There is absolutely nothing these over-hyped “space” companies can do that the US couldn’t do far better and far cheaper through NASA itself - you know, just like they did when they sent astronauts to the moon?.
that’s a fair point but it was also politically necessary to spend half a billion or more per launch to “show the ruskies who the real superpower was” - and a lot of the tech was still being developed. now, 50 years on, the tech is much more established, materials science has matured, and it’s cheaper for a non-government organization to perform the launches.
getting nasa involved is just going to involve gratuitous spending and pork barrel politics - look towards the SLS program. vastly over budget with not much to show for it. rounding down, you could buy every single launch SpaceX has made this year and still have a few billion $$$ in spare change left over for the cost of SLS… and it’s flown, what? once?
There’s absolutely nothing “necessary” about a nationalist pissing contest between two vile empires. I know that’s an irrlevant tangent… but anyway.
and it’s cheaper for a non-government organization to perform the launches.
No, it isn’t. The US just did what it has always done… develop technology with public funds and then hand it off to the crony class to exploit for privatized profit at everyone else’s expense. Nothing about it is cheaper or more efficient - those are easily debunked myths.
getting nasa involved is just going to involve gratuitous spending
Duh… that’s how space exploration happens - through gratuitous spending. Whose money do you think Phoney Stark is burning through? His own?
Getting NASA involved is going to lead to results other than merely corporate parasites getting rich off money that could have been far, far better spent - that’s pretty much it.
There’s absolutely nothing “necessary” about a nationalist pissing contest between two vile empires.
I dunno, I don’t think it was necessary, but I do think we got some pretty cool stuff out of it. Satellites are kind of neat, I like those, I like knowledge about space and radiation and stuff. I would also like healthcare, that’s probably a higher priority, but I would like to have both.
but I do think we got some pretty cool stuff out of it.
Do you know why the US had to create NASA? The US wanted to get into space - but the corporates weren’t interested. There was no profit in it. So Eisenhower had to wait until Sputnik was launched, and then used the media hysteria to push through massive state intervention to actually get it done - same way Roosevelt had to use WW2 to launch the massive state intervention that resulted in the GI Bill (without which the modern-day idea of a “middle-class” wouldn’t even exist). This was no obstacle for the USSR, of course - they just went ahead and did it.
Here’s the thing… nobody got any poorer because the US sent a bunch of flyboys to play tic-tac-toe on the moon. But the existence of people like Phony Stark does make us all poorer.
NASA’s first launch of the heavy lift Artemis, vs Space X’s Starship’s disaster of a “successful test” are different paths (and seems largely because the cut costs on protecting the lunch pad with water).
Falcon and all the previous space x rockets seem much less influenced by Musk than the Starship. Same as the Tesla Truck, I feel the Starship project is more vanity than engineering, and might not succeed the way Falcon etc. did.
Exactly. Start every kid with unlimited physical and mental health care, never wanting for any basic need, traveling the world on cool first-class vacations, attending fancy private schools. See if they don’t all turn into “self starters.”
Exactly. In just a few thousand years, he’ll run out of money as long as he keeps buying yachts every day.
But no, seriously, if we want him to be less relevant it’s pretty simple. Stop going to Twitter (fuck x, i won’t call it that ever) don’t buy tesla, and lobby against SpaceX. At least, until Elon has no control (edit: and financial benefit) over any of those.
In every voting system, not voting is equivalent to a vote for the worst option.
That’s how democracy in general works. Even with ranked choice voting, if someone only puts candidate A as their choice because they disagree with everyone else, then their vote doesn’t count if candidate A is eliminated in the first round.
Not voting at all just lowers the threshold needed to win.
I’m sorry, but that’s not even close to how democracy in general works.
I’ve lived, worked and voted in The Netherlands where vote is proportional and there the “useful vote” (or as it should be better called “negative vote” as people vote against the other candidate rather than for a candidate) does not exist at all.
I’ve also lived and voted in other coutries of Europe with different systems and the Dutch one is one of the best and that certainly gets reflected in their politics (those of consensus, not partisanship) and outcomes and the only one which is as bad as the US is the British one (in fact, with a Monarch with real power and an unellected 2nd House, it’s probably less democractic than the US system, though at least their uninominal electoral circles aren’t as large as in the US)
(All those countries were EU countries at the time, hence why I could vote in all of them, though in some only in Local Elections and for the EU Parliament)
The US is a not a Democracy, it’s this wierd Power Duopoly system with a near-symbolic vote sitting between a Power Monopoly (i.e. Dictatorship) and real Democracy.
Do not confuse your ignorance when it comes to voting systems with what is maybe one of the most visible effects of anti-democratic voting systems being “how democracy in general works”. Not! Even! Close!
Your words: “In every voting system a non vote is a vote for the worst option”
So I just pointed you out voting systems were that’s not the case.
That emotional reaction at me pointing that out and that the American voting system (clearly all that you know) is particularly anti-democratic even amongst flawed voting systems is a pretty good indication of somebody either whose identity is entwided with a nation which they must believe is superior to see themselves as inherently superior or being one of those wankers who firmly believes he’s always right with no requirement for proof and whilst being incapable of taking in criticism to such a level it’s an actual diagnosable mental disease, hence my criticism of the nation and that proven wrong unsupported belief resulting in such emotional pain and rage.
Normal, healthy and non-brainwashed individuals don’t react like that.
That’s some seriously fucked up psychological shit ridding you that I wouldn’t wish on my worse enemy.
In systems which are parliamentary rather than presidential, there is no such thing as a single candidate (with real power) that’s chosen because there is no single president representing the whole land (or, as in Germany, whilst there is one, it’s purelly symbolic with no actual power).
If the parliamentary election uses proportional vote, once again there are no single candidates being selected: people vote for parties and then seats are allocated in a proportional way, so not voting is perfectly neutral and indirectly favours no party.
Even in systems with parliamentary elections using multiple candidate electoral circles, not voting only sometimes benefits a specific candidate (depending very much on the balance of the other votes).
It’s only when you have single candidate electoral circles or presidential elections (for a position with real power) that not voting for one of the main parties is almost the same as voting for the other one.
Not that I’m defending not voting: personally if and when I find no candidate to my liking I’ll still go and vote, only vote blank, since not voting can just be interpreted as lazy whilst going to the trouble of getting one’s sorry ass of one’s sofa to go and a stand in line and then vote, only to vote blank, most definitelly signals one’s dissatisfaction with all parties/candidates.
It’s extremelly easy for politicians to spin abstention as unimportant, but not so for blank votes.
I’ve actually been a member of political parties in 2 countries (and always small parties, so it’s not as if I’m going personally gain from it) and have even manned voting sections, so it’s not as if I’m not doing far more than average to try and improve the countries I live in.
Then again I can have this far more nouanced take on voting because I generally lived in countries were the voting system meant voting made at least some difference.
