MrVilliam @ MrVilliam @lemmy.world

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7

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666

Joined

2 yr. ago

Yes, Biden clearly showed signs of losing his mental acuity. I didn't really believe it until I saw it in the past couple of months. But a lot of conservatives weren't really articulating acuity, they were saying he was too old.

Age in general is a concern to me as well because these old fucks don't understand how different the world is now compared with 30-50 years ago. Wealth is also a concern to me because wealthy, privileged people haven't struggled like average Americans have and/or do. Congress needs more people like Katie Porter who understand what it's like to make difficult home finance decisions and be thankful that there's even any semblance of choice involved.

Yes, I was fully on board with Sanders in 2016 and 2020. I also liked Warren. One day in the future, maybe Buttigieg or Jeffries. It's exciting to speculate on all of the rising, younger Democratic stars.

I have my issues with Kamala Harris, but I think that she's probably the best person to run against trump in 2024 especially with only 3.5 months (which sounds like plenty of time to pick anybody to me, but I'm not qualified to assess that). She's not my favorite, but I'm more excited about her than I would've been for Biden.

My only real concerns for Harris running are what the media spoonfeeds to the gullible masses and what the October surprise will be this time. There's a part of me that wishes Biden would resign just to take away the talking point of "trump has been president and she hasn't; is she capable of running the country?" Plus we would already have had a couple months of a woman running the country before the election, so people could see that that's not an actual thing to be concerned about.

I never said to fall in line. I said to look up bullet points on what Project 2025 is, look up who is for and who is against it, and get to the polls. I didn't even say who to vote for. Everybody voting will result in the will of the people, and as somebody who likes having a democracy, that's what I'm advocating for. I have my own opinions about which party is more pro democracy, and it's probably pretty obvious to anybody who is paying attention to politics, but I was intentionally vague so that people can come to their own conclusions based on "doing their own research".

But I guess for you, telling people to inform themselves and vote based on factual information makes me an authoritarian. Cool.

For those who struggle with math, that means that Biden is less than 4 years older than trump. The people criticizing Biden's age and not trump's as well never actually gave a shit about Biden's age. Look forward to those same people making up bullshit reasons that Harris is less capable than trump. They know they're full of shit, but it's not about making sense, it's about trying to obfuscate what's pretty clear so that independents and undecideds give up, get frustrated, get confused, and/or get demotivated so that they either stay home or vote 3rd party. There are only two viable parties in this bullshit first past the post system; one of them wants Project 2025 and one of them doesn't. Look at bullet points for what that is and then get your ass to the polls. It's that simple. The only people trying to convince you that it's not that simple are the ones who don't want you to look at those bullet points because it's pretty obvious whether most people are for or against that playbook. It's damning.

Clinton didn't call trump out on being a weird little freak during debates. Harris will. If he tries to creepily follow her around like he did to Hillary, Kamala will stop, turn around, and be like "wtf are you doing, you gross creep? Quit following me. See, this is what I'm talking about. He's a predator. He doesn't know how to conduct himself. He's too antagonistic and weird to be trusted to keep tensions low and Americans safe. This sex pest belongs in prison, not the oval office. No other world leader behaves in this manner. I don't know why my secret service detail is even allowing this convicted felon to be this close to America's Vice President in the first place, especially while he's practically foaming at the mouth. Why are you so angry? Just retire and go golfing already. Stop forcing Melania to make public appearances to reinforce the illusion that the third time was the charm just so you can take credit for Nazis ruining the country some more... Anyway, back to the question..."

I firmly believe that "will you shut up, man?" was what won 2020 for Biden. Kamala Harris needs to keep her cool like 98% of the time and then allow her frustrations as a fellow human in this absurd time to leak out past her diplomatic filters 2% of the time. It just needs to be firm and calm, and she needs to not apologize afterward when Fox News tries to pretend that she's unstable or "hormonal" or whatever misogynistic/racist framing they come up with. I hope she would double down and say "the man's an asshole. I'm not apologizing for him being an asshole. If you want an apology, go bother him for one."

Maybe they should've looked into that tech instead of obsessing over hydrogen cell tech...

This thread isn't about that. The original comment in this post was about the 25th amendment and the first reply was asking who would replace him. The line of succession is crystal clear that the VP is acting president when the president cannot discharge duties.

