The state does not care if you participate.

There is no amount of turnout so low that the people with power will go “welp our power isn’t legitimate anymore”

Democratic Party: yes we know, but is there somehow we can continue doing the bidding of the billionaires and get the working class to support us?

Is this those famed family values I keep hearing conservative whine about?

Agreed. I like the film but it feels like two movies stuck together.

One about the vampire society which is really interesting and novel. And another which is just a run of the mill “rebel faction finds the cure and restores humanity story” that you could find in any zombie film.

I sorta get it though because I think it’s a problem a lot of comments in this thread deals with. An interesting world is not an interesting story. You have this cool vampire society, but then what’s the story? I sorta get why it always ends up being the hero’s journey just in a cool world, because otherwise the comments here are “super cool world but nothing happens”

At least in an extortion scam you get to keep your store from being burnt down by the mob.

It’s an extortion scam coupled with a party that fucking refused to do anything.

Vote for us or a women’s right to choose will be gone!!! Ok we voted for you, you want to do something… no you can’t just ask the lady living her life like a chapter of the handmaids tale to pinky swear… and the Supreme Court just got rid of it… and I have a text asking for $20 to fight like hell…

Fuck the dems. They aren’t getting one red cent from me. Time for a new party that isnt crawling with consultants figuring out how best to milk donations

Every thing she lists is fluff.

If you are an employed professional you are spending your year doing your job. Not going back to school to pick up a certificate for fun or finding a documentary to be in (what even is this?)

I imagine the husband biting through his cheek during this grilling thinking “yea I’m busy fucking doing things.”

I would imagine it’s more ChatGPT getting about as good as stackoverflow.

Couple that with the ability to ask a question without someone closing it as off topic, or a duplicate, or telling you you don’t actually need to do the thing you need to do, or bringing up the XY problem, or… well the list goes on.

ChatGPT might hallucinate sometimes but it’s nice about it and it fundamentally changes the barrier to entry to ask a question in the same way that stackoverflow once did.

Stackoverflow was a step change because it excelled at being a a great place to ask questions because they gamified people actually answering them.

ChatGPT is another step change because it makes it so you can get a similar quality answer instantly and without any of the social baggage. It also allows you to have follow-ups and get into a groove of question and answer. It’s not always right but I was pleasantly surprised using it to navigate unfamiliar libraries and apis and being able to drill down on something. Even when it got something wrong it got it right enough that I could course correct without having to argue back and forth with someone.

These South African immigrants like musk attempting to subvert the will of the American people are the truest threat.

A billion dollars is a hard sum of money to wrap your head around. There is basically no ethical way to make a billion dollars. If you have a billion dollars it’s because you’ve stiffed a lot of people a lot of the value they created and kept it for yourself.

Boston Market. It might try to convince you it’s upscale homemade, but it’s just kfc in another wrapper

The Dems raised billions for the election and lost. What did I receive after donating thousands of dollars to them.

Pleas for more money. Give us just a little bit more money and we will finally do something.

I’m done. We should fight the fascists but the corporate democrats have been completely captured. They only know how to raise money and hand it to consultants that will tell them to parade around Liz fucking Cheney.

I’m not paying them to slide further and further to the right anymore.

What a weird way to spell “will” I mean they missed every letter, “could” some editor must be real embarrassed.

This problem has always bugged me writ large as well. It seems nearly impossible to have any conversation that looks at the bigger picture of things in a complete and nuanced way.

Take for example employment rates. It’s just taken as a given that high employment is the goal. But stop and think about that for a second. In any other part of your life is your goal to completely saturate all time with labor? No, obviously not.

But the goals are set and we must achieve them. More money next quarter than last quarter, it doesn’t matter if every conceivable customer already has a subscription, we must grow. Make the product cheaper to make, charge more, do anything but consider that we might have picked stupid goals.

Excellent point and kudos to you for knowing that widgets are juiced based.

Tariffs suck for the country implementing the tariff. But before I tell you why they suck, let me tell you the way they are supposed to help.

Here’s the way tariffs are supposed to work according to people that like tariffs (spoiler alert, this thing I’m about to describe is a fantasy and I’ll explain why).

Let’s say people in the US can make widgets for $10 and sell them for $12 and have a viable business. But mean old foreign country can make widgets for $5 and sell them for $7 and have a viable business. The foreign country sells the people of the US widgets for $7, which is great if you live in the US and want to buy a widget but sucks if you live in the US and want to make a widget.

Tariffs are supposed to protect local businesses by making foreign goods less competitive. Let’s say we pass a law putting a $10 tariff on foreign widgets. I used to import widgets from foreign country and pay the manufacturer $5 per widget and sell them to Americans for $7. Now when I import the widget from the foreign country I still pay the manufacturer $5 per widget but now I have to pay the US government a tariff of $10 per widget. Each imported widget now costs me $15 and so I have to sell them for $17 to make a profit. This now means that American made widgets are competitive again, the locally made $12 widget is a great deal compared to the $17 imported one. Great if you are a US widget maker and shitty if you are a US widget buyer.

Now you might notice the people in the US buying widgets, even in the best fantasy scenario, end up getting dicked over. The theory goes that widget making jobs are good though and if we do that enough then everyone will have to pay more for goods but we will have lots of jobs making stuff that pay ok.

Now here’s the part that really, really sucks. Let’s say you are a US widget maker and now you know that your foreign competition can’t make a widget for less than $17. You could sell your widgets for $12 and have a viable business or you could sell them for $16.99 and have a super profitable business. I’ll just gesture broadly at the sea of corporate greed we find ourselves floating in and let you decide which is more likely.

Tariffs induce even local manufacturers to raise prices because it hurts competition. It’s basically a massive transfer of wealth from local consumers to local producers by cutting out the foreign producers and the competitive pressure they exert on the market. This is why basically every economist said “do this and kill the economy”

So why do people want tariffs? Well the promise for your average voter is that the tariffs are going to bring back good solid blue collar jobs. You can go work in a factory and pump out widgets and get a nice middle class paycheck. It’s a nice sales pitch and a lot of people would really want that to be true. I suspect though that the manufacturers will automate most of this work and pocket the profits, again, gestures broadly at the late stage capitalism hellscape all around us.

Speech and debate clause.

Someone should read that on the floor

Republicans love a good scam

Next up is the dismantling of the ACA. They will roll out these amazingly cheap alternatives. Health insurance for $10 a month!

So the poor and the stupid will sign up. They’ll go to the bar and saunter up to a “libtard” and tell them that trump fixed everything.

Then when they get sick and try to use MAGA super plan plus premium they won’t be able to find a doctor. The $10/month plan only covers an annual trip to a CVS minute clinic. They’ll go on Facebook and write up how the goddamn liberals tricked him. Other faithful republicans will pray for them and tell them that it must be a glitch because trump made things better.

The con will win because it’ll only hurt those without power.

USA USA USA

The Dems also keep running as Republican Light. But if you are interested in Republican Light you’ll probably just vote Republican.

I think Jon Stewart had a good assessment of this the other night and the fact that the messaging coming out of the DNC is “we lost for running too far left” means they will try again next time too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKBJoj4XyFc

Quick note on this one

Pedestrians are not expected to look out for traffic, but are not allowed to just cross anywhere. So it balances out.

If you end up driving, pedestrians are not allowed to cross anywhere (although some places like New York have legalized crossing anywhere) but pedestrians always have the right of way. You can’t run people over because they crossed outside a crosswalk.

So if on foot, use crosswalks or you could get a ticket for jaywalking. If in a vehicle, don’t hit pedestrians.