Hey, if it makes you feel better to think that other people couldn’t possibly write themselves something that requires broad knowledge and which you can’t follow, go right ahead and tell yourself they’re using an LLM.
The people that care most about this were never going to vote in general. And with a significant majority of the population supporting Israel, there’s not really any option for candidates against it either.
And again, given that the majority of the population supports Israel, someone like Trump and Biden are going to be equivalent on the issue.
Only 13% say their sympathies lie with Palestinians in the war.
It’s really only Arab Americans that support Palestine over Israel. And more Arab Americans identify as Republican and would vote for Trump who is even more pro Israel and anti Palestinian. reuters.com/…/arab-american-support-biden-democra…
The people that care most about this were never going to vote in general.
Not necessarily. People aged 18-24 had a voter turnout of about 48% the last election.
And with a significant majority of the population supporting Israel, there’s not really any option for candidates against it either.
The population includes republicans who aren't gonna vote for Biden anyway. According to the Guardian:
Gallup has been tracking the gradual downward shift in sympathy toward Israel among Democrats that started in about 2014. In February, for the first time, Democrats’ sympathies for the Palestinians were higher than for the Israelis, 49% to 38%.
The youth thinks voting in a presidential election is all they need to do to make change. That is the bare minimum. You need to vote in every election, small ones that happen locally, every rep and Senate one. You also need to encourage other youths in strong conservative areas to move the needle to more liberal, progressive views. Then you need to get active and show the people running that there is a strong unified voice that demands these changes. But there is tic Tok and I'm pretty tired, cants someone else go and do it?
Don’t be a single issue voter either. Shit is too important to throw away your most valuable resource to combat climate change, ensure world peace, fund science and medical research, and equal rights for everyone.
Vote like your life depends on it. Because it does. Federal and local elections. It’s very important everyone vote.
Nope. I didn’t fuck this shit up by not voting, they did it. My one vote is not that powerful! If it was I would still be voting 🤣 Dumbest comments in the thread are the ones that think their votes matter.
I’ve made absolutely zero difference all the years I’ve voted, so why should I bother anymore? I just don’t care. The US is a car speeding down a road to a destination, who is driving that car doesn’t matter, change it every four or eight years, it makes absolutely no difference, the US will arrive exactly where it’s headed no matter who is in charge or whether I vote or not.
Plus it’s my vote to do with what I want, I choose to not use it. Give me someone worth voting for and I will show up first, they never will though.
You are dead wrong to imply a single vote can not or has not made the difference to win elections. Even if the national isn’t decided by a single vote local votes matter and they are where these razor thin margins are prevalent.
The only way we will hear the actual voice of the people is if everyone who can speak does so.
Lastly, what is the harm in voting? It takes very little effort, especially if you are in a mail-in state. It could make some difference, that makes it worth it easy or not
By voting for one of the only two candidates who has a chance of winning, but picking the one who will do the least damage and keep doing that over and over again until you get someone who isn’t terrible.
No. Absolutely not. I morally cannot vote for the one “who will do the least damage” Not a chance, that’s a complete waste of my vote in my opinion, and at that point what’s the difference if I just sit out? Nobody is happy if I don’t vote, that’s wrong, I’m supposed to vote for someone I don’t like so another candidate that I dislike even more doesn’t win. What the fuck change will ever happen in a lifetime with that strategy? This shits broken, I’m not participating anymore because of it, my vote, my choice how I use it, I choose not to use it.
I honestly don’t care. I had nothing to do with how he got there the first time, if I use my vote, it will do absolutely nothing to stop him a second time. Also… Dems could nominate someone besides Biden… Everyone in this thread acts like my one vote makes all the difference, it doesn’t, it won’t, this thing is rigged in every way possible, the whole system should be better, I didn’t create it, I didn’t make the rules.
I’m from Washington state, so again, my vote doesn’t matter, that’s the way the system works. My state will go blue with or without me participating.
The whole entire everything needs a complete overhaul, and it’s not going to happen. It’s just a show. Maybe we get the orange clown again, maybe not, who knows, I really don’t care.
You honestly don’t care about the future? What a strange attitude. I suppose you’re in favor of us using fossil fuels in that case. What difference does it make? You won’t be around when it gets really bad.
And there it is. If you “don’t care” then you are complicit in the depths of depravity and corruption. You may deserve it but the rest of us do not.
Oh well I can’t vote for someone unless they are Jesus fucking Christ himself!! If the candidate isn’t perfect I can’t vote for em!!!
Do you fucking hear yourself?? You disgust me, the world is quite literally a worse place because of you and those like you. In reality I have no doubt this is just lazy low effort trolling from you. Pathetic.
I think I was going to say that they have no right to bitch and moan if they didn’t vote for a serious candidate. They make a choice to accept whatever the outcome is, and then they complain about the outcome anyway.
Do they think the system has ever been fair? We’re truly a pathetic generation of so called liberals if we’re too apathetic to fight for a better world. Civil rights, gay rights, women’s suffrage, labor rights – they went up against a much worse situation, and they didn’t balk.
To be fair, in all my responses, I am mostly referring to presidential elections, I’m not arguing that the small local stuff can and does matter, and sometimes those races come down to just a few votes. Ya that’s true.
Don’t think there’s any harm in it at all, I just don’t care, and if I don’t care I’m not engaged and educated on all the issues, then should I really be voting? Or is better I sit out since I’m not following anything at all and can’t make good informed decisions anymore?
Lots of downvotes 🤣 Confused as to why on this specific comment! I am supposed to make uniformed decisions when I vote? Because your downvotes make it seem like I need to vote whether I’m informed or not, which seems just as silly or dumb as anything else in this thread…
I think it’s because it seems like you’re saying “I’m ignorant, there’s nothing I can do. Woe, is me. Also, I like to be this way and people that aren’t ignorant like me are actually the ones that are ignorant because they think things matter. Except, I’ll admit, somethings actually do really matter, just not the most important things, which as I’ve said and demonstrated I’m very ignorant about.”
Voting is literally the absolute bare minimum you can do to make sure fascists aren’t in power. I hate democrats as much as the next guy, I just don’t vote for them when they’re not running against literal fascists, but a lot of republicans pretty much are just fascists waiting for the chance to take people’s rights and lock up dissenters and minorities. Keeping them from fucking things up is one of the most important things you can do.
And think about this: if your vote was meaningless, why would republicans fight tooth and nail to make it harder to vote? Your average American likes republicans a lot less than democrats and would vote for a democrat, especially among less privileged demographics. Republicans have been working for decades to prevent these people from voting, and tried to make it more of a pain in the ass for everyone else, with some voters even going so far as to set up with guns outside polling stations sometimes. Your vote absolutely counts, and the more people realize that the truer it will be.