Who runs if Biden drops out is a different and important question, and while I don't have a great and confident answer, there's absolutely no reason why Harris wouldn't be a good pick when we already decided she'd be fine when we voted for her to be plan b behind Biden's 77/78 year old body, so idk why that should necessarily change right now. It's like we agreed that she should be president if/when Biden couldn't do it anymore, and now we're saying he can't do it anymore, but maybe now she shouldn't be the backup plan we already decided that she should be?

Hear that, everybody? PythagreousTitties isn't on board with the VP of the sick and confused 81-year-old president being president. It's kinda the biggest aspect of the entire point of the office of VP, but PythagreousTitties says no, sooooo 🤷‍♂️

No explanation, no nuance, just "fuck that" so let's just pack it up and cross our fingers, I guess.

Nope. $60B was allocated to the IRS. They've spent $5.7B of it so far, most of which I'm assuming was for hiring and getting their ducks in a row to start being able to go after the big fish. It's actually pretty impressive that they've found so much revenue in such a short amount of time that would've just not been collected.

It's from January, but here's some other info on this that's a little more in depth than that shitty nyt article.

Somewhat related to this so I'm piggybacking here, look into power plants. Once you're generally competent holding wrenches and understanding OSHA compliance, you can easily become some form of laborer at power plants. From there, learn everything you can about power plants while getting friendly with some in-house people and you might get yourself into Operations or Maintenance. It took years and luck, but I got in as an entry level outside operator at a bit under $40/hour a few years back; after raises and a promotion I'm now operating the on-site ZLD plant for $52/hour. Control Room Operator starts around $60/hour here. This area is expensive so these rates might be higher than you'd find near you, but I've heard of higher rates than this in some plants. The only real drawback is that rotating shift work is pretty standard.

I'm not sure what it might be called, but I totally get that. I think it has something to do with the anxiety of expectations. Maybe you feel judged for how you're choosing to spend your time, or maybe you feel like there's an expectation that you'll get better at whatever it is that you're doing, or maybe it's as simple as just not wanting to be viewed as predictable. If you're unhappy with this tendency that you have, I highly recommend working with a therapist to either find a way to change your behavior or change how you feel about your behavior. It sounds like you're not hurting anybody, so it seems like there's just some unhappiness for one reason or another that a professional could help you out with so that you can get a little more enjoyment and peace of mind. If the 94 in your username is your birth year, then you're 30ish and maybe just struggling a little with being comfortable with your identity in some capacity, like you "should've" figured out who you are and become comfortable with it by now, and you might be feeling some additional anxiety for not achieving that? Idk, I'm just some guy on the internet who had a similar thing, and it's helped for me to adopt a slightly more complex version of the hakuna matata philosophy, which I think of as a sort of optimistic existential hedonistic nihilism: nothing matters, so there's no sense getting spun up; just do what you feel like doing so long as it isn't fucking others over. You like CAD? Then fuck around in CAD. Enjoying a video game? Hell yeah, that's something cool to look forward to spending some time with this weekend. Knock out chores and errands for a bit and then you're free to do whatever the fuck you feel like doing. Hell, light a scented candle while you're at it. Really enjoy it.

A change in taxes like that would incentivize people to leave the bay area, lowering cost of living. If the families you know suddenly lost all or most of their earnings over $400k, but their mortgage/rent were cut in half, they'd benefit. The insane hot spot of cost of living there would stabilize closer to the national median cost of living. They would be affected in the extremely short term, but they would either move away or wait a year or so and start feeling the benefits of the change.

The only downside is that homeowners would see property values drop. I'd propose that some amount of the tax dollars be allocated to paying off the difference in property values for primary residences. Idk I'm not a legislator, but I'm sure there are reasonable carve outs to not fuck over "the middle class" in the process of trying to help people climb up to that status. I'm just some dipshit who sells his time and labor 12 hours at a time, not a career politician or lawyer.

Idk about you, but nobody I personally know makes over $400k per year. (I know it's €, but I'm in the US and the euro and dollar are similar enough in value). I'm in a very wealthy and expensive area of the US, so I know plenty of people who make over $200k. My plant manager probably makes about $300k. Even then, still not over $400k.

