flipht @ flipht @kbin.social

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2 yr. ago

Everyone should read The Poverty Industry. States abuse the absolute shit out of children and the elderly.

Russia has begun all of its recent invasions by claiming it is stepping in to protect ethnic Russians from persecution.

Sometimes, and I don't know if that's possible here, it's best to go after the current thing on its way out than to try to attack a brand new thing that is gaining influence.

Depends on how specific the scope is, and whether this will set precedent for future issues.

It probably doesn't make sense to do infrastructure -wide duplication for a greywater system. That would be a lot of pipe and possible leaks in places where that resource isn't needed.

Smaller loops make more sense for specific needs like this. It just needs to be legislated - over a certain size, you need to pump, filter if required for your application, and then dump in accordance with whatever rules we set. If local governments want, they can subsidize this through tax breaks - we already have robust systems for giving corporations money back, we just need to tie it to the types of performance we need to see, whether that be environmental improvements, job creation/retention, etc.

Journalists trying to convince each other that they can convince the world to stop bad actors.

But most of us are just trying to keep our heads down to survive, and a large minority is actively engaged in supporting authoritarianism. So it's all very performative.

Iran can sell their oil to whomever can buy it.

But this was apparently a US company violating US law, so...to your point...the US's sovereign right to enforce their law and confiscate contraband from their citizen.

I agree with you overall, but they are not "in adult prison" - they're in a separate section, fenced off from the rest of the prison. LA juvenile facilities have been in disrepair for years, and the kids often riot and wreck shit (I would too if I were in their situation, so I'm not judging), but that means the normal facilities often aren't suitable either. They're basically renting space from Angola.

We just had some major prison reforms, but we still need a lot of changes to the juvenile system.

And the rules won't change because most of the Senate loves that someone else can halt things, take the heat, and then they won't have to deal with unpopular decisions.

Not in this case, but they're literally willing to force the military fuck over career professionals so that they can keep their cushy plausible deniability.

Aka breathing. So intense.

Yeah, well, when did we start using that term? Was it before billionaires? Because if you act like billionaires are normal individuals and ignore the fact that they can function as if they can force governance on others, then you're just begging for the corpo-state instead of an elected government.

This. We are over here wasting time thinking that all Americans are basically good and just need the right information to make better decisions, while tehressives laugh at us and love that we waste time trying to convince them of anything.

They are all using the wealth of a small nation to push their personal agenda.

So while some might have good intentions, and some might be cartoon villains, it is still a disproportionately powerful individual who is able to subvert all the rest of us without breaking a sweat.

It should have been "obvious what they were going to do" the moment their country was invaded and they fought back instead of rolling over.

Elon Musk is now interfering in the defense against an ongoing genocide. He offered them this infrastructural support, he was going to get paid for it, he has shot himself in the foot on that side of the equation, and he is using that "mistake" to justify interfering in policy and planning for a sovereign government trying to defend its people.

There's no acceptable way to spin this. As my high school accounting teacher used to say, "You either knew or should have known." He knows what he's doing, or he's dangerously incompetent. Either way, he should be cut off from any opportunity to fuck with Ukraine.

Exactly. A broken clock is right twice a day. If "idiot" rich people can monetize their mistakes, consistently do so, and manage to do it almost as if by using the same playbook as each other...they're not idiots, it is on purpose, and they just want enough plausible deniability that they don't get strung up from a Michelin star restaurant.

I mean, you're kind of seeing this with Donald Trump's legal issues. He can't get anyone with real clout, so he's actually facing consequences in that arena now.

That assumes all things are equal.

They rely on you repeating this adage to get away with this shit. It's too consistent. If he were actually stupid, he'd face negative consequences, which is something these folks very rarely have to do.

He does not have to do it himself. He has accountants and lawyers who can take his stupid decisions and turn them into money.

At a certain point the economies of scale of being a billionaire just keep you rich. What I've said is pretty standard tax bullshit that they grow up pulling.

No one will convince me he isn't doing this on purpose to tank the brand.

He and his buddies were mad that they couldn't compete. So he made the offer in a manic moment, and then was forced to go through with it. Now that he's got it, he's going to destroy it, and use the loss to reduce his taxes from all his government contracts.

And he simultaneously gets to platform fascists and silence people calling out the powerful. Wins all around.

For a normal person, this looks like failing. I totally get that. But rich people can derive massive benefits from stuff that would ruin us, and every single thing Musk is doing benefits him in some way.

It is crazy that you need to think like a criminal or a corporate espionage target, but...

Consider backing your phone up and then wiping it. Some business folks do this to avoid having sensitive information on devices they must hand over to the TSA. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/how-can-i-wipe-and-restore-tablets-and-phones-for-travel/