If you’re not gonna vote, either do something more useful like protest or do work for your community or don’t complain when republicans win and make your life worse. You can do a mail in ballot or vote early, it takes almost no effort to do. I wouldn’t have voted for biden in 2020 if it weren’t so easy to vote, between covid and how little I like him I was just gonna stay at home.
I think the only hope for the US and the world to not get completely fucked by war, oppression, and climate change is to vote for democrats, even ones who have done some shitty things, when they run against politicians whose main goal is to bring more war and oppression and climate change. As fucked up as the two party system is, it’s what we’re stuck with for now, and the only two paths towards reforming it are keeping the far right out of office, or a revolution that would kill at least thousands and maybe make things worse. I don’t think things are hopeless enough yet, for the country or the environment, for the latter to be a good idea. That stays the case unless we get 8+ years of DeSantis or Trump or RFK or anyone similarly fashy with republicans in control of everything
Nope. I haven’t lived in the US for 14 years. I’m not voting. I’m not protesting shit, nobody is listening anyway, why would I bother. No, I’m done. I have a higher quality of life where I live now, I’m just a spectator. The US is in a downward trajectory, my one vote will not change that.
I did volunteer by the way, I came home to volunteer for Bernie’s campaign both times. It’s not like I didn’t care, I voted nearly 20 years of life that I was able to, it hasn’t meant a damn thing except disappointment. I’m perfectly fine just watching the world burn, my vote can’t stop it. Nothing I do can stop it. I’m just going to chill and enjoy my time, watch show, enjoy the ride.
If anyone has a time machine and we can go back to before Bernie got robbed, I’ll vote. But not anymore, not a chance. No matter how I use or don’t use my vote, it will be the wrong choice. This is not my fault, I had nothing to do with how we got to now, until not I have always voted, just now now, not anymore. And what did all those votes get me? Jack shit.
Seriously! I did like 10 jumping jacks once and ate two carrots a couple years ago, and guess what? I still don’t have a six pack. People that work out are just lying to make us feel bad. Don’t fall for it!
That said, I live in a different place now where sensible legislation results in me having easier access to better, healthier food. I’ve even been able to replace my commute to work with a bike ride instead of a long drive in a car. I’m so much healthier now thanks to the way the people here vote.
Because you know the rules. It’s arbitrary yes, but in every election except 00 it’s been arbitrary and predefined what the rules are. The best way for the person you want to win to lose it to not vote
Nah, his position is literally only understandable if you’ve never had a conversation ever with a queer person, a PoC, or a woman who has thoughts other than quiverfull syndrome baby madness.
I honestly think people like you are why Trump ever got elected. You have no clue what kind of person @jo3jo3 and yet you call them stupid and spew almost the same kind of vile that you claim to warn against by them not voting. It really makes no sense to me how you can equate someone disillusioned with the entire process to be the same as someone who is out to get you. If you want more people to vote Democrat, then when people vote for your candidate merely because they hate the other candidate so much, then next time find a better candidate. Don’t tell them in 4 years, oh, we decided to not change a thing and you now have the same choice… either vote for our same mediocre candidate, or else the world will end. The doomsday gloom strategy only works if people believe you actually want change, not once you’ve shown them that is your entire strategy.
In other words, you can ask for money saying you can’t pay your rent, but when I see you spending it while out partying and you ask me again… don’t expect me to trust you.
That’s what you’re going with? People like me are the reason Trump got elected?
Not the protest votes? Not the people who sat home? It was me who is responsible. The person who voted Hillary in a deep red state knowing it would amount to virtually nothing but held my nose and did it anyway. I’m the person responsible.
Yes… here you are calling people stupid instead of holding your own party accountable. If you actually had any awareness, you’d be telling people how the Democrats have changed since 2016. Or what the Democratic party has done different since 2020 to regain trust. Instead, your ad hominem attacks make you out to be the one lacking intelligence. The ironic thing is, us stupid people actually feel bad for people like you. Like, despite you telling us that you’ve hated us since 2016, we just hope that you leave the cult one day.
Lol, no awareness. I am not a Democrat. If you can’t do the calculus to see a person like Trump should not be in government and anyone who thinks he should, should be opposed you are a lost cause. I can’t help you. Just do better, ok?
No where did I say I supported Trump. Your mind doesn’t seem to comprehend that not voting doesn’t mean you support other candidate. Good luck to you too. I hope I don’t see you on the news for beating up a disabled person that didn’t vote on election day because you thought they were a Trump supporter.
Get off it, you’re not morally superior. You’re just a coward who can’t accept that some people don’t understand how to compromise and mitigate shifty situations.
Shit, we’ve had elections where the issue was less than 1,012 votes. Wikipedia even has an entire list of close votes. It’s insane how many are so close. It’s much more common than one would think.
Then you are letting the people you hate the most win. Don’t let them win. If anything, vote so you can say you didn’t vote for the guy that’s fucking over the world.
But they all fuck over the world, every vote is the wrong vote when they give you two shit options. Screw that, I’m a spectator now, this shit is burning to the ground, I’m not participating, I’m just watching.
I can’t criticize you, but you are choosing anarchy. Not sure what your history and upbringing is, but anarchy can be significantly worse than what you have now. If you’re not a white male, there are many places in the world with anarchy where your life is under valued even more than in America.
You think it will get better if you just ignore it? You think it will be better if Trump is back in Power?
Sadly it seems that American democracy is voting for the lesser of two evils, but if you don’t vote at all you will be stuck with the worse of two evils for a long time, and I am worried about the consequences of that for both America and the rest of the world.
If anything, vote so you can say you didn’t vote for the guy that’s fucking over the world.
I’ve tried that too. I still lost, still bummed out, still felt like I made zero difference, still criticized by others even when using my vote so I can say at least I didn’t vote for the guy that’s fucking over the world like you said. For reference, I voted Obama, then Jill Stein, then the last two times I wrote in Bernie. So I did use my votes, and I always got the same response people gave me here, that I was dumb voting third party, or an idiot to waste my vote writing in Bernie. People would tell me a write in or voting third party was essentially a vote for the wrong team. So when I use my vote, it’s wrong, if I don’t use my vote it’s wrong. Now I just don’t want to participate anymore. So maybe “they” win now since I’ve checked out, but is that any different than playing this rigged game my whole life, holding out hope things will change and get better, when in the end, “they” will always win?
Don’t be a single issue voter either. Shit is too important to throw away your most valuable resource to combat climate change, ensure world peace, fund science and medical research, and equal rights for everyone.
like the dems have done fucking anything but follow the republicans on this matter.
And not voting is just selfish. Trump’s policies would kill more Palestinians, and we’d go decades back on climate change. The purity of one’s ideals isn’t worth more than that.
No but I think it would be consolation to the children who are alive but would be torn apart by direct American artillery under Trump.
I have no love for Israel. Sorry to break it to you, but people who disagree with you on something aren’t automatically devout supporters of the IDF. Someone can be “on your side” and still disagree with you because you’re an asshole.
