Wolf @ Wolf @lemmy.today

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The thought of elementary school girls clowning on boys by pointing out college attendance demographics is precious though.

well that’s… kinda an endorsement for me lol

From me too. Reddit wasn't mad because he's 'not friendly', they were mad that Bill was "too woke" and featured a song and dance number by Rachel Bloom that even I found a little cringy tbh. Not because of the message, but I just think it was kind of poorly done. The only people I've ever heard say a bad word about Bill were climate deniers, anti vaxxers etc.

I'm proud of Bill for not backing down from politically charged issues, when he could easily ignore them to get more viewers/supporters. Scientists shouldn't let politics interfere with Science and Science Communicators shouldn't either.

That link worked for me.

Well that definitely used to be true. Now though?

The president can break any law he wants to break and cannot be held accountable even laws enshrined in the constitution, and the SCOTUS which is supposed to be a check on his power are enabling him instead.

The other branch of government is controlled by his lackeys who are afraid to defy him.

At this point the POTUS has all the power of a dictator.

I'm not really sure that is the reason. I'm not saying I would put it past them, just that I really don't think it's necessary. Smart phone manufacturers have a million other ways they could spy on you if they wanted to. The U.S. Government already has the ability to know each and every thing you do on your phone, even if you never use Bluetooth. I think it's greed pure and simple. It probably cost's them a few pennies to add a physical jack and most people would lose their shit if a phone came out without Bluetooth capabilities, so they save those couple of pennies and put them into their greedy ass pockets.

That being said I have never bought a phone without one and never will as long as I have a choice. I do love my wireless headset though but I am also not too worried about being spied on (yet).

I'm 100% convinced that is why they stopped making batteries user replaceable though. In 2019 Edward Snowden did an interview with Wired magazine where he made the interviewer remove the battery from his phone as a condition of the interview. He explained that the U.S. Government can make it seem as if your device had been 'powered down' when in fact they can still listen to your conversations and transmit them back to the CIA or whatever other spooks that want to listen in. Shortly after than almost all manufactures stopped allowing you to remove the battery. Coincidence?

My current phone doesn't have a removable battery, because I literally couldn't find one in my price range that allowed you to do so.

The best advice if you don't want to be spied on is not to use a smartphone altogether or just do whatever you want to be kept secret away from the phone at the very least. Buy a Faraday bag and keep your phone in there if that's not an option.

I know this is a joke, but I would just like to take this opportunity to relate what I consider to be an interesting historical fact.

Many Americans think that Australia was the only British penal colony, and that America was founded by Puritans, Quakers and the like. In fact Brittan was sending prisoners the North America well before they started using Australia after the revolutionary war. From 1610 to 1766 Brittan sent between 50-120,000 prisoners to America. In 1717 with the passage of the Transportation Act and continuing up until 1776, Brittan sent between 30,000 and 50,000 prisoners and 'indentured servants' to America, most of whom were political prisoners. I'm sure that having such a large number of people persecuted for their beliefs by Brittan and shipped off to a foreign land had nothing to do with the colonists declaring independence.

Granted when they did start shipping prisoners to Australia (1787 to 1868), they ended up sending quite a few more there, approx 162,000, but still the U.S. can proudly claim to come from Outlaws, just like the Aussies :)

You can cook chicken legs to a higher temp like 180-185°F, but if you do that with white meat it will be dry af.

Sure. The way to counter the rebrand is to question it and call BS on it when you encounter it, expose it for what it actually is. That was the point of my post.

Please take note of MystValkyrie's response to my post. I have no experience with Murena and I cannot vouch for them. In light of what MystValkyrie shared, it might be wise to proceed with caution and maybe look into it more before ordering.

Democracy is a form of government.

Capitalism and Socialism are economic systems.

You could have a Democratic Socialist system, if the majority of people wanted it.

You could have an Authoritarian Dictatorship that allowed Capitalism.

It's a little more complex because people are used to living under Capitalism and many people don't really understand Socialism and would fight against their own interest to revert to the status quo, as a result some socialist philosophers have suggested not giving people a choice but to accept socialism, a so-called "dictatorship of the proletariat", but even in such a system you could have a constitution that enshrines socialism as the the economic system, while still giving people the ability to vote on everything else.

For example "Private Property" could be abolished. Factories and business could be owned by all of the employees as a whole and the profits shared equitably. After a short time living in such a system it would be unlikely that the majority of people would vote to return power back over to just a few individuals.

This would likely depend on the transition going smoothly. Give people a little hardship and the knee jerk/reactionary response would be to proclaim they were "better off" before.

The main problem with Socialism is that people are so used to having 'rulers', that they simply do not know how to act in their absence. This creates a seeming 'power vacuum'. Unscrupulous individuals can use that fact as a way to assume the roles vacated by the formerly rich and powerful in the name of being a force that maintains the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat", when very often they seem to become dictators themselves.

