He's doing what all the "everybody could be rich if they just did X" jackasses do: see some people who don't have money make bad decisions and generalize it to all people who don't have money.
Middle aged parents with 2-3 kids and jobs in the $40k to $60k range aren't going out all the time, buying the latest gadget, buying new cars, etc. They're scraping by.
They could do some "personal development" if they had the time and energy after working full time and caring for children. But they don't.
Actually I'd like to see a comparison of the number of people in different income groups who "splurge" on the stuff Buffet is accusing them of versus those who have to "splurge" on an unexpected expense like a medical condition or fixing a broken car or an unexpected home repair. I'm betting people actually end up spending money on the latter way more than the former.
And it's just disgusting hearing him complain about people using credit cards when he and all the other economic vampires in his cohort have been purposefully restricting wage growth since the 1970s when they introduced credit cards as a trap for young people who expected their quality of life to increase with increasing productivity the way it had for decades before.
We only know about when humans mastered fire or started using metal. But we know the exact date when the first powered flight took place. What are some really early "first ____" we know the date of for sure?
Have to be careful on this one as you don't want to cause more harm than good. Make sure it's all focused on disabling pumps and valves while not increasing the likelihood of releases.
Some idiots would go around blowing things up causing massive environmental damage when what we really want to do is just leave the stuff in the tanks it's already in, or in the ground it's already in.
It's possible to build nice apartments that have a good amount of space to live in. But that's not as profitable per sq ft for the property management companies that have been buying up all the land.
There's also some minor regulatory reforms that are probably needed to allow a little more flexibility in building design, specifically around the required number/type/location of stairwells. But we have to be careful about that one because we don't want to make death traps.
We need to go back to a 90% or higher tax rate on income over some threshold, and fix the loopholes that let wealthy people have income that doesn't count as income. Especially the "take a loan and pay that back and all the activity there doesn't count as income for tax purposes" bullshit.
And tax corporate profits more, and make a corporate tax system that rewards real R&D (while auditing to prevent fake tax shelter R&D), rewards higher employee salaries and better benefits (instead of taxing those), and rewards infrastructure investments like new factories but also investments in efficiency, water use reduction, etc.
I guess on balance it's more important to me that the Democrats reject Greene than reject Johnson. It's clear to everyone that Johnson is "weak" (in MAGA support) and dependent completely on Democrats to get anything done.
Now that that's out in the open and he's slightly a MAGA pariah, he'll probably get back to more old fashioned Republican projects like destroying the environment, fucking over workers, giving billions to billionaires, and a blank check to the military.
Got a link for Biden calling them antisemitic (without also speaking against all forms of hate speech)?
I've heard Biden and others say that the protesters shouldn't be using antisemitic, anti Muslim, or any hate speech. I haven't heard him blanket call all the protestors antisemitic and only that. That's what they do on FOX "News."
Isn’t that a prerequisite for enshitification? Publicly-traded companies are required (by law, I think) to maximize profits for their shareholders, even if that means utterly ruining their original product (Reddit, Boeing, etc.), yes? What do you think?
I'll let others address the "enshittification" angle but I thought I'd point out that "shareholder value uber allies" is a relatively recent ... "innovation" ... in economic theory, brought about by failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork and Milton Friedman in the last half of last century:
The rethinking of what the boards of companies are supposed to do (from maximize stakeholder value to maximize shareholder value) and how they can operate (from requiring justification to approve mergers to requiring justification to block mergers) really took off with them, and exploded when former union boss Ronald Reagan found "religion" (because Nancy's pussy was just that good) and ruined the economy for workers.
Lots of other people contributed, including Clinton after he "won" the 1992 election with 40% of the vote due to Perot splitting the Republican vote. His campaign of fiscal conservatism but without less bigotry became the model for the Democratic Party for the next two decades.
Anyway, Biden's FTC is finally working to help workers again, which might even release the death grip of the Chicago School from our economy. We'll see after November I guess.
This genie is probably impossible to get back in the bottle.