Also you’re literally opposing the choice that leads to fewer Palestinians dying.
He will be the Republican nominee and as such there will be a push that the rules do not apply to him.
Alternately they will attempt to get Biden removed in the same states because “reasons”.
There is a firm belief that if nobody gets to 270, they win because the President would be decided in the House, one vote per state, and there are more red states than blue states.
There is something so weird about this. I don’t think these guys are trying to protect children, I think they are getting off on the roleplaying and using the ‘hunting predators’ thing as an excuse to justify it.
Nah, if you want to help people who are SA victims volunteer at an NGO or become a detective. People like this actively harm investigations and I get the impression that most are just clout chasers.
Would it not be the best case scenario to have the people who have an impulse to hunt people, be hunting people who are pedophiles?
The problem with supporting vigilantism is that vigilantes are wrong a lot and there is no recourse or protection against that.
Cops themselves acknowledge this
"His one-man crusade has led to the arrest and criminal charges being filed against several men,” it said. “He has also mistakenly identified someone as a sexual predator who was not.”
“It’s ok if it’s people I don’t like” is not the mindset of an emotionally mature human.
Yeah seriously, actual cops and detectives with actual training, as minimal as it is, get it wrong plenty, imagine how often some jagoff with no training is going to end up attacking an innocent?
I’m saying I suspect this is a pedophile going online to fantasize with others about children having sex with adults, who then protects himself afterwards by exposing the person he was talking to while portraying himself as a hero.
It’s like someone with a porn addiction publicly being anti-porn and supporting laws that ban porn as a way of coping.
I would honestly check this guys computers for CSAM.
It’s also important to remember that the majority of child sexual abuse happens between relatives or close family friends with access to children, not random people on the internet. The best way to catch pedophiles remains early grade sexual education in schools, not amateur vigilante undercover sting operation for twitch views.
No it would not be better. I want someone cool and unemotional dealing with high stake situations with complex legal systems. Without that you get into situations like exactly this describes.
“successfully caught” 132 predators…only 4 arrests. Even if every single one of those 132 people were actual pedophiles (I have my doubts), this is clearly a terribly ineffective path.
A lot of the “to catch a predator” guys got off specifically because of how the show handled their being caught. There’s a reason police investigators do things the way they do.
Your comment just made me think of something. Think of how ineffective our criminal justice system is. Got it? As bad as it is, it is still greatly exceeds this guy.
People like to accuse the cancellation of that show being because they accused a judge with influence, but IIRC it’s because someone who wasn’t actually a pedo ended up killing themself because of how destroyed their life was by the show.
I see your point, and agree with it. I’m sure a lot of it do it for the fame and it’s not really about protecting the kids to them.
But, even if they’re doing it for their own self-interest, they’re still doing a good thing. You don’t have to have good intentions to still promote positive change. I couldn’t care less for the guilty people they find, good riddance, they don’t belong in society.
That being said, if they falsely accuse people to try and keep growing their influence, then it becomes a problem
And teens he confronted killed him? He typically posed as a 15 year old girl to catch people it says. I guess these teens are in the wrong if they’re 18-19? Story just seems a little strange.
Confronting people by yourself is not something a level headed individual does. This guy was clearly getting off on some type of vigilante hero complex.
Low hanging fruit. There’s not that many actual pedophiles out there, and the ones that exist are usually pretty cautious (otherwise they’d have been caught already).
But technically an 18 year old wanting to have sex with a 16 year old…
I don’t know anything about this guy, but the fact that he was accusing teenagers of being pedophiles suggests he was just trying to get fame and attention by capitalizing on the current “pedophiles everywhere” moral panic.
But technically an 18 year old wanting to have sex with a 16 year old…
Is highly dependent on local laws. Some outlaw it, some are perfectly fine with it, and some fall into a gray area between. For instance, it may be a minor offense (no pun intended, I swear) instead of a major offense if there were a greater age gap. These are sometimes known as “Romeo and Juliet” laws
Romeo and Juliet laws are not a defense or protection from prosecution. They generally only apply after a conviction and generally they just prevent one person from being labeled as a sex offender if specific conditions are met. The application and conditions vary depending on location.
These kids weren’t wrong no matter what though. They were attracted to an adult man in women’s clothing. Unless he was somehow broadcasting the fake age, they weren’t attracted to a 15 year old girl. They were attracted to an adult man who thought he looked like a 15 year old girl.
I’m not familiar with this guy’s technique. How did he go about baiting potential targets?
The usual methods of the past used text and staged images, so the targets didn’t see the real person until a meetup. I’d suppose though that with the advancements in live video filters over the past several years there’s no reason this guy couldn’t just dress in drag and apply appropriate filters so he appears as required.
Yeah, I was thinking this was all in person, hence why he may accidentally end up targeting teenagers. It probably was online and they didn’t see the person until the meeting. This man has to be super dumb to go after other teenagers, let alone putting himself in this position without other support structures and things to protect him.
See also the ammosexuals who fantasize on the daily about the day they get to “defend themselves” against a “home intruder”
The hero complex is IMO just the masking of sociopathic violent fantasies in self righteousness. “No no no, I’m not obsessed with being able to kill justifiably, I just REALLY hate pedos!”
“Goods prices have abated…” The fuck they have. Also stop blaming inflation on wage increase. Most of it was caused by opportunistic greed of those aforementioned ‘goods prices’.
To play devil’s advocate, it is perfectly possible that person genuinely saw it as that. Eyewitnesses in chaotic situations are inherently untrustworthy and prone to misinterpret things and even create false memories when questioned. Especially if it was someone that, naively, still trusted in cops for some reason, it’s easy for the mind to create some assumed aggression by the victim, because only that way their worldview can remain intact (“a police officer wouldn’t have been that brutal without good cause” as an assumption, basically.)
Still, I agree, it is wild. Especially since even the bastard assaulting the driver here didn’t claim that. And I agree, it is also very much possible it was an overzealous fascist that just wanted to cover for the cops in a way more zealous than the cops themselves by consciously lying.
The deputy also claimed that he was punching Brock because Brock was biting him on the hand. The EMTs noted no bite marks, and the only injuries the deputy sustained were fractured knuckles from repeatedly punching Brock in the head. The video also doesn’t show any biting, and the biting claims were quietly dropped when the deputy learned that the whole thing had been captured on security cameras.
i wouldn’t say a lot. you’d be amazed how massive the private security industry is. it’s mostly shit jobs that pay pile 15/hr for you to watch cameras and occasionally scan little wall dots to prove you walked down a hall.
my old roommate did this kind of security for a different building in Milwaukee. none of his coworkers were cops, nor were they trained in any meaningful way.
I’m surprised he didn’t get a marketing or communications job, philosophy is a no brainer in those fields. I guess it depends on the undergraduate degree too.
