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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)SI
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Jerkoff

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  • Lol, while technically true there's a big picture you're missing... The start of his presidency did co-incide with some things like the child tax credit etc. that did drop the official measurement to a historic low of 5.2% in 2021, but was then quickly repealed by bipartisan support in Congress causing it to skyrocket to 12.4% in 2022.

    In the US the child poverty rate had been slowly, but steadily, declining since the peak of the great recession... Until the Biden presidency circa ~2022 at which point it skyrocketed by the end of his presidency reaching ~2012 levels.

    While technically true that "Biden came into office and reduce[d] child poverty [sic] by half as his first action." It ignores that immediately afterwards he did "destroy the economy". Don't get me started on 'removing due process, open up national parks, cutting departments with corruption, invading other countries' because also yes!

    Not to say Trump is better (we can all agree fuck that guy and all his cronies), but Jim Crow Joe is/was also evil, you've just been tricked into thinking otherwise...

  • Haven't read the book, but the article linked (and a lot of political neuroscience in general) makes it appear the author believes there are only 2 ideologies; liberal and conservative which is itself a wild idealogy... Can anyone who has read it or other work by her confirm/deny that?

  • The context for the DEFUSE program is that SARS-cov-1 was of pretty significant concern that it could mutate into a global pandemic similar to the Cov-2 pandemic that actually happened. The program was funded to investigate, learn and prepare for what were predicted to be some of the more dangerous possible mutations.

    The "smoking gun" here is all correlation. Saying "they predicted correctly what was dangerous and were proactively studying it" is not a good argument for causation.

    However, the theory that I haven't seen well debunked/studied is that improper handling/disposal of dead viruses/plasmids/etc. increased the risk of/allowed for recombinants with the endemic Cov strain resulting in those mutations of greatest concern... Have you come across anything on that?

  • Lmao, what is this list?! ICE comes in with guns and the authors advice is to "print red cards" to "resist" them. How detached from reality can you get? There is not one single useful action on this list!

    Especially infuriating is the "LGBTQ neighbors in danger? Call the police!" Motherfucker, who do you think is the danger?!

  • Ah yes, because criminals are subhumans who should be exterminated like the cockroaches they are. And if we can't take the trash out back like we should we can at least make it not our problem and make sure the cockroaches aren't in our backyard. That's what you're saying right?

  • China is half a world away and isn't directly involved in my day to day. The harms that China can do to me are significantly less than those American businesses.

    It's not about trust, it's about accurate threat modeling.

  • I mean, let's assume that we somehow regulate AI so that people have to pay to use copyrighted works for training (as absurd as that is).

    ISBNDB approximates there to be 158,464,880 published books in existence.

    Meta's annual income was ~156 billion last year.

    Assuming a one time purchase scenario and a $20 average cost that's ~3.2 billion dollars. ~2% of their annual revenue.

    Or you could assume assuming a $0.2 annual license (similar to a lot of technology licenses), or a 0.002 per "stream" (which I. This instance would be 'use of data to train model')

    I agree with most of what you said, but if you buy into a lot of the economic paradigms your arguments are based on you must also realize that those require the copyrighted works must be paid for and it's not unreasonable to do so.

  • The argument is when there are more than 2 options a majority of people would not have selected the "winner" over any of the other individual losers. Therefore majority rule is an illusion, democracy is self-contradictory!!!

    However, by reducing the options to just 2 you no longer have the same result and "democracy" is more "self-consistent". You can do this in a fair/Democratic way by "simulating" the pairwise interactions (IE ranked choice voting, pairwise majority rule, etc.) or by establishing a false dichotomy (2 party systems, left v right spectrum, etc.).

    This is not 'not a thing' but it's a really old idea and is largely solved (ie. Distributed networks like the social media platform we are currently on, or stuff like this).

    However, the claim isn't entirely misplaced as modern social institutions refuse to implement any of those methods because it would be against their best interests as those in power are deeply unpopular (yes, especially your favourites whoever that may be). So yes almost all "Democratic" systems you interact with on a daily basis are inherently self-contradictory on the most cursory of examinations, but they dont have to be.

  • We've been living in an authoritarian right wing country for 25-50 years. Historically the tactic of "we must sacrifice [insert marginalized group here] or it'll get worse for us all!!!" has been very effective.

    I find it very hopeful that this was the year that people were finally very vocally opposed that tactic and think it's a good sign going forward that things might actually get better. However, that is reliant on people like you waking up to the fact that no amount of time and effort put into reinforcing the sacrificial machine will ever change its fundamental nature and that what you view as "being entitled brats" is often simply refusing to participate in the death, enslavement and marginalization of others.

    Is active resistance better? Yes! But token resistance while actively reinforcing the authoritarian right is worse than nothing. The vast majority of those "opportunities to volunteer and donate" are doing just that; a $5 donation to "lesser evil INC." is still actively funding evil.

    Your frustration and anxiety for the future is perfectly valid, and I appreciate that you are at least a little mad about the state of things. But I would ask that you step back, reevaluate, and redirect that rage and start punching up instead of looking for who to punch down at.