Did everyone just collectively agree to forget 2016? The polls were all favoring Clinton by a dramatic margin. CNN famously had a headline where they predicted Clinton had a 99% chance to win off of the polls.

And what ended up happening? 538 (before bought and neutered by ABC) gave the odds 65-35 or so, in Clinton’s favor. Trump ended up winning that 35%. This year, according to polls, Trump’s odds are better than in 2016. Kamala has the upper hand, but

A) lots of things can change suddenly before the election (like the Hilary emails thing)

B) polls are not the ultimate arbiter of who will win an election- actual real votes are

C) Trump more than likely has some “extracurricular plans” in store, much like Jan 6th, that has a chance of working.

Tldr: don’t get drunk on positive news. Keep a level head and you’ll see this election is still very close to a coin flip

Vulnerability is attractive. But not trauma dumping.

There’s a time and a place. So don’t be afraid of opening up, you just have to do it in an attempt to connect with people. Not to try and abuse their attention for validation.

Secondly, never pay for an app membership. It’s not worth it and you’re getting the wrong idea how it works.

Make a casual profile with some good pictures and send casual messages. Try to be light hearted and show a little bit of personality.

That’s all you need. Anything more is a red flag to most women. Realize they are trying to sift through hundreds of people. They maybe have a few seconds to look through your profile.

Also stop using the word cuck. Don’t be terminally online and read some books. Expand your perspective. Women are attracted to empathetic and intelligent men. Someone who pays attention and listens. They will give you a lot if you give it back.

Greedy people are more likely to end up wealthy. Greedy people are also more likely to end up doing ethically dubious things.

Of course, any wealth at all is unethical if you’re being honest with yourself. There’s a famous passage in the Bible.

Jesus was out teaching his disciples or healing people- whatever he did. And a rich man comes up to him and asks

“Jesus, I want to follow you and go to heaven. Please tell me what I should do”

What did Jesus say? Jesus told him to a) sell all of his shit b) give that money to charity c) physically follow me around

What did rich guy do? Have an epiphany about morality and living the good life?

No, he cried. He cried because he didn’t actually want to let go of the good things he had for morality.

All of us in first world nations are guilty of this to some extent. The way our world is shaped you essentially have to be unethical to survive. There are levels to it, of course. But I think your perspective is too black and white and needs a little nuance. Seem like a teenager.

It’s a question of

How much effort (man hours which ultimately translates to $$$) versus how much revenue lost (people not buying because of Firefox bugs)

In my experience this depends on your specific application. Sometimes there are weird bugs or behavior where you have to really hunt down what’s going on. Other times it’s as simple as changing a few css lines or something.

I view India as a rising power that has the potential to rival China and the USA. I think the culture is backwards in many ways and advanced in others. I don’t like your current administration, but I do think India overall has interesting politics. I mean, you guys have an active Maoist insurgency. Pretty wild for the 21st century.

I tend to get along well with Indians I meet in the states. I appreciate India long history and cultural impact (Buddha came from India for example). There were democracies in India before Athens was a thing.

All in all India’s a rising power with a lot of potential. Unfortunately I don’t think they will reach China-status anytime soon because they don’t exercise as much central control as China does.

In some ways this is good, Cultural Revolution wasn’t exactly a great experience for a lot of people. But in other ways it means the Indian government doesn’t have the power to reshape India in a way where it can successfully rival the European powers.

I’m a bit cynical here and I think the country is headed down the same path whether Trump or Biden wins in November. We’re seeing pseudo-fascist rhetoric increase in frequency. We’re seeing authoritarian and militaristic policies pass virtually unopposed through our political system. War is virtually guaranteed with either candidate.

I know this opinion may be unpopular but I don’t think this election matters very much. There are of course potential differences- such as access to abortion. If Biden wins, maybe there’s more hope. But that’s really it- just hope. Democrats have had majorities dozens of times since Roe V Wade was ruled and never wrote abortion into law.

I don’t think it’s suddenly going to change in the next 4 years which looks to be a potentially very dangerous period of time geopolitically speaking. Biden isn’t going to have very much political capital to spend and the Overton Window is gradually shifting right.

Instead of looking only at this election, look at the next. And the one after. Do people think MAGA will go away? The world is in economic and geopolitical restructuring- instability breeds radicalism. The problem will likely only get worse. Especially with another weak Democratic administration.