Our security guard spends most of his time chasing away fentanyl addicts shooting up inside our elevator and cleaning up poop from them after they devour tubs and tubs of ice cream (they poop in our parking garage stairway every single day).
Also, calling the police and helping to coordinate cleanup in the daily car break ins we have at the office. My boss had his truck windows smashed 5 times since 2021.
So yes, some security officers actually do real work. Ours doesn’t even carry a gun and said he would not physically interact with anyone unless someone’s life was on the line.
Off duty cops get a waaaay higher wage than regular security guards. Most security guards are paid around $14-$20 an hour from what I’ve seen in my state.
A lot of companies are too cheap to pay for the off duty cops.
Oh, they know they’re lying, they just want to lie so much they bury the truth re-write the past (which is kinda ironic if you think about it, given that whole eight commandment). It’s kinda the same way the “Lost Cause of the Confederacy” is embedded into American mythology despite being a after-the-fact whitewashing of history.
No one challenged the law makers to prove that they were right. They are lying because they can get away with it - no one in any position of power asked or was asked which foundational document was forged by forefathers from Christian (or any religion) doctrine.
6 and 8 are the only ones that are laws, and those are just common sense shit, don’t murder or steal. The first 4 are telling you what god to worship and how, which are explicitly the opposite of what a government is built on.
The next forty years will look like absolute hell and the lack of proper services for the explosive number of diseases in the millennial cohort will directly contribute.
Milliennials by and large don’t have enough money to retire, and they are experiencing in striking numbers high rates of immunodeficiency and cancers. (I was personally diagnosed with cancer at 42. You know, the ultimate answer to life the universe and everything…) This will mean they will need more elder care and sooner… and they won’t really be able to afford it.
No Child Left Behind has properly fucked US education for the foreseeable future, and US education was abysmal before that already. The elderly are going to be being taken care of by adults who may be functionally illiterate and when you’re functionally illiterate, you can become anti-vax even if you got hired as caretaker for the elderly. (Not all will grow up to be functionally illiterate, but if we’re to take teachers at their word, the gap between the struggling kids and the smart kids is wider than ever. As in C students functionally don’t exist, only A students and F students, and the F students are the larger group who are being passed on to higher grades just to hit numbers.)
On top of education being gutted and there being a dangerous future of incapable people being put in these jobs because there’s no one else to do them: The collapse in birth rate because nobody can afford to have fucking kids will also make this problem worse as fewer and fewer workers will be available to take care of more and more elderly and infirm people.
Most of the places that take care of the elderly are being bought up at rapid pace by investment groups, private equity, hedge funds, and the like, and all they do is cut services, make things worse, and cause more suffering and death so they can wring more money out of people suffering at the end of their lives. How many of these businesses will even still exist in 20 years? Many of them are shutting down constantly because the numbers just don’t add up, or because the private equity group that bought it has finished hollowing it out and there’s simply no money left.
Because of all of this, we will see an absolute explosion of homelessness in the elderly.
You can bet your ass fuck-nothing will be done to prevent any of this. Especially if Trump wins in November, then we’re dealing with this process outright accelerating at a breakneck pace.
Oh and just for “fun” we can expect to see a lot more police violence against poverty-striken old people. “STOP RESISTING OLD MAN!”
EDIT: Oh yeah, and that’s not even counting climate change, finite amounts of topsoil left, potential pandemics, and the fact that most of the world doesn’t even have access to clean water. I try to keep an eye on neat, simple engineering projects from poor countries because we may need to rely on similar options soon enough ourselves.
EDIT II: Get involved in Mutual Aid Groups. We all have skills. No one is coming to save us. No government or political party or corporation. We have to save each other, and that will be very difficult to achieve. I forget the writer, but she said something like “No dictator is ever going to bring about the revolution. It will always have to come from the bottom organizing together.” The only thing we can do is help one another. It will not be easy or fair or entirely successful.
Solid points all around, but I wanted to add one historical tidbit: at one point the USA had literally the best edumacashiun in the world. After WWII, the other nations (like the UK + those in the EU) were bombed all to hell & back whereas the USA was relatively fine. People like Bill Gates advocated strongly for US education funding, b/c it helped feed that behemoth giant of a corporation to have an already-educated workforce, funded by US tax dollars, that they could take advantage of.
We have fallen FAR down the world rankings since then. Tbf, some of that may reflect changes in measurements e.g. does “every” kid need one, or can some be excused to go be a farmhand without needing to finish? (this affects averaged measurements, but not peak ones, or the previously thus-filtered ones)
Anyway I was just attempting to use it as an example - we could substitute gas station attendant or fast food worker, etc. There are jobs where, for the job anyway while ignoring the quality of life for the actual person, formalized education is less necessary than for other jobs, e.g. doctor or lawyer.
But my example of using farmhand was not made up: farmers literally pulled their kids out of primary schooling in order to make use of them on the farm. Perhaps they supplemented it with homeschooling at other times when the crop cycles allowed… or perhaps not. But either way, the ways we use to measure intelligence - e.g. if we ask what country does the city of Athens belong to - the farmhands will appear extremely low in such rankings.
So long as someone else in the family does the planning work, someone who was not merely pulled out but who flunked out of primary schooling could exist in life by contributing purely manual but not much intellectual labor.
I accidentally wiped my comment. Now it will not be as good as it was.
Farmers need education. Farmhands do not.
Derp. Still, everyone needs education.
we could substitute gas station attendant or fast food worker, etc.
Dull, mind numbing work that should have been automated long time ago. And we are talking about schools, not universities.
e.g. doctor
Schools are not medical universities. But even in school you will be taught first aid. And basic anotomy in biology class.
farmers literally pulled their kids out of primary schooling in order to make use of them on the farm. Perhaps they supplemented it with homeschooling at other times when the crop cycles allowed… or perhaps not.
This is bad. Terrible.
to measure intelligence - e.g. if we ask what country does the city of Athens belong to
This question does not measure inteligence, it measures erudition. Inteligence, erudition and wisdom are different things. Question for intelligence would be like “bat and ball cost 1.1$, bat costs 1$ more than ball, how much ball costs?”.
So long as someone else in the family does the planning work, someone who was not merely pulled out but who flunked out of primary schooling could exist in life by contributing purely manual but not much intellectual labor.
We are Homo sapiens, not Homo ergaster. Tractor better contributes “purely manual but not much intellectual labor”.
If you will allow me to say? Your premise seems incorrect. Words like “need” presumes a goal to keep people alive. We “need” Oxygen, in order to breathe which itself is necessary in order to stay alive rather than convert into a corpse state of ‘existence’. However, as e.g. lemmy.zip/post/17644464 shows, we are not being allowed to have even that. And if even Oxygen is denied us, then surely education will be even less of a “right”, for homo sapiens or otherwise.
