Disappointed in the comments here so far. There’s a cardinal rule of improv that also works well for many other things in life, politics included: “yes, and”.
This is a great change that will save folks money and make the country just a little bit fairer. Celebrate that, and then use the momentum to push for more. This builds alliances and a shared vision, instead of devolving into petty squabbles around direction.
“I can please none of the people all of the time,” reads to me as there is no one you can please every time; i.e. you will disappoint everyone at some point. Which I feel is as true as not being able to please everyone.
“all of the people none of the time” means you will never please 100% of everyone. As in, maybe some people, but not everyone.
“none of the people all of the time” means you will always please 0% of people.
The problem is that supporters of the "business as usual politicians such as this (or pardoning federal inmates convicted of marijuana possession of which there were zero) hold things up like this whenever one criticizes them in order to claim that they’re doing so much to help the country.
Throwing scraps on the floor in order to get better polling numbers before an election isn’t serving the people.
Then criticize them then and have them stay on topic, and I’ll be right there with ya. Right now though, they’re not using it as a bludgeon. It’s just a nice win. Do you not see how your approach will lead to nothing but cynicism over time? Even if you strive not to, you will begin to view every win as some sort of maneuver to get one over on you.
Biden started the momentum for capping late fees over a year ago. He mentioned it in his State of the Union address. This is just how government works. I don’t think having some progress made in March of an election year after initiating desire to make progress over a year ago is scaps on the floor. It is competent governing.
You’re disappointed but personally, it’s hard NOT to feel a great deal of schadenfreude when:
the guy who, for his entire career, has openly accepted bribes in exchange for legislation that is economically violent toward his own constituents now presumably wants the exact same constituents he sold out to vote for him
and is using small, meaningless crumbs to gain that vote when he could have just NOT ENABLED A GENOCIDE.
If this situation doesn’t make you a true believer about there being no hope, I honestly don’t know what will. I lost hope in 2016 and have just been laughing through the bullshit since then. It’s exactly as real as pro wrestling at this point.
Tomorrow’s headline after Trump gets secreted away to a CIA prison: “Trump blacksited by Biden after promoting immunity for POTUS crimes. Irony lost on him.”
I mean, Biden regularly exercises and Trump believes exercise is a waste of some limited magical internal life force. Pretty sure we’d know who would win in an actual fight.
Seriously! I just wanna see one Dem call him on this and say "yup, you're right! so here's Biden with a car battery and jumper cables, an all-in-one water boarding set from Bed Bath & Beyond, a bucket of nails, and one 56 inch magnum dildo. what happens in the white house stays in the white house, ya know what I mean *nudge nudge wink wink!"
Well, by their logic probably, Biden isn’t really the president because the election was totally rigged against Trump. Biden doesn’t get immunity and Trump is still covered by it.
Trump has stated in the past that he would run for a third term. He doesn’t care about the constitution beyond using it as a talking point to rile his unhinged base.
Trump’s positions basically boil down to “Florida Man defends his political opponent has the absolute right to shoot him with an assault rifle live on TV”.
I would love to see the number of people upvoting this who are genuinely working class.(remember, every downvote on my reply is a middle class person who does not practice what they preach)
Dude go fuck yourself with your dumbass point of view. People like you are literally scum. (Any downvote on this reply is additional proof this guy’s a retarded scumbag.)
The middle class is a made up idea designed to divide the working class. You either have to work for a living or you don’t, and slightly higher income and a bit of savings doesn’t make your function in society entirely different even if it allows you more comfort.
Nope. Totally different universes. Middle class people in the west like to roleplay as downtrodden but none of them have worked actual working class jobs and all enjoy at least some security of education
So you’re trying to tell me that because I have a degree, work in an office job, and have some savings, that I’m not working class? If I lost my job I’d have a few months in savings before I’d be digging into retirement funds, and even then I’d probably be completely broke within a year or two. That’s certainly a lot more comfort than someone who would miss rent next month, but ultimately I still am dependent on an employer and selling my labor, I do not have anywhere near enough money to live on dividends or interest payments. I see much more in common with someone making minimum wage than I do with the owner class who lives on rent, interest, and dividends without working.
You dont think that’s middle class? Because you have to work to not run out of money?
So do most of the upper classes. What you have the luxury of an education that allows them some freedom to work, and the comforts of knowledge work that allow them to not have to sacrifice their physical health and, most likely an income bracket that at least affords you some choice in where you live.
