What is the point of of wanting to prevent those who do not share your religion from celebrating their holidays? There is a national secular holiday called Christmas and a religious holiday called Christmas, how does the existence of one cause problems for the other? Are other secular holidays like the 4th of July or Veterans Day also a problem? Is this something similar to Christians having a problem with the secular legal contract called marriage being allowed alongside the religious ceremony and oath called marriage?

I totally misread ‘good viable’ as good vibes, and immediately agreed despite having no substantive idea what that would be. Fleet of Magic School buses driven by assorted Ms. Frizzle’s? Cheech and Chong’s Uber service? Limo service where you get to answer suggestive Family Feud surveys with Steve Harvey? I don’t know, but I’m totally down for good vibes alternatives to driving.

Being pro-tariff can (and should) be like being pro-modern medicine. Targeted use saves lives, but the only difference between medicine and poison is the dosage and treatment vector. Tariffs should be used like every other regulation on the economy, but since Reagan the dosages of every regulation have all been way out of whack either way too low or way too high. There is a place for some protectionism, just not like this obviously.

This is why I have stopped buying anything Blizzard. They removed the Warcraft 3 I payed for and replaced it with a completely unplayable something I didn’t want. Ubisoft has been on my shit list for a while for unrelated reasons too, but now they are on my never again list. And I never even played The Crew. Bad business is bad business even if it doesn’t directly impact me.

That’s close, but it really belongs painted on the side of a '70s panel van instead of a wizard with a unicorn, with shag carpet, a crushed velvet bed with the frame made of ammo boxes, and bead curtains made of bullets, and living in that van is a slightly more stoned Nicholas Cage from Lord of War who smells like pachouli and expended gun powder.

And the apples are pine-apple fragmentation grenades. Just like grandma used to make

Absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. I guess it depends on the country. Here, a lot of students pirate their books anyway. Personally, I didn’t buy a single book during my bachelors/masters.

I am glad this practice apparently isn’t universal. Basically the idea is that because pirating books is possible and they don’t get paid again for used books, the publishers have created DRM through the use of web portals that are required to turn in assignments and in some cases even tests. Access to these is provided with a new copy of their books in the school book store, or for the same/more price as the book sold separately. Without the portal, you cannot pass the class because they lobbied the school to make it illegal for teachers to accept your work any other way. The school gets a kickback from the publisher and they both make tons of money

Good point out, and I should have said not unique to either conservatism or hard leftism there. The “extremities” of the spectrum really highlight it obviously, but I think almost everyone is guilty of and/or capable of the same rationalizing over anything that forms a part of core identity, consciously or not. The stakes are just higher when it comes to politics than something like an odd food preference, and thus get stronger reactions both from external observers and the person holding that viewpoint. I try to apply a “never attribute to malice that which can be explained by something else (I know incompetence usually goes here but in this context comes off maliciously)” for most people. Everyone is the hero of their own story, yada yada.

I fall into the same trap advocating for left leaning libertarianism never being implemented with the correct mix of government guardrails (both from and against the government), and it will be funny when we all surprised Pikachu face when it turns out 500 years from now it was the Anarcho-syndicalists who were right all along ala South Park Mormonism.

Also I haven’t heard the Professional Left Podcast before but I’m definitely going to check it out, thank you for mentioning it.

I very much appreciate your input and point of view, it is very enlightening. I will fully admit that academia is notoriously cutthroat for funding and I was definitely not trying to say it even comes close to anything like a UBI, just that the publishing portion is a necessary secondary to the primary job of research. Publishing helps secure grants and funding, and is very important, just not the end-all be-all like a literary author. Holding IP/patents is also still a huge draw/money maker for those at the “top” of academia, and there are plenty who advocate for the current IP-based model because it is their primary form of income. I am not saying this is right or wrong, just that academia is not as altruistic as a whole as you appear to be making it out to be

I am also not sure how you can look at the deals publishers and journals make with colleges to ecosystem lock students with things like portal codes you can only get by buying the textbook/resources new from the school and think that the loss of IP protection would do anything to the publishers besides remove the cost they pay the authors. It’s already a scam/racket, and that won’t change without legislation making that illegal.

I also believe that scientific discovery from research universities and any institution getting Federal or State funding should be public domain anyway, both because we the people are paying for it (all or in part), and there is a vested interest in furthering mankind through scientific knowledge and achievement. This is different than entertainment, and even philosophy to a degree.

I think we need to do away with our current system of social support/welfare systems and implement a UBI to offset automation and the changing economy anyway so 100% on board there, and grants for the arts would be great. Crowdsourcing would also be great, and universal healthcare would allow crowd funding to pivot from medical bankruptcy prevention to the intended use of financing creators. I just don’t see IP abolition working without major steps into post-scarcity first.

I think I found the disconnect between your argument and the other person’s. You are not paid as an author, you are paid as an academic or researcher who also writes. Your creation is contractual, like the Disney artist animating the movie and not the author of the fairytale Disney got the idea from.