Which brings me to the answer to your question. I have dual citizenship in South America. The only reasons I would leave the US are if there is a WW3 scenario or some sort of clear descent into a form of fascism. We’re toying with it right now, but it can get a lot worse.

It probably won’t be much better in my home country if I’m being honest, but there will be less chances for war. Any global war will inevitably involve the US in some capacity.

Fiction is more important than nonfiction in my opinion. Good fiction teaches you about the human condition. Studies have shown people who read more fiction are more empathetic for example. The ability to put yourself in the mind of another person is not only good for society as a whole, it’s good for the individual because navigating relationships is something you will be dealing with until you die.

That of course isn’t to say nonfiction isn’t important, but that’s what all your textbooks are for. That is nonfiction.

Tldr; I don’t think it’s a problem at all, no

I consider myself a libertarian and I believe in free healthcare. I think certain industries should not be run for profit. It creates perverse incentives that harm the common man. For example healthcare.

If there’s a profit incentive in bealthcare, there is incentive for drug companies or hospitals to raise their prices. This would mean less people getting treatment or more people in medical debt.

Another industry I think shouldn’t be for profit is education. We want an educated population. It should be encouraged, so it should be free for anyone who wants it.

In my view, libertarianism is a perspective that the government should interfere with the personal liberties of the individual as little as possible.

Every single government action should be heavily scrutinized and challenged. Some actions are justified. For example regulating healthcare I think is justified. You are taking away the liberty of starting a hospital - but the benefits outweigh the costs.

I believe that cooperatives should be encouraged if not explicitly mandated for large companies.

I think to Chomsky’s conception of anarchism. Look at all hierarchies of power and challenge them. Some are justified - the power a father has over his child. Some are not - the power a cash advance place has over their customer base.

I think governments often make mistakes and through heavy handed actions end up screwing the average person. By dramatically limiting government action, you help prevent this.

Remember the government is not your friend.

I’ve lived in a few different states and I was born in a foreign country. I absolutely love Florida. South Florida is an amazing place with great weather and great people.

It all depends on the cultural lens which you use to look at it. One shopping plaza looks different to a Jew then it does to a Brazilian then it does to a Haitan. The Jew may come for the hummus lunch place and the Brazilian goes for the Brazilian nightclub. They exist in the same physical space but it’s like a parallel universe because they don’t see each other. I find this so fascinating.

When you take the time to really explore you see a massive depth of different cultures. I love living among immigrants, including many fresh people right off the boat.

Up north it simply isn’t the same. In Chicago there’s a lot of Latinos, but they’re virtually all Mexican. In South Florida you get every single type. Brazilian, Venezuelan, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Colombian, Central American… Mexicans are a minority.

I don’t know if there’s another place in the world that has such a diverse mix of people from around Latin America. So many opportunities and interesting things to do.

I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I hate the government, but I refuse to move.

Because if the answer is “nobody”, they shouldn’t be on the road

Do you understand how absurd this is? Let’s say AI driving results in 50% less deaths. That’s 20,000 people every year that isn’t going to die.

And you reject that for what? Accountability? You said in another comment that you don’t want “shit happens sometimes” on your headstone.

You do realize that’s exactly what’s going on the headstones of those 40,000 people that die annually right now? Car accidents happen. We all know they happen and we accept them as a necessary evil. “Shit happens”

By not changing it, ironically, you’re advocating for exactly what you claim you’re against.

The only titles that don’t work in Linux are the ones with invasive anti-cheat, some multi-player titles.

Virtually all single players game work. I’ve had games that don’t work on Windows due to crashes / performance but run on Linux.

Is the investigation exhaustive? If these are all the crashes they could find related to the driver assist / self driving features, then it is probably much safer than a human driver. 1000 crashes out of 5M+ Teslas sold the last 5 years is actually a very small amount

I would want an article to try and find the rate of accidents per 100,00, group it by severity, and then compare and contrast that with human caused accidents.

Because while it’s clear by now Teslas aren’t the perfect self driving machines we were promised, there is no doubt at all that humans are bad drivers.

We lose over 40k people a year to car accidents. And fatal car accidents are rare, so multiple that by like 100 to get the total number of car accidents.

