Your comment is textbook sealioning.
Having opinions about other peoples gender, sexual orientation, private matters. Also legislating about that.
It’s kind of like religion for me. Don’t try to preach to me and I don’t care what you do.
Well, I agree that it is absurd, but it is nothing new
hell yes. no government has any right to dictate our genders or who we love.
To some degree literally all of it. My monkey brain was designed to handle at most 150 people, wandering around all day searching for food, unprocessed food, using my body, having a close community I trust, relationship with nature, extreme knowledge of a small amount of things, and an uninterrupted sleep cycle powered by the son.
My humanity is a poor fit for the world I am in.
somewhat tongue in cheek answer:
people who think that our brains were designed.
people who think that our brains were designed.
It was, just by forces that lack conscious motivation.
You have a pretty unique definition for the word designed.
In a way it designed itself over time. I am a collection of accidentally acquired traits that happened to survive more often in the world that used to be. Mercifully it appears that I am somewhat adept at living in this world, but damn does it feel like I am a fish out of water being in this world.
Removed by mod
Religion is a collective delusion and college graduation shocks me by how ritualistic it still is
Watch kindergarten kids start their day
Why?
Probably b/c the pledge of allegiance.
Removed by mod
Over-reliance on proprietary, closed-source products and services from megacorporations.
For instance, it’s really absurd that people in many parts of the world cannot function without WhatsApp, they can’t even imagine a life without it. It seems absurd that Meta literally has them by the balls, and these people can’t do anything about it.
Also the people who base their entire careers on say Adobe or Microsoft products, they’re literally having their lives dictated by one giant corporation, which is very depressing and dystopian.
It’s worse in China. WeChat is EVERYTHING.
At least WeChat is firmly under the state’s thumb. It’s basically a public service at this point. They should just nationalize it.
Talk to some older folks about what it was like when there was only one phone company and the alternative was snail mail.
I was there. It was fine. You didn’t need phones to be able to function in a society. Phones were something like an optional convenience that you had only at fixed places, like your home or office. If you were out and about, you typically didn’t have access to a phone, unless you were in the vicinity of a payphone, so you weren’t expected to be available on phone. Whereas in the countries where Meta has monopoly over, everyone expects you to be on WhatsApp, and you don’t really get a choice in the matter.
Whatsapp is just a text service that gained popularity because it bypassed expensive text messaging rates, and it’s superior to SMS in most ways anyways. If meta starts charging people will go somewhere else. It’s odd to hear this take that people are somehow dependant on it. It’s more replaceable than a pair of shoes.
That may be the case where you and I live perhaps, but these countries that I speak of, have an entire ecosystem built around WhatsApp. Many companies there no longer provide a customer support number that you can call for instance, they expect you to interact with a bot run on WhatsApp, which can further lead to chatting with an actual agent speaking to them, but that’s all done via WhatsApp. Also many teachers in schools and universities share lecture notes and study material via WhatsApp groups. Doctors and medical labs may share electronic copies of your reports via it. Some restaurants accept reservation requests solely via WhatsApp. It can even handle payments now, and besides using it as a means to send money to someone, some companies have even built entire e-commerce platforms around it, using interactive bots and the payment features. So for you and I, WhatsApp may be just another messaging service, but in these countries WhatsApp is quickly turning into an “everything” platform, and it’s not trivial for someone to just replace it, unless they want to go live in a cave and cut themselves off from modern society.
Wait, WhatsApp has payments too? I haven’t used WhatsApp in years, so I wasn’t aware they are basically becoming WeChat…
Wow, that’s news to me. I didn’t realize it had gone so far in some places.
This is an issue with the bourgeois character of American society and government. Monopolies are not a problem if workers control them.
And if they’re managed well on top of being worker controlled, but that’s usually been a mixed bag historically
There are plenty of free and open source messaging alternatives, they just don’t have the branding money to make sure a user base appears. To some degree the people using the apps are choosing the proprietary option.
We collectively need to be doing more to support and promote free open source software to avoid this issue. Secure peer to peer communication protocols should be more more ubiquitous than even http.
