High speed rail… mmmmm…

Being a cop is less dangerous than being a pregnant woman (in the US)

I do civil engineering work, mostly related to soils etc. I have a computer for work but that’s about as far as it gets for me professionally.

Engineer here, but my technical expertise is about as far away from computing and technology as you can get and still be an engineer.

I was a kid in the 90s and the first album I bought was Metallica’s black album. I spent over $18 in like 1999 so with inflation that’s like $300 or something now. Then the drummer of what was then my favorite band says hey, if you’re downloading our music on Napster, then we don’t want you as a fan. That hit teenage me pretty hard and basically radicalized me to find “alternative methods” for every piece of digital media I could, if that’s how the people I looked up to were going to treat me for not having as much money as them. Everything I host now started at that inflection point, from picking up Linux as a hobby to learning about networking and security. Turned out to be a pretty good path to follow though seeing how Microsoft, Netflix, Spotify et. al. turned out in the end.

I still download and share all of Metallica’s discography out of spite, but haven’t listened to them since.

I agree, but given the two options I’d still choose to work in a worker-owned co-op while we work towards that higher goal.

Yes, one option is that every worker would own shares in the company or some other similar setup. There are plenty of worker-owned co-ops in existence already so it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility.

One of my favorite illustrations about how this would benefit workers is this: Imagine a factory owned by a single person (a capitalist) with 100 workers. If the owner invests in robots that let him replace 50 workers, he will fire 50 workers and let the robots take their jobs and pocket the profit himself, even though he doesn’t actually do any of the labor.

Now imagine that same factory but it’s owned by the 100 workers instead. If they collectively invest in the robots, they would share their profits and instead of firing half of themselves. They could choose to either work half as much for the same pay, or work the same amount and pocket the extra value the robots produced instead.

A world based on the latter idea would let us all work a lot less, and anything that takes us to a future where we prioritize human time instead of shareholder value is one I’d rather live in.

Don’t forget the Southern Strategy where Nixon found his path to victory by peeling racist southerners off the Democratic party to form the modern Republican party

Pieces of paper can’t actually do things

That’s not specifically for taking bribes, though. That could be for literally anything including things that aren’t crimes or aren’t forbidden in the constitution. It’s a political action, not a legal one.

Something more concrete would be if, during the Biden presidency, Congress passed a law saying that any foreign gift to a federal official including the president goes into a trust or is forcibly confiscated by the federal government and/or sold off to pay the country’s debt or something like that. They did basically nothing instead, even knowing that they’d never get that much of a majority in the Senate to actually remove a president for violating the constitution or that hypothetical new law. So there’s effectively no actual rule against emoluments despite what that piece of paper says.

OK so he broke that rule. What does the constitution say is the punishment? That’s the problem: it doesn’t. It just says things that are “illegal” and it’s up to human beings to decide what to do after that. Congress never passed a law saying what would happen if that clause was broken. They can’t enforce laws anyway, that’s up to the executive. So if all the humans don’t come up with some plan, it doesn’t matter what the paper says. I’d say you could wipe your ass with it but you’re better off with a bidet

but what comic is?

Have you never laughed at a comic before?

Some non-polotical reasons:

If you live in the US there’s a better chance than not that your ISP is selling your personal data. Outside US idk, maybe still though. Either way you’re putting a lot of trust in a telecom company.

Since net neutrality was removed your traffic can be throttled based on what type of traffic it is, so having it all encrypted for the first hop at least has it treated all the same.

Two political ones I haven’t seen mentioned yet:

You don’t actually know you don’t have anything to hide. Again, assuming US, the amount of federal laws there are couldn’t fit in a pickup truck if they were all printed out. And if someone’s looking to make an example of you then you shouldn’t make it easy for them to find a reason. My favorite example is that throwing out mail that isn’t addressed to you (like junk mail for a previous tenant etc) is a felony.

You also could be falsely accused of a crime. For example, your phone gave out it’s location info near a place where coincidentally an actual crime had taken place. Best to not give that information freely to everyone and have to pony up $10k for a lawyer for nothing.

Because the imoluments clause can’t jump off the page and enforce itself

Cool, can’t wait for nothing to happen afterwards

So where does the ‘Biden was a so-so president’ sentiment come from, anyway?

It’s because the things he did were rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. When there’s an insurrectionist running for president who’s promising to break every law that’s been written, you don’t clutch your pearls and ignore it.

This is also kind of true of plants in the nightshade family like potatoes and tomatoes where they can be pretty poisonous if you eat the wrong parts, we just know which parts we can eat. We also don’t have cultural stigma against eating potatoes so more people know about them. Knowledge is power!

Also, tobacco and chile peppers are in the nightshade family as well, but the “poisonous” chemical in those is slightly altered in each case to make nicotine and capsaisin respectfully. Neat!

Make matrix as easy to use and understand and make sure all their friends are there first

Did Italy elect Mussolini’s granddaughter or something

Started a mutual aid group in our small town. Mostly deals with some local agriculture etc but hoping to expand it to more community needs etc. Trying to make the local community more resilient in turbulent times

I can’t think of any artist more divorced from their work than Orson Scott Card