An author who’s income solely comes from their writing having their work stolen by a company like the academic publishing companies do right now would starve in those conditions, and thus have to find other work instead of writing. A UBI or equivalent is required to support an IP-less state.

The scientific journal industry currently acts as if they exist in an IP free world, and take all the profit from other people’s work. They then enforce IP on others to monopolize that profit, but in a IP-less world they would still act the same and use their size to capture the lion’s share of the market.

Left when 3rd party apps were killed, stayed because I believe in the concept of the fediverse.

Still have my Reddit accounts, but just hardly use them. There is still a much larger active user base there for a bunch of stuff so I haven’t gone scorched earth yet, but Lemmy is my social media home now.

This is a holdover from Reagan, and the boom times through the 80s and into the 90s. Deregulation works… until everything implodes/explodes. Revenue was up alongside the tax cuts because of the huge gains across the board, it just wasn’t sustainable.

The economy is like an engine, you can squeeze massive horsepower out of it for a few races or regulate it to run for millions miles. There is a happy spot that produces the highest output with acceptable longevity, but since Reagan the Republican strategy has been to crank it to the max.

The Democrats also continued the deregulation and government has abdicated it’s duty to enforce anti-trust laws, protect the commons, and ensure level playing fields. Add to that the lag time between government action and results, and you have the “Republicans do economy good”.

We have been a runaway diesel for decades, and the engine is close to detonation.

True, but sadly not unique to conservatism. It’s a human condition, lots of psychology involved with self-identity and worldview. See “communism just hasn’t been actually implemented properly yet, and the Soviet Union and China were/are actually capitalists pretending to be socialists/communists” for examples on the “opposing” spectrum.

If this doesn’t belong here, nothing does.

USA is importing everything I had exported to third world countries

Jinkies, it was old man @reddit_sux spreading human suffering to the third world the whole time!

Just about the only hard shelled reptile eggs are crocodilian, some turtles, and a few outliers like some geckos. Very few of any of those would be confused with chicken eggs. There also are (hopefully still) wildlife experts as part of border patrol who can and do make those determinations.

That said, there are endangered bird and reptile species that we don’t want trafficked and smuggled eggs get rescued by animal control portions of border security unfortunately all the time and they should keep doing their job.

With the concentration of wealth and thus power being the ideal state, you appear to be arguing in favor of a landed aristocracy who are inherently better at ruling than everyone else because of their noble character. The peasantry would not know how or even want to wield power, and need to be guided by those with the right to rule. In this case it is the right mix of sociopathy and exploitation that defines nobility of character instead of strictly bloodline and Devine Right. This is a very interesting take.

I personally feel that along broad scopes, any human is equally capable of the desire and capacity to wield economic power. It is nurture and not nature that derives this. I would then argue that a level playing field with the Government enforcing strong anti-trust laws is a much better driver of economic force and growth. Healthy competition with no artificial barriers to market entry will allow the market to produce the best results.

Preventing monopoly, duopoly, and oligarchy will constrain the scope of inequality along with taxation without any need for a planned economy. I favor something like a land use tax, but there is much discussion to be had on that front.

Humans are semi-eusocial creatures, so greed must be properly channeled and cannot be allowed to run unchecked. Inequality at certain levels is expected and can/does increase drive for success, but must be tempered for optimal results.

Yeah, I agree, but the problem is that there is never a 3rd option and so option 1 has gone over decades from getting just getting a purple nurple to getting shot by airsoft, then to a BB gun, then a pellet gun, and now a .22. Everything only ratchets one direction.

The Two Party system and game theory has put us in this position, the elite class has captured both options so they are fine no matter what, and the majority of lawmakers on both sides object to voting methods that will allow the possibility of third parties to emerge.

The question becomes which option 2 is “not bad” enough to risk allowing when the opportunity is taken to break the machinery behind option 1 and replace it with something better? We have no guarantee that anything after this will constitute a better opportunity.

The Republicans should do the same, take this chance with Trump having hijacked the whole system to jettison it a remake a functional conservative/center right party without the likes of McConnell. Break the party, replace the politicians and make reforms like ranked choice or STAR voting so everything isn’t zero-sum.

He didn’t say anything about exactly the same, just that they both suck. Dems want to shoot you with .22 caliber rounds in the extremities cause it’s not lethal, while the Trumptards want to shoot off your arms with explosive .50 cal to get the “necessary amputation” done quick. One of those is 100% objectively worse, but some people would ideally like an option that doesn’t involve getting shot at all. Pointing out that getting shot sucks regardless of who is pulling the trigger shouldn’t be all that controversial.

Some humans evolved to wake up when the sun rises. Others evolved to hit peak wakefulness in the middle of the night. Humans evolved with shift sleeping and night watchers, and are most likely naturally biphasic sleepers as well.