It seems absurd that Meta literally has them by the balls, and these people can’t do anything about it.
I don’t get this sentiment. If anything happens to WhatsApp, they’ll just switch to another IM. WhatsApp wasn’t the first to come along, and won’t be the last. How exactly does Meta have them by the balls?
In some of those countries, it’s not really a choice. Like, WhatsApp is the only way of contacting a company’s customer care (via chat bots that run on it), colleges and universities may have study groups on it and teachers may hand out notes etc in those groups, also apparently it’s also the only way to contact even some government agencies.
it’s a shame.
I know, I’m from those countries. Like I said, we used other IM apps before WhatsApp came along, and if something changes we can use a new app. WhatsApp currently leads the market due to the network effect, but it doesn’t have us ‘by the balls’.
(Though the most likely successor would be WeChat, which is arguably much much worse in many ways)
Do you require WhatsApp to contact certain government agencies? Do you require WhatsApp to get access to customer support? Do you require WhatsApp to get access to lecture notes? No? Then you’re not from one of those countries.
Yes, yes and yes. Yes I’m from one of those countries
Which means you can’t really switch to other apps then, which means Meta has you by the balls.
I suppose that depends on your definition of by the balls. Like I said, it’s not difficult for everybody to switch if they piss everyone off. On average people here have 2-3 IMs installed.
I remember listening to a podcast that talked of how in the Philippines (I think it was), Facebook is the internet, because Meta/FB effectively subsidised the carriers into allowing FB access to not use up any data allowance. As a result, if all you do is go on FB, you don’t pay a penny. If WhatsApp is included in this, then yeah, you’re locked in with no real alternative.
So many people use it, that the barrier to change to another application is high. They would need to fuck up on very large scale.
Yes, they currently have the market share, and network effect keeps them there. Nevertheless, my point was it’s not a monopoly, so how does Meta have everybody 'by the balls"?
Network effect might as well be a monopoly until the network kills itself.
I take issue with the concept of one company owning an entire communications network in the first place. Federation is a step in the right direction but it’s not enough yet.
It’s an issue of userbase.
WhatsApp can and will get away with a lot before it drives users to a mass exodus, when messaging should have just been an open protocol from the start.
I can happily live with any IM software, just happens that WA got on the market earlier and everyone else uses it. Me taking a stand by only using telegram does no good if I have no one to talk to.
Health insurance tied to your job.
Had me at health insurance
We’ve established a profit motive to increase your medical costs and then avoid covering them.
I promise you that hasn’t been normalised by society, only a tiny percentage of it
Everything.
-
We are run by an oligarchy of nihilists that gladly want to make humanity go extinct to buy yachts they can already afford.
-
I am constantly told I need to lower my expectations for everything day by day, and then told I am entitled for simply wishing for the life a white boomer had in the 60s. If that makes me entitled, what does that make the white boomer that DID get to experience all that? No, I’ll never own a house, now even renting is out of reach. Looks like porky’s all set with his workforce and the only jobs left pay 14 an hour tops.
-
Just how fucking boring this world is. Look around you, there is so much to see and do and you will never experience any of it because you were not born a multimillionaire. You will never experience the beauty of Sierra Nevada, you will never get to enjoy Niagara Falls, even if you are lucky enough to have stable employment. Americans proudly call vacation a thing of the past, and the few times people do go on vacation, it’s practically suicide for their career.
-
Bigotry is somehow being paraded as this noble thing, actually and that actually being tolerant is supposedly this sign I’m some big dumb-dumb.
-
If blue cities are so bad, why are property values there so high? Shouldn’t red areas have higher property values since most people are fascists and want to live in a place where minorities are more optimally oppressed?
-
If this country hates me so much, why isn’t it easier for me to simply move to another one? Even
would be leagues better than this shithole. -
Some of the worst atrocities being justified because it is for “the economy”. Ol’ Vivek argued that climate change isn’t real because if it was, the consequences of doing something about it would hurt “the economy”, as if consumerism is a human right that transcends clean air and water. Hence my first point about us being run by nihilists. If they sincerely believed in God, they wouldn’t be doing this, or be claiming “it’s okay, I’ll be dead before anything bad happens! YOLO!” They only believe in their God whenever they need a justification to do whatever they want. Ironically, God seems to tempt more people into sin than Satan and Lilith combined
deleted by creator
I’m curious why you believe one needs to be a multimillionaire to enjoy Niagara Falls?