The point is that high levels of migration, effectively forces your own countries working classes to compete with and deal with tons of cheap foreign labour coming in, with little or no conformity to the parent culture because it hasn’t been facilitated. The middle classes traditionally laugh at the working classes and claim they are being “racist”, “stupid” and “lazy” for complaining about this arrangement, while mostly avoiding it’s effects themselves.
This voting is a result of the left wing, middle classes being unable to grasp the obvious effects of their voting record, instead pretending to each other in echo chambers that they are the real working classes and how shocking all this right wing-tilt is. Throwing the incumbent working class culture under a bus.
You can call it middle class if you want. But it’s also working class. Even most petite bourgeois are working class as they cannot live off capital interest.
This is, as I have described above, all well and good to say…
…Apart from when you repeatedly support policies that further squeeze extant working classes, then have the gall to do this vague virtue signalling of “standing together”. It’s hypocritical.
You are doing local workers in the country a disservice and the owning classes a great help to price them out of existence.
It’s an accurate observation, and it’s not so much that I consider myself smart, it’s more that I note most negative replies generally refuse to acknowledge the underlying issue (read: dumb).
The reason they have so many downvotes is because they buy them cheap on Amazon.com
OnT: I’m Swedish and it’s good to see a proper strike, but the real thing motivating the unions on this isn’t workers rights or anything. The unions are subservient to the national labour union organisation, LO, who’ll do the shadiest shit to get more power for themselves, and don’t care about working conditions in the slightest. The only thing that’s a red line for them, is when corporations refuse to take part in the charade, by not signing a collective agreement.
You have to pay some lip-service, even if it costs you. If you do, the unions will be on your side against the workers.
I couldn’t possibly answer for my crimes during a school night. I mean who would make sure our nanny takes the children to school? My butler? Please; how gauche.
Democrats had it for 2 years in the past 20+ years…not the fuckin same. Republicans had it for 14 years. Anything Barack tried to do was shit on for 6 years of his presidency by Congress and his first two years he had he got a lot done, not to mention that he did actually raise the minimum wage for federal workers in 2014 by executive order because that’s the only way anything could get changed when the dumb ass party had control. money.cnn.com/2014/02/12/news/…/index.html
A lot of datasets looking at Congress over time smooth over small nuances. They look at the bi-annual election results and assume that’s what holds until the next election. The problem for answering a question like this is that Congress changes between elections. The Democrat majority includes Arlan Spectre, who defected. Al Franken, whose election was contested and not resolved until months into his term. Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd were ancient and in the process of dying (perfectly fair to blame the party for letting them cling to office too long. Some things never change). The article doesn’t mention it, but I think that 60 senators includes one or two independents who caucused with the Dems too, like Bernie Sanders.
You’re moving the goalpost. Is it enough? No. But there’s one party where it happened and another party that literally did everything they could against it. Both parties are definitely not the same.
I don’t think both parties are the same. I think they’re both bad and we’re fucked no matter who wins, but I can admit America will collapse slower under Democrats. I guess that’s preferable.
Just going to ignore how Biden has asked Congress to legislate a higher minimum wage and issues an executive order requiring a higher minimum wage for Federal contractors?
The Democrats have only controlled Congress and the presidency at the same time for about 4 months in the past 4 decades, beginning in September 2009. Before then… idk it would have been before Reagan. When was the last time the minimum wage increased? 2009.
“Both sides are the same” is a Republican talking point.
“Both sides are the same” is a Republican talking point.
Can't be said enough.
Find someone telling you how both sides suck, and then look what it's in reply to. It's always, ALWAYS to deflect from Republican shortcomings or to deflect from positive news about Democrats.
You can’t do it without 60 votes in the senate. There’s nothing to try. Hence why the last time was ‘09 when democrats had a super majority in the senate. 0 republicans will vote for it, right now he’d need 9.
Democrats have seen far more success raising the minimum wage at state and municipal levels. I would rather federal as well, but ultimately as long as people are getting a higher minimum wage, it’s the same effect.
Do you guys not get any civil education on how bills get passed? Why are you commenting on political threads without a foundational understanding of how legislation works?
I guess that should have been the only focus. All I remember is that before he took office we couldn’t leave our houses and people were dying from COVID like crazy. It’s not Biden’s fault that wages haven’t increased with inflation since before I was born. Sure he could probably do more but I don’t see anyone else jumping up to help in any meaningful way either. No one will even primary him and his major opponent is just litigating things from 3 years ago to save his ego and or freedom. I don’t see anyone else stepping up from a position of power.