To a fascist, such as the current set of billionaires in charge, education of the masses - or even our very existence, in light of globalism for now and automation eventually - is no longer necessary. And with climate change diminishing resources, possibly it is not even desirable or neutral anymore, so much as something to be either neutrally or perhaps actively pursued to demolish what has previously been built up. e.g. when the pandemic occurred, the response was “so what? let them die. BuT tHe EcOnOmY will go on just fine without them, in fact better without those restrictions imposed by safety protocols”.
So no, “everyone needs education” sounds like something that is not true… at least according to the likes of Elon Musk, who now controls Twitter. Not Bezos, nor Zuckerberg, etc. And they would really like it if we did not tax them in order to pay for such. And a LOT of people seem to agree with them, whether we like it or not. See this fantastic description of it: youtu.be/agzNANfNlTs?si=dAGHoctLiPimmTTQ.
Also for some reason I didn’t do first quote and my “derp” didn’t looked like reply to my obvious mistake. Sorry.
Words like “need” presumes a goal to keep people alive.
I was talking more broadly as a goal to make everyone fully functioning member of society and citizens of their own country, preferably capable of finding cognitive biases in their and others’ statements and distinguishing science and medicine from pseudoscience and homeopathic antivax chiropractors.
I was so often sangry lately(for last 2 years), that I’m just tired of bullshit happening everywhere.
And if even Oxygen is denied us, then surely education will be even less of a “right”, for homo sapiens or otherwise.
You know, from my sofa it seems everything sucks, just some countries like nordic ones suck slightly less. And it seems the world plunges into neofeudalism with celebrations by ignorant.
current set of billionaires in charge, education of the masses - or even our very existence, in light of globalism for now and automation eventually - is no longer necessary.
Meanwhile they will do everything to keep internationalism and automations to themselves, but never for masses. I think I already mentioned DMCA as expample. Other examples are software patents(which are basically math patents), patents on nature(for example plant varieties, genes of existing organisms).
pursued to demolish what has previously been built up.
It seems it happens everywhere. How about subject called “basics of orthodox culture” in school? Secular state is so secular. Another reason to hate Putinism.
e.g. when the pandemic occurred, the response was “so what? let them die. BuT tHe EcOnOmY will go on just fine without them, in fact better without those restrictions imposed by safety protocols”.
This is so stupid. Human must not be considered a tool. And I feel stupid too because at start of pandemic my opinion wasn’t far from that, but more along the lines of “it doesn’t help that much, why bother” rather then economy part. To be fair it was during peak of police violence and fines printing press during lockdown.
And a LOT of people seem to agree with them, whether we like it or not.
Damn. I am afraid of my country becoming like this.
It’s okay - that’s how I interpreted it:-). Lemmy formatting can also be weird sometimes and people access via different methods, so I try to remember that as well.
citizens of their own country
^This is the big one, particularly in a democracy this is so extremely crucial. But… we did not bother to secure it, so now we may be (are?) losing it all. Like someone who has lost their immune system, we are now vulnerable to not only lack of knowledge but outright presence of active disinformation. Wait… didn’t we need that - ooopsie daisy!? :-P
I am afraid of my country becoming like this.
If we had had more fear sooner, we might have avoided getting eaten alive by Russian disinformation campaigns. As it is… our lack of fear has definitely harmed us greatly, possibly fatally.
The good news is that whatever society rises out of our corpse will have learned lessons from the ordeal. Rome also fell too, but life goes on. Ours might not, and given climate change humans or even mammals + far more might not, but even so, all we can control is ourselves individually, right now. I for one take that as a charge to do whatever I can in however much time we have left. And maybe it’s not a foregone conclusion after all? So much the better. All we have is today - make it a good one.:-)
People like Bill Gates advocated strongly for US education funding, b/c it helped feed that behemoth giant of a corporation to have an already-educated workforce, funded by US tax dollars, that they could take advantage of.
Sounds like bill gates just wanted to steal more surplus labor value from his workers.
try to keep an eye on neat, simple engineering projects from poor countries because we may need to rely on similar options soon enough ourselves.
I am just sitting here as a infrastructure guy trying not to have a mental break of crying and laughing. It’s so fucking bad and getting so much worse. You know what was today’s item? I am working on one small system for a replacement wastewater treatment plant for a town of about 3,000 people that the pieces of shit general contractor has dragged out for 8 fucking years. 8 years for a project that should have taken 6 months. They haven’t done any work. Longer it goes on the more they get to bill. Oh and my favorite part? The general contractor is one of the bigger ones, they have a Wikipedia page.
Cost disease is going to break us. Entire country is going to be spending a trillion a year with the water supply of Flint.
Now if you excuse me I am going to drink now. Cause fuck it I can’t save anyone.
You’ve done your best. It’s definitely not personally your job to save anyone anyway. If we can’t figure out how to do it collectively, well, maybe we just suck as a species. Thanks for doing what you could and can and don’t bemoan yourself for your inability to fight a broken system on your own. I don’t expect engineers and scientists and doctors who have been telling us this shit needs to be done for years to have any fucking patience for it anymore. You’ve all done your bit.
Also, thanks because I’ve just been assuming as much has been going on behind the scenes for a long time. I’ve been saying for years the entire nation gave up on any idea of long-term maintenance of anything in the 90’s. We’ve had failing infrastructure grades for bridges all over the country since at least 2010, if not earlier, and fuck-all has been done. I’m not even close to being an engineer, but I’ve helped some friends with some basic construction and I’m just floored at how many corners are cut on so many things in our country. It’s prevalent everywhere, it’s part of why there’s so many data breaches in the tech sector. They don’t want to pay to update old systems to bring them up to compliance. We’ve literally built workarounds in the form of Virtual Machines just so people can run outdated software on modern hardware so insecure outdated software can simply keep being used despite its age. So yeah, feeling vindicated that it’s not all just in my head.
We’ve literally built workarounds in the form of Virtual Machines just so people can run outdated software on modern hardware so insecure outdated software can simply keep being used despite its age. So yeah, feeling vindicated that it’s not all just in my head.
Insecure outdated software AKA proprietary software. Fuck that shit.
Are lawyers involved? You should sue to get it for free, not to pay more, because contracts like that usually put a penalty on the supplier if they break their promises
I at first I expected you to work in IT infrastructure specifically, but sewage? When sewage can’t keep shit together - nothing in country can keep shit together. USSA is slowly turning from worse than Russia in some areas to worse than Russia in all areas.
I appreciate your efforts, but we as a nation were not guaranteed to make it. It was up to us to make it, and we failed ourselves by devolving into petty tribalism between two 1% owned political parties.
This is kind of where I’m at. I don’t imagine any amount of cash in a bank account is going to prepare us for what’s to come. Even if you could put money aside, the money you typically put towards retirement might just be better off towards becoming a doomsday prepper. Probably wouldn’t save you either way, but it may buy you a little time that you wouldn’t have otherwise.
