Realistically it is difficult, I agree, as capitalism doesnt look to be going anywhere and the current environment doesnt seem like one where increased regulation is likely to get passed. Honestly I think the most realistic path to some improvement at the moment is research into automation tech for the kinds of farm roles that currently rely on cheap labor. Not that capitalists wont just take the cost savings and still pay people less, but its at least possible to pay people more without increasing the cost of staples if the available revenue can be spread across fewer more productive workers, and because operating complex machinery and maintaining it take more time to learn, such workers at least might have a better shot at organizing and thereby forcing that wage increase, because their skills could be harder to replace. And because the technology theoretically allows for increased profits, funding developing it might stand a chance at still getting through even current political conditions.

Honestly, that might be required even in a more equitable economic system anyway though, at some level that kind of work seems like it would have pretty slim margins, so even if the profits were distributed fairly, it still might not be enough to make those jobs not terrible.

Yeah, I’m absolutely opposed to this deportation thing, it’s cruel and if anything I feel that we should be encouraging more immigrants to come here, but the “it’ll be bad because it’ll get rid of all the people who do these jobs american citizens don’t want to do” line does sorta gloss over the fact that if the job conditions are so bad that if people have literally any other option the role goes unfilled, something probably needs to be done to improve the conditions of that job, especially if it is as vital as food production.

I suspect its more that they just arent as “important”, in terms of extreme wealth or active political power, as some of the other guys. Its not like Trump, who both was running for office, had judges in some of his cases that he put there, and who now has an electoral victory, and its not like the ones in congress, who are, well, in congress and therefore have other congresspeople to protect them or at least want them to stay if theyre on the same side. A lawyer and a guy who is rich, but not like Jeff Bezos rich, just dont have as much protecting them, which both means they cant get away with stuff other guys can, and if one is more cynical, represent people who cant fight back as much if thrown under the bus.

Blue tongue skink

Hey now, they don’t want to bring back everything from the 50s… Suggest bringing back the tax rates from those days, especially for the upper end of the income scale, and they’ll look at you like you’re crazy.

No, Im not saying that at all, youre putting words in my mouth there or misunderstanding what I am taking issue with. The picture seems to imply some very specific things about farming specifically (note the mention of seed swaps and such, which arent bad things, but when the top image showing the problem shows a city, and the lower one showing community as a solution focuses on agriculture, its hard not to take the implication from it that the creator is advocating that their idea of community involves everyone being involved in food production rather than delegating to those members of the community that specialize in it, which is something that I think makes things worse on account of less efficient land usage that this implies, but gets used in this kind of imagery a lot. In other words, I think that pictures here dont actually depict the kind of community solution they want to show, and whether through accident or misunderstanding, looks more like some sort of greenwashing.

Im not entirely sure this message works; I get the intention, but community farming on its own isnt a solution to climate change since farming isnt the only major source of greenhouse gas emissions, and since getting one’s own community sustainable wont be enough unless one gets all or most outside one’s community to do the same. Im also not sure that community agriculture projects like this are necessarily an efficient enough way to grow enough food on the available land space: local agriculture makes sense for reducing logistics related emissions, and for reducing one’s community’s dependence on long supply chains, and having farms run by locals rather than massive businesses would seem good for the locals for reasons of reducing economic exploitation, but those local farms would still benefit from being run on relatively large scales using as much of the technology developed for efficient farming as can be adapted to sustainable methods, because if you just have everyone grow their own food on their own plots, even with community cooperation to help eachother out with that like this implies, you’re basically going back to something like subsistence agriculture, which likely isnt efficient enough to feed everyone (and even if it can be squeezed into doing so with effort, the increased farmland needed to compensate for that drop in efficiency will itself be ecologically disastrous). Realistically, we absolutely need government action (or even action at the international level) to deal with this, because the source of the problem is so much greater than the local level and governments represent a means to enforce rules across communities. If waiting for the government will take “too long”, then what those communities really need to be doing is forcing the government to act faster.

I used to see them every so often on people in stores and such when I lived in NC, I moved to MA sometime around the covid lockdowns and havent seen one in person since, though Ive encountered people that like Trump vocally enough that Id not be that surprised to see one.

Ive usually seen “Expat” defined as someone working in another country, but explicitly with the intent to be there temporarily and leave once their time at that job ends, rather than moving there with an intent to stay and join that society. Which, granted, doesnt seem to be what OP is actually talking about in this case.

wait, what? does it download as some proprietary format and not a normal video file then?

from the sound of it, no, the article suggests that someone probably commanded them to fire back in the 70s while the thing still worked, and its just unclear when exactly this was and who did it.

depending on if we’re on a point in the timeline before they acquire hyperdrive or not (assuming the hyperdrive effectively counts as the same as a warp drive for prime directive purposes) the prime directive might not apply just because it would be a prewarp culture interacting with another prewarp culture.

honestly, you dont really come off as one to me, so I wouldnt worry, you come off more as someone who might have slightly different definitions or ideas regarding ethics, which can be mutually frustrating to argue around, but not the same as being malicious

Honestly, unsure. I dont think that you have a particular obligation to have sex with any sort of person, and I do think that you have an obligation (not necessarily a legal obligation, but a “being a decent person” one) to not be racist. It isnt exactly unusual for a person to prefer their partner belong to a specific category (for example, a gay man is likely to refuse to consider being with a woman, but I dont think they would be a misogynist for that). That being said, there isnt a particular difference between all white women and any other sort of women that would make for much of a reason to do this beyond just hating white women in particular, whereas for a woman, there is a notable difference between a man and, for those who would be attracted to them as well, a woman, as far as partners goes, because with a man, there exists a possibility of pregnancy, which could be dangerous in the current state of the country.