People are going to just direct the imitative so called AI program to make the face just different enough to have plausible deniability that it’s a fake of this person or that person. Or use existing tech to age them to 18+ (or 30+ or whatever). Or darken or lighten their skin or change their eye or hair color. Or add tattoos or piercings or scars…
I’m not saying we should be happy about it, but it is here and I don’t think it’s going anywhere. Like, if you tell your so called AI to give you a completely fictional nude image or animation of someone that looks similar to Taylor Swift but isn’t Taylor Swift, what’s the privacy (or other) violation, exactly?
Does Taylor Swift own every likeness that looks somewhat like hers?
That’s the mission of the people who are trying to tear apart our democracy: make people think the whole system is broken and beyond repair.
That’s where all these people arguing against voting for Biden and Democratic majorities are coming from. They don’t actually think the two parties are the same (or they wouldn’t if they were honest about them). But they sure as heck think America would be better if not everyone could participate in it’s governance.
So it’s up to us to work on defending the democratic power we have and work on repairing and improving our democracy. That means completely redesigning the campaign finance system. That means expanding voting access. That means expanding the Article 3 courts from top to bottom. We need to fix our media. Break up monopolies and oligopolies. On and on.
We can make our democracy better if we work together to fix it.
Well just for one example, Joe Biden has been aggressively using the powers he has via the department of education to cancel outstanding student loan balances that were completely legal and very profitable for usurious loan servicing companies.
No Republican would do that.
He and the Democrats leveraged their control of Congress in 2021 and 2022 to pass legislation that is going to do more to reduce our contribution to climate change than ever before. Not enough, but way more than any Republican would do.
I feel like that means our democracy is sort of working.
In so called “blue” states, they’re expanding voting access.
I agree that campaign contributions are a serious challenge, but for example Bernie and Elizabeth Warren have done great things without contributions from billionaires.
We can do this, but we need to stand up in the face of fear and push as hard as we can. The only thing to fear is fear itself!
Vote Save America can help leverage donations to the most effective campaigns possible for progressive causes.
I know the real answer is reddit but I really don’t want to go back now that I’ve already grown used to life without it. I was hoping for Lemmy to be a viable substitute but it isn’t. I can see how this place is wonderful for the certain type of person but that person is not me. My experience during the past 6+ months has...
I’m sure this will come if the wrong way but if you’re genuinely concerned about discovering diversity of thought, you’re going to have to tell us what your positions are for example.
I’m all for finding diversity, but so often what people who post these are looking for is an echo chamber. Like if you’re really wanting to be challenged, and you’re a conservative, go to socialistworker.org and read up.
But if what you’re concerned about is the nerds in Lemmy seem to be left leaning, that’s just the nature of smart creative people. We value skills and creativity over hierarchy and structure.
Half-Baked. Happy Gilmore. Billy Madison. Grandma’s Boy. Dude, Where’s My Car? Where have the movies like this gone? Clerks 3 was, I think, the last good one I’ve ever seen (and even they got too real and too sad so I don’t even know if I ever want to see it again as a comedy). There’s gotta be some good, funny shit...
Probably just need some screenwriter to come up with a good idea, shop it around to a bunch of studios who all say “no” then go to their staff writers to write up a knock off that won’t get them sued. (“What if there’s a stoner who starts out good for nothing but has a redemption arc? That’s genius!!”)
So then instead of the originally written good version you get 5 campy hack versions that all get cranked out in 6 to 12 months. If the screenwriter can pull it off she’ll develop hers independently and get it out in 18 months but be accused of being unoriginal.
If you ever notice a bunch of similar movies coming out within 6 months of each other, this is pretty much why that happens.
My only problem is that he could have chosen to violate the bad law in the way King and others have violated bad laws in an effort to shed light on their badness: break the bad law in the open where everyone can see, then get arrested, then put the bad law and the system behind it on trial.
