CMLVI

Welp. Lol and I normally catch those too. The good ones are the ones that usually getcha

If only you could like…ask? But I guess that’s the crux of the issue.

Do people you meet introduce themselves to you as Mrs/Ms X? Maybe if you work exclusively in/around schools…

Are you looking for an answer to a question, or are you looking for a debate?

At any rate, reducing the utility of an item to what it’s “lowest performance” should be to lower it’s ability to harm for non-intended uses is asinine. Who sets the limits? Does a knife need to be razor sharp? I can cut a lot of things with a dull knife and some time. It would pose less danger to you if all knives I had access to were purposefully dull. To prevent me from procuring an overly sharp knife, make the material strong enough to cut foods, but brittle enough to not be one overly sharp. Knives, after all, we’re made to stab, cut, and dissect a wide arrange of materials, flesh included. This specific design poses limitless danger to you, and needs to be considered when manufacturing these tools.

Guns are not majorly sold specifically to kill people, in the grand scheme of things. Hunting is probably the largest vector of volume gun sales in the US. How do you design a weapon that can be useful for hunting, but ineffective at killing a human? They all possess the innate ability to do so, but so does even the smallest pocket knife or kitchen knife.

I’m also a big gun control advocate, so I’m not defending anything I like. The failings of US gun control are squarely on the idea that everyone should possess a gun until they prove they shouldnt; it’s reactive policy. Active gun control would limit who can possess a gun from the start to those that will only use it for “appropriate” reasons.

I bought a house (since sold, moved cross-country) literally because it was cheaper to do so. You get the asset of the house, and cheaper mortgage payment. Went from a “2” bedroom house (the spare bedroom was slanted) house from the 1930s with windows just as old, dirt foundation, no AC, and holes in the floor for plumbing (very effective for keeping mice out…) into a 3 bedroom house for $400/month cheaper. Housing market is fucking insane over the last 5 years, if not longer.

It’s like people/companies are buying houses because “it’s the smart thing to do” against high interest rates, so they need to charge more for rent, which drives people to buy houses on higher interest rates, which pushes rent higher, and it just cycles infinitely upwards.

They’re building up to a killer golden age

This is a tactical retreat. Once the retreat is done, you’ll see that while Russia has given up physical land, they’ll have taken digital ownership of it via the smash-hit mobile game Atlas Earth, meaning Ukraine occupies the space, but Russia earns passive income from digital ownership.

Checkmate you dirty capitalist.

I’ll fight em. Despite being in WV, there aren’t too many confrontational people here. And I’m in arguably the most liberal part, so I’m decently insulated from the crazies. People always say “liberals don’t have guns”, but it’s more “liberals don’t cosplay with their guns when they go to the store”…

The problem is, not doing so is tantamount to treason to them. The election was stolen, this isn’t the USA anymore. This is some deep state globalist conspiracy. They’re so far gone that the only path forward is to threaten war and physical harm to others.

Imagine. Some deep state conspiracy and the best person they could put in power was Joe fuckin Biden…lmao

Democratic-> sovereign isn’t a backpedal; it’s describing two different things. You wouldn’t say that me describing some apples as green, and then saying there are 3 of them is somehow a reduction in the amount of green the apples are simple because I didn’t call them green again.

Sovereign describes the authority to do things on a territory. Ukraine is sovereign; they aren’t a territory of Russia, Ukraine answers to Ukraine on its own political matters. That does nothing to describe or rule-out democracy.

If I say “Ukraine is a democracy, who in 2019 held an election described as fair and free by international observers, in which the citizens elected a president of their own volition”, would you realize that me describing Ukraine as sovereign in no way, shape, or form, describes it’s elective process?

Cause if I need to, I will.

Sovereign as is the highest authority in the territory. The US is a sovereign nation. European countries are sovereign. In fact, most of the countries on the planet can be described as sovereign nations…

“Sovereign” does nothing to describe the type of governance the country has? Or do you have some wild insight about how sovereign actually means it’s an installed dictatorship?

So Putin, who is openly saying that the offensive isn’t going as planned, is OK sending tens of thousands of soldiers into the grinder agaisnt better equipment, just to go through surplus? He’s choosing to have thousands of Russians killed while sitting on equipment that could keep them safe?

What a guy. Noble cause he’s after, de-nazi-fying a sovereign nation, while also getting his citizens massacred in tank columns and shoddy equipment while he keeps the good stuff at home.

Unless that isn’t what he’s doing? But you did just say they were using old stuff on purpose. You wouldn’t be wrong, would you?

Lmao so what would you describe the massive losses Russia has taken in terms of lives, machinery, and munitions, as well as the open revolt Wagner engaged in? If Ukraine is losing fingers, teeth, and hearing, I imagine Russia has full on lost a limb and has bleeding to stabilize.

That rebellion was probably part of Put-daddy’s plan tho, right?

You’re not wrong, I think I had some misconstruing of the point of his statements.

I think the apathy has started popping up because the onus is being placed on the individual at multiple levels. It’s on me to change my habits to the level of environmental conscientiousness which I’m trying to reach; LEDs, efficient appliances, electric vehicle (arguable at this point), recycling efforts across many spectrums, supporting public policy that encourages green practices, etc. But even as a population, that doesn’t effect much change when considering corporate practices. Surface level changes to some operations to take advantage of rebates or subsidies, but only so far as it’s deemed profitable. Manufacturing and material acquisition still being “dirty”, use of international labor to sidestep stricter policies, general obfuscation tactics, lobbyists and generally vast amounts of money actively seeking to stop or reverse policies.

I as an individual can enact much change in my life and those around me. But it falls well short of what a single company could do if they really wanted to take the leap.

I could also just have a narrow-sighted perspective on the situation, but that’s largely where I fall currently. The focus on individual efforts vs societal (largely meaning the tools at my disposal beyond what I can provide myself) leaves much to be desired.

I can agree with that

I have no desire to continue trying to win over those people. There are absolutely still people to discuss these matters with. But we can’t abide by the lowest common denominator.

I disagree. I recently saw a video of someone saying “if the Bible said 1+1 is 3, I’d be finding ways to make the math work so that 1+1=3.” How is anyone supposed to have discussions with someone who’s views subsist in that mindset?

There are absolutely unwinnable people, to me. Additionally, they may be winnable, but we’re on a clock, and we can’t wait until it’s done to decide to leave them behind.

I do agree that there are factors larger than them causing the issue, and that needs dealt with as well.

Are we taking applications for the 500?

I’d prefer to stop trying to win over unwinnable people. Whether they join or not, the problem exists. Climate change doesn’t care that we may want to placate the more dense-skulled in society. The problem marches on whether they have changed sides or not.

The science is in, has been in, and continues to be in.

The exact same thinking can be applied to the other side though. Guy says it’s not an imminent threat, so we don’t have to do anything right now. Worry about it next year. Which is arguably what’s been happening for a long time now

As previous student who was in school when cell phones blew up in usage, I wasn’t not preoccupied by my phone because I had to keep it hidden. I was preoccupied with keeping it hidden so I could keep using it. Texting with T9 without looking was a breeze. The only thing that slowed my usage was the fact I only had like 500 texts a month allotted to me.

Making the kids hide it won’t make them less distracted. They just become distracted by hiding the phone. I feel like you’d almost have to just ban phones entirely, which today is pretty impractical.