Our state GOP was totally hijacked by MAGA radicals and now answers to Karamo, who’s an utter nut job and die-hard Trump loyalist.
But they’ve gone so far a lot of moderate Republicans feel alienated and with our new balanced voting districts Democrats will probably secure victory for the foreseeable future. It still will be a tight race, but I would not be surprised if Biden’s margin in 2024 is bigger in Michigan than it was in 2020.
The thing I found most interesting about the whole interaction is that the first thing the police say to her when they make contact is “we looked around outside and didn’t find anyone”. Like they’re challenging her to contradict them.
That is technically true, but it omits some very relevant information, i.e. that they found a vehicle parked nearby which had very clearly been broken into. That might not have happened that evening, but they don’t know that. And they don’t mention it when they talk to her. They instead start by saying that the reason she called (she heard a prowler) could not be confirmed. This statement sets up the entire tone of their interaction. There’s nobody for them to arrest, so now they’re clearly annoyed that she’s wasting their time. They start treating her like a suspect instead of a victim. They want her name, her ID. They invite themselves in without cause and start looking through her house. It escalates from there, and ends in murder. The shooting officer then outright lies about the circumstances of the shooting, saying Massey was coming at him with a pot of boiling water and threatening him. She had put the pot down in the sink and was just standing in the kitchen. See, he’d turned his body camera off and didn’t realize his partner was still recording.
Biden has completely forgotten his campaign promise of police reform
A) not true.
B) not even remotely relevant
Democrats tried to pass police reform bills in congress multiple times this term and were blocked by Republicans at every turn. Biden did what he was able to do and enacted an executive order that was the most comprehensive police reform action in decades. But there are limits to what he can do. So please fuck off with your attempt to turn this into Biden’s fault by telling lies.
Partially true but irrelevant. You’re shifting the goalposts because your first argument was a total lie. How about you admit it was wrong before you start shifting things to pretend you were “actually” correct because some other only tangentially related information is useful.
Biden is literally begging lawmakers to pass the policing act he put together. He isn’t a dictator, it’s up to Congress and the Senate to pass these bills
Joe Biden has called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, moments after shocking police video was released showing an Illinois officer fatally shooting Sonya Massey after she called police fearing a home intruder.
This is not talking about it, huh? Thanks for not even reading the summary in your neverending quest to get Trump elected.
I had a slightly different take on this - if she had said “OK thanks guys, I feel a lot better now. See you later.” it probably all wouldn’t have ended in murder.
What I can’t understand is why they entered the house after that interaction and the video I saw didn’t show.
After that it all went downhill aggressively. The tone of her “Jesus retribution” comment was actually very soft. The cop putting his hand on his gun and his incredibly aggressive tone was mental. Pure escalation with someone who obviously has mental health issues. She was never going to get out alive. :( It reminded me of that awful video of the young lad on the hotel floor who was executed. Very upsetting to watch.
What I can’t understand is why they entered the house after that interaction and the video I saw didn’t show.
To my knowledge, there was no reason or justification given. Grayson had turned off his body cam, and his partner had walked away to get the license plate of the car in the driveway. Grayson followed her into her home asking for ID. She seemed confused and scattered through the whole encounter. She might have been intoxicated or on medication. She might have had mental health problems. She may have even been using illegal drugs. But none of that is a crime if you’re in your own home not bothering anyone. IMO, they were fishing for a reason to treat her as a suspect.
This video has a good breakdown with footage from both officers’ body cams: youtu.be/7jP3FGj7syI
Very upsetting viewing so far tbh so exercise caution on whether or not you’re up for viewing.
Edit: Oh God this just gets worse and worse the more I watch. He had a tazer and chose his gun. :( That poor woman. Still watching in pieces as it’s busy here…
Just finished. It’s a good analysis of a terrible situation. Zero justification for killing that woman. Just a little kindness and it all could have been avoided. The killer was a giant dick from start to finish.
No worries. Thanks for the link to the video. It was a good analysis, an unpleasant watch but I’m glad I saw it.
Also fuck that guy. Like really, really fuck that guy. Just a single ounce of empathy or kindness instead of frustration and anger and that woman would still be alive and her family wouldn’t be grieving this.
But also I’m glad to see justice being done (so far).
I do feel sorry for his partner, who obviously early on knew the guy wasn’t OK on that particular day, tried to smooth him out early on in the car but unfortunately wasn’t able to. The whole thing is very sad.
Splitting hairs, but technically being a user or addict isn’t illegal, it’s possession or possession with intent to traffic, which are the crimes. Might vary by region.