In my personal opinion, violent revolution will always lead to that outcome. If we ever want to evolve as a society, people must first understand what Socialism actually is and why it's the best choice for the majority of people. We must freely choose it, because it's the right thing to do.

That is made extremely difficult because the rich and powerful like being rich and powerful, and will use every bit of their resources to ensure they stay rich and powerful. It's easier to convince cops to side with them to keep them in power by sharing a tiny bit of their wealth, than it is to convince them to do the right thing, when they aren't even sure what the right thing is.

There is a reason that Education is a political battleground in the US. If people were actually taught the truth, they probably would choose to do the right thing. The capitalists won't allow that to happen if they can help it.

Anytime you see someone trying to cut funding for education, or try to have a whitewashed version of history taught. This is the reason.

This is also the source of "Red Scare" propaganda and fear mongering. 'Keep people scared, ignorant, and confused' will probably be the subtitle of the last 100 years if they make a movie about it in the future, provided the Fascists and/or Capitalists don't win.

Edit: JFK once said "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." I think there is a lot of wisdom in that and I wish people in power would take it to heart, though I know they wont.

Well it's blatant propaganda. Think about it, when people got rid of kings and 'nobles', they didn't take the wealth from them. Those people stayed rich and invested that money into business. The ruling class never changed, they just changed job titles.

There has also never been a system (under capitalism) where peoples wealth is taken from them when they die.

The whole idea that under Capitalism everyone "Starts from 0" is just laughable.

Capitalism was never a punishment for nobles who didn't work, it was a way for them to continue to stay in power, and still not have to work.

The vast majority of wealthy people were born wealthy. The vast majority of people who start from 0 will die with basically 0.

Adam Smith himself was born wealthy.

Very occasionally, someone like a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs will come along and be successful, but they are the exceptions to the rule. And most of their wealth came from exploiting people.

A few professions could be a path for poor people to succeed, like for example Lawyers, but you have to have the money for Law School in the first place, so most of them came from well off parents.

Capitalism wouldn't exist if it were a fair system.

The ideals of capitalism were to punish the rich land owners/nobles who were wealthy without ever working and empower the workers who were poor despite working for their whole lives

Where are you getting this from?

the only way to make more money than someone else is to work more hours regardless of profession

Workers aren't capitalists. The whole point of Capitalism is to ensure the ruling class never has to do the actual work. Capitalists make their money by exploiting workers, not working themselves.

Capitalists are people who own the means of production. Working in a capitalist system you will never earn enough to buy the factory. Inheritance is one of the main ways to become a capitalist. Sure some people get lucky but with few exceptions if you are rich the way you got rich was by exploiting other people .

Copyright was a halfway decent idea when it first came out. Give a chance for an artist or inventor to profit from their work for a few years and then it becomes public property. Thanks to corporations like Disney, that has all been twisted, and now it's used as a cudgel to keep others from competing and it takes almost 100 years for something to go out of copyright now (thanks congress).

A system where you do the work and get paid for your value is closer to Socialism than capitalism.

You are right, my bad. Fixed it

You can get them in the U.S. with /e/OS through Murena, but they are $900 :(

Both Dem reps from Indiana voted nay against impeachment. I can's say I am surprised, but I am disappointed.

Give me your best for my protest signs.

I think "Rep Paul Tonko is a fascist collaborator" works pretty good.

I wish more people realized this. Fundamentalist "Christians" are some of the most antisemitic people and no one seems to question why they are Israel's biggest backers. They literally believe that keeping Israel in power will make supply side Jesus come and rescue them from the awful progressives who want to make sure everyone has their basic needs provided for.

explodicle didn't mention Trump running on draining the swamp because they believed he would do that or because they support Trump in any way. The point (very clearly) is that even people as uneducated, uninformed, and oblivious as MAGAts can tell that there is something very wrong about how America was being ran, and even they wanted something to change. The fact that Trump lied about draining the swamp and the fact that his intentions was to bring in a sewer to replace it is irrelevant. The fact that they were naive to believe him is irrelevant.

The point is that most of us want actual change, not centrist corporate stooges like Biden and Harris. Whether the people put their faith in the wrong ones to change things in the past is beside the point.

And no, the fact that people showed up in record numbers to vote for Biden in 2020 does not prove this trend is incorrect. At that point Biden was a significant change from Trump in the eyes of many people. He deceived people that he was going to be significantly different in the same way Trump did.

If you are still confused try reading the TL:DR again, "Socialists or we lose." They were 1000% not expecting Trump to actually drain the swamp.

Judging by our last conversation where you blamed the people who voted for Harris for Trump getting elected, this nuance is going to fly right over your head. The fact that you took a comment calling for people to vote for socialist candidates as someone supporting Trump pretty clearly shows you aren't the sharpest potato in the sack.

I also know you are a pro-capitalist, anti-socialist, corporate boot-licker, so it's no surprise people calling for socialist candidates to be elected is against your ideals and you would like to muddy the waters as much as you can, but I think it's clear to everyone you aren't arguing in good faith.

You proving me right in 3...2...1...