Only a very limited set of the DoD shuts down when Congress doesn’t pass a budget. Efforts related to national security (which most of DoD falls under) continue regardless. A “police officer for the Air Force in Kansas” has little to worry about, even if he’s a contractor. National security functions continue when the government shuts down.
Also past shutdowns didn’t represent a “missed paycheck” for those affected, but rather a delayed one. Everyone got back-pay when past shutdowns ended. This isn’t a guarantee - Congress has to pass it as part of the spending bills - but it has always happened.
Millions of federal civilians and contractors will be furloughed during a shutdown, and that’s a very bad thing. But the military angle in this article is just plain false.
Many people are not in a position to have a delayed paycheck. It’s not even remotely acceptable. If your angle is, calm down the military is required to keep working and only some of them will be impacted, you have the wrong angle.
I’m not remotely saying that it’s not a big deal for the people impacted. I’ve been one of those and it was horrible - you don’t get paid and you’re not allowed/don’t have time to go get another job (the longest shutdown so far was 34 days).
I’m saying that the author of this article hasn’t done their research, because while millions will be impacted by a shutdown, military families are largely not among them.
The military personnel will not be paid during the shutdown just like the government employees. DoD personnel that are emergency essential will have to keep working but that is a small fraction of the civilian workforce. Yes, everyone will be paid backpay (including furloughed civilians), but the point is that a lot of people cannot financially handle getting their paycheck late. Especially when there is no idea when the government will start back up.
Those military people are expected to keep working, but they do not get a paycheck for that work. They’re still expected to commute to work every day, but with no money to do it.
Civilian employees will get it all paid back (so it’s basically an extra paid vacation for them). With what most of them make (that I interact with), if they can’t take responsibility for simple budgeting for a couple of weeks - that’s their own shitty fault.
Should Congress not put us in this situation - absolutely! They need to loose all their pay (i.e. no later payback) for at least twice as long as the shutdown is. I know, won’t matter to the vast majority of them.
do you think Lemmy is exclusively populated with Americans? There’s a whole wide world out there you know, where much stricter gun laws are common and accepted across the political spectrum, do not assume anyone’s political leaning just because they’re against every Joe Schmoe packing heat
If I had a genie where I can magically wish guns away, I’d do it.
But right now, armed Nazi fucks parade around the city, PROTECTED BY COPS, and they want to pass laws that make it harder for my brown hands to protect myself?
He complains openly, unable to cope with seeing how things are.
I’m not sure how highlighting a problematic shift in discourse and contained cope or expressing incredulity at the shift is, somehow, an inability to cope with seeing how things are - if anything, it would be quite specifically seeing how things are and beginning discourse about how things are.
But hey - don’t let that get in the way of an attempted dunk.
Conservatives have won the popular vote for a presidential election exactly once since 2000, and it was Bush in 2004. They are, by definition, unpopular. Accordingly, you can expect that in open forums the conversation will skew against Republicans. You don’t get to enjoy minority rule and popular opinion at the same time, sorry. If you’re tired of being the minority in every space, perhaps you should consider trying to win people over. Here’s a good start: news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx
The majority want stricter gun laws. If you don’t want to be derided, I suggest trying to meet people in the middle and discussing sensible gun control laws. Raising the legal ownership age to 21 seems like an extremely popular measure that the majority of Republicans even support.
Or you can go ahead and keep coping and whining about conservatism not being popular without an ounce of self awareness. Your choice. I suggest trying to be part of the solution instead of trying to stop the inevitable.
Conservatives have won the popular vote for a presidential election exactly once since 2000, and it was Bush in 2004. They are, by definition, unpopular. Accordingly, you can expect that in open forums the conversation will skew against Republicans. You don’t get to enjoy minority rule and popular opinion at the same time, sorry. If you’re tired of being the minority in every space, perhaps you should consider trying to win people over. Here’s a good start: news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx
So, in your estimation, does Congress just… not exist? Does it have zero relevance to the United States, e.g. in legislation? As far as I’m aware, they’re popular enough to have control of at least one of the houses of Congress at the moment - and that’s even leaving aside Governors and other elected positions.
Setting that aside, you you believe forums - especially niche forums - are in any way a sample set indicative of the general population? There’s, say, no selection bias at all?
Interesting.
By your own rationale, you should consider the extent to which you should consider trying to win people over e.g. so as to address the incredible skew toward Republicans in current elected positions.
The majority want stricter gun laws. If you don’t want to be derided, I suggest trying to meet people in the middle and discussing sensible gun control laws. Raising the legal ownership age to 21 seems like an extremely popular measure that the majority of Republicans even support.
Is that so? I’m interested in seeing your support for such a notion.