Most Americans have less than $1000 in savings. Unless you live day trip distance from something most people won’t ever see it.
Cost of flight and hotel, or cost of gas and wear to your vehicle if you drive, time needed to take off work if needing a half day’s drive to reach. Time+Money=freedom which is something American’s that live below six figures incomes just don’t fuckin’ have.
If blue cities are so bad, why are property values there so high?
Regulations stifling the building of new accommodating housing. Large cities in some red states have massive apartment complexes. Up to you to decide if you like that living arrangement but it lowers prices.
-
Filing taxes in the US is a cruel and byzantine process. It’s fucked that the government has the resources and really the infrastructure to know what people owe, and will go through with finding out from time to time to determine if people are cheating, but all but requires them to use a private service to figure out what they owe first.
If all your income is from wages (like most people) the IRS already knows what you made cause your employer had to file w2 forms and withhold taxes. You just have to fill out a bunch of forms and hope youre right! Sometimes they fuck over waiters and stuff cause they get a lot of tips and don’t always claim their tips, which is just so shitty.
blame turbotax and their peers. we should have had an electronic filing system a decade ago. but special interests said naw, fuck that.
By design.
One of the purposes of the planned inefficiencies of state services, often the direct consequence of completely economically irrational private-public partnerships and offloading to private firms of public services who will bid for contracts to run state-constructed infastructure on the basis that they will minimize costs (inducing low wages, high turnover rates of workers and low efficiency, surprise suprise). The malignant genius of it is that the inefficiency of the effects of partial and shadow privatization of what should be public services turns people against them and pro privatization because they still perceive it as public.
A similar phenomenon can be seen in the case of tax systems, especially the US tax system, or the US postal service.
Neoliberalism reestablishes profitability by sefl-destructive cost-cutting.
That’s a weird take indeed. In Belgium, and a lot of other countries, you file your income and file what you think is deductable drop your income as costs or benefits and then the government calculates what you owe. Last few years they had it all figured out and the only thing I had to do was check if the figure they had were correct and sign. Filing taxes took me less than 10 minutes. On the other hand, we are paying more taxes than most of the countries in the world.
How taxes are dealt with in North America. Just send me how much I owe. Don’t have me go through a service to figure it out
Likewise, the IRS already knows everything about me. If I qualify for, say, food stamps, just have the IRS send me the food stamps. Don’t make me jump through hoops when I’m already destitute, come on.
This would make tens of thousands of jobs redundant and make many social programs much more efficient.
And save trillions of dollars, especially if we extended this to Medicare for all
But using resources efficiently isn’t the goal, suffering is!
If Democrats actually wanted to win every election from now until forever, this would do it for them. Imagine worrying how you’re going to feed your kids and then the mail arrives “BTW you’ve qualified for food stamps for the last 18 months, here they are” instant loyal voter.
But they won’t
Materially improving people’s lives is authoritarianism sweaty it needs to be balanced against legalizing violence against marginalized people
deleted by creator
Tipping.
Tipping isn’t an issue if it’s a bonus from satisfied customers. The American system of it making up your minimum wage is nonsense.
Tips = To Insure Prompt Service It’s a slavery term
In Norway, restaurants started to implement applications or websites to order at the restaurant. Scan a QR code or download an app (yuck) to order the food and preemptively pay for it. While that might be fine, I find it really strange when I’m asked about tipping when I place my order. I have literally not seen a waiter, I have just sat down and looked through a website, and now I’m asked if I want to tip? Why? What for?
Luckily, 0% tip is very common in all services in Norway, so it’s not considered rude to refrain from tipping.
