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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

  • I think there is some truth to this.

    When I lived in an apartment, many times I would shovel my neighbor’s parking spot if it looked like they were working late during a snow storm. There’s nothing worse than coming home after a long day to three feet of snow you have to shovel immediately.

    Or helping someone whose car is stuck in snow and can’t drive away. We’ve all helped at least one person by giving them a push.


  • Also look. If many Americans saw a tomato slice on their burger that was not perfectly round but instead very irregular with lots of divots and varying shades of red, orange, and yellow, they’d bring it to the counter and say they got a rotten tomato.

    A local supermarket some years ago put heirloom tomatoes right next to regular tomatoes for basically the same price one summer. They stopped selling heirloom tomatoes after that year because hardly anyone bought them. I did. They were incredible.




  • I’m waiting for something from Sam Harris that doesn’t devolve into a rant your problematic uncle would give. I had to give up at the cut and paste “Muslims are a big problem” part that he’s been parroting since 9/11.

    The problem is this basically argues the Democratic party cannot have any diversity of opinions lest the entire party suffer. But Republicans can have fringe members who advocate positions almost all Americans find abhorrent and win across the board.

    Also, the trans portion reads like a queerphobic mad libs.





  • I got very randomly bumped up to first class on a transatlantic flight for business. I do not travel much for business, especially internationally. So, I definitely should not have had priority over more regular accounts. I have to assume I just got lucky, and that flight happened to have no frequent flyers.

    It was an eye opening experience. I got to hang out in a secret lounge. When my flight was ready to board, multiple staff escorted us to the gate. When we landed, we took a private van to a secret side entrance, which had its own first class only passport check. We were brought to another secret first class lounge through hidden back hallways to wait for our connections. The lounge looked down over the terminal, and the exit was a nondescript door you’d assume was a maintenance entrance.

    Being around that level of service and the other people in first class, it’s clear the wealthy live in another world. I looked up how much that ticket normally goes for after, and full price is for many people a yearly salary. It was nice, but it seems like a crazy way to divide resources.






  • Reading that article is a serious indictment of economic literacy in the United States. People don’t understand what role the president plays in the economy, what causes inflation, or how and why interest rates change. They draw really superficial causal links and don’t think about it after that; it’s fact to them.

    It’s reasons like this education may be the single most critical issue, since we can’t make progress on the climate or anything else if the population is incapable of critical thinking. I hate to say it like this because it feels patronizing, but Jesus fucking Christ.


  • Indeed. I think it’s why cults of personality are so dangerous. You don’t need to convince that many people if you can get a large enough, dedicated number to consistently do what the leader says and push others around.

    I’m not sure that love is the word for Bernie, but I was certainly much more enthusiastic about him. Some people did get weird about it which made me uncomfortable, though. The policy should always come before the politician.


  • I think the problem is that plenty of people might like Harris, but not so much that turnout for her matched Biden. The people who like Trump love him, and they turned out in the same numbers as 2020 basically. He didn’t need to meaningfully grow his base if people weren’t motivated to show up for his opponent.

    It’s definitely a demonstration that having the most palatable candidate doesn’t matter. It might if voting were compulsory, but it isn’t.



  • There are some municipalities where landowners are required to remove graffiti in a timely fashion or be fined by the city. In such places, the landlord would definitely pass those costs to tenants. Not that they would lower rents if the problem went away, of course. One year of a graffiti problem would likely permanently raise rents unless you live somewhere with a glut of available affordable rentals.



  • MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.worldtoTechnology@lemmy.world*Permanently Deleted*
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    15 days ago

    Then it’s not a binary system. It’s a system with two extremely dominant members. Those are different things. You can be more binary in specific contexts e.g., gametes and egg vs sperm.

    I’d be very cautious about the healthy description in reference to intersex people. I don’t believe you are trying to say anything nefarious, but there’s a reason it shows up in eugenics arguments.

    I didn’t say sex was a spectrum, though perhaps someone else you were speaking with did. I wouldn’t use spectrum for sex, since there are multiple differentiating factors with differing measures.