If we’re going by your Gallup poll, the best to be said is 57% of the population perceives current legislation as benefitting from laws which would be more strict and 44% of the population disagrees. That 12% delta doesn’t seem to be the silver bullet, so to speak, that you believe it is. But, for the sake of argument, let’s pretend it was - If a blue team candidate doesn’t push a given restrictive position, do you believe blue team voters would… suddenly vote for red? Conversely, if a blue team candidate doesn’t push a given restrictive position… do you believe there are zero independents who would consider them more palatable?
We have a fantastic data point on this - in Iowa’s 2022 elections, in a state with a roughly three-way split between Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, Iowa codified a strict scrutiny clause for the right to bear arms in its state constitution with an unprecedented ~66% ‘yay’ rate. Similarly, the Republican candidate - Kim Reynolds - won with ~58% of the vote against a Democratic candidate pushing more restrictions. Clearly, Iowa’s Democrats are in need of considering trying to win people over - by data. I realize it’s mere anecdote, but the general responses when asked about voter apathy or active rejection of blue candidates are due to such restrictions not sufficiently balanced by bringing anything to the table.
Or you can go ahead and keep coping and whining about conservatism not being popular without an ounce of self awareness. Your choice. I suggest trying to be part of the solution instead of trying to stop the inevitable.
I find your without an ounce of self-awareness criticism rather laughable, all things considered. You seem to believe yourself part of the solution and inevitable - much like Agent Smith, funnily enough - for no reason other than your own apparent smug.
Congratulations - you may not have intended to do so, but you embody the detrimental effect of such a liberal attitude on constructive discourse.
Well then, stay the course. You guys did so well in 2022 after all, and House Republicans are currently showing the country just how serious and competent they are at governance. The midterms weren’t kind to conspiratorial and extremist candidates, so it’s good to see that Republicans are showing everyone just who controls the party these days.
Well then, stay the course. You guys did so well in 2022 after all, and House Republicans are currently showing the country just how serious and competent they are at governance.
Who is you guys in your eyes? You seem to be making some flawed assumptions here.
I should really keep Sun Tzu in mind more often.
You should also try to make arguments based in reality and not just ignore direct criticisms of your flawed reasoning, but hey, that seems to be expecting a bit much.
The US has this. The majority of fireman in the US are volunteers. But they are rarely called out for more than a few hours at a time (my neighbor went to a large fire for several days once, but that is extremely rare). Fighting a large brush fire could take weeks.
The best part is congress will keep getting paid. So, no skin off their back shutting down the government.
Everything the government can’t agree on laying its bills we should fire them all and elect an entirely new congress. It’s completely unacceptable to be doing this every few years.
What I find especially sickening is one of the prior times to this. Lawmakers or whatever were saying that they needed their salary because they had bills to pay. Completely tone-deaf. I can’t find that person though, it’s hard googling it with current events. I did see a list of those that rejected a paycheck the last time this happened:
It’s even more fucked then that - none of the shitheads that are doing this actually urgently need their paycheck from their job.
The crazies that are causing this are all rich enough that they’d be fine if they got paid later once the shutdown is over. They don’t know the concept of living paycheck to paycheck, they’ve always had a pool of money in reserve.
Why we need to not make abortion illegal. Wow. I can just see the evil in this hag’s eyes. I can hear exactly how this woman talks and acts. Fkn trash.
I dont mean to be shitty. This woman has been found guilty of something absolutely heinous and deplorable, and she could easily be described as evil knowing that.
But you are saying that if you saw that picture out of context, that you could see evil in her eyes?
What if the headline was, woman falls in lake trying to film ducks. Would you be able to see the stupid in her eyes? Or would her fave still look evil?
I’ve seen streamers that play a game where you are given multiple mug shots, and you have to identify the criminal vs. the non criminal, and it’s amazing how often they/everyone in chat gets it wrong.
Sorry to paragraph vomit on you here, but i just hate when i see people say this in these situations. It’s just not true and a silly thing to say.
Downvote me if you want. I dont care. I just needed to vent.
Sorry.
Edit: agreed, making abortion illegal was absolutely bonkers.
I think seeing the evil in someone’s eyes can be more attributed to knowing they’ve done something evil like this. The original commenter may not have been saying it literally, more-so after they find out the actions the person has taken. Not everything is so literal. Idk though, I’m not OP.
Man this is such a bummer that India decided to go down this road. I really thought international relations with them were looking good until all this came out.
India's External affarirs Minister, Jaishankar, is a hack. His agenda, as is the agenda of rest of Modi's cabinet, is to make India's PM Modi look like a strong man and Hindu messiah fo the domestic audience, no matter what happens to India on the global stage. If any action is taken against india, hee'll scream western conspiracy against great Hindu leader Modi (he has started this), if no action is taken then he'll claim that the world is scared of the great Hindu Vishwguru (world boss/teacher) Modi.
