next sentence is similar to the last one.
If it wasn’t clear to you, I’m busy dismissing your opinion as uninformed and without merit. It is clearly, objectively wrong, and the idea that you deserve a voice in this discussion with the level of information you own currently? Patently ridiculous.
Your sense of self worth would be admirable is it weren’t so misplaced.
It’s wrong that hospitals need money to operate? Bud, I got a master’s in this… which hospital are you aware of that doesn’t pay for electricity or pay its providers with money? Talk about patently ridiculous.
If you are an intelligent human being, as i assume you are despite your ridiculous opinion, (and despite your ridiculous joke of a degree), can you step outside what you’ve been taught, rise above my provocations, and explain why, objectively a reasonable human being shouldn’t be skeptical of the opinion of some person whose existence depends on their being right? A goddamn hospital admin degree? Foreal?
Why Not ask the ceo of kellogs what we should eat for dinner?
Im not gonna ignore you like i do most of the shitbirds who argue by insinuating and suggesting intelligence rather than replying first with a cogent, interesting proof of economic understanding. I actually can’t wait to hear what you’ve got to tell me. I think it’s going to be entertaining. I also think you should actually cut your losses and use your degree to understand that you’re in over your head, but i suspect they this conversation that kinna smarts isn’t taught in college anymore.
Wow that’s a lot of words to say you can’t think of how to run a hospital without paying people.
And I agree, the fact that you need a master’s to understand how a healthcare organization runs is absurd, but that’s the state of things in the USA (to be clear, the MHA is my secondary master’s, but it’s the field I ended up in). However, my existence doesn’t depend on anything. If we were nationalized, I’d still have my job, just like the janitors or the administrators everywhere else in the world. You can’t just run a medical practice with a doctor and no other staff. I’m sure you’re creative enough to think through this and understand that maintaining a building, checking people in, running computer systems, etc. requires more than just a doctor.
To add to this, I could make more money doing a very similar job at a random company. Take Kellogg’s as an example. But I don’t, because I like working with patients and providers. But keep on assuming I’m an asshole because I work in healthcare and I’m not a clinical staff.
Now, back to my original point, which I’m really fascinated to hear the answer to. Since you seem to argue that I can’t pay my docs, janitors, nurses, or utility bills, how do I keep things open? Even a nationalized system pays salaries. A healthcare system needs money, unless you’re in a society that doesn’t rely on money.
I lied, i actually am gonna block you if your original point is something i read when i showed up to econ 101 a few times.its my fault for expecting something, after all if only thing you have is arrogance, how could you ever let it go?
Even though i think you’re a dumb motherfucker, im doing you the favor of telling you not to reply unless it is for others, as i am now finished with your mouth. Goodbye., it was fun trading insults at least!
I apologize, I think you’re too smart for me. May I ask you to dumb down your point for someone who has such a low IQ that they got stuck working at a hospital? I jest in how I say that, but I legitimately do not get what you’re so angry at me for.
You’re free to block me, although I’m not clear why you’re so mad that I criticized the US healthcare system when you also seem to be angry at the same system.
Maybe this is all my fault for wording my original post poorly, sorry.
It’s not your fault at all, I am also confused what exactly caused them to adopt such a hostile tone.
I have noticed that many Lemmings have a strong preference for explanations which emphasize the dysfunction of capitalism as the ultimate source of all worldly suffering. Your suggestion that even in the absence of capitalist incentives, running a modern healthcare system is still an incredibly expensive endeavor that must be funded somehow, disrupts that worldview. Thus, the hostility.
Common ownership of the means of production would provide a lot of revenue that could be used for healthcare. Therefore, without capitalism, this would be easier @news
Apologies in advance, my app doesn’t seem to want to show me what context this is in, so I might be off base in my reply, but yeah, that’s a good solution. The problem is that in the USA, if you raise taxes by .0001% people throw temper tantrums. They’d rather pay out the ass for private insurance. I know people on Lemmy don’t feel that way, but that’s how Americans are.
I’ve worked in hospital systems since I graduated from college. There has been one meeting (out of all the meetings!) that I have absolutely never forgotten due to something that was brought up.
They thought it was super cool to talk about how much cash our new surgical center was bringing in. I know it was small in the scheme of things, but in my head a hospital should be super happy when they don’t have to perform surgery on a person. They shouldn’t be happy to perform surgery so that they can make money.
For me it was a quarterly town hall with hospital leadership and they kept pushing “we are a business…” and all I could think was “no, we are a hospital…” because being a business is indicative of being profit motivated. I know, I know, that’s exactly what it is, but it just really bothered me to hear that line over and over.