Do you or people you know work to earn anywhere close to €400k? If not, (which I strongly suspect,) then I'm not sure why you would balk at that tax rate. Isn't €400k plenty for getting through a year? Can't the rich fucks budget a little better and maybe prepare their own breakfast instead of throwing money away on coffee shop lattes and pastries? I mean, that's roughly the advice they've been giving us poors for 20 years... Doesn't it work?

If somebody is in the position of making over €400k per year, they should be happy to give back to the system and structures that made that possible so that everybody can benefit. There shouldn't be unhoused people freezing to death or hungry people starving to death in the same country that sees salaries that high. Full stop. I say go further. 100% tax over €400k until all people are humanely housed, clothed, and fed, then relieve that back to 90%. It can come down to 80% once 80% of workers has a €50k salary, and again to down to 70% once 70% of workers has a €100k salary. Incentivize these greedy fucks to help themselves by helping others first.

I'm genuinely not sure whether this is a teachable skill or something more like a character trait.

Depends. At a meh bar with bar food, probably an IPA. Mexican place with Mexican food, probably margarita or tequila sunrise. At a cocktail bar, I'll pick a signature cocktail, probably one with a whiskey of some kind. If it looks like they know what they're doing but they focus on botanical type stuff (which I don't really like), then I'll usually go for something like an old fashioned or a Manhattan, and if it's not too busy I might request it with the bartender's choice of unique flair on it. Or I might order a carajillo if they have an interesting one on the menu and if I see an espresso machine.

I disagree since I met the woman who is now my wife through Tinder lol. We both were looking for something casual and found something worth much more. But it's almost certainly gotten shittier like everything else, so I understand your reluctance to try it.

In that case, get yourself cleaned up and head out to a bar/club and see if you can meet somebody organically. Be ready to talk about your job, hobbies, and interests. Maybe get a few clever jokes locked and loaded. Passionate, nice, and funny will make you a magnet to decent people. Just temper your expectations because it sounds like you're probably gonna a swing and miss a few times until you find a comfortable batting stance.

It varies from person to person. The act itself imo is pretty good, but I don't really enjoy it unless there's a real connection. Others mentioning things like hiring prostitutes here are recommending that you miss out on what I think it's a pretty key part of it, plus I think you'd be assuming some real risk in terms of whether that's criminal, will you be robbed, could you get an STI from them, and of course whether it's even affordable in the first place. I can understand the desire to try it once, but I can't imagine it being much better than masturbating compared to the risk and cost.

I think I'd recommend getting on Tinder or something similar and just making it clear in your profile that you're looking for something casual but want to message a bit first to make sure they're at least somewhat of a match for you. Sometime before getting naked, it'd be a good idea to say that you haven't done this before and ask for clear communication so that both of you can enjoy yourselves. You want to be on the same page. And go slowly. You almost certainly won't have a good time if you're feeling pressured and rushed.

Overall, yes it's worth trying, but a lot of people stop thinking rationally entirely when sex is a possibility and I think that's a bit silly. It's okay to come to the conclusion that it's not worth the hassle or even not enjoyable at all to you. It's totally subjective. Just don't do anything you don't feel comfortable with.

He's spelling it out for voters to get them off their asses. People said "yeah right" in 2016 when the ones who were paying attention said that the scotus was on the ballot, and it turns out we were right. It's probably good to hear the calm warnings straight from him rather than just from "alarmist" friends, relatives, and coworkers this time.

They say of the Acropolis where the Parthenon is

Lol happy to help! Yeah, nowadays it's easy to hit a gig in data usage without even realizing you've used any at all. I wish the unlimited tier were cheaper. It feels like we have gotten to a point where we should be able to use GPS or do a Google search without considering a cost. Kinda feels like if anything, they should be paying us for allowing into our pocket this ever changing billboard that scrapes our metadata. But that's unrealistic to get anyone else onboard with, so I'll settle for free connectivity to knowledge in exchange for advertising and spying on me.

What state are you in? I'm in VA and considering going from Google Fi to Mint mostly because we would go from minimal data usage to unlimited for about the same price. Definitely not making the switch if you're also in VA and can vouch that it doesn't work here.