They (the investment/owner class) make their money work for them by investing and by playing the banks. Generally, they want to invest the vast majority of their money, and never cash out of their portfolio. When they need “cash” to buy something, they do it with loans and there’s lots of tricks (that I’m not super familiar with) to make loans as cheap as possible, and potentially even profitable if their investments are doing better than the cost of the loan.

Now, why would they spend money pushing propaganda when instead they could be investing that money? Well, when you are that rich, you don’t actually have to spend that much to push propaganda. People are already clamoring for your opinion, because they see you as successful and think, if I copy you then I too can be successful. And when you do need to buy an article, it’s pocket change compared to your vast wealth. And if instead you need to buy a TV news network, a newspaper, or a website, that itself can be an investment. As long as you don’t run it into the ground, it may make you money at the same time as allowing you to push propaganda.

And why do they want to push propaganda in the first place? Because if the working class (those that live off paychecks instead of investments) has the time, energy, and knowledge to do something about wealth inequality, then the investment class will start to have to pay their fair share and lose a bit of their wealth. The investment class doesn’t want that to happen so they need to rob the working class of those 3 things. Manufacturing a culture war is one way to steal time and energy from the working class, because they now have to spend that time and energy on defending personal rights. Busting unions is another way to rob time and energy, as the fewer rights workers have, and the less they are paid, the more time and energy they have to spend to stay out of poverty.

It’s all a ploy to get people to pay less attention to how the investment class gets their money so that they can keep racking up the score without interference.

That said, some of the investment class actually truly holds hateful views, as does some of the working class, but the working class has nothing to gain by acting on that hatred except a sense of personal fulfillment. The investment class benefits financially, so they may act out the hatred even if they don’t feel it.

I’ve ordered the ring because I have the watch, but I don’t like wearing the watch at home. Sometimes I put it on at home, but instinctively I find myself taking it off within a few hours. I especially don’t like wearing the watch while I sleep. However I have no problem wearing a ring all day. The form factor itself is more advantageous for me, because it’s the difference between wearing it or not. When I leave the house, I have no problem putting my watch on and keeping it on. Same way I don’t have a problem putting on shoes and keeping them on. But like the watch, I don’t like wearing shoes at home.

I’m from the US and “better than a kick in the teeth” and “better than a poke in the eye” are both common around my area. Never heard the tree ones though.

Yeah, that’s fair. I think the main reasoning is that shooting something out of the air can cause it to crash on people or light stuff on fire. I also don’t like the “stand your ground” and “castle doctrine” laws, so I think both shooting people and shooting drones should be illegal.

New drones being sold in the USA are equipped with something called remote ID. In theory, it enables law enforcement to wirelessly identity the drone, who it’s registered with, and where the pilot is standing. This is very new though, and very few, if any, police departments have the tools needed to make use of it. It’s also possible to read remote ID from phones, but without the database, it only gives you so much info. Owners of older drones are supposed to attach a remote ID module to them in order to maintain legal flying, but someone being voyeuristic with their older drone probably isn’t following the rules.

Not in the US. You can report it to the police and the FAA, but it’s a federal felony offense to shoot down any aircraft, regardless of whether it’s a $100 drone or multi-million dollar full on airplane. But like the other poster said, voyeurism and harassment laws still apply. And also, if the pilot is out of sight of the drone, that’s a hefty FAA violation (assuming they don’t have a specific FAA waiver that’s hard to get) and something you can report.

FAA Certified drone pilot in the USA here. That’s wild. In the US it’s illegal to shoot down an aircraft of any sort no matter the type or who is flying it. And also, the Federal Aviation Administration is the only authority in the US when it comes to airspace, and as long as you have authorization from the FAA or are in uncontrolled space, you can fly over anyone’s property. However, that doesn’t give you the right to voyeurism or harassment. If you are intentionally spying on things that are normally considered private (peeking in a window, for instance) or repeatedly or specifically bugging a specific individual or family, then you can still be charged with those crimes. Also, unless you have a specific waiver that’s rather hard to get, you have to be within line of sight of your drone. If the drone pilot is not following the rules, they can be hit with hefty fines. Even though drones can be bought easily, there’s still strict rules that the FAA has for both recreational and professional flying, and anyone operating a drone outside those can and should be reported.

