A few of them held up signs and some were kicked out. Yes, actually - some of our legislatures were removed from the premises for silently protesting!
1,210 karma · joined July 19, 2024
Spying through your microphone ala 1960's FBI wiretap is not worse than reading credit card history, location data, google searches, etc. Sure, it sounds more spooky, but probably they would have less data if they only listened through the microphone. That's probably an improvement over our current situation.
The reason I do that is because I can ascertain the quality of the clothing and determine that, despite them being cheaper and used, they are just as good if not better.
I'm sure there's a lot of parents who assume, incorrectly, that a used and relatively clean car seat is just as good as a new one. So, they save a few bucks because why not?
Yes, I do know what an analogy is.
It doesn't work because cutting off your legs is bad, obviously. But reducing dependence on cars is good for people who drive cars. It, quite literally, makes driving better. Less traffic, more parking, less accidents, less deaths, cleaner air.
> No matter how much we might wish we didn't need our legs, as long as people still have and need their legs, we should probably design our cities to accommodate those legs.
Our cities ARE still designed for cars. Moving away from car design is slow and painful. It took 100 years to get into this mess. There's no reason to lose our heads because of a fee, a fee mind you that still does not get anywhere close to covering the true cost of cars.
> Right now most people in the US don't have an option to replace their legs with something else that works just as well for them
You know where they do? New York City! Feel free to live in whatever suburban hellscape you like. This entire comment and ideology simply does not apply to New York City. There, car drivers are a small minority.
Yes, and the way you do this is you siphon off funds given to car users and instead invest them in public infrastructure.
The reality is car users don't actually pay the price for anything, the costs are externalized. For example, we've spent over 25 Trillion on the interstate highway system alone. The gas tax and car sales tax doesn't even make a dent in this. Car users are paying cents on the dollar for what they're doing.
Another example, the average parking spot costs 7,000 dollars a year to maintain. But we have free parking everywhere. That cost is externalized, and paid for by you and me. And then, of course, carbon.
It's not so much a punishment, but rather a small nudge towards a fair distribution. If car users had to pay what it actually cost, they would be in an uproar. They've been on the welfare of everyone for a long time now. We're only asking them to pay closer to their own fair share. Keep in mind - they're still not paying what they should.
Well, we aren't.
But, more specifically, the stuff the left does have a problem with is not doing this. You, and other conservatives, are trying to play innocent. This "what, lil ole me?" approach to policy making and the publicity associated with it does not fly.
If you read the bills, any of them, take your pick, proposed by states across the US you would understand they aren't doing innocuous things like this. They are targeting transgender people and crossdressers in a much more extreme fashion. Limiting adults access to medical care, enforcing dress codes in public, and even making their very existence untenable.
You, as, I'm assuming, a proponent of government restraint should be against these. These affect non-trans people as well, and set a dangerous precedent for what the government is allowed to know. It harms privacy, autonomy, healthcare.
When these other vast downsides are brought up, you, predictably, put on the "nooo we're not going to do that!" charade. Surprise, after this administration we can no longer believe that. Practically everything everyone thought was off limits is no longer so. You can continue to play stupid, yes. But you should be careful - after a certain point, people might start believing you are just stupid.
Hell, Ted Cruz ran an ad depicting transgender children as big burly men who want to hurt YOUR daughters on the soccer field. He's a senator. He's got bigger fish to fry than that.
Even if you truly believe conservatives aren't making a boogeyman out of nothing, which is very hard to believe, but even if you do - if you look at the legislation being proposed it doesn't target the narrow cases you think it does. It harms all trans people. A lot of it targets gender-affirming care for adults.
And then immigration. How many people have illegally been detained now? Are we in the few hundreds? Where's their due process? I won't mince words. If you think the Trump administration is only targeting "illegal" immigrants, you are stupid.
Not that we didn't see any of this coming. For months leading up to this administration, the left warned about Project 2025 and it's radical ideals. We reminded you that this has nothing to do with children. With illegal immigrants. This has to do with every American. But you, evidently, continue to fall for obvious lies. After a certain point, we must deduce that you have subscribed to some religion, and it is out of our hands.
If you could also live your life without a car, that would be better for you. Yes, you, personally. In fact everyone who drives.