In any case, not justification for murder
EDIT: pardon me, my reply keeps going to the wrong comment.
Fair. I should re-word. Yes, if they had evidence that she was actually using, that might be grounds for arrest. But they’d still need cause to enter her house and arrest her, and just suspecting that she’s using because she’s acting weird isn’t sufficient. Here’s my re-word: Just being high in your own home is not illegal.
Oh for sure, it shouldn’t be illegal. I’m Australian, it’s not actually illegal to use or be on drugs here. But obviously possession, manufacture, selling etc is illegal.
But I believe in most states in the US it is illegal to use/be under the influence of drugs? Someone chime in if I’m wrong
Regardless of context from the onset the dialogue was between someone in a position of power and someone who wasn’t. Regardless of the reaction of the woman the cop was in the position of power. Any failing was on him and him alone. Men (yes I’m generalizing The Internet and that you are a man) need to understand this. White men (yes I’m generalizing The Internet and that you are a white man) need to understand this.
Regardless of the context this was about power. Shit needs to change.
I agree with you on everything you said (and yeah I’m a white lad). Beyond what you said, the dialogue also included so much frustration and ultimately murderous rage. It could have been dealt with so kindly and so easily and wasn’t.
The one caveat I’ll give is that I live an ocean away in a country where cops don’t carry guns. We never face things like this and I am so fucking glad that we don’t. This whole thing was tragic. I’m really upset about it. It honestly fucked up my evening but I can only imagine what it’s done to her family. :(
“With great power, there must come great responsibility.” Spider-Man comes up in a lot of my political arguments and it’s an incredibly useful tool to get to some people.
I dont care what sex you are or what or who you are but Honest to god I dont even give a fucking shit what the fuck ypur point is I dont get on the internet for power tripping fucking whatever the fuck you are fucks to power tripe when all I am doing is minding my own business and honestly I dont really give a fuck. K? Understand? ass head fuck guy or girl whatever the fuck you are guy
if she had said “OK thanks guys, I feel a lot better now. See you later.” it probably all wouldn’t have ended in murder.
Why even say this victim blaming bullshit? Yes, I read the rest of your comment, I just don’t know why you felt the need to preface it by blaming an innocent dead woman for getting shot by the cop she called for help.
I shouldn’t even need to say any of this, but she could have been cursing them off the moment they arrived for all I care. That’s literally her constitutional right. And if it were a white woman, and she was cursing them from the moment they arrived, she’d still be alive right now 100%. Perhaps detained or arrested, and/or maybe a few bruises. But alive.
This country is going to need to have a reckoning. We failed Reconstruction, and in retrospect we probably should have let Sherman burn the South to the ground after the war, and now the chickens are coming to roost.
(Yes I know this was in Illinois. The legacy of slavery is everywhere).
I think you misconstrued my intent which was just that I didn’t agree with this take from the person I was replying to:
Like they’re challenging her to contradict them.
I was merely trying to point out that I felt the cops (and murder cop in particular) were ready, keen even, to get away when they were standing on the porch. Murder cop seemed pissed off the entire time he was going to the call (his partner is constantly checking if he’s OK), when searching the back yard and also while dealing with that lady so I was surprised he didn’t take the opportunity to just fuck off back to his car. I felt like he really wanted to.
And if it were a white woman, and she was cursing them from the moment they arrived, she’d still be alive right now 100%. Perhaps detained or arrested, and/or maybe a few bruises. But alive.
Yeah, tbh I’m not American but that does ring true with me as a frequent external viewer of horror stories like this.
As a retired medic who has has to deal with my share of the mentally ill, I will try to add a little context perhaps.
What got them to enter the apartment is they probably realized they were dealing with a mentally ill person who was not properly on their meds, (we can’t say for sure at this point - but it’s as likely as not), and they then started what should have been a simple welfare check. Which can entail entry to observe the person and the general living conditions. Cops do welfare checks everyday, multiple times a day. The next step if they determine there is a problem, is to request medical assistance, an ambulance, to deal with the person. The cops are to remain in scene and assist if needed - i.e. help talk the patient into seeking medical help or sometimes stop an assault on EMS. But that’s what SHOULD have happened.
That’s his name. Thank you. I knew his first name but didn’t want to Google it to be reminded of it any more than necessary tbh. It’s one of those occasional intrusive thoughts videos for me that I’m sure we all have our own little library of.
I still can’t believe the killer got away with it. Daniel had no way to get out alive.
