Capitalism has served me well and, I think if you have a particularly strong work ethic, then the American model can serve you well, up to a certain extent.

BUT, I am not a sycophant. I have seen the dark underbelly of the American model, how certain vampires at the top of companies will maximize profits at the expense of literally everything else - contractually locking in customers and then raising rates on them to the point where they can barely afford it (they’d call that “equilibrium “). Firing good long-time employees because new fresh blood is cheaper, damned if it makes everyone else’s life harder, including that person who gave their life to the company. Predating on the meek, desperate, or just those who don’t think like them, in spite of what it may do to the relationship long term (fuck any sort of commitment or customer relationship at all because it can’t accurately be monetized).

These people chase money above all else. They’re loot dragons. The only relationships they have are those that either think like them or those they can manipulate and control.

So no, don’t chase the American model, but perhaps borrow from some of its most useful tenets. There are good motivated people in the flesh, but the structure is rotten at its core.

It’s true. They’re only as powerful as you let them be. The “First they came” poem comes to mind.

My point is that fascism builds until the root causes and those fanning its flames are rooted out and destroyed ala Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler; or they burn on and continue to oppress under an authoritarian like Franco, Pinochet or Putin. There aren’t a whole lot of examples in between where an authoritarian relinquishes power after a short term.

I know which one I prefer, and, from example, we can see a little jail time is insufficient.

I don’t know exactly why, but the way you stated that reminds me of how Saddam Hussein gained power.

There’s a part of me that thinks, if the right can do it, why can’t we? If it takes an order of magnitude more effort to clear up falsified statements then why are we taking up all of our resources on representing the truth? Why can’t we just start saying “they’ve started deporting American citizens in Miami back to Cuba?” or “The mafia is intimidating election workers to stuff ballots in XYZ county?” or “the government has been gutted so much that Social Security checks are not coming out in time. Old people in Arizona are getting kicked out into the streets and dying of heatstroke.”

But then the Ego side of my brain smacks the Id side and says, “You dunce, that’s how we become current-day Russia”

Hitler went to jail. What good did it serve the Germans?

It’s as if the sheep decided, “f these boring shepherds, let’s go party with these wolves.”

Mozilla is a not-for-profit. Like hospitals, that doesn’t mean they don’t make profits, it’s just that they have to reinvest most of them into the company and it’s employees. Speaking of which, those activities are not free and they’re not necessarily done just out of the goodness of their hearts. In these trying times in particular, I think we should start realizing that we have to be advocates and supporters for the things we believe in, or else they’ll die on the vine. And when they do, we’ll be left with the lowest common denominators that simply treat us all like a product.

Mozilla is the best of the big 4 browsers, it also isn’t pushing the whole Manifest 3 crap down our throats. At this point I’m sticking with them until I’m convinced otherwise. I’ve changed before and I absolutely would again.

As for losing the advocacy group, it sucks, but if I were in a tough position where I had to choose between advocacy and development, I would stick with my core mission - a stable browser with the features that users want. There are other great Internet advocacy groups out there that do great work (and we need them more than ever). Of course, EFF is one.

I can’t remember where I heard it, maybe NPR politics podcast, but essentially, the election was more so a referendum on Biden’s (and Harris) perceived poor performance in office, particularly around immigration and inflation.

That’s an analysis that makes sense in my mind. My family is clearly in the middle class nowadays and we’ve struggled to keep up financially. Growing up poor, I remember how impossible the situation can be when times are tough.

So in that retrospective, it wasn’t necessarily that the public preferred MAGA policies, they just either like DT or liked him more than the current administration.

Also keep in mind that the vote margins were pretty thin in most swing states - within 1%.

So how does that translate to NC? Well, rebuke of Harris for one, but this is what no full endorsement of MAGA looks like. So we’re seeing that DT is a force all on his own, he’s like an FDR or TR or a Raegan, people just gravitate to him more that your typical politician.

Dems won downballot as well - Buckhout aligned herself with DT and lost. Same thing with Michelle Murrow.

Elaine Marshall, Rachel Hunt and Jeff Jackson won theirs. But further down Republicans, particularly incumbents, performed well.

Yes part of it was Robinson being a closet Nazi, but with DT at top of ticket attrition shouldn’t have been a concern with downballot races.

NC is one of those rare places that has long been purple. It likes to vote Republican for federal but moderate Dem for state. In a world where many other states have gone to “all politics are national”, NC is a holdout in that regard. Dems know how to win here (when not gerrymandered all to hell).

I attribute it to a) a well educated citizenry b) diversity c) dems sticking to their moderate constituency d) the right passing some unpopular laws this year

I prefer fresh ideas and thoughts, even (especially) if they don’t align with my own values and beliefs. I thrive in that kind of environment. We, for the most part, seem to be at that stage. A stage Reddit was at circa 2009.

What I don’t want is this place becoming so popular that everything moves too fast and becomes derivative. I am not looking forward to an endless September. It’s probably inevitable, but if it could hold off another 5 - 10 years up to the point when I’m more into gardening or something rather than the Internet, that would be ideal.

I also fear that the model is unsustainable at a certain point. I trust Dessaslines and co aren’t chasing endless profits, but there does need to be enough people out there willing to donate and fund operations. Lichess is able to make it happen, so I hope we do here too.

The ROC, Tibet, India and Mongolia at a minimum would like to have a word.

This is exactly how I found out my refrigerator was running.

Projection. Remember during the first few days of the war when Russia issued a statement saying that the era of the West was over?

I buy gift cards for the discounts. Usually you can get a gift card from anywhere between 3% and 20% off. Over the last 5 years, this has saved me $1000s on house renovations alone.

Coincidentally, this very week, I accidentally texted my neighbor a vulgar comment about TSA patting down my balls that was meant for the Mrs.

Unsend did not work 🙄😙🤮

I got a little taste of what Truman must’ve felt like when he realized everyone got to watch his awkward years.

Serious questions here. The world, by design, has arid zones around the tropics. If we heat up the planet, does that mean deserts pop up in other places? Like, will the Sahara and Cape Town turn green, but Spain and Italy and Argentina turn to desert? And if that’s the case, will hurricanes more often frequent New England, but less frequent Florida? Also, isn’t one of the major reasons we have hurricanes in the first place due to Sahara seeding them? If less desert then…?

I don’t know about y’all, but I’d prefer not to win a Darwin Award.

I’m more a visual person, so let me show you some graphs: Famine rates are down: https://ourworldindata.org/images/published/Famine-death-rate-since-1860s-revised_850.png

We can do so much more with our computing resources - Note, logarithmic scale: https://www.singularity.com/images/charts/MicroprocessorClockSpeed.jpg

Poverty is down: https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2545610/Screen_Shot_2014-12-12_at_10.34.38_AM.0.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0,0,100,100

Billions of people live in a democracy, before 1850 almost none did: https://bigthink.com/the-present/democratic-rights/

Have y’all seen the pictures of chimney rock?

There have been some responses: https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/08/1153656 https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/07/experts-hail-icj-declaration-illegality-israels-presence-occupied