I always thought it was funny while studying for my Cisco certification that their operating system was also called IOS. I had no idea there was actual drama behind it!

The most effective ads I’ve seen in my lifetime have been podcast ads. I don’t remember shit I see in mobile apps or on most corners of the internet. I could personally sell Blue Apron or Harry’s Razors for all I’ve heard about them on podcasts though. The smartest companies allow the podcasters to joke around in their ads too. My Brother, My Brother, and Me will say some borderline offensive but hilarious stuff in their ads and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t keep me listening to their ads and hearing about the products being advertised.

I think it’s easier to understand net neutrality as something ISP’s can’t do rather than something they must do, since we’ve never seen them really act on it before. It just means they can’t speed up or slow down your internet based on what websites you’re visiting. Under net neutrality, there can never be a deal with Google to give people faster speeds using Google searches than Bing or DuckDuckGo searches.

No worries. You’re right that it’s absurd that we need to fight so much for our government to protect us from blatant corporate for-profit schemes. There was a time when even the US government at least did us the honor of pretending to not take bribes like this. The Intuit tax return money machine is such an obviously fixable problem. All my 20-something friends in the US know that this problem only exists because of lobbying. It’s disgusting to watch elected representatives become so comfortable with their positions that they feel safe enacting policies that hurt their constituents like this.

For context, the reason I’m hating on Intuit and H&R Block and encouraging people to use FreeTaxUSA is because the first two are the main culprits behind the extensive lobbying that has led to the US government continuing to require people to file their own taxes rather than modernizing and making this process free and easy. My “gushing” is in pursuit of changing the broken system you’re pointing out.

I know City-Data Forums is still pretty active. I’ve used it a lot when deciding on places to move. I’m also a bit of an urban design nerd and there’s a lot of fascinating discussion I come across there.

Fuck Intuit and H&R Block, all my homies use FreeTaxUSA.

US history proves otherwise. Real change has been made in the labor sector without “revolution”. And on that front I will even concede that it took more than just voting to change labor laws. It took a concerted effort against the capitalist class itself with strikes and other resistance efforts. But it worked and things changed and it didn’t require overthrowing the government and destabilizing everything.

But voting would absolutely work too. At the end of the day, the people in charge are where they are because they were voted into their positions. Wealthy elites do not make up the majority of America. An angry populace would have the power to capsize their machine. “Voting doesn’t matter” as a position will only lose you ground. The “revolution” you speak of is pointless if you don’t have the majority of politically involved people behind you. At that point it’s not a “revolution”. It’s an “unpopular coup”. We see in the way people vote that the problem is that the voting populace has not been convinced by the stances of the left. Before any revolution would be an ethically sound idea, we should be seeing numbers that suggest that the majority of people are on board with radical change. And by the time that happens, those people would have the power to effect that change through voting. If the wealthy elites used underhanded tactics to suppress voting when the majority is clearly in favor of a certain change, then and only then does revolution become the ethical imperative.

In summary, don’t bother suggesting revolution if the majority of people aren’t behind you on it. Instead focus that energy on convincing people that radical change is necessary. Use the system to your advantage. Only when that fails through corrupt means does revolution become necessary.

The right wing understood this so much 3-4 decades ago and they have reaped the benefits of that understanding so thoroughly that people on the left have been running around like chickens with their heads cut off, calling for things like revolution. No, the playbook is simple. Use every advantage you can within the system. Fight for the SCOTUS and don’t be afraid to politicize it in opposition to the right wing fascists. Find wedge issues that you can call the other side on. Take control of the narrative. Be aware of your demographics and create a unifying message that brings the disparate groups together.

What you just said though contradicts itself. At the end of the day voting en masse for reform is “a mass movement”. Things won’t change when these politicians feel comfortable. Voting against them and being vocal about this as an issue will scare them. Voting absolutely works and all this rhetoric around “voting can’t fix this” is exactly how we end up with this bullshit. Boomers learned decades ago how effective voting can be at changing everything and they have consistently turned out and shaped society around their needs as a result. If young people could get this through their heads then shit would actually change. Especially since millennials and gen z now make up the majority of the voting age population in the US.

What I don’t like about this argument is it feels like the government trying to pass off their own responsibility to someone else. Like, if guns are so dangerous in purpose that manufacturers should be fined for shootings, then government officials should just be regulating gun ownership to begin with. Like, imagine if instead of criminalizing tobacco because of its dangerous health effects, the government said that anytime a person is caught smoking it tobacco companies get fined. At that point you may as well just outlaw the company itself. Which is fine. I have no problem outlawing gun manufacturing. But this is just an unnecessarily roundabout way of doing that. What are we actually accomplishing if we allow people to be shot and then take action and milk money out of the situation? A responsible government isn’t trying to point fingers after a tragedy like a mass shooting and they certainly aren’t trying to make money off of it. No, a good government takes the necessary direct steps to prevent those tragedies from happening again, especially if it’s a common occurrence. No need to dance around a solution instead of tackling it head on.

