In a certain way, it does feel close. We can’t figure out how to go faster than light, but we could theoretically get to a significant fraction of c and 20 years isn’t such a long time to plan for in terms of getting a probe there to start relaying messages that take 20 years to get back.

I mean, it’s the span of a career, but people could conceivably work on the launch and live to see it return data.

I default to piracy too, but I’m guessing you don’t listen to a lot of new music. The thing a music service offers isn’t just access, it’s discoverability. It didn’t replace my FLAC collection, it expanded it. What it replaced was listening to the radio to find new stuff.

For video I’m more with you. I’m happy to rely on word of mouth. Especially since the streaming services drop movies all the time and discriminate against watching in a browser. Getting a good rip means you can watch it anywhere, anytime, and not have to worry about it disappearing.

Ideally the FDA should not be swayed by business interests, but everything controlled by our government is. That said, you want the FDA to exist and protect us from bullshit snake oil products and keep corporations from lacing our food with cheap poisons and carcinogens.

Trump gutting the organization makes it go from “could do better” to “actively subverting its own purpose.”

As if the Democrats would do a damn thing. They had four fucking years to put nails in Trump’s coffin and couldn’t do anything for fear of their corporate masters being denied the same grifts.

Eh, 1% includes like 80 million people globally, they’re not all useless billionaires. There are probably a good number of them (likely towards the lower end of the spectrum) that actually work for a living and enough existing resources they’d have time to rework society.

The real question I have is how they’d be distributed. 1% globally or 1% per country/region. Both have advantages and disadvantages for survival.

The actual total in your own link was 5.2 million for executives. The 88 million is, again, the entire salary base just in 2021. Assuming they still had 700 employees (which is a current figure, not 3 years ago) that’s still about 120k apiece for everyone else.

I can’t tell if you’re just being disingenuous or you really can’t read your own sources…

That salary number is all ~700 employees, not just “executives”. That averages to about 150k apiece, not unreasonable for what is probably mostly tech workers.

I’ve only used Jellyfin, what does Plex do better for the non-expert user?

I agree that a primary probably still ends up with Kamala and would probably just be the illusion of choice. The DNC would close ranks around her in the name of Biden’s legacy, just like they did for Biden back in 2020 when the vote was splitting in Bernie’s favor, and in 2016 when it was obvious they just wanted to coronate Hillary and move on.

That said, even with a rigged primary, putting your candidate on the debate stage to address your constituents instead of skipping directly to fellating non-existent centrists in the general would have been good.

Cheers to that, fellow Texas drunk

Texas is incredibly resource rich, even if the people who live here are generally fuck faces.

I mean, fuck Elon and Tesla but if you’re spending money on a car you’re giving it to a bastard one way or another. The CEOs of Ford, BMW, et. al. might not be making asses of themselves on the global stage, but I’m sure they’re still horrible. Even used cars run on gas 99% of the time.

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Everything on that list is typical neoliberal Democrat tinkering around the edges while the world burns.

It’s not that the individual ideas are bad, it’s that they have no vision of a better future for most people. Where is Medicare For All? Where is tuition free college? Where is anything that isn’t just a bandaid for a specific paper cut when the whole goddam country is being devoured by fascists and corporations?

That’s the meat I’m talking about - something that millions of people on the left could vote for in self interest. What we got was meat for checks notes non-Medicare diabetics.

Israel is currently genociding Palestinians under a Democratic president, they didn’t need Trump’s approval for anything. The bulldozers are already running, the people are already having their lives destroyed.

Again, I voted Harris for harm reduction, so I see your point about Harris possibly being better for Gaza in the long run, but it’s not “kill my friends now” or “kill my friends later” it’s “kill my friends now” or “kill my friends now and maybe, just maybe, stop sometime around the midterms when it’s politically convenient and only if Harris doesn’t need to keep getting the fascist vote”. I don’t blame Gaza voters for looking at that choice and holding out for what they really want, which is “stop killing my friends now”.

Those Palestinians were going to lose their land, families and lives either way. Biden has done nothing to stop Israel, neither would Harris. She made it abundantly clear that “protecting” Israel was more important than stopping genocide.

Gaza didn’t cost Harris the election. Maybe Michigan, but even that’s a stretch. Democrats lost ground in literally every demographic other than 100k+ income because, again, they campaigned to the right and offered absolutely nothing to the left.

If Harris told any other assumed Democratic group to fuck off this hard, nobody would be surprised they didn’t vote for her. If she ran as pro-life to court Trumpers and her support from women collapsed we wouldn’t be screaming about them getting in line, we’d be talking about Harris betraying those voters. This is no different, it just affects a far smaller voting bloc that people feel comfortable scapegoating.

Everyone pointing at people that didn’t vote for Harris over Gaza like this is some gotcha moment are totally missing the point. If Gaza was your primary concern (like if you and your family are Palestinian perhaps) neither candidate was going to do anything for you at all. Harris paid a tiny bit of lip service to Gaza two days before the election after months of shutting down and ignoring everyone demanding ceasefire.

I voted Harris purely out of harm reduction, but she offered nothing to anyone on the left. The DNC assumes everyone that is queer or bipoc or a woman owes them their vote and then used the platform to court non-existent center right voters.

But nah, let’s pretend that Harris, who took Biden’s positions wholesale, would have done something different as if they weren’t currently in power. Let’s pretend they would have done something to restore abortion rights too, or tackle climate change or raise the minimum wage when they’re so busy trying to get fascist votes and not piss off the coporate donor class.

The Democratic party needs to be rebuilt from scratch or not rebuilt at all.

Kropotkin always hits.

I love that this exists and I think I know what I’m getting my wife for Christmas

Yeah, but you see they were in danger from the Vietnam draft, doesn’t take empathy to act in self interest.