Turning your body camera off deliberately or knowingly failing to maintain it to keep it running should automatically cause the cop to be treated as a an unreliable witness and as a suspect for any potential crime happening
Not only an unreliable witness, but ineligible for the immunity from the law that (for whatever godforsaken reason) comes with the badge and gun. They should be treated as a civilian from the instant they turn their body cam off.
There shouldn’t even be a fucking power button on those things. It should just be ON ALL THE GODDAMN TIME from the picosecond a pig’s shift starts. Zero exceptions. If it gets shut off, you get one warning, happens again gtfo and we pull your pig license. If it happens and you’re involved in a police activity that results in injury or death, fucking fired and arrested pending full investigation AND we pull your pig license even if it’s your first fuckup.
The idea of not allowing anonymity for protesters has its origins in combating racial violence and the KKK. Klan members suddenly lost a lot of their motivation to assemble in public, once they had to show their faces, those that did were less likely to commit illegal acts and the ones that did break the law were more likely to face legal reprocutions.
The contemplated ban on masks for protesters in Los Angeles was considered following increased violence by masked protesters and was not motivated by covid denial.
We weren’t living in a world with cameras everywhere when the KKK needed to be attacked so vigorously. Times have changed and things should be updated. Especially in a world where bigots are fine marching without masks (see Charlottesville).
Sure, a environment guaranteed to enable the rapid spread of any transmissible disease. I bet this ban wouldn’t apply to MAGA since they are not protesters. Just concerned citizens with hateful banners and firearms.
A mask ban for protesters would also limit our ability to stop a pandemic spreading. Mask bans are a bad idea (especially with creepy af facial recognition around).
It’s great that the idea got implemented in ways that don’t have the ecological footprint Bitcoin has!
I’m glad Bitcoin brought this idea to life. But it’s about time for Bitcoin to resign.
Bitcoin isn’t a good idea. It’s based on assumptions about how the world works that don’t actually exist and, the costs for finding a solution to these assumptions are so large that they make the product bad.
I beg to partly differ.
The idea of being able to transfer digital value safely without middlemen is great and has never been available before.
The implementation is bad in the sense that it’s ecologically disastrous and economically unfit.
Bitcoin was developed on the idea that no one can be trusted and that everyone will act selfishly for their own self interest. This is patently not true, while many are selfish and are not to be trusted, a truly trustless society does not and cannot exist. People do come together and work in collectives and organisations and people do defer to the expertise of others. Imagine not being able to go to the doctor without first getting a medical degree because you can’t trust what the doctor will tell you or having to learn electrical engineering before having any electrical work done in your home. That is the ideology that helps spawn the no middleman trustless system that formed bitcoin in 2009. The truth is people don’t want to do that an the easy way to demonstrate this is to simply point at the huge amount of transactions that occur off-chain through exchanges (who serve as middlemen) vs the pitiful small number of transactions that occur on chain.
Trustlessness comes with huge costs. Firstly, you have huge amounts of redundant work to prove/verify everything. That’s why bitcoin is so terribly inefficient. Rather than having some you trust approve a transaction you now need to spend huge resources solving useless puzzles to prove that your transactions is the real deal. Secondly, without a middleman there is no one to hold to account. Make a mistake on your transaction? Your money is gone. Get scammed? Same deal. Accidentally leak your private key? Ditto.
Bitcoin is also based on the ideas of Austrian economics. Basically a ridiculous field of economics that doesn’t work. There are reasons why we left the gold standard and there are reasons why so called ‘sound money’ is a terrible idea. Just to simply illustrate. Bitcoiners love to celebrate the first transaction for real world goods using bitcoin. Some guy bought two pizza’s for 10000 btc around 2010 or something. They mock now for how much ‘money’ he wasted on two pizza’s. What good is a currency if you’re too afraid to spend it because its ‘value’ might skyrocket. In no uncertain terms Austrian economics is incredibly stupid. Bitcoin is built on this ideology.
Also Bitcoin is full of middlemen. Mining pools tend to congregate into large organisations lead by a small group of individuals due to economies of scale making larger pools more efficient than smaller pools and, because bitcoin has no real economy underneath it everything has to run back to fiat currency at some point. Whether you’re a baker or a drug dealer you have bills that need to be paid in fiat at some point; therefore, you need to exchange your crypto to fiat and, this is almost unanimously controlled by large exchanges who act as middle men. A big government like the US blocks the exchanges and bitcoin and crypto in general basically dies.
