Mechanical9

IMO reading code is usually harder than writing code.

His policies were terrible. He broke off several key international treaties. He instituted the family separation policy. He broke down federal institutions that could have helped fight COVID.

In what way was he better on spending? He managed to increase the deficit every single year, even before COVID.

> He might speak like a crazy person.

He does speak like a crazy person. He advocates for crazy policies. People from his administration are crazy people and advocate for crazy policies.

Why is it always Tesla vs. ICE? Seems like a false dichotomy.

There have been significant changes in culture and (at least perceived) job stability in the past two years specifically. See the significant layoffs in early 2023 and the surprising and completely unnecessary layoffs that just happened a week ago. Transparency about decision-making is now basically non-existent. The literal only communication from the CEO was that there will be more layoffs.

Travel budgets are also non-existent now.

All in all, it's still a good job. But it is significantly worse that before, and the trajectory does not seem great.

Tesla's stock probably shouldn't be taken seriously.

I understand your perspective, but I'm going to disagree with what I think you mean, which is that /only/ parents should be responsible for their kids, and that nobody else should have to do anything at all for them. I know that's not exactly what you said, but given the context it's what I am going to argue against.

Kids are a normal part of our society. We were all kids at one point. Our lives were all made better by reasonable accomodations that others made for our safety and wellbeing. If the outside world is only designed for adults, then there is an impossible burden on parents to raise children.

I think we can and often do make reasonable accomodations for kids. Like checking IDs at the bar or checking heights before letting people on a rollercoaster.

What that level of responsibility is for websites, I'm not sure. But it's not zero.

I think some of the blame towards Texas is due to many of their politicians denying that climate change exists. Texas is a major oil producer, and is on the higher end of CO2 emissions per capita. They should probably realize that their once reliable weather patterns are not going to be reliable anymore.

I have observed the same thing w.r.t the people who always seem to lead "new city" projects. I think there's a lot of elite projection when a billionaire seeks funding from other billionaires. These guys ride in limos to work everyday and have no idea how good a well-built mass transit system could be, for instance.

That and, the whole thing will ultimately have to be a grift, right? How are they going to monetize their new city? Even with the best aspirations, this still becomes a corporate town centered around helping some oligarchs make their money back.

I don't really see what aspect of this situation involves a false sense of victimhood, unless you are referring to the multimillionaire founder who is unwilling to add age verification to their website.

It's a defensive reaction to the fact the US has vague, crappy, outdated laws about everything. Litigation is needed absolutely everywhere because every situation falls through the cracks of the law, which obviously overwhelms the courts.

So what happens instead? Each company comes up with their own detailed, up-to-date, heavily skewed set of rules. And we agree to use their private court system or go to another company that does the same thing but slightly different.

I disagree. Courts aren't the only places where decisions can be made. In fact, courts rely in information found and published in reports like this to make their decisions.

I feel I have a right to make my decisions based on such information also.

That doesn't mean the publisher shouldn't have liability here also. They are damaging someone's reputation, and should be held responsible if the claims are untrue.

But if the claims are true, then the damaged reputation is warranted. That's one of the consequences of doing something bad. You only have a right to have a good reputation if you don't do anything bad.

Doesn't the price per impression still get adjusted based on performance?

Americans also don't know how much their taxes are. Retailers often use taxes to hide extra charges by bundling both into a "taxes and fees" section, which if enumerable always includes more fees than taxes. Uber Eats, GrubHub, etc all do this.

VAT has other benefits though that would fix a lot of weirdness that traditional sales tax has. Taxing the value added makes a lot more sense than taxing the "sale", IMO. It distributes the tax fairly among all businesses in the supply chain and eliminates double-taxing that can happen when the local mom and pop shop resells soda from Sam's Club.

Is it even remotely possible that a Mars colony could become self-sustaining within the next 100 years? It seems like surviving the loss of Earth is a long way off regardless.