By running away, he’s given the people who are doing bad things a line of attack against him. It’s bullshit, and doesn’t change the fact that widespread warrantless surveillance is wrong. But some people will take the attacks against Snowden seriously. If he had turned himself in and gone to trial, that line of attack would be gone.
It just occurred to me that there are probably people who look at those bombings - after the war was effectively over BTW - not as evil (my view), nor as a regrettable but necessary way to avert American deaths, but as an actual heroic act.
Jesus, how do I live in a world where there are people like that running around having normal lives…?
The best approach to “free” things is to understand that it’s never sustainable. Eventually it will have to become a paid subscription or ad supported or both.
And regardless, you’re going to end up being the product if they can discern anything marketable about you from your use of the “free” product.
But just be ready to jump to the next free product.
(Obviously it’s possible for there to be FOSS but that comes with some challenges as well.)
This question popped into my head after an ADHD moment of deconstructing the concept that humans willingly drink cow milk on an industrial scale. Would you drink milk if it was human women pumping the milk themselves?
“Noooo it’s our algorithm we can’t be held liable for the program we made specifically to discover what people find a little interesting and keep feeding it to them!”
NdGT points out that 1% difference in DNA has within it somewhere the difference between chimps and humans. Think about that 1% between us and the post humans that come after us, or aliens that are out there already.
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The to level comment here is correct that it’s more dangerous on average for a woman being abused by a man than the other way around, but you’re correct her that Google should just suggest domestic violence help for anyone.
Also these days there are quite a few men out there with husbands…
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I’d make phenomenal amounts of money available to states to implement gun safety legislation at the state level. Red flag laws, domestic violence, background checks, training requirements, locks & storage, etc.
If I have enough Congressional support I’d do head-to-toe Article III reform, add a bunch of courts at every level, maybe add a level between the appellate and supreme, and get a couple more Justices on SCOTUS to cover the added workload of supervising the courts at the level below SCOTUS. There’s currently more circuits than Justices so a couple of them have responsibility to review multiple jurisdictions which I think makes for… challenges.
I went through my comment history and changed all my comments with 100+ karma to a bunch of nonsense I found on the Internet, mostly from bots posting YouTube comments. It’s mostly English words so it shouldn’t get discarded for being gibberish. But they didn’t make coherent information. I was sad to see some of my posts go away but I don’t want to feed the imitative AI.
Also did the first 6 pages of my “controversial” comments.
I know they have backups, but that’s why I didn’t simply delete them. Hopefully these edited versions get into the training set and fuck it up, even if only a little.
It’s be funny if someone could come up with a “drop table” post that would maybe make it into the set…
U.S. presidents cannot be prosecuted for selling pardons or assassinating political rivals through SEAL Team Six, personal Trump lawyer John Sauer argued Tuesday.
It's the hand these lawyers have been dealt to try to make this argument fly. They are duty bound to provide the best representation they can for their client, and if somehow this completely bonkers argument wins the day, I think that's pretty much it for American democracy.
The answer is “vote” but not just once. Not just for federal elections. Every election, you should be there. Show up to candidate forums and bother your current electeds.
Every government is like a ship of various size, it takes a while to see the turn even start, let alone have the course actually get corrected. The bigger the government, the harder it can be to get long lasting positive change accomplished. (This isn’t a “small government is better” thing either, it’s just how large organizations work.)
If you can, run for office. If you can’t, find someone you trust who can and support them. Not just Congress or president or governor. City council, county government, school board, on and on…
Im not fully grasping how the mind of those “copycats” works. People who are obsessed with Columbine for example, and want to do a mass shooting. That is their thought process? Is there some study I can read exploring what’s on their minds?
I dunno it seems like there’s a pretty solid “type” for mass shooters - young, white, male - that means something is left out of your evaluation. Economic oppression (by the owner class) and easy access to guns (enabled by the owner class!) makes it easy for these disaffected people to commit mass violence on the rest of us.
I’m sure if people had more economic security there would be fewer shootings but I don’t expect they’d go away. But a lot of these shooters talk about feeling alienated or disrespected. In my estimation that comes from expectations not being met. Probably unrealistic expectations.