Like others have said, I imagine my “retirement” as bearing witness to the collapse of modern society and ultimately dying in some lousy brawl with other desperate refugees, or by some untreated bacterial infection.
I just know that my death will be something dumb in the coming collapse, like stubbing my toe and dying to infection when there is no remaining, effective antibiotics on our superheated hellhole.
You know, we live in “technology was there; the humanity wasn’t” since DMCA was legislated. We literally have information duping machine, but there is law that forbids it. When there will be everything duping machine, ruling class will its use by anyone outside of ruling class.
What do you mean somehow? Cyberpunk as a genre has always been a vision of a future of unchecked corporate power, it only became prescient because Americans gave corporations unchecked power.
I didn’t think to word it “Walking into the future lubed up, bent over, and ready to pay for the patriotic right to get split roasted by Google and Blackrock” because that’s a bit of a mouth full.
If the orange man wins, America is over and none of your concerns will matter as we slip into a fascist dystopia. That is an existential threat we have to deal with right now, and it can actually be prevented.
Prieto was a vendor at gun shows in Prescott and would trade firearms from his personal collection, using only cash deals or trades to evade the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, the affidavit says, adding that this was corroborated through monitoring with the help of the source.
It’s legal to buy fertiliser. But if you buy enough to blow up the twin towers, and hide that purchasing from the authorities, I have a hunch they’d be interested in you.
This would limit the spreading of white supremacy more than I think most would expect, the online side is a tougher nut to crack but gun shows are the wild fucking west, I attended some with friends who’s parents went when I was a kid and some wild shit flies
I wonder if others on the jury helped them see the light. Or maybe the nodding and smiling was sarcasm, or even intentionally trolling Trump. Fun to think about.
I seem to recall seeing an infographic (uncertain of its provenance) indicating that one juror listed the NY Post as a frequent news source. That guy’s presence on the jury certainly had me concerned.
The thing is, you can sometimes get through to these Trump supporters if you can deprogram them from their echo-chamber… That requires very long conversations, an expose of facts, dismantling of their fallacies, and keeping them away from right-wing propaganda and peer pressure for an extended period of time.
… Which just so happens to be what jurors go through.
I honestly don’t think lawmakers put that level of thought into dismantling education. Votes are the only goal here.
Somewhere along the line, it was Limbaugh for me, conservatives noticed that educated people tend to vote liberal. Well hell, how do we explain this?!
The pundits launched a full-frontal attack on education and those “ivory tower liberals”. Who the fuck are these people to tell me how to think when I got the Bible and my gut feelings?!
I watched this unfold. No one talked down on education in the 70s and 80s, nothing like the conservatives do now anyway. Then… Remember Rick Santorum baggin’ on Obama for having 2 degrees? While Santorum had 3. FFS, Obama taught Constitutional law at Harvard and the GOP acted like that made him less able to judge Constitutional matters.
Now “education bad” gets votes, that easy. I don’t think there was a real plan. As always, the GOP rolls with what works emotionally. (While the Democrats think they can win on logical arguments.)
We don’t need more kids to go into those fields we need more funding for those fields. If you want depressing look up what happens to the bulk of people with physics, or geologist, or chemistry undergrad degrees.
Back before Brown vs. Board of Education, US high school could produce kids who’d had four years of science, math, history, foreign languages, and could play an instrument. When they realized that they’d have to educate all the citizens to that level they dropped the level, hoping the colleges would train the leaders of tomorrow
In the defense of those folks, the knowledge of what the Galapagos are is pretty irrelevant unless you are into evolutionary biology or random islands for vacations. And even on thr vacation thing id rather go to Svalbard personally.
Shouldn’t have to be “into” evolutionary biology. The foundational events of Charles Darwin’s early research into evolution are basic biology. Darwin’s finches should be middle school education along with Punnett squares and the scientific method.
If it makes it any better I was thinking of some more modern instances of folks replicating Darwins finches or atleast observing the same thing. Also I associate darwin with barnacles and inbred tomato. I have been brain poisoned by too much info.
At one time, not so long ago, Darwin was common knowledge. Something that you’d expect an intelligent 10 year old to know about. “Darwin” was one of the X-Men!
My understanding is that juries in America dont really deliberate on a verdict or a sentence. Thats up to the judge.
Instead, I believe they’re presented with all the facts and arguments, then determine based on that information whether or not the the prosecution’s claims hold up.
So its more of a “based on the facts you have been presented with, do you think the defendant did X”, rather than “should the defendant be punished for this crime?”
Most Trump supporters understand that he’s a criminal, but believe that his actions are in service of the greater good. So in a situation like this the distinction between “do the facts line up” and “should he be punished” is an important one.
There’s kinda like a second trial where they have friends and family of the defendant and victim come and tell you what s great guy he is or how much they miss the victim etc.
Then the judge lays out the range of possible punishments, including when parole might be available. We’re not allowed to consider when parole might be available though.
Then we all go into the deliberation room and duke it out. When we were done, we go back into the court room and hand the judge the punishment which he then read as sentencing.
The punishment range given us was anything from two to ninety nine years or life, so basically, “do what you want you crazy jurors”.
My understanding is that juries in America dont really deliberate on a verdict or a sentence. Thats up to the judge.
in a jury trial, the judge is there to manage the process and keep it fair. The prosecution presents their case, and the defense tries to poke holes and cause ‘reasonable doubt’.
yes, there are controls in place, like instructions on what may and may not be considered during deliberations, and yes, that restricts the jury’s decision significantly. For example, they’re not allowed to consider that Trump is a lying asshole who stole nuclear secrets when he left office, raped E Jean Carol or tried to lead an insurrection on jan 6 to overturn the government.
None of that really matters to this case. But the 12 jurors were ultimately the ones deciding that guilt or innocence or whatever. And they did so unanimously. The judge didn’t make the decision and tell them to come to a guilty verdict. (and the judge can only overrule such a verdict if it’s blatantly obvious they fucked it up. usually at that point they start over with a new trial and a new jury.)
A jury isn’t strictly bound by the facts. For example, a jury might feel that a law is unjust, and refuse to find someone guilty (called “jury nullification”). This is good and bad, such as by truly refusing to find guilt under an unjust law, but it has also been used by racist juries to let a white man accused of lynching a black man go free. And even without overwhelming evidence, a jury might find someone guilty, because “everyone knows they did it”, or something like that. Or because they did something and they can’t exactly prove that or another charge.
And then even after the jury returns their verdict, either the defense or prosecution may move to set aside the verdict. Those motions are rarely granted, but they happen.
I don’t think a judge can overturn a jury verdict on their own authority.
Of course, all of this varies by jurisdiction. Federal law and each state’s laws have their own quirks, and there are differences in civil and criminal law as well.
Why does EVERYTHING give me new ideas for tv shows that I could create if I were in the entertainment business?
