wildncrazyguy

While I agree with your sentiment regarding people losing faith in their government, we have been on this road before a few times (antibellum era, William Jennings Bryan era, Joe McCarthy era). After a time of painful soul searching, we’ve always come back from these low periods. I have no reason to believe we won’t overcome it again.

I wouldn’t put it past them, They have crossed over the Pacific Ocean before ☺️

The whole Venezuela v Guyana thing is complicated as hell. It essentially started with the Dutch & Britain drawing Guyana’s maps wrong. Flash forward and Venezuela is all pissed that Guyana’s maps include their territory so arbitration is called in…and the arbiters are the US and UK of all nations. And of course they vote in Guyana’s favor.

So Venezuela of course is once again pissed and doesn’t accept the binding arbitration agreement. Flash forward again and now it’s been made even more complicated since oil has been found off the coast of the contested territory. Even worse, Guyana is poorly equipped to defend it.

To put it simply, it’s a shitshow.

I think the Daily podcast today framed it pretty well from both sides’ perspective. You’re welcome to take a listen, even though it may not fit your narrative around here.

Essentially, Israel got their cojones because they saw how Iran didn’t do much to react to the assassination of Soleimani. So Israel acted on the consulate. The Biden administration was unhappy about it, but Israel is an ally (I don’t need to tell you that Iran is not), and so when Iran retaliated, UK and US came to their aid.

It’s that simple, not that hard to understand, allies gonna align, and Israel is an important one in the region.

The difference, from an Israeli perspective, is that Iran didn’t use one of their proxies to retaliate this time, and that is a significant difference. The US allowed tit for tat last time and then let it slide, at least publicly. It seems that Israel’s hardliners aren’t willing to let this one “slide”, they want to continue tit for tat. I’m hoping cooler heads prevail before this dominoes.

I really hope he donated his brain to science. The man went from world famous to villain in a single car chase. It’s rare that people fall from grace so far, so quickly. I am not excusing his heinous acts, but I will say it would make a lot more sense, in my mind, if this man’s anger and impulsivity was predicated on a TBI.

The article states they’re replacing the original overhead camera concept with cameras embedded in the shopping carts, so the idea is not going away.

By God! (He?)'s broken in half!

Subsidies - Unrestricted Capitalism

Choose one.

I want to converse in a place where most people are civil and tolerant of ideas even if these ideas challenge their view of the world. People don’t have to agree, but I think most people should be treated with dignity and respect. Further, I would love to converse in place where people are rational actors and free thinkers, rather than just simply aligned and regurgitating their group’s thought leaders’ talking points. A place where people have been taught the scientific method, fallacies, how to discern most propaganda and advertising, and also have at least a minimum understanding of philosophy, psychology and sociology.

In other words, I want to converse in a complete fantasyland.

Joking aside, these arts were once taught to all students at most universities. I’m not sure if they are anymore, but the news paints a picture that they’ve been exchanged for more “employable” skills. I hope to see more pushback against those efforts.

I grew up during this time. You know what I remember? Being bored…a lot. We didn’t text or Google the Internet, instead we played cards, poked at leaf fires, ran around, but we also read ingredient labels, shampoo bottles, captured and then mutilated bugs, and we watched the same episode of Fred Rogers for the 42nd time. And we just sat there on the porch, sometimes in silence.

Fortunately my Dad was a yarn spinner and could keep us occupied with jokes or little quarter magic tricks or talk about literally nothing for hours. But even he would get exhausted of talking from time to time, and so we would sit there, bobbing our legs about, itchy or tired. Or we’d go be mischievous in mildly mischievous ways…and other times not so mildly.

And then the driving, good gravy so much driving. Some conversations could be held over the phone, but real business had to be done in person, especially since credit cards were an oddity and not considered as safe as cash. Bills were mailed, but more often than not paid on the very last due date in person through the teller window. We drove half the days away sitting there inhaling second and third hand cigarette smoke with the car windows shut or cracked ever so slightly.

So, maybe it was different for the wealthy kids who could shop at the mall food court for hours or the big city kids who could bloviate with film producers downtown, but for us growing up in the Styx life was fucking boring before the Internet. And I wasn’t even that far in the Styx.

And don’t get me started if your weird ass didn’t match up to the rest of your communities opinions. The Internet literally gave these people community.

Corporations are great for one thing, and that’s becoming a funnel for money. They bring people people together to optimize for work on that goal. Innovation just happens to be a consequence of that constant pursuit. I think they do have a place in the societal fabric.

However, we need the other pillars of society to be strong as well in order to maintain balance and democracy - strong government, strong workers’ unions, cultural cohesion , advocacy for nature and resources.

You weaken those, you may get some tidy profits short term, but likely at the expense of our future.

Ugh, I came into this thread with the argument that we should be inclusive to other platforms, but you’re right and you’ve changed my view.

These companies do have a habit of open source capture and then killing them. I’m sure they would have made sending an email cost a stamp if they would have been mature enough at the time.

I don’t want capture to happen to this great little platform here, but I also don’t want the developers and admins to get jaded either. We’re going to need to find some way to incentivize the folks that are willing to sacrifice their time and resources to keep this going.

I was more of a lurker than a contributor on Reddit, but I’ll fight for the Fediverse because I believe in it and I don’t want to see it corrupted. I hope others like me will too.