Mostly just freeways. I don’t think it’s heavily enforced. The idea is that cars traveling at drastically different speeds on the same road are more likely to cause an accident. It’s best to drive “the speed of traffic” because that’s what is predictable. Roads should be designed in such a way to make the target speed limit the fastest speed at which most people feel comfortable anyways, rather than just obeying a sign. So a 20mph road should be skinny and not straight. A 70mph highway should be wide and straight. Back to the point, though, in a traffic jam, all the cars are slow and therefore the speed differential is small already and therefore no reason to ticket anyone.

If somebody is thanking you, you likely exerted effort on their behalf. So they say “thank you” for exerting effort, and then you respond with exerting effort was “no problem” you don’t need to thank me. You’re welcome would be a response more along the lines of “you are welcome” to make me exert effort.

They’re both fine, and it’s both a generational and locational thing. I personally prefer “no problem” because honestly I don’t mind helping, but I’m also not giving you permission to use my effort at any time. You can have my efforts when it doesn’t cause a problem.

I loved the Winamp channels. That’s where I learned about the existence of anime. I had no concept that things like Cardcaptors, Dragonball, Pokemon, etc were actually anime because I just saw them in English. But I found dubs through Winamp streaming and it sent me down the rabbit hole to buying DVDs and manga and learning to torrent fansubs. The good old days of my blazing fast 3mbps cable connection. It blew my mind coming from dial up.

When Meta bought Oculus, I boxed up my OG Quest and threw it in the basement,

Meta (at the time it was still just named Facebook) bought Oculus before they ever released a retail product. Facebook bought them between the release of the original dev kit on Kickstarter and the dk2 in 2014. They had already been owned by Facebook for 2 years when the first Retail Rift came out in 2016. The first Quest didn’t come out until 2019, 5 years after Facebook/Meta bought Oculus.

An average EV consumes .32 kilowatt hours of electricity per mile. If you are driving 60 miles per hour, that means you are spending 19.2 kilowatt hours of electricity every hour. So you need a generator that’s at least 19.2 kilowatt. Tack on some more because you are now towing the extra weight of a generator and because you are probably wanting to go 70mph and let’s just say you need 25 kilowatts. This is what a towable 25kw generator looks like. It costs $22k. I’m sure cheaper ones could be made, but even at $10k, is it worth it? Just buy some plane tickets or rent a gas car for a week or take a train.

https://herogenerators.com/products/25-kw-caterpillar-towable-diesel-generator

For much of the country in terms of land maybe, but not in terms of people. Most people live in or near high population areas where using an EV is fine. The person in question saying that fear mongering needs to stop was the governor of Connecticut. Connecticut is not Oklahoma. There is zero reason to fear monger range anxiety in Connecticut.

But even for people in places like Oklahoma, there’s a couple things you should consider. First is, don’t rush out and buy an EV just because you feel like you’re being told to. Only buy an EV once your existing vehicle is no longer viable. Buying a new car when your old one still works is not very green. But definitely consider an EV when the time comes, even if you have range anxiety. Why? For one, the money you will save on gas can allow you to rent a gas car for those long trips you need to make and then you don’t have to put those extra miles on your own car. Remember, tires are expensive and wear down with miles driven. Or, with the money saved from gas, you could take a bus, a train, or possibly even an airplane. Or if you really don’t want to do any of that, you could probably find a buddy who still has a gas car and trade for the week. Just because you buy an electric vehicle, doesn’t mean you are now locked out of ever using a different kind of transportation. But number 2? Over the coming years, EV infrastructure will be constantly increasing. Yeah, some states are being regressive at the moment, but they will turn around. So even in places were range anxiety is legitimate, it won’t be a problem for much longer, except in those edge cases where even a gas car currently has issues, but since even a gas car has issues, it doesn’t make a difference. And third? There are so many companies working on battery tech right now, it’s crazy. Some are working on higher energy density so we can get longer range, others are working on better materials so we can stop using unethically acquired minerals, some are working on making batteries that function better in the cold. None of this helps the car you buy today, but it will help the car you buy in 5 years.