StayDoomed @ StayDoomed @lemmy.world

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42

Joined

2 yr. ago

I've had to rent out rooms and the basement of my home as a "landlord" and I lowered the rent on people in stead of raising it because they were giving me enough to cover part of my mortgage. It still felt shitty and exploitative to do. Especially if something broke and they had to wait to say, use the toilet.

I'd never want to do that again if possible. Also my "tenants" were not people or friends I knew beforehand. I just tried not to be a piece of shit about it.

When I see "real estate experts" gouging people to buy more real estate and bragging on social media about it - I do think they are, in fact, fucking parasites on people that do actually contribute to society. It doesn't have to be this way. Housing should not be a commodity.

It's as simple as you need people to actually enforce laws and carry out programs laid out by Congress.

I don't think you understand how laws work. The laws I work to to support were promulgated in the 1970s after rivers were lighting on fire.

They are complicated to enforce because the companies that cause environmental harm can afford high powered attorneys and lobbyists to prevent them from being enforced.

There is no one working on behalf of the american people to try to meet the intent of many of these laws we rely on - such as those to keep our environment, air we breathe, water we drink, relatively safe. Other than those in the government that have the authority to do so.

I don't know how all of the other various agencies work specifically, but that's generally what people are doing in the government

You don't seem to understand this so you don't value it. I think once it gets more fucked up, you will. This isn't a liberal or conservative thing. The laws I work with were put on the books by Nixon. This is a rich stealing from you issue. Not left/right.

But maybe you are just troll, probably.

With the bills proposed by the house right now federal workers won't have great benefits for long. Benefits are better on the county level in many cases already.

It's a dark day, probably one of many, to be a civil servant. But eggs were too expensive and we need more billionaires apparently.

They are going to be stuck rehiring people that resign as consultants because they won't have the people to run the legally required programs in place.

It will end up costing more money for the government.

I have little hope that the people that actually vote will even remember how fucked all this is two years from now.

Maybe they will leave oligarch owned social media next.

Guess they are more concerned with their stock values than having any kind of purpose or morals.

The secret level from toe jam and big earl.

I don't want to repeat 2016. The media goes hyperbolic over every stupid speech or tweet this man makes. 90% of it doesn't get done. The 10% that does.... Will suck. And I can't do anything about that at this point, enough of the country voted for him because of inflation that he got into to power because they don't understand how government and inflation works.

I'm not going to raise my blood pressure over news that is just outrage porn this time. Shit is going to get worse, and I can't do anything about it as a federal worker other than do my job and wait it out.

Then try to help rebuild the institution I work for after it is hollowed out by the incompetent political appointees made my the incoming admin once the political pendulum swing again in on the axis of low information capricious swing voters in this country.

Eggs will be cheaper to buy with the food stamps that he will cut.....

Doesn't seem like even existing executives in agencies have any fucking backbone. The AFGE union that represents EPA employees is urging members to personally email the EPA Administrator, Michael Regan, to extend the union contract of career service employees to 2030. This would protect some worker rights under a collective bargaining agreement instead of allowing it to open back up for the Trump admin to gut. Career service employees are the ones doing inspections, developing cases, providing assistance to the public, doing research.... The stuff that most people expect the EPA to do, even if they aren't democrats. Despite what the hyperbolic mainstream and social media spaces report, even Republicans want clean air, water, and soil.

Regan has thus far refused even though he has absolutely nothing to lose since he is out by January anyway to be replaced with Lee Zeldin....I guess he thinks not doing anything to help agency employees at EPA will help his career and that's his priority. Not actually helping the EPA succeed.

I feel like smartphones + internet peaked about 10 years ago and has now steadily become enshittified. I have never used "google assistant" because it takes less time to just type something in to my phone or tap the setup for my alarm.

So yes, definitely feel that way. Consumer tech had less bullshit masking as improvements ten years ago.

More garbage "news" from the Twitter verse to flow back to the echo chamber and reverberate with righteous, impotent, indignation. I'm not gonna take the bait like I did 4 years ago.

It's pretty easy - show the effects and the cause and not a visualization of something that you can't see. Like in the movie Dark Waters where they showed cows dying and birth defects, then the plant that produced PFAS nearby to tie it together.

That water pollution is neon green goo, air pollution is thick black smoke, or radioactive waste is only in drums.

Most of it is invisible and you don't know about it until it's too late.

I'm no historian but I think you're being a bit disingenuous here. Someone could have made the same comment before the tinderbox of WWI or WWII started at points.

The similarities are closer than they have been for quite some time. Hopefully you are right though and nothing escalates any further.

Bring back tax rates of 90% again for the obscenely rich - it was that way up until the late 1900s. Back when the US actually funded things that benefit most people not just tax breaks for already rich people.

Good riddance

A lot of time the government refuses to comment on something because doing so would conflict with law, undermine an active criminal or civil case, or they are still working on it.

Saying "the government" in one broad general statement shows some degree of ignorance as to how the very systems you say "do not scale" work.

Yeah big parts of it are fucked up. A lot of politicians are power hungry sociopaths. But there are a whole lot of civil servants that work their asses off every day for below market rate pay in spite of how fucked up it is trying to make it better in a tangible way.

Maybe saying "the political system" might be more accurate than "the government" because a lot of the government is working pretty well despite the political system being so fucked up.

I work as an environmental engineer that does inspections of industrial, government, and military facilities. Every inspection I get to tour a different place and learn how it works and how things are made. I've gotten to see some amazing places like

-NASA rocket testing sites -shuttered nuclear weapons production processes, -the factory that makes all the flavoring for Dr pepper/potpourri/cherry/fake almond (it's made starting with paint thinner, yikes) -refineries -military bases

It's fascinating to both see how the world actually works, and how stuff is made, the benefits to society/vs costs to society and environment, and every place has its own site-specific culture. I find so many people take for granted how our whole society is so dependent on a few resources, industries, and expert people working together.

I get to use soft skills to interview people and figure out if they are being honest or hiding something, use my engineering and scientific skills to assess sites, and have a mix of inside/outside work.

My work also does some good - helping develop cases to bring to enforcement. My cases have resulted in changes that improve living conditions for people near these sites, the workers at them, or the environment.

Environmental engineering doesn't pay as much as other disciplines like a senior software engineer or something. But it's a good income and the work isn't as subject to boom/bust cycles as other sectors because it's driven by regulations more than profits.