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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • My father has had two heart attacks. The first was a pretty standard one by heart attack standards, required a stint to be put in and two days at the hospital. The cost was ~$40k and after insurance we were left with I think a $4-5k deductible (pretty good county employee insurance). His second one luckily (ha) happened while on the job and required another stint to be put in (he got amazingly lucky, as it was a widow maker of a heart attack) and was covered under his works insurance.

    For reference, I’m healthy and in my late 20s, I pay ~$250 a month through my employer’s health plan, $25 for an office visit, $500 to walk through the doors of the ER, with a $3k in network deductible ($6k out of network). Believe me when I say you are amazingly lucky to have the NHS.



  • Per unit time. He’s been having some mistakes and they have become more frequent. For example, when he basically planned a press conference to dispute/explain the verbal mistakes he made at the debate with Trump, and proceeded to have the massive one of calling Zylinski “Mr. Putin” about an hour before, causing them to cancel it. Again, he’s in his 80s, but it is still pretty depressing to those that aren’t supporting him completely due to his opposition to Trump.


  • Yeah, but last time Biden didn’t have as many verbal gaffs and was generally viewed in a positive manner due to his connection with Obama. His presidency has been relatively stable (given how much interference from the Republicans during it), but in the last year his popularity has gone down due to his actions over Gaza (he could have loudly and publicly stated he did not agree with the Republicans in congress and boosted his approval ratings easily) and his increasingly worrying speech patterns. I don’t actually think he has dementia (more that he’s in his 80s), but calling one of our allies the name of their enemy could definitely cause a political issue. I do suspect that a lot of the previous voters will probably still vote Biden, but they would probably vote for any halfway decent politician that opposed Trump. The problem is that some less convinced voters have been berated when asking questions about his fitness for the next 4 years, which does raise the bs alarm. And yes, I know Republicans have definitely been stoking that fire, but if the default response is to deflect then you are going to make those potential voters anxious.






  • While that is a better trajectory, I do kind of have the mildly pessimistic view that a large part of the costs of good going down isn’t truly a positive sign for inflation, but the market forcing prices down due to decreased spending. I’m luckily in a decent position financially (my bills are paid, rent, while not cheap, is paid on time), but the cost of pretty much everything has become so much higher with not much of an increase in earning. If the minimum wage were forced up it would probably help, but idk, every person I’ve talked (in person) about the issue with is pretty negative about the issue.






  • That there are a lot of bot accounts that can quickly inflame an issue with a pretty obvious grain of truth to it. And that there doesn’t seem to be much of a response other than “Biden is better than Trump” or “I support Biden due to his past competence”. Which feels like a very nothing burger of an answer, and instead gives plenty more questions rather than reassurance for Biden’s campaign. Trump is an dangerous idiot and I’d be the first to say not vote for Trump, a frankly sane and common sentiment. Honestly, the more time goes on, the more it feels like the arguments that are posited for voting for Biden without answering basic questions actually feel like they are being posed by bot accounts.


  • It’s a stretch, but it is much more reasonable than simply monitoring all of the faces of users as to what they are doing while in their cars. Which is a strategy that is used by a lot of the newer tesla and other cars for autopilot and the like, in large part because auto manufacturers don’t want to be blamed for their customer’s stupidity. I can absolutely see that being effective, but very invasive into people’s privacy, and eventually something a politician pushes. At this point, enforcement really isn’t enough and the only way to truly fix it kinda is some passive limitations. I’m not saying complete lock down of functionality, but make there be some safeguard that only passengers can get away with for more than just changing music or receiving calls if the GPS is reading more than 20-30 mph.