triceratops

> both?

I counted 4 things you could be under the influence of, not two.

> Energy buildout will be intentionally slow down through various mechanisms controlled by dems.

Why? Democrats still care about electrification because of climate change. If anything I think energy buildout will accelerate.

The rest is balanced on a knife edge.

Hence the "if".

I didn't advocate for propping up the stock market. I only disputed OP's assertion that a tech selloff wouldn't be so bad and wouldn't affect much else. This is what they said

> A crash in tech stocks will just cause investors to lose some wealth. Nobody depends on AI for core operations. Not yet at least.

"Top schools haven't added enough seats" isn't the same as "higher education hasn't expanded" though.

Ok but if they acknowledge it's an addiction, that's still a medical issue requiring treatment. Maybe that means going to food addiction anonymous meetings but if GLP-1 is like methadone for food, why not do it?

> higher education hasn't expanded availability with population growth

What are you basing this on? Has the ratio of available college intake to size of the potential student population (say ages 18-26) that has declined year over year?

I don't know about that. Consumer spending is being held up by stock market gains. And most of those gains are tech.

Is it "theft" when someone who pays off another's loans takes legal possession of the debtor's assets as compensation? Or only when the government does it?

> No, one would not normally acknowledge other people in a queue while waiting for a long time, not even with the slightest of pleasantries

Wow TIL.

"Talking to people" and "being talkative" are very different things though. Like you can't even ask people for directions in the Nordic wilderness?

Obviously you wouldn't speak to someone seated at another table at a restaurant. But what if you're waiting in line to be seated, and it's taking a while? It'd be "taboo" to even acknowledge other diners waiting with you?

Saying a few pleasantries and continuing about your day is not the same as socializing.

Like I said, prove me wrong.

> talking to total strangers on the trail (or in a restaurant, or in an art museum, etc.) has long been a taboo in some countries

Which ones? I'm really curious to know.

Chatting up women just to hit on them has become a no-no. And some conservative countries strongly restrict most opposite gender interactions between non-relatives.

Other than that, I really don't know where it's unacceptable to make polite conversation with strangers.

The US dollar is worth less than it was in part because the US economy has grown.

This is mathematically provable:

1. A dollar in 2008 could buy 1/14tn of the value created by the US economy (the GDP) in 2008.

2. A dollar today can only buy 1/32tn of the value created by the economy in 2025.

It's obvious a 2025-2026 dollar is worth less than a 2008 dollar. That's just math.

But. A dollar in 2008 could buy 230% more of the economy than it can today. And you say its purchasing power has only eroded 64%. That means the dollar is actually worth more today, compared to the size of the economy it's in. Weird, I know.

EDIT: I'm fine with downvotes but tell me why I'm wrong.

As the decades went by, people wanted the government to do more and more things and it needed more and more money to do it. Look how many more things the federal government does today versus when income tax was first introduced.

"Inflation brought everyone into the taxable income brackets" has very little to do with it. A significant portion of the population still doesn't make enough income to pay federal tax.

Taxes are unpopular. The government has no reason to "target everyone" because that's an easy way to get voted out.