Not a Republican. I assume Trump is making backroom personal deals to get the world’s politicians and businesses to bribe him in some way. Aligns with how he seems to operate with everything else.

Just finished the first season of Paradise. Started out like a generic mystery/thriller show in a barely scifi setting, but got really good in the later episodes. 2nd to last episode was amazing.

IDK, ketamine is kinda similar to alcohol; more psychedelic. As someone who has always struggled with depression and has done ketamine, it does seem like it would be a good fast-acting, but short half-life anti-depressant (the afterglow lasts well after the buzz). Never knew anyone who abused it habitually, long term. Heard it messes up your bladder.

Ever since I switched to GrapheneOS, Vanadium has been working well. Never had a problem with Firefox + ublock, or Librewolf (except with a corporate intranet webapp that specifically required users to use Chrome).

Yeah, idk what the other guy was talking about. But, I’ve ridden with someone that apparently got dependent on that automatic braking feature. He “used” something like 5 times during a 1.5 hour trip.

Not sure about the insurance thing. Dunno if they had insurance to cover that. I know home insurance doesn’t cover arson. I know of a factory owner that burned down his factory and tried to make it look like an electrical failure because his insurance apparently didn’t cover arson. I remember a dealership and all its cars burned up during the BLM protests, and the owner claimed he didn’t have insurance.

Oligarchs replace most government functions with private entities that they have equity in and funnel tax dollars into their own companies. It looks like they’re trying to cause a depression too, so they can buy everything up for cheap (farms, homes, etc). I think they’re stupid, but not stupid enough to not realize an economic depression coupled with gutting social safety nets will lead to massive crime waves and riots; so I’m guessing they’re planning on a police state and work camps for people they arrest (think that’s what they’re going to do with many of the immigrants too).

I’ve heard it postulated they are realigning with Russia and other dictators because we’d lose our normal allies if we became such a society. And they probably have very lucrative deals with Russia as well.

I sucks we don’t have a good, inspiring opposition party or something to lead or rally around. Without that, anger will just manifest as unorganized, unproductive riots and violence. “Conservatives” are still pretty brainwashed too; believing whatever they’re told by media. They will support the government gunning down and enslaving “criminals,” at this point in time. I’d hope that changes when things get hard, but media will work hard to redirect the blame.

Hmm, I guess theoretically. I bet towns or businesses close to eachother over a state border do something to equalize prices. Or I guess the businesses in the lower taxed state would just raise their prices because they can and still get business.

You still pay taxes in those states, just not income. Most people will pay more taxes in those states compared to places like California (not the rich, of course). Texas chose a system of sales taxes (state and local), which act like flat-taxes, which put more burden on lower income people.

I’ve never noticed idolizing of Texas or Arizona for their weather. I hear Hawaii has mild summers compared to those states.

I’ve lived in both cold climates and hot climates. It’s pretty much the same, but the seasons are reversed. I.e. it’s very uncomfortable to spend too much time outdoors in winter in cold climates, and very uncomfortable in summer in hot climates.

Also, it’s more energy intensive to heat than it is to cool (at least with the most common HVAC systems). And warmer climates are more productive for food.

Yeah, I’ve been experimenting with YaCy, and discovered they have a PageRank-like algorithm, but it uses a lot of resources, so they don’t recommend using it and it’s turned off by default. Haven’t tried turning it on myself. Looks like the maintainer is focusing on YaCy Grid, meant for organizations, not general decentralized search.

Pocket guns are harder to shoot accurately because of the short distance between the rear and front sights, and recoil is worse. But yeah, should be fine. I really like the compactness of my P938 (discontinued now). P365 is probably also good (higher cap).

The page uses canvas, and Librewolf blocks some canvas functionality by default for privacy reasons. You should see a little icon to the left of the url that you can click to allow the site to run correctly.

1. It’s always better to spend the money of others.
2. It doesn’t appear that bribing congresspeople is all that expensive. IIRC, it only took $60k to bribe that one congressperson who got caught.
3. Just the threat of financing primary challengers appears to be enough to control Republican congresspeople. He’s probably privately doing the same with some Dems too (offering not to finance challengers; he’s already said he will finance challengers to all Democrats).

For me. I think everything is physical, and there’s always a cause and effect. There is no magical non-physical consciousness. A combination of your genetics, experiences, and environment determine the “choices” you make/actions you take. Free will is an illusion, IMO.

Yeah, that’s what I mean, the workers could go in the factory, produce the goods, and sell them, if the company did not use violence. It’s not clear where the factory came from in this hypothetical. The community could’ve built it, it could have been abandoned, or the company could’ve claimed they “owned” it (which is not possible in the society, so it would be seized).

Don’t know what sillage tarp is; if it’s not compostable, I wouldn’t use it. I don’t think just covering would kill the grass in time. Maybe it would, but it seems like if grass can survive a longer time under snow cover, it would survive under a tarp. I don’t think anything would grow well just in compost and woodchips (I’ve heard some things do, but plants usually do need actual mineral soil). 4 inches of woodchips seems extreme for annual beds.

Could just till with a tiller or double-dig (hard work) and mix some compost in. Some grass will still probably come up, so will have to hoe every so often. After the first growing season, there’d be much less grass. And you can start using a no-till method.

Well, it’s unlikely the entire world will turn anarchist all at once, and the modern supply chain is global, so the anarchist community would trade for what they need from outside the community. Or they may choose to go anarcho-primitivism I guess. I think some remote indigenous tribes we have now could be considered anarcho-primitivist. The most successful anarcho-socialist community would probably be the Zapatistas.

The company would need violence. There’s no reason for workers to work in a factory for less money than their goods are sold for, and there’s no reason for the company to pay workers more than the goods are sold for. Without violence the workers could just produce and sell the goods themselves and ignore the company.

Lol. This comment sent me down a rabbit hole. I still don’t know if it’s logically correct from a non-physicalist POV, but I did come to the conclusion that I lean toward eliminative materialism and illusionism. Now I don’t have to think about consciousness anymore because it’s just a trick our brains play on us (consciousness always seemed poorly defined to me anyways).

I guess when AI appears to be sufficiently human or animal-like in its cognitive abilities and emotions, I’ll start worrying about its suffering.