The Democrats have a long history of waiting until Republicans hold a majority in both houses to propose milquetoast change.

Keeps their name in the papers without actually having to do anything.

Teach your kids survival and weapons skills. Understanding politics won’t be enough to save them

I umm… I don’t think I wanna go to the library anymore

When it’s actual news, I’ll hear about it regardless.

I’m not going to perseverate over every headline, I have a life to live. The media is actively trying to piss us off, they’ll skew and distort and all but fabricate to keep us angry and engaged.

I’m not doing it. I can’t recall a single time in my life that keeping up to date up to the hour has actually improved anything for me. Sitting around just knowing stuff is happening isn’t going to change my life for the better.

I live in a safe republican state and a leans Republican district. I could send a letter to my senator, call my representative, spend hours of my time just worried about something, and still, they’ll vote how the party wants them to. Being informed and doing the things I’m supposed to do won’t change anything.

¿Donde esta la biblioteca?

Yeah. Like make some of the best films in the last 40 years. DAMN YOU COCAINE

Prove it.

The first writings we have are accounts, receipts, and famously, a complaint about the quality of copper. The first named person in recorded history appears on a tablet accounting for a number of slaves.

Records were literally invented to document trades.

Basically oscillating the tool up and down while rotating the workpiece back and forth, while spinning the tool very, very slowly.

That’s from the cheese frying in it’s own fat while it cooks and it’s delicious

Laughs in G code S1 g54 x0y0 g0 g90. F50 M3; z-.5 a45 z0 a0 z-.5 a45 z0 a0 z-.5 a45 z0 a0 z-.5 a45 z0 a0

I found this in my app list, it hadn’t asked for any permissions. If it’s looking at every image I get, it’s doing so extremely discreetly.

Sus. Very sus.

Imagine a slowmo video of a grenade going off. You’re walking in to that.

Unless you go at 4 pm when they open, you’re in for a bad time. Actually scratch that, you’re in for a worse time.

You go early for dinner, expecting to be sat immediately to be greeted by a press of people at the door. No one is happy, everyone is grumpy and in each other’s space. You wade through the throng to a hostess stand, which is next to a butcher’s counter full of disappointing looking meat. On top of it is clawingly sweet smelling bread. The 16 year old girl asks you how many impatiently, and takes your phone number. They’ll text you when your table is ready. As you’re trying to ask how long someone else pushes past you to grab a bowl of bread, and ushers a family of 4 morbidly obese people through an opening barely wide enough for the teenager.

Oversized tables are mushed together and you watch them navigate a labyrinth before someone else pushes past you to talk to the hostess. You go stand awkwardly in a corner somewhere.

It’s uncomfortable and crowded but it won’t be long, you tell yourself.

The minutes drag on, you feel your will to stay drain with each passing second. As you’re getting ready to get up to leave your phone buzzes, your table is ready. You push past the throng of people, past someone asking how long it will be at the host stand, to see someone grabbing a bowl of bread for you. You follow the 32 year old teenager through the labyrinth to an oversized table. You actually have to sit on the edge of the booth to reach it, it feels too tall. The bench is over worn, and the guy serving you leaves without a word and returns with waters before asking what you’d like to drink, as if you’re interrupting him.

You’ve looked at the drink menu, and they’ve taken the effort to rename every overly sweet cocktail to something cheeky, and you have to go by the pictures to know what they are. You decide to stick with water. He hands you menus and disappears.

The menu is overlarge, sticky, and colorful. Nothing looks unique or interesting. It’s bog standard steakhouse flare and you remember the steaks in the cooler really not looking all that appetizing. You’ve had a basket of sweet dinner rolls and are no longer hungry but feel like if you don’t get an appetizer you’re missing out on the essential TR experience. You order the platter and a cheeseburger.

The food shows up before you finish your water, and it’s fine. Nothing is wrong with any of it. You have absolutely no complaints about the food itself, but nothing stands out as particularly unique, or interesting. And you could have gotten all of this somewhere else cheaper, you’re sure. Maybe even less of it because the amount of food put in front of you is insulting. It’s a lot. The burger is difficult to finish and you have another basket of rolls you haven’t touched. 3/4s of what you ordered is still in front of you, you’re full, tired, and not really interested in having any of it later.

You pay at the little computer that’s sitting on the table that you largely ignored after discovering it wanted to charge you 5 dollars to play an android game. You leave past an even denser crowd of people and vow never to go back

They no longer do peanuts, they throw bread at you now

What the fuck did I just read?

Am I having a stroke?

Only if they live above the rules

That’s really just a company store but worse somehow.

You’re going to have a market. If you make markets illegal you’ll just have black markets. You need to contend with that, failing to realize that literally killed the Soviet Union. It got so bad, and was such a core part of daily life that they just kinda made it legal, and the union collapsed shortly after.

You can’t fix homelessness by making it illegal, you can destroy markets by making them illegal. These things have been tried and failed in practice.

I’ve read The Expanse lol. I was describing the system on Earth in that series.

The thing is, markets predate the written word. Some form of trading is literally one of the first things humans did. It could even be a prehuman invention. Eliminating markets is like trying to eliminate prostitution, or drugs.

Markets, much like life, uhh… Find a way.

Instead of turning up your nose, make them work for you, in a way you want. We don’t want the markets to spread, unrestrained, like kudsu. We want Bonsai markets.

Heavily regulated socialist democracy.

Provide basic needs, food, clothing, healthcare, childcare, and education. Hell even a phone and Internet access.

Emphasis on the basic.

Allow for those who do not wish to, or are unable to work to live with all basic needs covered. Those who wish to work are incentivized to do so, with access to luxuries. Better housing, better clothing, better technology. Allow a place for the market, but don’t make people depend on the market.

No reason to work a job you hate, no reason to employ people you don’t need. Everybody wins.

We also didn’t make the model T suggest replacing the engine when the oil light comes on. Cars, as it happens, aren’t that great at self diagnosis, despite that technology being far simpler and further along than generative models are. I don’t trust the model to tell me what temperature to bake a cake at, I’m sure at hell not going to trust it with medical information. Googling symptoms was risky at best before. It’s a horror show now.

So can web MD. We didn’t need AI for that. Googling symptoms is a great way to just be dehydrated and suddenly think you’re in kidney failure.