SkepticalButOpenMinded @ SkepticalButOpenMinded @lemmy.ca

Posts

2

Comments

506

Joined

2 yr. ago

To purchase a lethal weapon, fingerprints for a background check and a four hour training course is too much? I’m pretty sure a commercial pilot license requires more than 4 hours of training.

Sure, due to increasing partisanship there is literally no candidate that is universally well-liked by both sides. But you don’t need to convince everyone to win an election. Michelle Obama does better on polling than (almost?) any other candidate.

Oh is that why my comment is so controversial? I specifically said for electability, not on whether she wants the job. The polling corroborates this. She is objectively one of the most well liked political figures in the US today. Note, again, I am NOT claiming she is therefore likely to run.

I see that point of view. Out of curiosity, though, do you think there’s an obvious next in line on the bench? The only person I can think of as a no brainer for electability is Michelle Obama.

Edit: I’m confused as to why my comment has been so controversial. I think it’s because people are misreading my claim. I am saying that Michelle Obama is obviously one of the most electable alternatives to Biden. The polling corroborates this. She is well liked and has 100% name recognition. Seriously, even if you hate her, as an objective empirical fact, she is obviously one of the top contenders for electability.

I am not claiming that she is likely to run or that she wants to run, etc.

Based on what? I’ve given actual arguments and you haven’t. What a bad faith response.

My claim is modest: there are easily preventable harms to both widespread use of guns and cars, evidenced by the fact that the US is a HUGE outlier in both.

Very similar to a gun advocate. It’s what you’re used to and you’ve already made up your mind, actual arguments or evidence be damned.

The US has more car deaths than anywhere else in the world, by far. Like guns, it’s a real “This is not preventable, says only country where this happens” vibe.

Some cars will always be necessary. The crazy delusional obsession with car dependence that happens literally nowhere else in the world is not necessary.

I mean, a part of me would sooner say “yes, they are both needlessly dangerous and costly to society, which is why a society structured around needing and allowing either mass guns or cars is stupid.”

Demopublican? Implying the parties are interchangeable? That is a jaw droppingly ridiculous thing to say.

Outside of the US, almost everywhere in the developed world, there is a big bike revolution happening. Paris, London, Montreal, etc. have massively expanded their bike networks.

I’m not a constitutional scholar, but is that true? Extremely skeptical of this:

But if the American government doesn't have the right to impinge on the free speech of their citizens, they don't have the right to do so to foreigners either regardless of whether their governments are an active threat.

It’s not like non-citizens enjoy all the rights of citizens. Why would non-citizens living in a foreign country enjoy the free speech rights of US citizens?

I actually can’t understand how most people live without a password manager.

I would love for FB to be smacked down hard by the EU, but isn’t this just the inclusion of a new option that didn’t exist before, I.e. the subscription? If you push the right button, isn’t that the status quo that you’ve been using all along without any other option? I don’t understand how giving more options is more coercive than before.

Thank you for the response. Alas, the monetization question is key to enshittification. I'm left unassuaged.

Let's take a concrete example. There are a bunch of neo-nazis inciting real violence on Blue Sky. People will die. Does anyone have the power to do anything about them? Or can the neo-nazis " mix and match services and switch quickly" to escape any consequences? It's a dilemma either way. On one fork, BS has no control, which means bad actors run free. On the other fork, BS does have control, which suggests they're not as enshittification resistant as it may seem.

I know and am happy with how Activity Pub (Lemmy/Mastodon) deals with both forks, as imperfect as the system is. What about Blue Sky?

It's more robust against enshittification than your average Mastodon server

I’m very skeptical of that. What makes Mastodon so robust against enshittification is that it’s hard for a single or small set of players to have so much control that they can act as gatekeeper to extract money from the user base.

Blue Sky is a for-profit corporation. How do they plan to make money? Who controls access to the network? These are genuine questions.

By that logic, imagine how much a soccer ball will cost!

Most Americans, including Republicans, do not want a shutdown, but the democratic mechanisms aren't functioning. There is absolutely a systemic problem with the incentives of a two party system in the US, in conjunction with a primary system where the diehards are much more likely to vote. It rewards extremism.

That said, it is also true that the Republican party is by far worse than Democrats. In fact, one explains the other. I am not claiming the parties are equivalent, so it is just uncharitable to accuse me of false equivalency.

Maybe you agree with this, but where's the fat? Is a vet not allowed to have pets? It's still a barebones budget.

And the thing to realize about high stress professional jobs is that you have to eat out more and make use of services to save time and energy. It's a tough demanding job, especially for the pay. There's a reason why vets have amongst the highest suicide rates of any profession.

Yeah agreed. One scary thing is that, even if some Republicans wanted to compromise, the political incentives are fucked. People get primaried out of their seat for much less than actively supporting the opposing party against one's own. The two party system is completely broken.

The degree of group think and lack of nuance on Lemmy is starting to get to me. My politics are firmly progressive, but that shouldn't even matter for what I'm saying, which is an objective empirical claim.