There’s plenty of really nice nursing homes in the USA … they’re just charge thousands of dollars a month and kick you out if you can’t pay.

That’s what I’m running, though I had issues with it randomly requiring a reset. Installing OpenWrt fixed that problem.

The states have limited power to defy the feds.

Case in point: legalized marijuana. That said, my fear in regards to states defying laws is:

• Targeted attacks by MAGA terrorists, particularly regarding anything LGBTQ+ or reproductive healthcare related.
• The fed withholding federal funds to punish states that don’t fall in line.

The former is particularly concerning as police and the national guard are predominately right-wing. My state passed the SAFE-T Act to address abuses in the police/justice system. Naturally, various police departments weren’t happy about this, and through obtuse interpretation of the act they’ll claim they can’t legally do vital parts of their job – something I’ve seen multiple times first hand. Refusing to do their job competently in response to MAGA terrorism isn’t hard to imagine.

The later gets tricky. Most of the states that would push back against unjust federal laws are also states that pay more in federal taxes than they receive in aid. The “obvious” solution withhold tax dollars going to the fed to make up the difference … which would be next to impossible in practice. Even if states mange to do it they’d be playing into Republican hands by defunding essential federal services.

The CHIPS act? You mean one of the things the Biden admin bragged about?

Good thing the incoming administration isn’t petty enough to nuke anything associated with the previous administration…

Don’t forget that starship launch last year. The dumbass blew up a rocket and launched giant chunks of concrete onto people’s property because he’s a impatient child.

Which is hilarious, as the eponymous Culture is the epitome of luxury gay space anarchism. Pan-sexual, non-monogamous space hippies that can (and do) change their biological sex just by thinking about it. People so past the idea of “gender” that they consider giving any serious weight to the concept barbaric.

I know it’s a rhetorical question: but is Elon stupid or something?

One: that comment you deleted where you put the dollar sign ($) in the wrong spot – nobody does that.

Two: your “American English” (while excellent) sounds … off, when read aloud.

Three: you can read the following Shibboleth aloud and you’ll have no idea what it means:

ooh day ooh yay eek spay ig pay at in lay?

Lol. Yeah, exclude opposing opinions obnoxious, idiotic noise, go live in your liberal echo chamber

FTFY

Also, why do you have such a hardon for Trump when you aren’t an American?

So it is a racial slur, thanks for the confirmation

Yes, the notoriously racially homogeneous nation of Russia. Clearly it’s a race thing, and not a nationality thing. And clearly they’re talking about the entire ethnic “russian” population – not the state itself and its leadership.

Any work made to convey a concept and/or emotion can be art. I’d throw in “intent”, having “deeper meaning”, and the context of its creation to distinguish between an accounting spreadsheet and art.

The problem with AI “art” is it’s produced by something that isn’t sentient and is incapable of original thought. AI doesn’t understand intent, context, emotion, or even the most basic concepts behind the prompt or the end result. Its “art” is merely a mashup of ideas stolen from countless works of actual, original art run through an esoteric logic network.

AI can serve as a tool to create art of course, but the further removed from the process a human is the less the end result can truly be considered “art”.

Late teens, maybe early 20s.

How close am I?

Because they’re arguing in bad faith.

Oh, is it because decades of incompetence and corruption weakened their already crumbling military? Their lack of a strong economy to support the war effort? Is it because they’re relying on Soviet leftovers instead of modern equipment? The fact their enemy is a motivated, supplied with actually decent munitions by modern/rich countries, and has a competent chain of command?

What do I win?

They’re not insane: everything they’ve done are things they sincerely thought they could get away with, and up until Ukraine Putin has been correct in that regard.

Pretending to be crazy is an effective strategy: ironically Nixon popularized it during the cold war.

Attacking targets in NATO countries (even if “justified”) is going to drastically increase the odds NATO gets directly involved in Ukraine – something Putin absolutely doesn’t want.

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That saying holds more truth if you’re using the “non-political” definitions of conservative – i.e. moderate, cautious, or resistant to change.

Moreso “set in your ways” as the world changes around you.

I agree that there’s a lot of direct trolling online, but I wouldn’t discount the number of “useful idiots”.

Remember Q-anon? The core of that entire “movement” was a handful of people on an obscure website steering discourse and pumping out conspiracy theories to a few hundred dedicated direct followers. That audience served as both a testbed for ideas and a free “localization service” – they’d take an unpolished core idea and through discourse transform it into something marketable for wider consumption. Said followers obscure the source of the messaging, amplify it, spread it to traditional social media / the real world, “fight” dissidents, etc.

Those “useful idiots” are a fundamental part of an efficient, cost effective, and successful disinformation campaign.

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Yeah, the majority of them aren’t “bots”. It’s mostly people acting as useful idiots, parroting talking points put forth by Kremlin backed trolls. The shit reeks of 2018’s totally organic “Walk Away” movement – the arguments and slogans practically rhyme.

I don’t like the “bots” thing either since it’s inaccurate to what’s actually going on, but at the same time I don’t know a concise way to call out pretty obvious Russian state backed AstroTurfing.

$50 says Putin demanded an audit of their military from top to bottom several weeks into the invasion of Ukraine, and he was very upset to learn the true state of their nuclear capabilities.

“Appear strong where you are weak” is 90% of Putin’s MO.