When you have an actual functioning competitive market the money you bring in correlates with the value of the service you provide, so it makes perfect sense to be happy about the money the new surgical center is bringing in. That means it’s useful.
The problem is that the health care market is regulated and subsidized in so many ways, many of them conflicting with each other, that competition is very limited and price discovery is reduced to “whatever the patient (and their insurance) can afford to pay” since they can’t go anywhere else. Fix that and there won’t be any reason for hospital owners or employees to feel guilty about making money.
One of the most perfect parts of how powerful lobbies constructed it is that, unaffordable as it is, there IS no free market for care, you are forced into networks and PPOs, etc. so if someone DID offer a better price outside of your consumer funnel(sorry, insurance plan), your insurer would just deny the claim at the providers standard 20x cost price for uninsured procedures. Also, 100% price obfuscation so comparison shopping is impossible. It is end-game capitalism.
Wow the article worked really really really hard not to tell you it was the police who shot the boy. It wasn’t until near the last 2/3 of the report, and lookit:
Samuel – whose mother had brought him to the church – was struck in the head during the exchange of gunfire that killed Moreno. A 57-year-old man was also hit, in the hip.
It appears the only people injured in this were shot by the two off-duty officers. I’m not even saying those two are in the wrong, but i have a real problem with the way its reported here
I have questions about how necessary it was to fire at the woman in the first place.
•if she’s in an empty lobby with her and her son, and two security officers, could they not have tried to negotiate and get the kid away first?
•Did security actually see “materials consistant with manufacturing explosives” inside her trenchcoat before firing, or is that something they alleged after they shot a 7yo in the head. There were no explosives found on her body or at home.
I know it’s hard to judge these situations, but I feel like there could have been a resolution where the kid doesn’t sacrificed by everyone involved.
The police opened fire after the mother did. It is notoriously difficult to negotiate with someone who is actively shooting - aside from needing absolutely every target to be in excellent cover, you have to make yourself heard over the gunfire.
I had to look around for any mention of it but i did finally find this.
Wearing a trench coat and backpack, she entered the converted sports arena between church services and opened fire in a hallway with an AR-platform rifle, Hassig said. One federal law enforcement source told CNN she fired around 30 bullets. (emphasis mine)
Two off-duty officers were at the church: a 28-year-old Houston Police Department officer and a 38-year-old agent with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, both with less than five years of service. The two officers engaged the shooter and she was fatally hit, the police chief said.
In two minutes, pregnant women in a county where 22% of residents live below the poverty line would be forced to travel 35 to 103 miles for the next nearest option.
No they won’t. They’ll give birth at home without any medical assistance, in severe pain, risking the life of themselves and their babies, because they don’t have the transportation or health insurance and their minimum wage job won’t give them time off anyway.
I worked in or around public health for a long time. You just broke off a piece of my heart, and fired my rage center. That is all too true, and all too ignored. The truth is never told and if it is it is not believed.
Thank you for saying this, I only hope it makes others just as sad and as enraged as it does me.
I know it isn’t much of a response, I know we do what we can. If I could I would hug you, we could sob together, but Keep up the fight, Vote if you can, make your voice heard, don’t stop being that thorn in the side that keep attention where it is needed instead of on that shiny thing over there. And I promise to do the same!
Thank you and I will keep fighting. I think the people who need that hug are the women who will not get the help they need and the obstetrics workers who can’t do anything to help them. One side will be dying and the other side will be aware of the deaths and know they would be able to help if they were given the opportunity.
My MIL works in public health as well. The stories I’ve heard man. She’s also been the only one to try to talk my and my wife out of fostering (we have two kids of our own, have room in our house and hearts for another but don’t really want to do the whole pregnancy and newborn thing again. We’re still on the fence). Her reasoning is that we won’t be able to handle the heartbreak and having to be part of a lot of these stories.
Well, and if your foster system is anything like the one in my state, the system will lie to you about what the kid needs and your biological children could suddenly be at risk of being sexually abused by the foster.
Yep. That was one of her concerns as well. Granted we live in different (though adjacent) states, we’ve known some other foster parents in our state and that particular concern never came up.
I am not one to ask for trust from strangers on the Internet so take this as you will. I have seen true triumphs in the adoption/foster system, but much more often it goes very badly. I have seen good families destroyed, and individuals broken, I don’t mean to poison that well, I want that system to work, but right now they are so underfunded and understaffed that there is no way for them to be effective, and the religious route is laughable at best, those organizations are charitably described as preditory, I have other words but they don’t belong in polite conversation.
Or they will show up in crisis at the emergency room. More of them will die and more of their babies will die, because help came too late or not at all.
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