So in summary, bitcoin is based on the idea that no one can be trusted, which is false, that Austrian economics is a good idea, which is wrong and finally that it’s free from middlemen which it isn’t. The assumptions that made bitcoin are wrong.
It’s not that no one can be trusted. It’s that there is enough bad people and incentive to do real damage to everyone else (even the majority of good people) and unfortunately they may need to be protected from that. If we get another Great Recession that doesn’t snap back bitcoin will have its value proven, if that doesn’t happen then it’s a waste of time and effort. It’s really more of a hedge at this point until things play out
Bitcoin tracks the wider economy and as a risky ’asset’ its ‘value’ fluctuates more aggressively than safer assets. It’s basically the first thing unloaded when times look difficult. Trust me it won’t be a hedge. It never has before and will never now. Secondly, the problem with centring your entire philosophy on trustlessness is that when you introduce a little bit of trust you defeat the whole purpose of trustlessness in the first place. The moment you have a middle man that can block transactions, change transactions or interfere in transactions in other ways your trustless model collapses, and if you argue that it’s alright this actor is well vetted and trustworthy then it begs the question. Why not have all of your transactions managed by that actor and just drop the vestigial decentralised nonsense in the first place. To illustrate my point for those who don’t understand what I’m getting at. All cryptocurrencies are useless at verifying anything in the real world. Think things like supply chain verification for example. Why? Well it’s all because of something called the oracle problem. You need somebody to verify and enter the physical world’s data into the blockchain, the oracle. The problem is that there is no way to prove that the oracle is telling the truth. You have to trust the oracle; however, the oracle can lie. The oracle and feed you bad data and modify the blockchain. Your trustless model has collapsed. You might as well just find an oracle you can trust and abandon all the wasteful blockchain nonsense at this point.
Bitcoin spiked when the latest banking crisis emerged and several US banks collapsed. This is not bitcoin tracking the wider economy. Bitcoin should track the wider economy only in a sense of cost of compute, electricity, against inflation and supply. Hypothetically if demand was to remain exactly the same for the next 10 years the price would increase.
Here’s the thing – do you trust the alternative power holders more? Sure, it’s less centralized, but at the end of the day there’s still power brokers.
So many words Bitcoin and so little about the idea behind it.
Are you aware that not each and every cryptocurrency that was created after Bitcoin is bad?
Although admittedly most are. Yet some took the idea further and implemented better versions of value transfer, that doesn’t rely on middlemen.
The article is about bitcoin so I talked about bitcoin. But it doesn’t really matter because all cryptocurrencies are bad. They are all negative sum internet funny money that is used by and controlled by some of the people who you would least want to be able to do that.
You replied to my comment, which was broader than Bitcoin alone; you could’ve considered that.
Not all cryptocurrencies are bad in my book. Let’s agree to disagree.
If all money goes digital, you lose the ability to make unsupervised purchases.
Harr harr, yes drugs. But also condoms or plan b pills, which magically became a political target recently. Or any other previously innocuous thing that could someday shift into a political target.
That tracking also means anyone who buys that data can profile you. Card charges at the same store every work day? Someone who cares knows where you go for lunch. Maybe its a stalker, maybe just an advertiser trying to get you specific ads. Do you want either having that info? Buying the same specific goods for meals, or hobbies, on a regular basis? Ad companies love that, they can up prices on things your data says is a dependant purchase.
You dont want your entire purchase history trackable. Its not about having things to hide, its about not wanting someone to be able to pick you apart like a lab rat. Cash helps this, but lots of groups and people want a cashless society.
If cashless ever becomes a reality, you want a digital cash replacement to already be in place, if not underway. Better that the concept gets worked out now while we still have cash, than scrambling to set it up in a future where cash retires.
If, if, if! But it hasn’t. So there’s still no real reason to use Bitcoin today. I’m glad the concept and ecosystem exists, it might come in handy, but there’s a shit ton of resources going to it, today so what is its social benefit today? Again I’m fine with Bitcoin existing, but if the only use case it’s being used for right now is illegal goods and market speculation, how does it warrant the insane amount of resources it sucks up today? If we end up needing it in the future we can ramp it up, but right now I think there’s way too much resources being sucked up by it for not enough societal benefit.
“Sure Ill be glad to vaccinate if I get covid. If, if, if! But I dont have it now! Theres no real reason to vaccinate now, I dont need it!”
The point of a precaution is to do it before the concerned event happens. And when multiple countries have politicians discussing cashless, and with actual businesses beginning to stop taking cash in favor of card, the advent of the retiring of physical money is an actual event that is visible on the horizon.
