I think technically he could order someone with the legal authority to use lethal force to do that. So probably the NSA or CIA.

Is the implication here that adult women snuggle/wrestle with their friends? Outside of porn videos?

Ok sure but if Person U from a large city comes to the city council meeting and asks for help because their neighbor, Person R, is building a new garage on Person U’s property, it’s understandable that people from around the city - no matter how far afield - might express support for Person U.

At the same time, if Person T or Person I or Person M from far across the city don’t express support, so what? What does it matter? Maybe they’re afraid of Person R. Maybe they truly don’t care. Maybe they hate person U.

Saudi Arabia, India, South Africa, Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates,

None of these “attenders” are in the same region as Ukraine.

At least they didn’t ignore the terrain alarm.

I read somewhere but can’t find it now about a time where a plane crashed or nearly crashed because the older pilot was sure the “terrain” alarm was a mistake and ignored the directive to pull up. I believe they were flying on instruments (common these days at night or poor visibility).

If this is a transition from how I live now to never needing to work again, I’m guessing the first 6 months to a year would just be disbelief and slacking. Video games, TV/YouTube, etc.

I’d probably do more of the things I do with my limited off time: gardening, taking care of family & pets, taekwondo.

Honestly have no idea what I’d do once I became accustomed to it. Maybe travel? Participate in local politics more? Volunteer? I would definitely have a sense that I needed to do something to make my life “worth it” that I currently get from working to provide for my family.

It’s definitely a result of conditioning, not some fundamental truth of the universe. But nearly 50 years of that conditioning is hard to break overnight.

Lemmy for good content and discussion. Reddit still has niche fan communities that will probably never migrate over here, but I can always hope.

I read a pretty convincing article title and subheading implying that the best use for so called “AI” would be to replace all corporate CEOs with it.

I didn’t read the article but given how I’ve seen most CEOs behave it would probably be trivial to automate their behavior. Pursue short term profit boosts with no eye to the long term, cut workers and/or pay and/or benefits at every opportunity, attempt to deny unionization to the employees, tell the board and shareholders that everything is great, tell the employees that everything sucks, …

I wonder if this is the harbinger of a bunch of companies breaking up after decades of consolidation.

It would definitely be good to have a big round of breakups to get competition going again. Then we just have to fight against the consolidation that will start up in 20-30 years.

Now do the banks and grocery stores and airlines and car companies and farming and…

Obviously this is a real and difficult neuro/psych issue to deal with, and I know some people who probably suffer (but aren’t formally diagnosed). Heck, I’ve been prone to letting certain negative comments send me on a spiral briefly myself.

Unfortunately like a lot of genuine neuro issues, this one seems like a really difficult one for typicals to interact with. Because there are people who react badly to genuine critiques, especially in regard to politics, religion, and tradition. Some of them probably are suffering from RSD but a lot aren’t.

Every time I install Windows the first thing I download is total commander. I can’t function without it.

It looks like midnight commander with some upgrades

I’ll let others address the “enshittification” angle but I thought I’d point out that “shareholder value uber allies” is a relatively recent … “innovation” … in economic theory, brought about by failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork and Milton Friedman in the last half of last century:

https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/what-made-chicago-school-so-influential-antitrust-policy

The rethinking of what the boards of companies are supposed to do (from maximize stakeholder value to maximize shareholder value) and how they can operate (from requiring justification to approve mergers to requiring justification to block mergers) really took off with them, and exploded when former union boss Ronald Reagan found “religion” (because Nancy’s pussy was just that good) and ruined the economy for workers.

Lots of other people contributed, including Clinton after he “won” the 1992 election with 40% of the vote due to Perot splitting the Republican vote. His campaign of fiscal conservatism but without less bigotry became the model for the Democratic Party for the next two decades.

Anyway, Biden’s FTC is finally working to help workers again, which might even release the death grip of the Chicago School from our economy. We’ll see after November I guess.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/fact-sheet-ftcs-proposed-final-noncompete-rule

Well just for one example, Joe Biden has been aggressively using the powers he has via the department of education to cancel outstanding student loan balances that were completely legal and very profitable for usurious loan servicing companies.

No Republican would do that.

He and the Democrats leveraged their control of Congress in 2021 and 2022 to pass legislation that is going to do more to reduce our contribution to climate change than ever before. Not enough, but way more than any Republican would do.

I feel like that means our democracy is sort of working.

In so called “blue” states, they’re expanding voting access.

I agree that campaign contributions are a serious challenge, but for example Bernie and Elizabeth Warren have done great things without contributions from billionaires.

We can do this, but we need to stand up in the face of fear and push as hard as we can. The only thing to fear is fear itself!

Vote Save America can help leverage donations to the most effective campaigns possible for progressive causes.

https://votesaveamerica.com/

That’s the mission of the people who are trying to tear apart our democracy: make people think the whole system is broken and beyond repair.

That’s where all these people arguing against voting for Biden and Democratic majorities are coming from. They don’t actually think the two parties are the same (or they wouldn’t if they were honest about them). But they sure as heck think America would be better if not everyone could participate in it’s governance.

So it’s up to us to work on defending the democratic power we have and work on repairing and improving our democracy. That means completely redesigning the campaign finance system. That means expanding voting access. That means expanding the Article 3 courts from top to bottom. We need to fix our media. Break up monopolies and oligopolies. On and on.

We can make our democracy better if we work together to fix it.

I’m sure this will come if the wrong way but if you’re genuinely concerned about discovering diversity of thought, you’re going to have to tell us what your positions are for example.

I’m all for finding diversity, but so often what people who post these are looking for is an echo chamber. Like if you’re really wanting to be challenged, and you’re a conservative, go to https://socialistworker.org/ and read up.

But if what you’re concerned about is the nerds in Lemmy seem to be left leaning, that’s just the nature of smart creative people. We value skills and creativity over hierarchy and structure.

The Gate

Yeah I’d try it once. I mean I’m sure I accidentally tasted it when my wife was lactating but I never took a big swig.

It just occurred to me that there are probably people who look at those bombings - after the war was effectively over BTW - not as evil (my view), nor as a regrettable but necessary way to avert American deaths, but as an actual heroic act.

Jesus, how do I live in a world where there are people like that running around having normal lives…?