huey_m

I did not use insults. I said your behavior is pedantic, misplaced, and obnoxious, which it is, and that you were being dishonest by pretending the communist world did not refer to themselves as communist (even though they were actually socialist), which you were and are continuing to do so while projecting your bad faith onto me. I’ve not made any criticisms beyond that narrow point, and it’s the one you refuse to engage with, I can only assume because you know it’s wrong. Maybe you should care a little more about how actual communist states referred to themselves before claiming using “communist” in lieu of “socialist” was western propaganda?

That being said, one thing I do agree with is it’s time for me to fuck off (you can say it) if you’re becoming this upset over so little. I’ll do you one better and block you and suggest you make better use of the feature yourself if you get this emotional so easily. Have a good one.

Addressing the point or not isn’t what’s obnoxious; pretending not to understand what is meant by a common, widely accepted usage of a word to shift a discussion towards semantics is. It’s similar to people correcting common use of “theory” to “hypothesis”; these also have distinct meanings, but the common use of “theory” doesn’t really get in the way of discussion… providing people don’t feign not knowing what’s meant when the person has made which they’re using clear. It’s the same here: you knew very well he’s not referring to a stateless, classless society, but rather the communist states of the world.

Again, using “communism” in this way is not purely a polemic and it’s dishonest to characterize it as such. Even here behind the old iron curtain, “communism” as shorthand for “aspirational communism under a vanguard socialist state” is and was extremely common use of the word. Members of the communist parties would refer to themselves and their states as communist all the time. It isn’t “adhering to US propaganda”… all sides used this. It’s really only young, contemporary communists causing a stink over this, honestly.

That I do agree with you on. For Trump criticisms and attacks… well, there’s plenty of meat on that bone that we don’t need to go gnawing for scraps, as it were.

Communism is a stateless society, where the economic basis of class differences has been overcome.

True in an academic sense, but his clarification makes it pretty obvious he’s referring to the Marxism-Leninism of the USSR since he referenced that directly. Using “communism” as a shorthand for that has been common in both western and eastern media and news since the Cold War. I live in a former satellite state of the USSR, and adherents here would use the same language, it’s not just an outside polemic.

Not really looking to debate the merits of it, but I think pretending not to understand what someone means when they use a very wide and commonly accepted usage of a word and instead pedantically clinging to only an academic definition rather than addressing the actual point is a little obnoxious.

More to the point though, what you call an obvious conclusion is nothing more than speculation fueled by hatred.

Mostly with you, but this, I think, is overplaying your point and just isn’t true. This makes it sound like something just made up because you don’t like someone, like Obama not being an American citizen or something. There is certainly circumstantial evidence that Trump has indeed had sex with minors. His role and behavior in underage beauty pageants, frequent trips to the island we know these things happened on, etc.

Not enough to convict someone, yes, but enough that even someone with no opinion at all of Trump (impossible, but hypothetically), if told of this circumstantial evidence, probably wouldn’t trust their daughter to be alone with him.

I think the point that there’s enough to tar him with that’s completely proven and on the record there’s no need to venture into such circumstantial accusations is well taken, but let’s also not pretend those accusations are baseless and purely from hatred. There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence that would lead even a pretty impartial observer to at least consider it.

Lower earners do get pretty good care in states like California with MediCal. The problem is a) it isn’t federal, so some states they don’t invest get worse care and b) you can fall onto a band of making too much for public health care and too little for real insurance.

Nothing I’ve written should be taken as an endorsement. Medicare should be extended to all. With no means testing.

Eh, that’s overstating it. It still is a stupidly rich country and professional working Americans tend to make more money than their European counterparts, even considering healthcare.

But yes, tying healthcare to employment comes with all sorts of problems and lets too many people not “poor enough” for Medicare to slip through the cracks. In my experience with a state Medicare system that gets good funding, the public system actually holds up quite well when looking at many of the European systems, at least here in central Europe where I live now… simply extending that to everyone would basically fix the problem. I’ve had good dental work, a fantastic pre natal and birth experience along with mending broken bones and such under a public system with no cost to me and honestly my experience was great.

There are also plants specifically adapted for wildfires. Sequoias (and I think redwoods) need them to open their cones and they can’t propagate in their own leaf litter, they need to be cleared by fire.