You will need the existence of fully finished infrastructure for digital cash before you can safely use it. We. Do. Not. Have. That. Infrastructure. If cash is killed next year? Youre fucked. We need to figure that out before we need it to be online and usable.
And while no, bitcoin specifically is likely not the answer, it is the reason why people are hunting for a better solution.
The production of Bitcoin right now is like creating billions of vaccines that have a 1 year expiration date, or getting 10 vaccines now when you’re only supposed to have one. You can develop software without doing it so inefficiently that we’re spending a ridiculous amount of energy in the interim. Having more mining now doesn’t make the protocol better for later. I don’t see how the resources going to it now are not ridiculously inefficiently used.
We already have cash, so as it stands, Bitcoin is far more complicated and energy intensive for no meaningful alternative reason. You’re effectively arguing the wrong point, and only skirt over the real concern: a lot of people and groups want a cashless society.
Is it worth it to use Bitcoin over cash, and generate emissions, to have that digital alternative to cash? What are the reasons that these people and groups want a totally cashless society, where it would be an onerous burden to just cash for drugs, condoms, plan B, etc?
Until there’s a compelling reason that is worth the energy draw and required technology, it’s going to continue to be derided.
“Governments and businesses are starting to push for retiring physical, gov backed money. Having a digital currency that cant be retired by a government is a good fallback plan to prevent getting stuck in a digital only system that doesnt have untraced currency.”
“Uh, but we already have cash? Why would I use that over cash, which I have right now? My cash buys me drugs now, why should I swap?”
I literally cannot help you if you cant address what I say.
You already have booze, cannabis, caffeine, sugar, and Tylenol. How shit is existence that those reliable chemicals, safe in moderation, aren’t enough? Isn’t it insane that you can just drink pop with a whiskey chaser and smoke a joint?
Yeah I am solidly on the legalization train but I am still allowed to wonder why anyone would want to try meth or cocaine or anything like those when we got already is so much better and safer.
Now if you excuse me I am going to go drink a beer and then pop an edible, both of which I bought legally from boring ass stores.
I dunno, sometimes people want, say, hormones to transition, but can’t get them from a doctor. Hormone blockers, stuff like that, so it’s kind of not entirely useless. Weed isn’t legal in lots of places still either, and if your government sucks, it’s always good for buying [redacted], and stuff like that, but then you’re probably just getting entrapped by feds, so that’s not always a great situation.
I’m not going to say that the idea itself is entirely without merit, but I do think it kind of got corrupted almost immediately after it was conceived, because silicon valley keeps wanting to attract venture capital to fund whatever completely unprofitable idea, before it gets shelled out and zombified for short term profits, and apparently the best way to make any money in capitalism is basically just with loaded gambling and this is a great method to enable that. It’s a pretty good minor analogue for what capitalism does generally, but also what it specifically did to a lot of this techno-libertarianism idealism that was spouting out almost constantly form the late 80’s until, I wanna say like, around the 2010’s, is when it maybe stopped being such a thing.
Honestly at this point there are only a handful of headlines that cover about 90% of news stories:
-Young people ‘choose’ lifestyle choice that was forced upon them by external conditions.
-Young people are ‘killing industry’ that they are not paid enough to even dream of participating in.
-Rich person/people found guilty of or admitted to enormous crime will go unpunished.
-Someones totally unqualified opinion on a subject that we’re reporting as news because they’re rich.
-World ending, shareholders rejoice.
FDR taxes the shit out of rich people so they had to re-invest the money into their companies or lose it to the government. That built a strong, industrialized America with good paying jobs. Ronald Reagan reversed everything and we’ve been in decline ever since. Still a huge number of poor people continue to vote Republican, against their country, and their own interests.
Governments got off their collective assess and did something about the ozone layer and acid rain to the point that the problem has largely been corrected. Unfortunately, although climate change and now micro plastics get a lot of media attention, governments have since stopped trying to actually do something about it.
There is a big difference between the ozone layer, acid rain and climate change.
Ozone: Required the move to different refrigerant gasses and implement measures to stop old cfc's being accidentally released.
acid rain: Required the use of low sulfur fuels.
While both were costly they were minor in comparison to climate change emissions.
The problems were incidental to the industries involved and not a something that had to happen for the industry to function.
And the big one, they industries that were required to change could profit from the change.
The complete opposite for co2 emissions.