After China invaded India's Ladakh and beat our 20 soldiers to death, built a village in Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, 'he publicly kowtowed to China and refused to take any action against it. Is it any wonder that China's official maps show the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh as Chinese territory?
World leaders, including leadersof the democratic developed West, have been tunring a blind eye to both Modi's wave of violence against India's Muslims & Christians. they've welcomed him, dined him, and honoured him with state honours while Modi's Hindu supremacist govt & state-backed goons have burned & vandalised churches & mosques, destroyed Sufi shrines, burnt Bibles & Qurans, defamed, harassed, extorted, injured, imprisoned, and killed Indias Muslims & Christians.
When a lady reporter of the WSJ questioned him on India's communal violence, Modi's troll army harassed her on social media. All the US did was say a few words in her support. No other action was taken. The world treats a genocidal megalomanic with kid gloves, appeases him, and then wonders why he thinks they're all spineless?
I think all these other countries only care about the fact that India has a burgeoning middle class and is going to become the next consumption led market. Everyone has too much of their own stuff to deal with at the moment, but they love the idea of huge cohort of new customers over the coming decades.
Not to take away from your post, which is nuanced and interesting. But I think the buck stops at the economics for most
India has a large population, that is incresingly becoming poor. We had a burgeoning middle-class. the middle-class is becoming poor, the poor are becoming poverty-stricken, and the poverty-stricken ... Modi's economic policies have pushed 80 crores of Indians to subsistence living, where they survive on 5 kgs of free rice a month. 2 weeks ago the Reserve bank of India released a report that said the personal savings & investments of Indians is at its lowest ever. Which means they've no money to spend.
Leaders of Western countries want India to be on their side and provide resources and bases or their fight against China. Modi is on Modi's side and is too afraid of China to even take its name since they invaded Ladakh in 2020. That's 3 years of India's PM being terrified to say 'China'. He surrendered Galwan and 20+ of India's patrolling points to China without a fight, without even lodging a diplomatic protest. He's that terrified of them. And Western leaders think honouring him with Le Grand Croix de Legion de l'Honneur & a WH dinner will stiffen his spine. It's only made him more repressive inside india and a bully to the West.
The biggest difference that I’ve noticed between lemmy and Reddit is that your comment would’ve been downvoted to oblivion by the modi fan boys over there.
I may sound cynical, but protecting jobs is hardly ever a good argument for blocking new technology in my opinion. You’re at best delaying the inevitable. Society is more likely better off learning early how to use the workforce for new and better tasks. Of course, this needs a healthy and working society, so I of course understand the individual concerns.
Safety on the other hand is a very valid reason to hold back new technology.
Definitely agree with that, but the tech is definitely not there to handle all situations, and as long as that’s the case, a human should be there. He should’ve signed the law, and if self driving actually becomes viable enough they could repeal it then
I may have misunderstood, but afaik it’s still not generally allowed to use self driving trucks - each case / technology will need permission. Those are the once that should be withdrawn when necessary due to safety concerns, instead of giving a blanket ban on the technology for workforce protection reasons.
Thing is, the folks that are pushing these technologies don’t give rip about safety OR jobs, just profits. The government should be considering all these things, they mostly are concerned about getting re-elected and scoring culture war partisan points. Tech doesn’t work in a vacuum. It is naive and dangerous to think is neutral.
Definitely agree with that, but the tech is definitely not there to handle all situations, and as long as that’s the case, a human should be there.
I disagree. I think the bar should be "safer than a human." If our bar were "perfect," self driving would never be permitted without a human at the wheel.
I’m not really talking about avoiding accidents, I’m talking about what happens after something goes wrong (accident, flat tyre, load gets loose, whatever). Who’s going to deal with that? Does the company need to send someone to unblock traffic? What’s the SLA on that? What if the unblocking guy is stuck in traffic?
We’re talking about big rigs here, there’s already rarely anything a driver can do to “deal with” something like a load coming loose or a flat tire anyways. All you can really do is hope you’ve noticed the problem soon enough to get off the highway, which is obviously something that an AI would be better at with its many sensors and lack of distractability.
Even in situations where the truck ends up stuck in the middle lane of a big freeway, it’s not like the driver can just get out and push it off to the side of the road. Except for a few pretty rare cases, all the driver does is set up some pylons and then sit in the sleeper and wait for the heavy duty tow truck to show up.
As long as it doesn’t become another externality that places the expenses on the government/taxpayer, I’m okay with it. Someone in this thread mentioned there are teams to handle situations like that, and they sounds like enough for me.
I disagree that having a human there would actually help resolve any safety issues. Either the tech is ready or it’s not. Putting a human in the impossible position of needing to suddenly override the machine after hours of nothing happening is not the solve.
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