Ok, imagine this show:
A 60 year old man stars as the lead character. He’s an overweight confederate flag wearing, racist, who just had his company relocate. Instead of working in Ohio, his factory is moving to Vermont. And so he’s going there too.
Now out of his echo chamber, he continues to be himself, the only way he’s ever known how. By repeating fox news talking points as his own original ideas. Completely unaware that he’s now surrounded by NPR donating listeners who already know the talking points he’s going to say for the day, and how to rebutte it before he even opens his mouth.
Faced with a new and challenging world changing around him, he feels he’s going crazy, until a conversation on a park bench. He talks with an elderly homeless man feeding the ducks, who shows him the deception he’s been led to believe, the brainwashing he’s victim to, and the consequences it has for people he’s never met. He has his eureka moment, and decides to change.
The show starts with him as the new manager of the factory, as the previous manager was shot and killed in a random public shooting that he had nothing to do with. He was just there. Being that the main character is the only other person to move from Ohio, he’s the only one who knows how to run the business. So now he’s working with an all new crew. Instead of 97% older whites, it’s now a total hodgepodge of races, ages, and backgrounds working the factory floor.
The series follows his progression and growth from being a racist out of touch boomer who’s only personality trait can best be described as “fox news”, to a more mentally complete well rounded person with compassion and empathy for people who may not be just like him. You see him at times struggle with this. He may not have fox news in his ears anymore, but he did for 30 years previously. So he’ll still slip up from time to time, and have to unlearn what his former life instincts would lead him to say and do.
He gets advice everyday from the elderly homeless man in the park. Whom on the last episode pulls his coat hood back, and it was Bernie Sanders all along.
Don’t make him the manager, make him a shift leader that is asked to be a union rep when the employees decide to unionize. As he looks closer at the shady practices of the private equity firm that bought the company and moved it, he begins to understand the incompatibility of Fox talking points and what’s happening in real life around him.
There was an article around here this week, and I didn’t read further about it, saying it only takes a few days off FB to get people to turn around on conspiracy theories.
Six weeks plus 11 people worth of peer pressure all getting increasingly pissed off at you for wasting their time with your obstinate dumbassery, I guess.
Trump did; it’s a matter of public record. He violated court instructions about blabbing to the media ten times, and was held in contempt by the judge twice.
He repeatedly make false and misleading statements about the trial, the judge, the witnesses, and even the jury on social media and to the press in the entrance hall of the court building itself. The idiot just couldn’t stop himself.
Had he been a regular citizen instead of a former president, he would have almost certainly done jail time just for his behavior during the trial.
I’ve had some progress with a local trumpet, but he has too many friends pulling him back for the effects to last long.
He snaps out of it when I point out how capitalism (billionaires) is often the problem, or how the Rs block immigration reform. He’s been able to see some truth now and then. But later he turns his TV on and it’s all Hunter Biden’s fault for him again. Also for some reason we’re all gonna eat bugs lately.
Amazon Fresh just became the latest big-box retailer to cut costs on thousands of items, following in the footsteps of Walmart and Target in reversing course on years of inflation-induced price hikes
Corporations are always greedy, so this factor never changed. It could not have been the cause of inflation, since we had greedy corporations and more inflation before.
I want to point out that your reasoning is irrational which makes your conclusion nonsense.
You didn’t root cause or analyze anything, then declared yourself to be right “because”.
Here I’ll show you, let me use your method to “prove” something.
“The Potato Party has always been in charge in Tombo County, the hungry kids in schools are not the fault of The Potato Party because kids here have been hungry before.”
Yes, so the issue was people could afford to pay more when they got their stimulus. Which is the point of the stimulus, it worked 100%
The question is whether the skeptics that said the stimulus would cause inflation were right. Is it the corporate greed or does giving everyone money increase prices?
No, that’s not what the issue was. The stimulus was a drop in the bucket, and I think it’s insane to talk like people “have more money now” because they got a check for like a thousand dollars 4 years ago. That shit was gone the week after it was given, probably to rent in most cases.
The price increases were blamed on supply chain issues, which did exist, but not to the degree that could justify the increase.
The pandemic, constant coverage of inflation giving them a shield to raise prices and blame inflation even when their SEC filings indicate that this is complete bullshit, and crucially greater consolidation resulting in fewer options for grocery shoppers.
Corporations all raised prices at the same time. No competition to offset the greed. Normally that level of coordination is impossible among different companies, at least some would keep prices lower to retain customers.
Normally that level of coordination is impossible among different companies, at least some would keep prices lower to retain customers.
The biggest con in the world. You would think people are not capable of organizing for a common cause.
That level of coordination IS possible when all you need is a bunch of CXOs and investors in a union.
You think collusion to keep prices is not possible? Does that people people agreeing on a specific set of laws and policies living in a demarcated region (a country) is not possible?
The greed is constant, but the opportunities to excuse price increases are not. Egg prices jumped up about 6x because they had the excuse of bird flu, but the prices magically went down (but stayed elevated) after the government threatened an investigation. As ineffectual as our government has been made, increasing prices out of nowhere with no plausible excuses will invite an investigation.
You admit that corporations are always greedy, so how is out of the realm of possibility that an excuse like supply chain issues (which have since been resolved) would provide the perfect opportunity for these greedy corporations to jack up prices far beyond those underlying causes and get away with it?
Translation: republicans rigged 2016 election to usurp power, stole 3 Supreme Court seats, passed illegitimate tax cuts for ultra rich, and committed violent insurrection when public legitimately tried to remove them from power.
Every. Single. Republican. Is. Guilty. By. Association.
It’s true that the contents of this trial can be used for the arguments of the prosecution in the Federal and Georgia election trials, but he was not convicted of any crime other than falsifying business records.
Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records, a class E felony that is punishable by a fine, probation or up to four years in prison per count.
Yes. He used campaign funds to pay Cohen for his role as a personal attorney, but the payments were actually reimbursement for Cohen’s initially laid out hush money to Daniels.
All I said was he wasn’t charged with it. It’s absolutely going to be used to address his character in the other cases, but they may not get heard until after November at this rate.
The Federal election is postponed until SCOTUS rules on immunity. The Georgia election is postponed until the state Senate investigates Fani Willis, and the documents case is postponed indefinitely.
I’m surprised so many people think that this proves he’s guilty for all of the cases. We all knew he was before this trial even started. This legally only proves he’s guilty of fraud until he begins another trial.
according to The Guardian, for it to be considered a felony charge they had to prove that Trump did it with the intent to commit another crime; The other crime being a New York state law that says it is illegal for “any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means”
So the election interference charge form part of the existing charges without being separate charges in and of themselves
The main argument from prosecution to this end was that the encounter happened in 2006 (ish, I might be off) but the hush money wasn’t an issue until the election campaign. Therefore, they argued, it was paid (and covered up with false business records) to influence the election.
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