(Yes I know “not every shooter is a young white male”)
It’s literally impossible for them to not be “analyzing” all the sounds they (perhaps briefly) record.
[Sound] --> [Record] --> [Analyze for keyword] --> [Perform keyword action] OR [Delete recording]
Literally all sounds, literally all the time. And we just trust that they delete them and don’t send them “anonymized” to be used for training the audio recognition algorithms or LLMs.
People who tell me the anti-trans anti-POC laws in my state are good actually because the majority support them. People who treat people as pawns in an electoral campaign....
I’m confused, are you claiming the US is a tyranny of the majority or authoritarian? Or are you saying there are tyrannies of the majority in some state or local governments?
Nationally, we’re definitely neither of those things. The presidency is determined by a minority because of the electoral college. In 2020 it was just a happy coincidence that it also lined up with the popular vote.
All through 2021 and 2022 the desires of the majority were stifled by the Senate because of the minority rule that’s enforced there by the 2 senators per state part of the Constitution.
Looking at the House, it’s minority rule there, too. Thanks to gerrymandering by state legislatures, a lot of Republican representatives are representing 60/40 districts and a lot of Democrats are representing 90/10 districts. You can see it by adding up the total votes by party. The Democrats would have a significant majority if seats were apportioned by the popular vote.
Now maybe it’s the case in some states and counties and cities that you have tyranny of the majority. That definitely sucks if they’re being abusive. But it’s not the only alternative to authoritarianism.
As of today, I have a 1 month old. She is amazing and I love her so much, but she's boring! Don't get me wrong, she's difficult and my wife and I haven't slept a good night in a month, but all she does is eat, sleep, and poop. There's basically no interaction....
There's tons of interaction happening. You're teaching her the world right now. You're teaching her what safety and comfort feel like. What it feels like to be unconditionally loved. What it feels like to have new experiences, which she's having at a rate that would leave an adult human's brain lying in a puddle.
Don't mistake her inability to communicate in a way that's familiar to you as a lack of communication. It's your job to interpret her communications. Every arm and leg wiggle, every eye blink, every coo and fart and startle.
Hopefully you and your wife are taking turns interacting with her when she's awake (while the other works or rests). The more you talk to her, touch her, hold her, move her arms and legs around, etc., the more her brain will grow and make connections and reinforce and prune and become your daughter to be.
As for my favorite time? It's this time. Tomorrow it will be that time. Hopefully without sounding too judgy, looking back and calling some prior time with your kids as "better" does a disservice to the kids in front of us today who need us to do our best work for them today.
They're easy to understand: they are privileged and insulated enough from potential Republican fuckery that if Democrats lose elections, they are mostly going to be ok. They're mostly middle class or higher with secure employment or other economic support (parents, spouse), straight (or closeted), their religious status isn't contentious, mostly they're male.
The other group I'd expect would be extremely low information voters who believe all politicians are the same and it's a Coke or Pepsi kind of thing. That's not going to be super common with anyone identifying as "progressive" due to the very politicized nature of that term, though.
squander rule ( lemmy.blahaj.zone )
superfile - A pretty fancy and modern terminal file manager ( raw.githubusercontent.com )
https://github.com/MHNightCat/superfile
What are some of the earliest "firsts" that we have a definite date for?
We only know about when humans mastered fire or started using metal. But we know the exact date when the first powered flight took place. What are some really early "first ____" we know the date of for sure?
What are the most powerful climate actions you can take? The expert view ( www.theguardian.com )
House quickly rejects Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's effort to remove Speaker Johnson from office ( apnews.com )
A YouTuber let the Cybertruck close on his finger to test the new sensor update. It didn't go well. ( www.businessinsider.com )
Biden launches police state crackdown at US universities ( www.wsws.org )
As Biden Plans to Reschedule Marijuana, Advocates Say 'Fully Legalize' It ( www.commondreams.org )
Does enshitification happen because companies are publicly-traded?
