I can understand the desire to rationalise a path through what you’re facing at the moment.
It's really just frustrating. I want to take action. I'm motivated. I have the means to do it, I just don't know what to do, or how. So I see posts that boil down to "It's easy, just go organize at the capital!" and like... I'd love to do that, but if you have experience with this sort of thing, what do I do, specifically, to make a difference? We're well beyond the point where "Call your congressman!" makes a difference. We need something immediate. Every day, shit's getting worse, and the "Just vote in 2026!" crowd are far more optimistic than I am; I think we're already past the point where there's been irreparable damage and it's been two fucking months.
Anyway, this is really just a rant, and to be clear, I'm not upset at you or anyone else in this thread. I'm just upset in general, and I don't know what to do about it.
I would love to be proven wrong, but I don't think we can sustain a lengthy protest this time. I think as soon as there's a hint of actual substantive action, Trump is going to throw his entire being into quashing it. I think he's hoping it happens, honestly, so he can try to flex his authoritarian muscles.
Personally I think whatever happens needs to start and end relatively quickly. Holding signs and chanting isn't going to get this done.
Realistically, if such a protest did start, most people would not be able to just drop everything and leave. That's something that would need at least hundreds, in some cases thousands of dollars set aside to cover. We're talking at least days of lost work, not to mention costs associated with being away from home for days at a time. Even if everyone was willing and able to do that, without organization and pre-planning, even finding out about that it's happening will take time. And if a protest happens on the other side of the country, even if I hear about it and want to attend, what are the chances it'll still be going on by the time I get there? Realistically almost none, and on that logic alone, most people wouldn't try to participate.
On the other hand I think the 50501 protests did show that there's appetite in almost all 50 states to take action. Those weren't even widely publicized or well organized, and we still had people showing up. If there were some assurances that after spending 2 days driving and a thousand dollars on costs, there'd be something actually substantive happening when we got there, I think we'd see a turnout. I just don't think it's likely many people would gamble on it.
Localized protests in individual states do help, too, even if only to make it clear to everyone that there's national support for such action. It's like yelling at all the other states, saying "Hey, we all share your concerns!", which has value. We just need a unified message and a unified plan of action, or at least some organizers who have a plan and can lead a crowd.
Yeah, and I mean, that's great in theory, but do you understand how large the US is? If a protest started right now in DC, and half the country decided they wanted to attend, even if they all left right now, it would take days for them to even arrive, and then we'd have a hundred million cars trying to get into DC, and the majority wouldn't even get close. Most probably wouldn't even make it to West Virginia. It's not like we can all just hop on a train and be there by dinner time.
Yes, I agree with the sentiment that if we had half the country show up in DC, we could overthrow the entire government in an afternoon. The whole "They can't stop all of us" idea is certainly accurate, but I think these sort of sentiments often come from outside of the US, from folks who don't understand just how big the country is, and how impossible it is for something like that to spontaneously happen.
Once again, the problem is organization. This would need to be a national movement, not just one city or state, and organizing on that scale is difficult. It would also need to be swift and decisive, because I don't think anyone doubts that Trump would respond with violence against any large-scale protest that he actually perceived as a threat. He's already commenting about quelling "illegal protests", and we know that to him, an "illegal protest" is any protest supporting anything he doesn't like.
I don't know how to organize anything on this scale. I don't even know where to start. Do you?
It's easy to say this, and easier to think this, but it's difficult to do it. Let's say, hypothetically, I (or anyone else) literally dropped everything right now and drove to DC. What do you presume we do?
We need organization, and organizing on this scale is difficult. There've been protests, but they didn't really go anywhere. We need a massive amount of people who're willing to lose everything, and someone who's able to organize them. Or one John Wilkes Booth. But right now, we have neither.
I mean, it's not like it's a serious question for which I need a specific answer. Folks have been replying with answers from various jurisdictions, which is great - all interesting!
I just grabbed it from Wikipedia, so it's likely written to be understandable to a layman (which is good, because that's what I am).
That said, it's just referring to the mass relative to the point you're declaring the center of mass. If there's 15g on the left, there should be 15g on the right; think of it like the center of mass being (0,0,0) on a 3 dimensional graph. 15g on one side is "negative" and on the other is "positive", so the sum at the (0,0,0) point is 0g.
In physics, the center of mass of a distribution of mass in space is the unique point at any given time where the weighted relative position of the distributed mass sums to zero. For a rigid body containing its center of mass, this is the point to which a force may be applied to cause a linear acceleration without an angular acceleration.
If they wanted this to be an actual, debatable question, they shouldn't have used 'center of mass', as the term has a specific definition and the question has a correct answer; it's not open to interpretation, like "How would a horse wear pants?" or similar questions.
And if that minimum is, say, 5:1 workers to older retirees, that implies a population in a state of exponential demographic growth.
Well, not necessarily; it relies on the average person working for 5x as long as they spend retired. If we start working at 20, and retire at 65, and the ratio is 5:1, then it allows for an average of 9 years of retirement per person before we die. The problem is that now people are living a lot longer than they were in the 1920s, which is why there's been discussion if raising the benefits age to 70. This would allow for 10 years of benefits, taking us to an average lifespan of 80 (which happens to be just about what the average lifespan in the US actually is.)
If the population is stagnant, but the age distribution remains steady, this would let the system self-sustain. It becomes problematic when there's a higher ratio of retirees to people just entering the workforce, though.
The problem with this is that if you're using anything 'non-standard', you have to devise this system during your 7 days, and then you have to include in your message enough information to figure the system out anew when the loop resets. You've got to be specific enough that next-loop you will definitely figure out the exact same system, or you might mis-interpret your message and if you lose the information that you're in a loop, you're fucked.
Basically my point is, you're wasting prime time that could be spent on some enjoyable activity in each loop. Unless solving your own puzzle is enjoyable, in which case, you do you - you can spend eternity living in your own Memento-inspired personal mystery, if you want to.
That was another thing his lawyers were arguing, actually - that since his arrest was over-publicized and spun in a particular light (for instance the widely circulated photo with him being escorted by an entire precinct worth of police) that they skewed public perception and created a presumption of guilt.
Really, though, this is important largely because of the jury is even the least bit sympathetic, points like this could go a long way towards getting them to acquit him, even if they believe he did it. "Well, I think he's guilty, but the judge said we had to ignore all of this evidence, sooo..."
(like action 23 = “mess with the sketchy microwave”)
How much time are you spending devising this system? Because you're going to have to devise the system anew each week, unless you also store instructions for deciding on a system in the file.
How do you store what killed you? Theoretically you can't edit the log once you die (you'd just start the new loop, with no memory of what killed you).
More importantly, why do you want to escape? This hypothetical time loop sounds awesome.
It's really just frustrating. I want to take action. I'm motivated. I have the means to do it, I just don't know what to do, or how. So I see posts that boil down to "It's easy, just go organize at the capital!" and like... I'd love to do that, but if you have experience with this sort of thing, what do I do, specifically, to make a difference? We're well beyond the point where "Call your congressman!" makes a difference. We need something immediate. Every day, shit's getting worse, and the "Just vote in 2026!" crowd are far more optimistic than I am; I think we're already past the point where there's been irreparable damage and it's been two fucking months.
Anyway, this is really just a rant, and to be clear, I'm not upset at you or anyone else in this thread. I'm just upset in general, and I don't know what to do about it.