There is no way to burn coal or oil without producing co2. So there was zero incentive from the companies and countries that profit from these industries to even look at solutions . Let alone implement them.
I recently read a study about micro plastics that fairly well substantiates tires as their most of prolific source.
Think the media is gonna run with that? What would be seen as an attack on car culture itself, fuck the science or concerns of health effects. Micro plastics in the clouds, in the Arctic, in the placenta…
Millennial checking in. School system pivoted to Acid Rain and deforestation as the main environmental we would face. Oh, and El Nino, seems like that was happening every year of my life as a kid.
Anxiety about the future is not an anxiety disorder. If almost 2 out of 3 Gen z has anxious intrusive thoughts so bad that they cannot go to school, work, have any kind of healthy interpersonal relationships, etc then the article would have a point, but I don’t think that’s the case. I have more faith in the next generation than that.
I know things are bad and folks are rightly apprehensive about the future, but that is not an anxiety disorder. Anxious thoughts doesn’t mean you have a disorder, it means you are alive and aware of your surroundings.
Some of this next generation will turn their distress about the future into eustress that motivates them to fix it (as long as they don’t give in to defeatest takes like in this article).
I have a wild idea here. What if, they didn’t build an entire Olympic sports complex with multiple stadiums and other infrastructure every 2 years around the globe? Maybe that would save a bit on carbon emissions. And hey, the billions that would have gone to building that complex? Maybe that could go toward building up renewable energy resources instead.
But no that’s crazy, it’s the portable air conditioning units for some athlete’s apartments that are the problem. /s
Though some props to Paris, it sounds like they didn’t have nearly the amount of insane new constructions that some Olympics have had. Sounds like only one major new venue with most venues being used already pre-existing.
That’s true for a few cherry picked olympics, but there are many where the facilities are still used to this day. In this article it’s really only Beijing and Brazil that are fair to highlight IMO (Greece is 20 years ago and that country went through a massive economic crisis, and Sarajevo was 40 years ago and went through a civil war).
Imo, we should have one, or at most, two Olympic states. They’d be small countries that are more-or-less politically neutral, and instead of sending teams, their purpose would be to host the Summer and/or Winter Olympics. Construction, maintenance and upgrades of the facilities would be paid for by participating countries, as a percentage of their GDP. That way, the hosting country(ies) wouldn’t have to spend billions building the facilities, they get guaranteed tourism every 2~4 years, the facilities get reused, non-hosting countries have a place to measure their penis size, don’t have to spend outrageous sums to build their own facilities (they’re all paying together, after all), don’t have to bulldoze houses or forests, be concerned with water quality, and probably many other bonuses I’m not thinking of.
Bonus points if the facilities are open year-round for Olympians to train at, so that the athletes are more used to the climate, equipment, tracks, trails, etc.
The biggest downside is that hosting the Olympics is prestigious itself and generates a lot of tourism revenue (which in this case, would only be going to the “static” host(s)). It’s a chance for the host country to show off their economic strength, culture (like during the opening ceremonies), and more. You’d have to convince countries that they’re better off without the tourism and chance to flaunt their wealth.
There was just an article posted around here about future games in Los Angeles …. Where one of the venues is in Oklahoma, unless I got seriously trolled, for exactly this: trying not to build as much new stuff.
Here in Boston when they were talking about putting in a bid, all the discussion was about upgrading athletic facilities for all the regional colleges, and getting more hotels built to handle more tourism
Those all sound like good things, though. There shouldn’t be an interstate right through downtown. And god knows transportation in Boston is a mess and desperately needs work.
Just hold it in Greece every time. Those poor fuckers could use some foreign money coming in every few years, they might not have to work 6 days a week then.
Greece is too warm now for summer games, it’s significantly hotter than Paris right now and can hit a sustained over 40c without much problem. Paris isn’t great in the summer but it’s better than Greece. If we want one location to host the games during the summer then I pick Bergen, significantly cooler than Paris.
Greece is the last place it should be held, the country is an absolute mess. It could honestly be split over Western Europe, countries like France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, UK. Places that have stadiums and such already, places that will still use any new infrastructure that is built.
By all means, it wouldn’t hurt to build high efficiency stadiums and sports centers the one time in a big “Olympics Zone” that gets used regularly rather than building a big new thing every two years at a random spot in the world. But if you’re looking for maximal efficiency, Greece ain’t your girl. Its cooking at record-breaking 46.4°C temperatures over there, weeks before the games even start.
Might as well make Qatar the permanent venue for the World Cup.
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