Is there some law that every modern musician has to cover Wham’s song? Because it sure seems that way.

We need election reform. But before anything can be done, people need to get out of their echo chambers and stop denying that “both sides” people exist. Stop taking for granted that everything your chosen team does is 100% right. Start looking at your own side critically. As it is now, the majority of the population is convinced that the other half of the population is a bunch of fascist bootlickers and refuses to listen to anything they have to say, and they take for granted that their side is the only correct choice. Most people are actually pretty purple but won’t admit it.

And keep in mind that as long as everybody thinks that way, nothing will ever get fixed in this country. Both Team Red and Team Blue know what’s up. They know people will defend their side and demonize the other, while they’re all taking care of the billionaires and laughing all the way to the bank.

The lesser of two evils is still evil.

Oh absolutely. Instead of fighting the establishment, political discourse has devolved into “Oh you don’t like Person A? Then you must be a FASCIST who is licking Person B’s boots!”

And to think we could have had this guy instead of the narcissist and lost Roomba that won the last two elections…

And it’s definitely not helping that the biggest Mastodon instance for artists is pretending to be progressive while being hostile to the LGBT community. Mastodon has a chance to snatch up artists who are pissed off about Twitter, and of course they’re going to check out mastodon.art not knowing about their bullshit.

I’m not sure what the solution to that should be, however. Take down mastodon.art? I’ve been telling people to avoid that instance, but non-techie people don’t understand that the Mastodon developers don’t own it.

I own a car and am resentful of the fact that they are pretty much mandatory in my country, but I don’t think this community is overly pessimistic or a vacuum chamber.

That said, departure announcements like the one we are talking about here look like attempts to stir up drama rather than attempts at an actual conversation.

What did you expect from a community called “fuck_cars”?

So… what if a news article links to a toot or Lemmy post? They’re most likely to link to the instance that the post was submitted from, and most people aren’t going to understand that they have to go search for the post from their home instance if they want to like, vote, reply, or retoot. Email made sense to people because it is basically all direct messaging, but public linking from articles and such is going to be difficult.

And none of this will ever get fixed in the current US political climate. MAGA has taken over the Republican party, and Democrats can do whatever the fuck they want because people will defend them with “Doesn’t matter because Trump exists.”

The MAGA cult wants us to return to Biblical times and values, while Democrats pretend to be outraged at Republicans while they’re doing the same damn shit (like racism and bailing out the rich).

Every other developed country has universal healthcare, while the best we could do is impose a tax on people who can’t afford health insurance.

People are too afraid to call out their own side’s bullshit.

We need to do better than this.

We just want you to know that arrogance isn’t strictly an American problem.

Ever seen Europeans on the Internet act like the way their country or continent does things is the only correct way, and North America is too stupid to realize it?

I think it needs more jpeg

Pretty much, but I have no idea who the tip is going to in that case. Last time it happened to me, there was no button to not leave a tip. The options were 20%, 25%, 30%, and Custom, with 25% as the default. I had to hit Custom and type 0.00.

Tipping culture and living wage are not the same thing at all. It’s the owner’s responsibility to pay a living wage.

Plenty of places, even in retail and food service, pay a living wage without resorting to using the registers to beg.

And this, folks, is why tipping culture continues to get worse.

Yeah, it’s happened to me a couple of times.

I worked in food service and retail for a long time, not tipped. The idea that I have to leave a tip for putting my stuff in a bag and handing it to me is ludicrous to me. Employers can pay less because they can tell new hires they get tips.

Business owners need to pay their damn employees and stop using the registers to beg customers for more money.

Just wait until you get a tip prompt on a self-checkout kiosk.

And then have the media (Wall Street Journal and Readers Digest especially) tell everybody that yes, tipping everybody everywhere is the new normal and we need to get used to it.

I’ve gotten into so many arguments on Facebook with people who tip their mechanics and doctors. People are eating this shit up.