I think it’s amusing how you call me wumao, feeling proud of how clever you are, while advocating for the US to emulate China.

The courts have repeatedly ruled that freedom of speech comes with freedom of association.

Montana tried banning TikTok and a judge blocked it for that reason - it infringes upon free speech. I think Bytedance will likely sue federal government under similar grounds. The government cannot arbritarily control what you want to say, who you want to say it to, or where you want to say it.

The Supreme Court has long held that the First Amendment’s protection of free speech, assembly, and petition logically extends to include a “freedom of association."

It is beyond debate that freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the ‘liberty’ assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech. Of course, it is immaterial whether the beliefs sought to be advanced by association pertain to political, economic, religious or cultural matters, and state action which may have the effect of curtailing the freedom to associate is subject to the closest scrutiny.

It appears from the Court’s opinions that the right of association is derivative from the First Amendment guarantees of speech, assembly, and petition,2 although it has at times been referred to as an independent freedom protected by the First Amendment.

What does everyone think about the TikTok ban?

Personally I think it’s absurd. What happened to freedom of speech? Freedom of association? Free market capitalism?

If an American citizen wants to use a Chinese platform, why don’t they have the right to?

I think the data collection stuff is a red herring. Real reason is that war is coming and they’re preparing the online information space so they can more easily manipulate it. Sort of how they did a test run with covid. Banning misinformation and such.

They don’t have such a friendly relationship with TikTok as they do with Google and Facebook, for example. Behind the scenes, the feds work with them to amplify or suppress certain types of speech.

If the sale doesn’t go through, I don’t see how this will eliminate whatever little bit of credibility the federal government has among the younger generations. 18~25 or so

It’s sort of like how YouTube ran at a loss for a long time. The idea is to get ingrained in the market and make up the money later.

Right now Meta has the best VR / AR that is easily accessible. If some new idea or technology catapults VR into a more popular position, then Meta is in a prime position to take advantage.

Will that happen? I don’t know, but Meta seems to think so.

i was curious so i did some research

A study by Google and Ipsos found that while app stores are a popular destination for finding new apps, they are not the only method. About 40% of smartphone users browse for apps in app stores, and one in four app users discovers an app through a search engine. This suggests that a significant portion of smartphone users are indeed using search engines, rather than just app stores, to find apps and information​​

source

Additionally, data from Amplitude Labs reveals that app usage grew by 36% from January 2020 to December 2021, while website usage grew by 57% in the same period. By December 2021, the user base was almost evenly split between apps and websites, with 54% of users on apps and 46% on websites​​

source

while me or you might go to a search engine and type in “weather today”, i think there really is a large chunk of the userbase (somewhere near half) who would rather go into the app store and type in “weather”

i think it might be an age thing with older people, but honestly, maybe even younger generations like alpha / z. they grew up in a different OS environment. we grew up on PCs, they grow up on mobile OS

you’re gonna tell me that a $5,000 bottle of wine is 200x better than a $25 bottle of wine? They’ve done many random taste tests and even the wine experts can’t always tell the difference.

the difference is the luxury. the garcon coming out and telling you about some fancy wine grown with special grapes in france. he pours it for you and your date. etc

illusion of comfort. the illusion is what is important.

sometimes there are differences. for example when you pay for an expensive supercar, it’s going to drive incredibly well. the money goes somewhere. but i think a large chunk is what i said, an illusion

I think it’s an interesting thing. My parents had me at a much younger age, with much less money, in a country with a much more chaotic economic situation.

We had a peak of 10% inflation in my state (Florida) in the last couple of years. The year I was born, my country was going through 2,000% inflation.

Yet my parents provided regardless and here I am, just fine with my little brother doing just fine as well.

So I think ultimately if me and my girlfriend really went for it, we would make it work. But she wants to have a mortgage, be able to pay for nannies and daycare and whatnot. We’re just not there yet.

I agree with you that the economic situation needs to improve. It’s like the powers that be are actively trying to suppress the population growth.

I think it’s a combination of both things. He had a specific set of traits and was thrust into a specific position, like you said by the material conditions, and his combination of traits allowed him to make the best of it in such a way that he made meaningful change in the world.

But still, I think you make an important point. Really, I was trying to be facetious.