It punishes people poorer than me, who are only poor because they deserve it. Right? I mean, if I’m an evil oligarchic asshole, but God loves me enough to let me have all this money, they must be even more evil than I am.

True, another valid point.

They probably can, even if it means spending billions more in the end to hire out private contractors to do the work they can’t find enough sycophants for. The whole point is grift.

I mean, DOGE is already an example. They’re just hiring conservative kids fresh out of college for peanuts because they believe blindly serving the Trump admin is the most alpha resume builder one could ask for. The government is basically being run like one big racist fraternity.

And if they can’t find enough people to do the actual work, they just do things like give NASA contracts to SpaceX so Elon and his billionaire bros can get richer off the taxpayer dollar.

No, he wants to pull a Reagan part 2 and fire any government worker who goes on strike. Trump has an army of loyalists willing to do whatever he says, who would be more than happy to scab any strike to inefficacy. Even if they’re terrible at the job, all that matters is that they’re loyal.

No, you don’t get it, this is his fault (and Harris’s). Genocide Joe, right? We sure taught the Dems a powerful lesson.

What is the purpose for standing up when the judge enters the courtroom?

This I can at least guess at, typically you’d rise for important people to demonstrate that you are interrupting whatever you were doing and giving this person your full attention and respect. I guess that’s really just a show of dominance/submissiveness, but in a pragmatic sense I suppose it is a good practice to mandate focus and engagement during legal proceedings.

If only we knew at the time how prophetic that damn commercial would be…

Yep. Protests are just being used at this point to root out dissidents. Mutual aid and sabotaging oppressive institutions where possible can be more effective ways for folks to participate in organized resistance without risking life and livelihood.

Once upon a time, I would have thought this sort of thing unthinkable around here. This is practically my backyard.

They’re targeting northern states on purpose.

Weird that it would be coming from Americans given how often US media has depicted the importance of the homefront during the various wars that America has participated in.

Militaries still need food and supplies to operate, so someone has to be making/raising/growing all of that stuff. And those workers need to be paid, accommodated, and kept happy, so every other industry like banking, education, healthcare, entertainment, etc. needs to keep running at full steam to prop up all aspects of the supply chain.

Anyway, the replicants as depicted in all incarnations are clearly biological constructs and not mechanical, so while they’re certainly artificial the notion of whether or not they’re “robots” to begin with is highly debatable.

I would say it’s not even debatable, the issue at the heart of the conflict in the original Blade Runner and continued in 2049 is that the Nexus-7 was made so close to humans that they basically are humans, at least in a biological sense. Maybe the earlier models were more android-like, but later they’re basically just manufactured people.

This is why in 2049 we see >!Deckard, a human, and Rachael, a replicant, were able to conceive a child, who was otherwise born perfectly normal other than not being able to inherit an immune system from her mother.!<

Guessing the Supreme Court ruling last year against Colorado undid all that. Since they ruled that states cannot make decisions that impact federal elections, it wouldn’t surprise me if the fed can now legally demand voter registration records or else refuse to count those votes.

Thanks, Trump.

More than just the ones in America, I’d reckon.

Agreed, it’s an interesting thing to think about at least. The nature vs nurture debate is practically as old as time itself but it feels like we’re no closer to an answer outside of “it’s a bit of both.” But how much?

There was a show in the 80’s-90’s called Quantum Leap, where the aforementioned character keeps waking up in other people’s bodies at different periods of time. The premise is that he needs to solve some sort of problem for them that changes the course of history before he is able to leap to someone else, in the hope that he changes enough to one day “leap home.”

In this photo, Kash Patel looks panicked and confused, which mirrors the character’s behavior when he suddenly finds himself in someone else’s body and has no idea what’s going on.

A lot of fiction made up by people is not about war and greed and other causes of suffering. With that in mind, what makes the Bible less fictional than the Dhammapada, or the Lotus Sutra, or Paddington Bear?

Same thoughts here.

Without fear of opposition becoming dominant, the ruling powers that be are not incentivised to placate the masses, and instead consolidate power and turn to self-enrichment. Similar to what is seen in autocratic or single-party states, eventually leading to some sort of collapse or revolution when the people reach a breaking point.

Capitalists currently control the world, and they’re not going to cede any of that control voluntarily unless they have something to be afraid of.

You’re not wrong but I’d also look at it from the perspective of “We’ve been making statements like this for years now and the situation has only gotten worse, so what else should we be doing?” Status quo isn’t really just the result of people giving up, it’s about things remaining the same (or worse) even after trying, so what else should be tried?

Normally I’d be the one to say this is an unfairly harsh take, but when BYD is continuing the proud Chinese tradition of using slave labor to make cheaper products than the competition, I’m inclined to say that maybe they should be off the table as well.

Maybe EVs shouldn’t be as affordable until the industry is actually sustainable. I’d rather buy a vehicle made by union workers who are paid fairly for their labor, even if it’s more expensive.

And with the global outcry against the company, I don’t think that day is far off. They know there’s going to be reduced demand for their products, because even those who don’t feel like they want to boycott Tesla out of principle might still reconsider buying one if they don’t want to deal with the shame/risk they’ll get from others.