More and more I am getting the feeling that the USA is being ruled by NatalieGPT, which goes like this: Trump whines about something like not having potash, Natalie queries an LLM where else has potash then tells Trump that he just made a stupendous trade deal there so he can post about it or share some more AI slop.

Canada should charge an additional 0.1% export tax on potash every time Trump says or posts something dumb. Probably would be over 100% before the midterms.

Yep. Same guy said managers will ask why they can’t use AI for that job. It seems that he has answered that hypothetical question here.

Yes. I have had my owned changed as well.

In my encounters it’s more often that a counter argument to what I say is not wrong either. When a morsel of nuance can be introduced, we can understand each others’ argument without necessarily having anyone flip around their opinion to the opposite.

However I have tried sometimes to no avail, if there’s no progress after around 3 back-and-forths I end the conversation.

If you want some advice to increase your success in getting people to consider, try this: Start with the part you agree or share with the other person’s perspective. Try for a “Yes… and…” if possible, or “Yes… but…” if you can’t. After the and/but, that’s where you can go into the difference in opinion you have.

A bit of cynicism and skepticism is healthy, but you don’t have to do the GOP’s job and manifest the outcome for them. I.e. do more to get out the vote for Talarico, and pre-emptively block or actively counter the methods used to help Paxton’s odds. Cook Political Report puts Texas as a Toss Up, so neither Paxton nor Talarico’s win is likely or assured.

If a county reduces voting locations in bluer districts, offer more services to transport voters to the polls in those areas. If there’s attempt at interference, put that to the courts. In fact draft up a suit that prohibits federal agents of any kind from “monitoring” poll locations, in case Trump decides to fart some kind of threat out in the next couple months.

I think the charging bug was highlighted by Steve of Gamers Nexus, glad to see Valve fixed it after “double-checking” in response to the feedback.

Ah okay i missed that, sorry

My thought was someone would wheel in a giant arch, say it’s a gift for Trump, have him bring it into the main area of the White House, then people would jump out and overthrow the White House?

Call it the Arc de Troyomph?

Great to hear Die Linke in Berlin found electoral success. Here’s the next, very crucial step for them… show how the left can actually govern.

Build the bike lanes. Fill the potholes, speed up the works. Freeze the rent. Tax the rich and prosecute greedy and negligent landlords. D the EI. Show that a motivated and sufficiently compensated civil service can get real things done for people. Work with State and (edit: Berlin is its own state headed by its Mayor) Federal governments to get the required money to undertake things big and small in your city. Give homeless people a path off the streets and into recovery and supportive shelter. Show that the likes of AfD and centre-right parties are actually the do-nothing whiners. That will bring people from all sides, conservative, centrist and progressive, onto your side, and is part of Mamdani’s secret sauce. I’m hoping for the same for Katie Wilson in Seattle USA and mayor hopefuls like Nithya Raman of LA.

Yeah AI psychosis is real, but this ad seems to be designed to create a pretext for age verification and tech surveillance measures by treating it like a health problem instead of a techbro oligarchy problem. Clearly there’s no mention of the data centre build out or the stupid statements amplified by a complacent media

I know you’ve said Satisfactory and Mindustry… but I can’t believe no one has suggested Factorio…

That game is good at keeping me up at night til 2am wanting to expand and remake my factory.

You can think of it like 2D satisfactory, but there’s much more of a base defense mechanic because you get periodically rushed at by groups of bugs annoyed at your pollution.

No worries, it’s a good discussion. I share the concern about putting all the eggs in the “vote blue and things will go back to normal” basket, because that is far from guaranteed to work or sufficient. I didn’t get the impression you were painting me in any camp, but I wanted to clarify my position to pre-empt any conclusion jumpers.

https://www.budapesttimes.hu/hungary/magyar-submits-sweeping-constitutional-reform-package-to-parliament/

Here you go, a few reforms that many Americans have been asking for:

• MP term limits
• Age limits in positions of power
• Judicial reform to make it independent
• 9 year term limits for Constitutional Court

In consultation with the people of Hungary, lessons were learned and changes were made to help prevent Fidesz or others (including his own party Tisza) from taking the country hostage again.

You make a good point, and I think America is in the process of burning through large amounts of people who thought fascism would do anything good for them, though I don’t know how advanced that is and it may not be as far as Hungary at this point in time. There are enough similarities between the USA and Hungary’s cases with the gerrymandered electoral process, constitutional 2/3s requirements to revert the skewed rules, appointed cronies to lead many government bureaus, a captured media environment, for me to believe that the path to reverse them through democratic means is possible.

(Personal opinion follows) I’m not advocating for people to vote then wipe their hands of the matter. People should go protest and riot before or after as they like. Though I think that organized non-violent movement building is the most effective tool for this situation, and people are taking action on issues like blocking AI data centres and taking down surveillance dragnet cameras (which sometimes the media portrays as violent but to me that’s non-violent). Once a movement is large enough it can start to bear its teeth, with little bits of threatened or targeted disruptive repercussions against acts of injustice, and not everyone has to be violent to participate. If the vote is not respected, that is the ideal time to riot. Even if a Democrat takes power in 2029, that’s not the time to shut up, protests should continue so that leaders know what people think are injustices that extended beyond Trump’s rise, and would spur government to action to address more than surface-level changes. Legislating away Citizens United, impeaching the Corrupt Supreme Court or expanding it, ending oil and coal handouts, expanding the House, taxing the wealthy, enacting Universal Healthcare and a Universal Basic Income, just to name a few.

It is a more recent example than any of the others, so even if it’s just one case, it’s worth highlighting as a counter to OP’s posting spree suggesting that voting isn’t effective.

I already said that voting isn’t mutually exclusive from violence or anything else. The process of it takes a couple hours out of one or two days, the primary and election day to go stand in line, or to order and mail your ballots. Technically speaking, even if in the USA’s case the state can jail and disenfranchise you, chances are getting a conviction will take a while.

I can provide a counterexample. Orbán’s fascist kleptocracy in Hungary ended through voting from a coalition of leftwing progressive, centrist and conservatives. And maybe a little sprinkle of J.D. Vance. So perhaps other tools like rioting have worked before and have had better success rate, but voting is a tool in democracies too, that isn’t mutually exclusive from the others.

Focusing on the mod action without delving much into the topic, I think your first comment could reasonably be perceived as reactionary (provoking reaction from others) by some mods which fits under rule 4, even if you were genuine in intent.

The other comm bans I think are half a step too far in the PTB direction, but the one comment removal and news comm ban are within the ballpark of reasonableness.

West of Oshawa, York Region and south, and east of Hamilton, all highway driving rules and etiquette seem to go out the window.

Industry’s message to the government was that its traditional tool to use for binding arbitration, Section 107 of the Canadian Labour Code, can only be applied too late in the labour dispute process and from its perspective, does not adequately prevent the damage caused from a work stoppage.

That is not even how the government is supposed to use it yet in recent years it’s the Liberals’ crutch to screw over workers when needed. Industry wants a shortcut to just skip over the performative period of several months of not giving concessions.

Depends on how long ago… go to the member counter at the warehouse and ask, if they’re still open tonight. I made a $1000 purchase and got referred in-store, paid a monthly prorated upgrade fee and the purchases that day counted.

(Based on your other posts you might have made the purchase 2 days ago, likely no dice in that case).