Isn’t that a prerequisite for enshitification? Publicly-traded companies are required (by law, I think) to maximize profits for their shareholders, even if that means utterly ruining their original product (Reddit, Boeing, etc.), yes? What do you think?
Spurred by Teen Girls, States Move to Ban Deepfake Nudes ( www.nytimes.com )
Man Sets Himself on Fire Near Courthouse Where Trump Is on Trial ( www.nytimes.com )
Not much info at time of posting what prompted the man to do so
Is there a more politically and ideologically diverse alternative for Lemmy?
I know the real answer is reddit but I really don’t want to go back now that I’ve already grown used to life without it. I was hoping for Lemmy to be a viable substitute but it isn’t. I can see how this place is wonderful for the certain type of person but that person is not me. My experience during the past 6+ months has...
What happened to "stoner" comedies?
Half-Baked. Happy Gilmore. Billy Madison. Grandma’s Boy. Dude, Where’s My Car? Where have the movies like this gone? Clerks 3 was, I think, the last good one I’ve ever seen (and even they got too real and too sad so I don’t even know if I ever want to see it again as a comedy). There’s gotta be some good, funny shit...
I did not know the origin of the quote ( lemmy.world )
Cross-posted from lemmy.world/post/13888155
Congressman rebuked for call to bomb Gaza ‘like Nagasaki and Hiroshima’ ( www.theguardian.com )
Enshittification Continues: Discord to begin showing advertisements on it's free platform ( archive.is )
They supposedly can be disabled in settings- but we all know that won’t last. They’re going full Microsoft Skype mode and it’s only a matter of time.
Would you drink breast milk if it was commercially available?
This question popped into my head after an ADHD moment of deconstructing the concept that humans willingly drink cow milk on an industrial scale. Would you drink milk if it was human women pumping the milk themselves?
What is that movie you saw at too young an age that still haunts you to this day?
Mine is the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Judge rules YouTube, Facebook and Reddit must face lawsuits claiming they helped radicalize a mass shooter | CNN Business ( www.cnn.com )
"Beware those who cannot tell God's will from their own." ( lemmy.world )
To the top 1% truly smart people the other 99% are dumb as a box of rocks. But exactly how fucking stupid is that 99% ?
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Reddit's licensing deal means Google's AI can soon be trained on the best humanity has to offer — completely unhinged posts ( www.businessinsider.com )
Trump Attorney Tells Judges Presidential Immunity Would Even Cover Assassinating Rivals, Selling Pardons ( themessenger.com )
U.S. presidents cannot be prosecuted for selling pardons or assassinating political rivals through SEAL Team Six, personal Trump lawyer John Sauer argued Tuesday.
What is an average person living in the US supposed to do about corporations raising prices?
They keep raising prices, stating that it’s due to inflation, but then they keep having record profits....
What is the psychology of people who idiolize mass shooters, sees them as heroes and replicate their acts?
Im not fully grasping how the mind of those “copycats” works. People who are obsessed with Columbine for example, and want to do a mass shooting. That is their thought process? Is there some study I can read exploring what’s on their minds?
Are Phones and Smart Speakers Listening to You? Cox Media Group Claims They Can | Cord Cutters News ( www.404media.co )
There is a third option ( i.postimg.cc )
People who tell me the anti-trans anti-POC laws in my state are good actually because the majority support them. People who treat people as pawns in an electoral campaign....
Having an infant is boring and I can't wait to have a toddler.
As of today, I have a 1 month old. She is amazing and I love her so much, but she's boring! Don't get me wrong, she's difficult and my wife and I haven't slept a good night in a month, but all she does is eat, sleep, and poop. There's basically no interaction....
John Fetterman says he'll 'never understand' progressives who refuse to support Joe Biden ( www.businessinsider.com )
The Pennsylvania Democrat recalled his time serving as a Hillary Clinton surrogate in 2016, even after he supported Bernie Sanders in the primary.