• 12 Posts
  • 231 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 8th, 2023

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  • Four years to fix a global pandemic and undo some of the trump admin damage.

    That was the bipartisan infrastructure act to shore up stuff like roads, bridges and more, the IRA to address inflation, climate goals (freed up a ton of money for green infrastructure, replacing outdated equipment at factories like gas smelters and furnaces) and more, the CHIPS and science act to counter china and restart manufacturing here in the US, as well as smaller stuff like debt relief for students, consumer protections against banks and airlines, and repealing DOMA via respect of marriage act for interracial and queer families.

    In addition to conquering covid and rescuing a crashing economy in 2020. He realistically did most of this in two years because Republicans blocked them at the midterms.

    Not to mention a lot of anti-competitve and merger blocks that would have fucked our country, like having one grocery store brand across the entire US. (These will probably go through in a trump admin)

    He wasn’t able to get it all done, but he had one arm tied behind his back and still got a decent amount done before they got hamstrung.


  • Paramilitary is stretching it a bit, stuff like shooting guns is optional and with guidelines from the sane past. It plays an anemic role in the BSA, tbh.

    The vast majority of boy scouts is learning constructive things like how to cook, how to perform first aid on someone who got injured in a car accident or hike, how to use a map and compass if you get lost, and basic financial planning so you aren’t an idiot with money.

    In short, it prepares you for life and situations where someone might freeze up if they don’t know what to do in an emergency. It also makes people fluent with the outdoors and feel comfortable spending time outside of the big city.

    Tldr; it’s a group that prevents incel or gang behavior and helps people make friends.






  • China recently deflated and is still having problems. It’s incredibly dangerous because it causes a negative feedback loop. Prices go down -> people wait to get a better price on something -> prices sink further -> people wait longer -> your economy starts stalling out and going into a nosedive.

    Nobody wants to be the chump holding the bag if they buy an apartment for $50k and it drops to $20k in the next five months. :/

    If deflation worked, everyone would be doing it, and we’d still be using half-cent coins just like the family in Little House on the Prairie did. (Which would kinda be awesome, I’d love to pay a half-cent for an orange.)



  • Not to be a downer, but the political ramifications matter significantly, and vice versa. This planet is way too small now, and I patiently monitor the politics of many countries to see how the world shifts in relation to peace and climate change.

    This corresponds to everything, including games and distros if one country (not just the US) suddenly collapses.

    I happily await the day politics calms down, the wars settle, and we focus primarily on climate change and science as our main passions once again.






  • There are a few uses where it genuinely speeds up editing/insertion into contracts and warns of you of red flags/riders that might open you up to unintended liability. BUT the software is $$$$ and you generally need a law degree before you even need a tool like that. For those that are constantly up to their chins in legal shit, it can be helpful. I’m not, thankfully.


  • Stuff like this is probably mostly tech demo, but there are instances where it could make jobs safer (hot work in locations with corrosive or explosive gases nearby, such as at a chemical plant, underwater welding site, responding to gas leaks, etc.

    Watch the USCSB channel on YouTube for good examples of dangerous jobs, such as putting out uncontrolled chemical fires, or performing hot work during the most dangerous times at chemical plants, when stuff is shut down for maintenance and might still be leaking catalysts. Robots could save lives.


  • Yes, things tend to calm down. If you read history books about US history, there were times in the 1800s where brothers were killing each other over slavery and where people were killing themselves in the 1950s over their children’s sexuality. Time heals wounds, and people tend to swing in a pendulum from progressive to conservative and back again (the 50s, the 90s, the 10s).

    I recommend The Lavender Scare by David K. Johnson. It’s a fascinating book back when the US government shared a frightening similarity to the CCP. It shows how a community develops in the postwar period, how a moral panic gets set off, how people are affected, and how a social movement starts and heals the country over time. It is almost a word for word copy of what is happening in the US right now, and how people in the past defused a situation that was even more loaded in some ways than today’s world. If you are looking for reassurance, it’s a great read. Many of the landmarks in the book are still standing, by the way :)