Ideally, the Dems should’ve pushed the security out of the way and physically removed the DOGE team and their hardware and software. Instead they performatively argued with a single private security guy blocking the doors. The Dems are already capitulating talking about letting the “blue dogs” vote with the GOP.

I’d like to see a large amount of Dems in congress and in other high positions to take direct action, get arrested, and jailed. I think this would force hard conversations in the media about what’s going on, and courts and judges to more or less definitively rule.

Exactly. (And foreign states who align with the US far-right)

Yeah. If you’re a minor you have to take Drivers Ed that requires a couple hours of driving with an instructor. If you’re an adult, you can just take the written and driving test. I think I just drove around the block, and did a reverse parking test for my driving test. Depending on where you live, roundabouts are not common here. I don’t think I saw one IRL until I was in my late 20s when I moved to a different state.

There was a rightward shift nearly everywhere. Although I do think there was some shenanigans going on in some places (I’m no expert, but this looks like a legitimate indication of tampering: https://electiontruthalliance.org/clark-county%2C-nv), Trump would’ve won regardless.

The Republican party isn’t acting like they’re worried about having to compete in fair elections again. It’s also looking like the administration doesn’t need congress or the courts, and can do whatever they want.

Trump has mentioned that tariffs will help him pay for his planned tax cuts. Tariffs are like a flat-tax, which disproportionately help the rich while taking more from the poor.

I also think there may be some other angles they’re working; but I’m not completely sure on. Trump often threatens people to solicit favors; so this may also be a way for him and his cronies collect bribes and favorably business deals from politicians and the wealthy from around the world. He may also have deals with Putin, because he’s acting exactly how you’d expect a person to act who was trying to destroy the Western hegemony.

Some people’s aversion of algorithms on the fediverse kind of reminds me of people’s aversion of GMO food. Genetically modifying rice to contain more vitamin D is probably good; genetically modifying vegetables to contain more cyanide would probably be bad. Algorithms don’t have to be built to maximize “engagement;” they can be designed to maximize other metrics, or balance multiple metrics, or be user-customizable.

IMO, Mastadon is much worse off for their refusal to implement any kind of algorithm outside their “explore” feed. When I tried using Mastodon, search was unhelpfully in chronological order, and my home feed just got overtaken by the people that post the most. In contrast, Lemmy’s handling of algorithms is pretty good, imo.

As bad as search engines are now, they’d be even worse if they just gave you results in chronological order.

Idk about this specific case, but it’s probably targeted on demographics. Mail-in votes tend to swing Democrat. People without ID tend to be poor minorities who swing Democrat. Urban areas swing Democrat. The parties put tons of research into profiling demographics, so they can supress votes and do stuff like this.

I think the ultra wealthy and powerful understand that revolution becomes more likely as the majority’s material conditions declines, so their endgame is to throw just enough crumbs to the majority so that they don’t want to risk losing those crumbs. Many of today’s ultra wealthy and powerful seem exceptionally out of touch with reality and dumb though, so idk. Some are accelerationists (i.e. e/acc), and purposely avoid taking into account possible negative consequences.

Lol. Bad joke. What I was getting at is people used to hang out at bars and drink more (alcohol use was worse). More generally, it’s a lack of third places and car-based city design. More, and more engaging in-home entertainment/Internet also probably plays a part. Though, it’s probably not a completely new phenomenon either, judging from art like Taxi Driver, Catcher In The Rye, etc. So, toxic or even plain masculinity likely makes it harder to make and keep close friends.

I’d bet female loneliness is also rising in modern society as well, due to modern phenomenon. Humans didn’t evolve to live like we are. We used to mostly live in small, close-knit tribes.

DUI laws.

Cool. A few years ago I made similar sensors (but just PIR, LUX, esp8266 board, jumper wires, and some with ultrasonic proximity). Attached them to the wall with those 3m velcro things. ESPHome makes things so easy; didn’t even have to write code. Hardest thing was designing and iterating over the case to get the tolerances just right.

A lot of people seem to use “DEI” as a stand-in for the “n-word.”

He can use his money to support challengers in their next elections. He’s already said he’s going to do this to the Democrats. As we’ve seen with AIPAC recently, it doesn’t take much money to unseat politicians. Musk has enough money to basically control congress.

I’ve noticed a lot of very old Paris videos were removed this year. Not sure why. Google/YouTube seems to be heavily demoting them as well, because some songs don’t show up in video search results at all, and you can only find them if you search for the album.

It’s not really automation though. The store is outsourcing labor to the consumer.

Shit life syndrome

Is this a real thing? I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered this. I suspect they’re actually being demeaning to men in general, or men who don’t fit their idea of masculinity. I’ve encountered people like that. Though the opposite is more common (men, and women, demeaning women who don’t fit their idea of what a woman should be like, or just demeaning women in general).

I think I’ve heard there are a lot of genetically male, but born female people in sports. I wonder if the same people are against those people playing in sports.

Idk how many transphobic people just care about specific issues. There’s a lot of “groomer” rhetoric, hate, and general disgust. It’s easy to get people to hate what they don’t understand; and a lot of media is trying their hardest to cultivate hate against trans people to create an out-group, so they can control the in-group.

Meh, I would’ve given 3/5 stars to U.S. democracy since the Voting Rights Act. Stars taken away for FPTP, gerrymandering, campaign finance, “lobbying,” and the electoral college. I believe we’re going to go to 0/5 stars with completely rigged elections rather than just manufacturing consent and lightly tipping the scales like they’ve been doing.