I dont really see it as a contradiction, tbh, as I dont really see sex as the same category of “thing” as something like money, and I think the difference between them is so fundamental as to be meaningful here. I’ll admit, I dont really have personal experience with how this stuff goes down, as I said before, Im asexual myself, but it was my understanding that it wasnt that unusual for a person who was interested in sex to change their mind if something resulted in a change in their mood that killed the vibe, and disagreeable actions by the other person could easily enough be the thing to do that. I’d bring up again though, that these 4b people havent, as far as I can see, said that they would have sex with any man in particular before, just that they for sure dont want to now, so regardless of your feeling on if this is contradictory, the “I suggest that I’m going to have sex with someone” is missing anyway.

I mean, what actually stops them? Like, if they just came out and said verbatim “yeah, we dont care about the constitution anymore, republican presidents can do whatever they want” word for word as their ruling, and the president and congress are occupied by republicans with no desire to impeach them for it or refuse to enforce the ruling, what do you suppose happens?

I am saying that if what is to be given and then not is money, then it is punishment, but if it is sex, it is not, because these things are fundamentally different in a way that makes it reasonable to take one back without justification but not the other

I cant really take the people that act as apologists for Russia seriously as real leftists. Like, forget the failings of the Soviet Union at implementing communism for a moment, Russia doesnt even play lip service to it. It is literally just as much a capitalist state as a place like the US, it is just as much an example of a country benefiting from the legacy of European colonial empires as countries like the US, UK, and France (and even still retains most of its old empire), and it is certainly imperialist, because it is actively seeking to conquer the territory of other peoples by military force, right now. You would think that an actual communist should hate it, for taking one of the most prominent examples of a communist revolution, implementing the ideas so badly as to discredit them in the eyes of much of the world, and then ultimately betraying that revolution outright and slipping back into autocratic capitalism again. It is perhaps one of the least leftist countries on the planet right now. And yet, somehow it has convinced a significant chunk of those that count themselves among the left that it can do no wrong. I could sort of understand it from people living in Russia itself, criticism of one’s own country can be hard sometimes, but so many of its defenders seem to be Americans who take “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” way past the point where it ceases to be reasonable.

This is a different situation though, for a few reasons: first, I actually don’t agree, once you’ve promised the raises, people will reasonably make plans in anticipation of them, so I do think you have an obligation (maybe not a legal one, but that isn’t what we’re talking about) to give them once you’ve made those promises. I don’t recall the women involved in any of this 4b stuff promising a relationship to any man or group of men, it isn’t like they “were going to get it” already.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, the stakes for business and personal relationships are different. We don’t generally require continuing and revokable consent for giving someone money, the state can for example issue someone a monetary fine, and that’s considered an acceptable consequence for many things. If you promise to buy something, and they then come to deliver it and you decide “actually I’ve changed my mind, keep it, I’m not buying it from you anymore”, the other person can in a number of circumstances sue you for breaking your agreement.

However, if the state were to mandate that someone enter into a relationship, or have sex with someone, as a penalty for something, that would be considered a human rights abuse where the monetary fine would not, and if you were to tell someone that you found some type of flower super romantic, and then they came over with those flowers to give, but you then told them you weren’t feeling a connection, no reasonable person would take their side if they tried to sue you to force you into a romantic relationship with them.

To put it a simpler way, if you promise someone a raise, the default state once that promise is made is getting the raise, as in professional matters, honoring promises and agreements is fundamental, revoking it later is therefore taking something from them, because you’re changing that default state to something worse for them. Personal relations do not have the same dynamic. It is well known and understood that people sometimes change their minds on romantic and sexual relationships, or sometimes just aren’t in the mood anymore. Promises don’t carry the same weight, when there exists an absolute right to revoke consent at any point and have things not continue. As such, the default state is “not having a relationship/encounter with a particular person”, right up until it happens. If the person in question never decides to enter into that relationship, because they have decided that they don’t want to even deal with having one at all, they haven’t taken anything from whoever else might have been interested in them, because they haven’t changed that state. There was never a reason for a guy to expect one of these 4b women would date them in the first place, and no reason to expect that they wouldn’t one day leave again if they did.

I mean, arent they swearing off dating as well though, not just sex? You wouldnt even get that situation of going on a date and then telling the guy that if they arent even going on dates in the first place.

I do actually agree that this might not be the most mentally healthy reaction, at least for straight women that actually would otherwise want to date men, but I dont really think that it is really the fault of the women themselves, I think that it is the kind of angry or fearful reaction to being put in a dangerous situation that, while it might not really help, is at least understandable and not some failing on the women’s part. The problem, in my mind, is the situation that leads them to be this upset in the first place.