I feel like that’s a hard one. Whenever I argue against tipping with coworkers (we don’t work in the service industry) they will mention how they are all for it and mention how during peak times they made double their usual amount. I feel like it’s really been drilled in that it’s good for the workers
Absolutely, those who get high tips stay in the industry. Those who get low tips are fired. Places don’t keep those who aren’t tipped well because it means they have to pay more out of the budget. If you aren’t getting high tips you are seen as lazy or not doing enough as a waiter. In reality tipping has more to do with who you get as customers (and what they find attractive) than quality of service. https://scroll.in/article/860274/does-tipping-really-ensure-better-service-probably-not
Just another way to divide. Typically FOH staff get all or most of the share, while cooks get screwed, in my experience.
My current favorite is the federal reserve making policy to intentionally weaken the labor market. I am currently paying the fuckwads scheming to keep labor weak, docile, and dependent. What a blast.
inflation is evil, so we can’t raise wages!
//every company raises prices, so net result is more americans in poverty//
Can you elaborate?
Raising interest rates to fight inflation works by reducing demand. Jobs get lost so people have less money. So they spend less, so prices drop to be more competitive.
Only poorer people obviously. Rich people are less affected, but still pay more in interest. The increased number of unemployed people means competition for jobs is higher so workers are cheaper to pay, increasing profits again.
High inflation is bad for everyone, but particularly so for the poorer, too. However, measures to fight it should be spread across society. Instead blunt tools like interest rate rises disproportionately affect the poor. They should be combined with higher taxes on business and high earners and high net worth individuals. Worldwide we only really do the first. I wonder who decides?
In addition, I could definitely go for enforcement and expansion of price gouging and profiteering laws.
I would like to see enforcement and expansion of profiteering guillotines.
I like the cut of your jib
Especially because, as far as I can see, inflation isn’t being caused by demand for necessaries. And, these days, an increasing number of people are pretty much only able to afford the basics necessities (if even that) did to talk terms pay cuts as a result of inflation.
It mostly works by forcing companies to pay back their loans rather than keeping them indefinitely, which pulls excess money out of the economy instead of it circulating continuously. When interest rates were near zero and the reserve requirement was dropped for banks, a shitload of this lending was done multiple times, so they’re hoping to effectively claw that back
You didn’t even mention the funniest part. We know that raising the fed rates can hurt the poor by reducing their access to money, but we don’t actually have any compelling evidence that it reduces inflation. It’s literally the modern equivalent of the ancient Romans or Greeks sacrificing an animal for a bountiful harvest.
Mainly just my absolute shock at the openness of saying “We really need to see a weaker labor market.” Seriously??? That is where we are at now. The complete and transparent assault on the worker by people I personally fund. Outrageous! At least lie to me about your motives like I might have a modicum of power over you. Now you just tell me to eat shit and die right to my face.
Positive attitude towards billionaire philanthropists. First, they made a fortune on the result of labor alienated from workers, then they threw a pitch and became good guys
That few countries take a person’s wealth and income into account when fining them for breaking laws. I see examples like these and wish this were the norm everywhere.
If you fine people based on their bank balance, you end up fining careful savers, not rich people with shell companies.
The best way to achieve the same goal for the more major fines is with custodial sentences. E.G. 2 weeks for drinking and driving.
And for the more minor traffic stuff with points and bans. If every one has the same number of points and gets the same ban, it is fairer
From what I recall, the places that do this usually do it in the form of days of income. I’m not sure how they determine that if someone’s money comes from investments, etc.
Pretty self-explanatory if you think about the people that design those fining procedures and what there wealth and income is.
True. So I wonder how is it that some European countries that do this got around that obstacle. I guess that’s what happens when you have an equitable society in place?
Punish them Based on their Assets
Christmas.
An environmental impact study on this would be interesting.
Even the Chinese celebrate Christmas now just for fun and because they already make the decorations
This is the thread that made me make an account and what a pain it was to find without having saved it anywhere. I’ve been holding out for someone to say it, but havwn’t seen it specifically.
Single use plastics. I still remember the weird feeling of doom when learning the world population and making the quick relation to disposable plastics, constantly being told “but it’s only a little bit.” A little bit for several thousand years, per billions, is too many bits.