I’m not going to find them now, but if you’re interested, there are a lot of studies that look at how money moves through the economy and which dollars are more impactful. While dollars saved do get reinvested in a roundabout way, their economic impact is pennies on the dollar compared to direct spending or investment into business. It’s just far better for any market economy to prevent dollars from pooling into savings beyond simple prudence and is far better to put them directly to work via spending.

Well, sort of. Fascism is more precisely a marriage of nationalism and a police state with a corporatocracy where one aids the other in their goals. Which you could definitely argue is what’s happening in the US, but isn’t really what my point was (and certainly shouldn’t be read as an endorsement!).

But yeah, that deal with devil is definitely a complicity. They’ve been willing to hand vast amounts of money, and rights, to the ruling class because they’re been being paid very well to do so. And I don’t see revolution happening until there’s either a critical mass of people reaching starvation levels of poverty, or the middle class sees all that wealth they traded their rights for evaporate.

Even from a capitalist perspective this makes sense. Money pooling at the top is money not moving through the economy; 100% taxes encourage reinvestment and philanthropy to avoid the tax.

But that number is “only” ~25 million out of over 340 million, or about 7% give or take (double checked my numbers; slightly off, but still under 10%). And they’re likely in the worst position to do anything politically because they’re too busy surviving. There is a crisis of under insured, but most people don’t feel that pressure until it becomes a real problem, then they’re in the group that is too busy surviving to enact change. For most Americans, that disposable income number includes healthcare. There’s just a stupid amount of money in that country. And while there’s a huge gap and most goes to the top, enough goes to the middle class to keep them pacified.

I’m definitely not endorsing the US system; it’s a system of haves and have nots and embraces a wealth divide and can be pretty bleak. But most Americans just aren’t feeling as much of a financial punch as the complaints might let on.

(This isn’t to invalidate Americans who are struggling… been there, been homeless, it’s awful. But middle class America, even by European standards, is pretty ridiculously wealthy.)

Honestly? The average and median American still has I think the highest disposable income in the world even after accounting for cost of living short of places like Luxembourg. While they’re complaining, rightly, about their lot being worse compared to years past, most of them aren’t feeling a sort of financial squeeze that’s usually needed for that kind of revolutionary action yet.

The US has made a sort of deal with devil that’s still mostly paying off for the average citizen. Until the middle class specifically really feel the squeeze, and not just compared to themselves historically, I don’t see any revolutionary action happening.

Amount I’d say no, the US has been very car centric since the 50s and that was firmly established by the 80s. Size is probably a fair point, much more SUVs by the 90s. I still think in the vast majority of cases this is more a matter of the 24 hour news cycle making parents afraid of abductions and the like despite an all time low.

Honestly these comics really kind of annoy me and I’m glad to see comments seem to grasp the problem better. It doesn’t really have anything to do with kids… in this economy where you have to work your dog ass off, any greater responsibility, no matter how rewarding it is, will feel like this at times.

I will say I think both sides of this particular question can be equally obnoxious.

I’m sure there are some areas where it truly is unsafe, but IMO most people who think this really just aren’t giving their kids enough credit. Especially in the US, city design and prevalence of high speed roads hasn’t changed significantly from back when this was more normal.

Not true. I’ve had my eye on a pair for awhile that has no camera, only microphone, but has a HUD. Having navigation, an irl minimap, without having to keep your phone out is nice and has some actual positive safety implications. Also, this might mean less to Americans, but as someone living in Europe, having in line translation is really, really cool. Could almost sell it on that alone. I’ve heard some deaf folks are also using it to help understand people by augmenting their lip reading (which usually doesn’t get all of the information across by itself) with summaries that the mic picked up.

I’ve only held off because the pair I was looking at seem like it isn’t quite there yet in reliability, but there are definitely some pretty big use cases I can think of. I would 100% get some of these without a camera.

I’m really interested in the non-cam models. There’s a set out there now that has a HUD with notifications, navigation, translation on the fly, notes for meetings, etc.

The recording audio surreptitiously could be… problematic, but I think somewhat less than video and the in-line translation is legitimately useful and cool feature.

I’ve also been saying for years that augmented reality games could have some real potential, especially for getting exercise while playing games… imagining like running through a field competing with other players collecting coins or a cycle path. Not sure some cool games is worth the tradeoff of having cameras everywhere though. I’d definitely support legislation that says a visible light needs to be on when recording anything.

Yup, still a thing for kids here in Hungary as well. Except they usually say it “Tizen-három” because it fits the sound better and is… 6+7.