My brain is powered by memes. Memory? More like memery.

I think Republicans only “need” polarization because they decided they needed it. There’s a world out there where Republicans took a more sincere path since the 80’s and didn’t create the “culture wars” and divisive rhetorical approach to politics that people like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh invented. I don’t believe that they would in fact need to feed on polarization to succeed if they actually chose to address issues by suggesting actual solutions to problems instead of scaring their base on non-issues with hate and fear.

To be clear, I blame Republicans for our polarization completely. Democrats have been compromising to their detriment for decades while Republicans have taken advantage of every loophole they’ve been able to leverage in their favor. Republicans have also doubled down on the politics of hate and fear to motivate their base instead of using anything actually based in reality that might genuinely help people.

In 2012, when Romney lost, the Republican party created a committee to investigate what steps their party needed to take in order to succeed. The answer the committee came back with was “we need to stop being racist and sexist and focus on more inclusive policies”. Trump was a sound rejection of that direction. I still believe that once Republicans have lost another election or two, they’re going to be forced to face reality finally and listen to that committee.

Edit: This is the committee I was referencing. The so called “RNC autopsy”.

I don’t necessarily agree with this. I think any process to appoint justices is going to be vulnerable to politicization. Even the best case scenario, an independent body appointing them, is vulnerable to political capture or pressure from a polarized public. No, I think the reason America’s courts have become political is merely a byproduct of extreme polarization. Politicians don’t need to be polarized. In our country since the 80’s this has been the case, but there was a time when opposing views were able to cooperate and find more common ground. This polarization is new and it bleeding over into the courts was all but inevitable.

America’s original intentions were to keep the courts apolitical. And for most of our history that worked just fine. The recent politicization of the courts is more an inevitability that comes out of such a highly polarized environment than anything else. It’s very difficult to create a system where the courts aren’t politicized in this environment. I don’t think it’s a fundamental problem with how judges are appointed. As far as I’m concerned, the systems to appoint judges will always be vulnerable to politicization. Whether that’s by politicians, an independent body, or elections by the people, judge appointments can always be politicized in such a divided country. So I think the biggest question we should be asking is why America is so divided right now and that’s a MUCH larger and more complicated question.

From what I understand, some degree of nuclear power is always going to be necessary. This is because while we tend to think of excess power in the energy grid as being stored away, this in fact is not the case and we only use power as it’s actively available. Excess power is wasted. The major downside of renewables is that they’re circumstancial. Solar energy is only available during clear days, wind power is only available on windy days, etc. Until we massively improve our energy storage capabilities we’re going to need some kind of constant supply of power backing the other ones when they aren’t available. Without adequate nuclear energy available, that’s going to be fossil fuels. And when compared to coal, oil, and natural gas, nuclear energy is unbelievably better for the environment. The only byproduct is the spent fuel which is dangerous, but we have control over where it ends up which is more than can be said for fossil fuels.

Yeah, bullet dodged on that guy. It’s pretty shitty when the choices are a racist or someone with Alzheimer’s. Especially considering how large California is, I’m pretty sure they could have come up with better options.

I don’t even think this is necessarily an age issue. You can get Alzheimer’s at 50 too. To me the issue is a shameful unwillingness from Democrats to acknowledge Feinstein’s inability to fulfill her duties. Pelosi straight up called people sexist for suggesting Feinstein should step down. It’s despicable. If I was in California, I’d be pretty fucking mad right now that my senator was being used as a tool to advance other people’s interests by preying on her dementia.

I was reading about Vivek Ramaswamy on his Wikipedia page last night and I saw that he’s seriously pushing raising the voting age to 25! What a bunch of absolute fascist shitheads. Trying to steal the right to vote from voters that disagree with them. Literally doing the thing they accuse Democrats of doing. It’s the same old bullshit hypocrisy with those fuckfaces. I wish it still surprised me. How anybody could possibly support them at this point is beyond me. They’ve become a joke and nothing more at this point. I wish there was a serious opposition to the Democratic Party. It’s not good to have only one sane party in a country. You want your party’s ideas to be forged in the fire of scrutiny that comes with serious political conversations. But what Republicans have become is useless. At this point I can’t wait for them to just fucking die as a party. Wipe them out so badly that a new party has to rise in their stead. And God I hope it looks nothing like the modern conservative bullshit ideology.

I did some digging and the two words have different etymologies. So it’s a coincidence. English has many words that share the same spelling but have different meanings/etymologies as well. “Fan” for example. For “tour”, the “tower” usage comes from the Latin “turrem” which also means “tower”, and the “tour” usage comes from the Latin “tournāre” which means “to turn”.