SkepticalButOpenMinded @ SkepticalButOpenMinded @lemmy.ca

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506

Joined

2 yr. ago

I didn’t claim that Apple is doing anything to be “generous”. That seems like it’s moving the goal posts. Say, are other PC manufacturers doing things out of generosity? Which ones?

Even the M2 and M3 Macs are a good value if you want the things they’re good at. For just a few hundred more, no other machine has the thermal management or battery life. Very few have the same build quality or displays. If you’re using it for real professional work, even just hours of typing and reading, paying a few extra hundred over the course of years for these features is hardly a “scam”.

You didn’t elaborate on your “spyware” claim. Was that a lie? And now you claim it’s “known” that Apple limits hardware and software. Can you elaborate?

That’s too simplistic. For example, the entry level M1 MacBook Air is hands down one of the best value laptops. It’s very hard to find anything nearly as good for the price.

On the high end, yeah you can save $250-400 buying a similarly specced HP Envy or Acer Swift or something. These are totally respectable with more ports, but they have 2/3rd the battery life, worse displays, and tons of bloatware. Does that make them “not a scam”?

(I’m actually not sure what “spyware” you’re referring to, especially compared to Windows and Chromebooks.)

This is an incredible map!

That’s of Democrats, not the nation as a whole. I can’t think of any other policy issue that has split the party so thoroughly. The split is deeper than in the past, which is potentially good for Palestinians, but bad for Biden, no matter what policy he chooses.

I mean, almost half the members of his own party disagree with him, not the nation as a whole. If this doesn’t go away, it is not good news.

The old adage come to mind that, “The left fall in love, and the right fall in line.” The right will more reliably vote for “their guy”, but I’ve seen so many losses on the left because of disenchantment.

I wouldn’t say the media under covered the Democratic wins. I also think there’s still real reason to worry about how Biden fares next year, because he is underperforming compared to the average dem. I’m worried young voters abandon him precisely because of his age. Without the unprecedented surge in youth voting in 2020, Trump wins.

Oh no, he was “slammed”? Is his back going to be OK?

Nah nothing ridiculous will get through the senate and Biden’s veto. The US is often described as having the most vetos of any democracy in the world.

That said, if and when the Senate or the Presidency flips, I’m with you.

Literally every serious constitutional scholar thinks it’s ambiguous, just as a matter of English language. Even Scalia, the arch-right Supreme Court justice who penned the majority opinion for Heller, the decision that established the right to own a personal firearm, wrote:

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.

Voters absolutely have punished parties for shut downs, and for being too cooperative with the enemy. People get primaried out of a job for a lot less than working with the other party against their own colleagues when they have the majority. It’s almost unprecedented. This has already destroyed the last of McCarthy’s pathetic career. Honestly, this is as silly as people who said that Republicans can “simply” vote for Hakeem Jeffries for speaker to end the stalemate. It’s just not how US politics works.

I think lemmings are wanting to endorse whatever makes Republicans out to be the most intentionally nefarious — and look, I’m all for that because fuck Republicans — but it’s just plainly untrue here. They clearly hate this situation. This is not intentional.

To me, hoping government does nothing is more of a conservative thing.

That’s also political suicide for them. A shutdown under their watch, or cooperating with Dems despite technically having a majority are both costly. Which is why they’re in the position they’re in.

I’m genuinely surprised by all the people saying they’re doing this on purpose. They seem miserable and furious with each other.

I dunno, I believe it. McCarthy fell on his sword to avoid a shut down. I bet the polling (not to mention history) shows that they would be the ones to pay the political price because they have the majority. It’s not even clear what they would gain from a shut down at this point.

These are astonishing numbers. Do you have a source for this?

I am not against holding “my own team” accountable if there is some valid reason to think there is something worth investigating. If there isn’t, it is a witch hunt, and witch hunts are harmful. They can be used to harass, waste time, and slander by vague insinuation. More to the point, the public has finite attention. News of pointless investigations can be used strategically to drown out real ones, which is a threat to democracy. That is, I believe, what Republicans are presently doing.

I’m not convinced it is a good thing that both are being investigated if the investigation into Buttigieg is just political smearing. HRC’s emails show the cost of abusive investigations. Investigations aren’t cost free, either monetarily or in terms of public trust in institutions. It implies he did something worth investigating, and devalues the seriousness of real investigations, like those against Trump.

When the review was announced, Buttigieg had flown on FAA planes 18 times out of 138 flights for official trips since becoming secretary early in 2021, according to The Washington Post. He takes commercial flights most of the time, and when he uses FAA aircraft, it’s usually because it’s cheaper than commercial flights, a Department of Transportation spokeswoman said.

This does not seem to be something worth investigating.

Biden is, unfortunately, uniquely disliked compared to other Dems. He was buoyed by young voters, who are especially fickle and the most likely to stay home. I remain both worried and uncertain.

That’s not what I’m seeing. Most world leaders are expending political capital supporting Israel, and losing young, progressive, and middle eastern voters in the process. I think this scorched earth strategy is stupid even from the perspective of Israel’s self interest.

I think 9/11 is a great analogy. The lesson I draw from that period, however, is that we cannot let bloodlust win. Hundreds of thousands dead, $8 trillion spent, for nothing.

The editor of the Jewish Current makes the same analogy in his article Have We Learned Nothing?

That America overreacted to 9/11 and compounded the scale of the tragedy is now a standard position among progressives, and even some conservatives; these days it takes little courage to denounce “the forever wars” and to condemn the shortsightedness of liberal intellectuals who aligned themselves with George W. Bush and his neoconservative advisers to champion the invasion of Iraq. But at the time, it was far more common for conscientious progressives to equivocate and prevaricate. To foreground the suffering of the Americans in the Twin Towers was obligatory; to acknowledge the past, present, or future victims of American violence abroad was at best awkward; to imply these things might be related was something almost no one wanted to hear when it might have made any difference.

Now is not the time to abandon nuance, but neither is it the time to be too “understanding” of Israel’s bloodlust, because their overwhelming advantage in power and resources over Palestinians means an alarming potential for abuse.

I think you’re right that Hamas benefits from having civilians around. They’re extremist assholes who do not benefit from peace or stability. A peaceful Palestine is one where Hamas loses its purpose.

But to be honest, I haven’t seen much concern from the IDF for preventing civilian casualties. Compared with civilian deaths in the dense cities of Ukraine or any other recent conflict, the utter disregard for innocent life is staggering. And the rhetoric coming out of Israel from both military and politicians — including calling Palestinians vermin and animals, claiming unarmed children are valid targets, threatening to nuke them, eradicate them completely or expel them — does not inspire confidence in their best efforts or good intentions.

Moreover, it is also 100% in the IDF’s best strategic interest to claim that civilian deaths are unavoidable. I also suspect there are some hot heads who actively want to kill civilians as vengeance or a terror tactic, to make Palestinians lose hope.