No? This has never been how it works.
We all get to decide how it’s spent by voting. You don’t get to individually decide because, obviously, you’re always just gonna choose yourself. In which case - why bother taxing you?
There’s really two camps here: people who think taxation goes towards freeloaders, and people who think taxation goes towards the community.
I’m in the second camp. I believe these things are mutually beneficial. I want to live in a country with less homelessness, less drugs, less violence, less crimes, more education. That costs money, and I’m happy to give it up because I think I DO benefit, just not directly.
The reason is because of the US’ individualistic attitudes. It’s been around since the formation of our country.
Right, saving them the obvious 400 dollars we tacked on, and then an additional ~15% of their gross income by not operating a car.
Operating a car is unbelievably expensive. The subway is significantly cheaper, and it’s not even close.
It doesn’t, it does the opposite. It pushes everything further away which means you no longer have the freedom to not have a car. It, quite literally, redesigns our cities to become dependent on them.
It’s like heroin. Sure, it feels good, but at what cost? How do we stop now?
I mean, these are like, 12 year old boy logic. "Ahh I'm not touching you!" while they wave their hand in your face. That doesn't fly in the legal world.
Also, just because you sign a contract doesn't mean you can't sue either. You can! Many, maybe most, contracts are invalid. You can't just write down whatever and make the other person do it. You can fight non-competes, NDAs, you name it.
Also, if you got fired for "performance" (air quotes) that doesn't mean you can't sue. You can! Most discrimination cases occur when someone is fired for "performance". HR isn't stupid.
Yes, it sucks that even the most mundane aspects of our lives are being fraught with political warfare. The current administration appears to have a desire to burn the world down.
I mean, look around you. Can we talk about EVs without being political? What about LLMs? What about the American tech industry? We used to be able to. It's no longer possible.
Yes, it is. One is done by a computer program, and one is done by a human.
I believe in the rights and liberties of human beings. I have no reason to believe in rights for silicon. You, and every other AI apologist, are never able to produce anything to back up what is largely seen as an outrageous world view.
You cannot simply jump the gun and compare AI training to human training like it's a foregone conclusion. No, it doesn't work that way. Explain why AI should have rights. Explain if AI should be considered persons. Explain what I, personally, will gain from extending rights to AI. And explain what we, collectively, will gain from it.
Yes, it is. The fact we have welfare isn't a refutation of that, it's proof. The welfare is a bandaid over the fundamental flaws of capitalism. A purely capitalist system is so evil, it is unthinkable. Those people currently on welfare should, in a free labor market, die and rot in the street. We, collectively, decided that's not a good idea and went against that.
That's why the labor market, and truly all our markets, are not free. Free markets suck major ass. We all know it. Six year olds have no business being in coal mines, no matter how much the invisible hand demands it.
They want someone a bit stupid, who says stupid things. They want someone who’s an asshole because asshole is basically synonymous with badass protagonist.
They weren't, and they still aren't. The idea that transwomen want to be around ciswomen and hang brain is a conservative fantasy. You would very much like to believe that is true, because you believe transwomen are inherently perverted sexual deviants. Not unlike how conservatives viewed homosexuals. Of course, this is not so. This is one of the most classical forms of a projection. Meaning, you cannot view transwomen in a light that isn't sexual, so you project your own sexual objectification onto them. Again, exactly how was done with homosexuals in the past. Even today, there are a lot of people I've met who can't see a gay man without thinking "dick in ass dick in ass!". That's not the homosexual's fault.
On the topic of gender affirming care: the primary recipients of gender affirming has always been cisgender people. I take testosterone myself, because unfortunately I lost my testicles to cancer. I identify as a man and I want to present as a man as much as possible, so I take testosterone. And again, with puberty blockers, same thing - mostly cisgender people.
To be clear, gender affirming care for minors typically includes things like a new haircut and new wardrobe. In some cases, particularly for teens, puberty blockers may temporarily be used. The idea that minors are mutilating themselves is, surprise, another conservative fantasy.
But, even then, the Conservative's desire to get in the way of the rights of parents, their children, and their doctors, is very out of character. If you told conservative's 10 years ago that the government is going to want to vet what treatment their children can and cannot receive, they would be aghast. Even today they would be. After all, a lot of them have a big issue with the principle behind vaccine mandates.
