"You must destroy the economy to keep us afloat, because National Security!" has been a clear goal of the LLM hucksters for a long time.

Alternatively, finance at that scale ought not be permitted to exist, because of the moral hazard it represents.

Would they act differently if it was?

Competent at doing the things the DoD ought to do? Or competent at getting paid to do things for the DoD?

>It's just own-goal after owl-goal with this administration.

The presumes that "Trump Administration" and "United States of America" are the same thing. The reality is that a Venn diagram of them would be two circles that barely touch. Is it really an "own goal" if you gravely injure your victim while you rob them?

No. They are 100% overlapping because democracy. Even if you didn't vote for Trump, you are part of the United States of America that voted for the Trump Administration to represent it.

Until the Trump Administration is replaced, the "Trump Administration" _is_ The United States of America.

It's certainly not what an increasing amount of the population want to be true, but facts can be sticky like that.

Here's hoping that democracy continues...

It's a reliable migraine trigger for meyself, and my nephew. That makes it bad for us.

I keep getting people telling me this doesn't happen. GAH. Instant migraine trigger for me too, along with sucralose and several other artificial sweeteners.

Same here. People keep telling me it's not, but it is, even when I happen to ingest it while unaware I've done so.

I can tell when a mixed drink uses a soda with Aspartame in it. My mouth instantly feels like it's covered in a thin film of plastic and the migraine is usually just around the corner.

Everyone in my family, including uncles, aunts, cousins, have the same reaction, too.

Similarly, it makes me dizzy/sick a little like travel sickness

That’s probably because 10% of ingested aspartame breaks down into methanol.

Or, you might just be sensitive to phenylalanine.

A six-pack of aspartame-sweetened Diet Coke has about as much methanol as a single apple.

But crucially, it has no ethanol.

Easy to say, hard to do, when your two "choices" at the ballot box represent slightly different groups of wealthy donors.

Vote in primaries. Also wealthy donors probably care less about whether a candidate can self-enrich with insider trading.

If you guilt me into voting, I'll probably vote for somebody you don't like.

Isn't it better that I don't vote?

There have been multiple times where the final vote count was the difference of a handful of votes. No one is guilting anyone to vote and some will say that neither party represents what they want and that sucks. But ultimately there has to be one side that even if you don't overall like them you would still rather they get elected. So vote for who you think might be best. And if they have policies you don't agree then contact your representative and say "I voted for you but do not want xyz policy". The more who speak up the better.

Doesn't that only reinforce my point?

If I'm going to vote for the wrong candidate, and it's close then isn't even more important that I don't vote?

>But ultimately there has to be one side that even if you don't overall like them you would still rather they get elected I'm not able to respond to this within the confines of the rules here. I apologize is that's not satisfying, but it has the virtue of being the truth.

I'm not American. And surprise: regardless of your reasons you get judged by the government you put in power, since foreign policy is how the rest of us experience your choices.

And your choices are evidently you're completely okay with the current situation as well.

If you want to judge all of the people living in the USA that is of course your prerogative. Or all people in Russia for the crimes of the Russian government, or all people in China for the crimes of the CCP.

I'm not going to be concerned with the opinions of people who generalize to that degree.

> Isn't it better that I don't vote?

Maybe. I'm not actually that invested in people voting. But that doesn't negate the hypocrisy of complaining when you're, through inaction, endorsing the status quo.

Consider this; if you vote, you have no right to complain. People like to twist that around. I know, they say, they say: “well if you don’t vote you have no right to complain”. But where’s the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent people, and they get into office and screw everything up, well you are responsible for what they have done, YOU caused the problem, you voted them in, you have no right to complain. I on the other hand, who did not vote, WHO DID NOT VOTE. Who in fact did not even leave the house on election-day, am in no way responsible for what these people have done, and have every RIGHT to complain as loud as I want, about the mess YOU created, that I had nothing to do with.

(George Carlin quote - intended to be humorous)

"better" for whom?

For everybody. Since I didn't vote for the wrong candidate I offend fewer people, I get yelled at less and I maintain more friendships.

Ok, then I could vote for myself next time. Seems like a waste of time for the counters, the registration officers, and all the other volunteers involved.

Everyone knows how the parties are different

Its valid to be more annoyed by the ways that they’re the same

your cause is not my cause, its better for the viability of your preferred party if you remember that

Its valid to say a lot of things. But it doesn't escape you from having to own those choices.

You are what you'll accept, and you looked at the choices given and said "I'm okay with either one".

Because the consequences of whatever mutual dissatisfaction you had still means one of them gained power and implemented their agenda anyway. And you were okay with that.

You don't get to not make a decision and then pretend you aren't culpable for your inaction.

the other person was talking about not making a decision, so you've transposed an idea not mentioned at all onto my comment

good luck out there

what to remember: the goal of the parties are to win friends and influence people, it's a weird meme that you aren't doing that and neither is the other party. time to re-evaluate the communication style yeah? proselytizing isn't working

The idea that nobody in American politics is trying to win friends nor influence people is indeed a very weird meme! As you say, that implies there's a big lane of persuasion that isn't being filled for some reason, even though everyone who's heard of Dale Carnegie knows it ought to be.

Have you considered the possibility that the meme might be false? That would explain neatly why it's so weird.

amusing.

parties are losing members and partisan’s methods are not effective

there is a big lane of persuasion that isn’t being filled

>Government regulation is how this problem would be solved (the only way it can get solved)

My cynical inner pedant compels me to point out that societal collapse will also solve "factory farming is awful". And we're probably closer to that than effective government regulation of it.

Assassination markets where being discussed back in the 1990s.[1] I think it's been pretty clear for a while that "prediction" markets were going to arrive at the same place.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market

I didn't seen any mention of Tony Pai's quite good 3x3 font (only uppercase):

https://tonypai.itch.io/3x3-pixel-font

A bunch of these appear to be 9x9-ish? (B, P, Q, R, Z, 0, most of the non-alphanumerics...)