I'm looking forward to the day when we can implant a chip in our neck that will override the senses. Imagine having your body doing a hard workout session while your mind was at work or on vacation
There is no apt response other than for the over 50% of Americans who voted in favour of their current situation to all suddenly change their minds about gay frogs and space lasers and stolen elections. I can’t see it happening.
> There is no apt response other than for the over 50% of Americans who voted in favour of their current situation
Single-digit percentage points of turnout changes would swing the House and Senate. Double-digit percentage changes in voter turnout, as in 15 to 30 percent of unlikely-to-vote registered voters turning out for Democrats in deep-red Republican stronghods like Alabama and Mississippi, gives Democrats a Congressional supermajority.
MAGA voters aren't dropping their identity for a while. Possibly never. Most voters who aren't registered or don't vote are lazy and nihilstic and worth ignoring. But a tenth should be pitchable. In a reach, a third of them could find motivation.
You can't make it mandatory at the same time as restricting access to it. Voter participation in the US being low is a design feature. Having it on a Sunday, auto enrolling citizens, having more accessible polling places, etc would also increase participation.
I think mandatory voting is only reasonable if their is an official spoil option that should trigger something if selected enough. The outcome is tricky in parliamentary/party based systems, as if you have a revote just going to end up with the same parties, but I also think its quite undemocratic to force someone to participate and therefore tacitly support a system that may be screwing them. In a democracy no one should be forced to pick between (what they consider) terrible options.
I'm excited to see all the nutty takes about oil prices from the same people who don't belive in vaccines.
I kinda hope they bring back the old idea that oil is actually formed out of non-biological matter and so that means its just basically infinitly seeping up from the earth, we just have to drill a bit deeper. But I think that's a little too nerdy for them
When I was a kid in the 1980s, the scientific shows and authors all agreed that petroleum was made of dinosaurs. Triceratops and Brontosaurus had died ?? MYA and got compressed into the oil we're drilling for today.
It was only about 3 years ago when I learned that petroleum comes from almost anything organic. So, ferns and trees and moss, in addition to Velociraptor and Triceratops, I guess?
Perhaps the more accurate description would be that as a kid, you misunderstood descriptions that petroleum was from decayed organic material from long ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
You realize that vaccine hesitancy isn’t new and wasn’t a right wing thing? The right wing only has a disbelief about the covid vaccine and probably rightfully so. It went from: you can’t get it if youre vaccinated; okay you can get it but you can’t spread it; okay okay you can get it and spread but maybe the severity is reduced.
Measles was eliminated in the US by 2020. Texas had an outbreak last year with 2289 confirmed cases. They’re up to 2900 cases this year. The right-wing readily laps up all the misinformation it spews.
> the over 50% of Americans who voted in favour of their current situation
Small nitpick: while Trump won the popular vote, he did not earn over 50% of the votes. There were enough third-party votes that he won with only 49.8%.
> Even Saudis couldn't have stopped them. That's not particularly American election issue
Energy prices are absolutely an American election issue. Variations in real personal disposable income growth and inflation predict a vast majority of the variation in election outcomes after accounting for incumbency.
And Iranian proxies seizing the Bab el-Mandeb–and the U.S. being unable to help Saudi Arabia respond militarily while Iran cements control of the Strait of Hormuz–is the direct result of an American foreign policy choice to, once again, blunder into a war in the Middle East.
Uh... and Iran and the Straight of Hormuz?? Did you forget to mention that? Is that an election issue? And who funds the Houthis? And why would they want to close the straight to us? Is it something to do with supporting Israel? No? Ok.
Houthis were in a weird truce with Saudis and Yemeni government for the last few months. Without US war in Iran destabilising the area, I am pretty sure houthis diplomats wouldn't have been bombed by Saudi Arabia. They might have broken the truce anyway, Houthis still claim south Yemen (wrongly imho, South Yemen is probably the most secularised area of the middle east, probably due to its high literacy rates and Marxist leanings, this would be a really hard sell. Also, Houthis, like Saudis, and former north Yemen leaders, has a clan-based leadership, which isn't a thing at all in South Yemen).
Imho a peace over the old borders could have been possible without additional destabilisation from the US. The Iran war made that impossible. Hopefully a peaceful resolution can still be found, quickly.
Houthi's were also recently active against Israeli assets as Palestinian solidarity. Another situation that could not have happened without US intervention (support in this case).
The houthis are part of Iran's 'Axis of resistance' and have also publicly stated one reason for their recent increase in activity being Palestinian solidarity.
Given the Iran war and Israels genocide only being possible through US support I'd say the US has a pretty big hand in the matter.
There won't be. Anytime the environment becomes a leading issue there are suddenly price issues which make people vote for short term solutions.
Gas is expensive. Food is expensive. Insurance is expensive. People will vote for whoever claims they'll lower prices, which usually means deregulation in the United States.
We have been borrowing against the environment for generations. Every burger we eat is a loan on the future. Every excessive piece of plastic that makes our lives more convenient is a loan on the future. No way in hell the average consumer chooses to give up anything while the rich and the politicians do nothing. Social media has convinced too many people that others are to blame and it's not their fault. Nobody will sacrifice their privilege while others carry on.
The time to take meaningful action was 40+ years ago. We are long past voters making a difference. Society needs to change drastically and now. That simply is not going to happen.
There will probably be a lukewarm response, delaying a reckoning in either direction. That's what keeps happening. Though that's assuming the election results aren't nullified somehow.
Does the admin’s affinity for tariffs have anything to do with Lutnick? His “former” firm bought tariff credits from companies for pennies on the dollar - huge upside if you knew what was coming.
The US government is clearly not interested in security of the models - otherwise they would not have only frozen the latest model (that is only a bit better than the previous), but all - and not only for US citizens, but for all people.
Given what's happening in the US, I suspect Musk is trying to slow down both companies and damage their funding. His goal is pretty obviously to get an advantage over Anthropic and OpenAI.
I wonder if part of this is usage by newer Android based emulators [1] used for emulating x86-based PC games on powerful snapdragon based devices (Retroid Pocket 6, AYN Odin 2 line, AYN Thor, AYANEO Pocket S2, etc).
I'd be surprised if the intersection of users that have such devices, use it to emulate x86 games and use steam on it is big enough to make such an impact.
This is sad as there’s been a real resurgence of gaming devices (Ayn Thor/Odin, Retroid pocket devices, Ayaneo, etc) moving to Android from Linux variants (Batocera, Arc, Garlic/OnionOS).
It’s sad but more of an incentive for folks to finally take Linux as a viable alternative, and build on efforts made by Valve with SteamOS.
We meet in VR meeting rooms and at the end of the day, we’re safely delivered back to the parking lot via capsule shuttle.
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