I don't know where this delusional that dudes are just hanging brain around women is coming from. You're right, that doesn't happen. That's a conservative's wet dream. I'm sure you, and others, would be beyond ecstatic if transgender people were doing that. Maybe then, you'd have a smidge of justification for all this.
For the record, nobody actually cares if you're "buying what I'm selling". You're missing the big picture here. These people aren't a threat to anyone, and to suggest otherwise is un-American. You can either face the reality that lays before you, or you can continue to be ridiculed for having obviously false beliefs. The world around you doesn't rely on you "buying" anything.
These transgender people did not suddenly pop out of nowhere. For context, I know several trans women who are in their 50s, and transitioned a long time ago.
I see with transgender people what I saw with homosexuals. That they were some type of phenomena, a new social contagion. That they are on the attack. I thought, surely the general population would never be stupid enough to fall for such an obvious falsehood yet again. Of course they've always existed.
The reality is that transgender Americans have been doing these things, all these things, for many decades. And nobody, and I do mean nobody, cared. Ultimately you are not inspecting penises in the Men's room. You, yourself, do not care.
What do you believe transgender people did in the 70s, or 80s, or 90s? You've never thought about it because you know, deep down, it's not a real issue. But, if you do think about it - or better yet, just ask them - you'd know they've already been doing these things.
Women do not run into burly men with beards when they go to the women's room. Do you know why? Because those transgender men have always gone to the men's room, and have never been questioned. Never been questioned, until conservatives decided to question it.
I have been alive for a long time now. We always knew trans people existed. Nobody batted an eye. Conservatives too, including conservatives that exist still, and including even you. Yes, that's correct - I am speaking for you, because I know you were not protesting these things in the 2010s, or the 2000s, or the 90s, or the 80s, or the 70s.
So no, you don't care, and no, you yourself believe these are not real issues. You might not say that now, because as I've already stated, the conservatives brought it into the zeitgeist to distract you. And now, you are distracted. Before, you were not.
And, to you and other conservatives, you should focus. The economy is in danger. Due process is being violated. Our constitution is in hot water.
The American right has been able to propagandize you, and others, so completely and so severely, that you not only do not pay attention to these issues, but you legitimately think you willingly chose to not pay attention. You didn't choose anything, this was carefully crafted for you. I challenge you to think back to an earlier time you were alive and question what you saw then.
I think what's happening is that a lot of his constituents like him due to his personality, but they don't necessarily believe he is honest. So, they're betting on his dishonesty and using that as a justification for their support. Meaning, supporting Trump is really not so bad if you assume Trump isn't going to do half the things he says he is. Then, it's like you're supporting an almost normal candidate.
When Unix was the norm, everyday employees knew how to navigate a shell. In highschool I had a friend working at the bank. You know what she did all day? Ran SQL queries to make reports. No degree. She wasn’t a programmer. She was a financial analyst.
Now we have people constructing database systems in an excel workbook on a share drive somewhere, but even that’s fading. Now we have people creating systems in Discord and spending 20 hours a week moving data from point A to point B. Tasks that someone 20 years ago could trivially automate. They don’t know how anymore.
We have lawyers paying 20 paralegals to maintain and consolidate a document shared between 10 parties with 50 revisions floating around. We’ve had version control for decades. They refuse to learn. They would rather spend the enormous amounts of man hours doing what is essentially manual labor.
It’s clear that computers are a huge part of our lives. You can learn to use them or you can burn hours - but you can’t opt out.
I mean, Jesus Christ kids these days don’t know what a directory is. We had a short window of computer literate everyday people and then poof! Gone! But the need for computers is still here. And we can’t quite talk to them and tell them what to do yet.
Windows? Provided it doesn’t shit the bed, which it often does, things change randomly for no reason and beyond your control. One day you boot up and boom - the UI for x, y, z is different. And there goes 10 hours spread over the next month while you relearn.
iOS is fairly decent about this too.
No, it’s not. For example, even if you know every device on your network you STILL need network segmentation.
Running your card readers and corporate computers on the same subnet is asking for trouble - regardless of if you control both.