We’re not mining anything in space anytime soon. The climate crisis will end that possibility long before we can develop automated systems sufficient to get the mechanics in place and ore safely back to wherever it’s needed on Earth.
Right now spaceflight is just another profit vehicle for billionaires. The don’t get paid because of the work the companies do, they get paid because the stocks they have from those companies keep going up.
Try listening to the Behind The Bastards podcast about this guy if you can spare the time.
He is messed up far more than you think.
Removing outside sources of information? There are a few countries that already do this, and they’re not great places to live.
Comic book villains are charismatic and have a plan. They can often be related to.
The villains being placed in positions of power are one dimensional, inept, and destructive for the sake of being destructive.
They’re like the villain’s stupid henchmen that constantly plot for their own selfish reasons while trying to not to catch too much attention from their leader.
When the idiots have captured essentially every branch of the government there’s no one left who will bother enforcing the constitution against themselves.
“This bloated liberal socialist program is inefficient and doesn’t work. Because it’s liberal and socialist. So we’re going to get rid of it. We’re planing to plan a replacement plan, but we haven’t planned on when to plan it. But we’ll blame the libs for that too, even though we have essentially captured all branches of the government at this point.”
Some inside perspective:
You are talking to staff or an intern. You might be the hundredth call for the day. They’ve heard all kinds of shit, from long-winded conspiracy crazies to the most courteous and intelligent calls ever. Yelling at them or being a jerk will get you nowhere. Be prepared to state your case clearly and concisely. Your concern will indeed be noted and logged.
Do not call a congressperson that isn’t your own. They are not required to listen to you, you are not their constituent. Do not write a congressperson that is not your own. The letter is almost guaranteed to go straight into the trash.
The best letters go on the intern break room fridge to be enjoyed by all.
Even so, unfortunately the congressperson may not act in a way consistent with the majority of people’s calls and letters. Thank money and power plays in politics for that.
Forever could be thankfully short thanks to his awful health and lifestyle.
But then these damn Skeksis stay on the throne a lot longer than should be possible.
They are increasingly seen as moral judgements when people use their assumed morality as a platform from which to take rights away from people. Rights away from women and lgbtq at the forefront, but we’re also facing worker’s rights, your rights when encountering police as a minority, the law being more meaningless the more money someone has, your right to life in an increasingly gun-infested country where just standing in the wrong driveway will get you shot.
So it’s pretty easy to see why you don’t want to be around them.
I deleted Threads five days ago.
It was a cesspool of (Russian? Troll Farm?) propaganda attacking Harris for not having any accomplishments for the last four years, complaining about housing, grocery, egg, and gas prices, “fixing” America, a crapton of pro-jesus stuff, pro-Elon comments and reposts, government money going to “illegals” instead of hurricane victims, and a ton of made up lies. …
All of which were as transparent as fuck why they were wrong. VP’s don’t make policy, so what accomplishments should she have? Housing has been going up for a decade+, it’s not new, egg prices were normal while the pics were of organic egg prices and expensive grocery carts had hidden high cost items or just straight up lied about the cost, gas prices are the lowest they’ve been for years. Jesus stuff praised trump, America, tons of AI generated “holy” trump pics, bashed atheists, posted Elon’s BS pseudo-wisdom, Ignored the $20Bn spent on hurricane relief in favor of a few hundred million housing the undocumented workers living in the affected area…
It was infuriating. Because they were so obviously wrong…blatantly, in-your-face, completely fucking wrong. It was a constant flood of lies. Eight out of nine posts were BS.
But as soon as the election swung in Trump’s favor…poof…it went quiet. Hardly a peep. Gone.
And I realize that Threads was captured completely by troll farm bots spewing right-wing propaganda. And it was a waste of time. So my account will be deleted.
Musk is probably more popular inside and outside the administration.
No way trump can handle being in anyone’s shadow.
He also bought 9% of it and didn’t disclose it, IIRC that had something to do with it as well.
Ah, the fascist purge begins.
Up next should be jailing opponents of some sort.
Truly a (reverse?) shitpost.
In addition to the other answer - it isn’t about hurting consumers. They don’t think that far ahead. They’re toddlers who can’t think past their immediate feelings.
It’s been proven time and again that republicans don’t care about the reality of a situation, only the feels they get about it. So making tariffs is a retaliatory maneuver that has absolutely no follow through - IOW, if you make tariffs against Chinese electric car imports the wise thing to do would be to boost US manufacture of the same with tax incentives or similar increase US buyers and manufacturers’ uptake of home-grown EVs. But that’s not what trump does.
That’s not what the people who voted for him want. They don’t govern. They want to punish everyone that ever slighted them, perceived or real.
They just lash out without a plan in an act of spite and revenge, and when the consequences come home to roost, like price hikes and increasing inflation, in true narcissist fashion, they yet again blame others and lash out more.
This is the correct answer.
Life is programmed to make more of itself. Successful life means more successful reproduction and numbers.
Just because we consume that life doesn’t mean that it failed in any way; quite the opposite, if we propagate that life because we find it desirable for some reason that life has become more successful than its competitors.
Everything from apple trees to cattle have become incredibly successful thanks to humans’ desire for them and being the benefactors of their propagation. They are the winners in a backhanded sort of way.
Refine that a little bit: he made a series of very bad business and financial choices regarding the commercial property he bought. He failed to follow through on the legal avenues he had available to him, he screwed with people who wanted to buy his property by jacking up the price after he had an offer, and he constantly blamed others for all his problems.
The man engaged in self-sabotage at every opportunity and made it everyone else’s fault.
He is in no way a hero.
Guess Walz’s ANG service wasn’t good enough.
I generally round up to nearest bigger number or close to that. $19.99 is $20. $23.99 would probably be $25. $180 would just be $200.
No real rhyme or reason, just the bigger the number the more I fudge the “real” price upwards thanks to sales tax and a “can I really afford this?” factor.
Missed the half-dozen boilerplate SEO sites that scraped the most generic and unhelpful information possible that feature links to whatever barely tangential software or product they might be selling.