This is why we need single payer healthcare. Let them charge whatever they want, but if there is only one buyer, that buyer can also pay whatever they want.
While cost has been coming down, efficiency has been going up. Panels now convert about 20% of the sunlight’s energy to electricity. When I was a kid it was 3-5% and it was a long slow climb. Maybe it’s just me but when I learned it had reached 20% that struck me as a lot.
I guess I can see how it would have fucked everything up to tell Luke the truth at that time. You can see Alex Guinness’ eyes flicker right before he tells the lie, btw. You can almost see him thinking “Fuck me, if I tell this little bitch all the goddamn hell his motherfucking father raised… damn, he’ll flip his shit and think of nothing except how to run his little ass as far from the Force as possible. Hell with it.l Imma lie.”
When I was a kid, me and my friend were obsessed with the movie Tron. Like the makers of that movie, we had no concept of how computers actually work. But we wanted to be inside one! So one night we typed “START: TRON >> ENTER GAME GRID” on the command line of his dad’s PC and the laid our sleeping bags around the PC and went to sleep; hoping we’d wake up inside the computer all dressed in blue…
Does he have any grandchildren? Sometimes people feel this way only about “others” and have considerably different feelings about how “we” should be treated.
That’s a worthwhile point. However the whole trick with capitalism is to have some counterbalances in it so it doesn’t become an absolute jungle. The SNAP program is a minor program within the scope of capitalism but it’s aimed at preventing the absolute worst of the worst outcomes.
So small anti-capitalist programs are actually an essential part of capitalism. Unless you want to have absolutely no floor and watch 5-10% of people literally starve.
Well the outcome might seem obvious to you but there are definitely those that say “they’ll just waste it on drugs and booze” or “if they knew how to manage their money they wouldn’t be homeless.” I’m not saying these are good arguments but they’re common. And I think there’s a reasonable amount of doubt that even compassionate people might have.
And aside from that, even if you believe totally in people’s good intentions and desire to thrive, there are many questions about how much is enough, who thrives more or less, how long it takes to show results… Many things we should rightly study to inform any future efforts.
So you seem to be objecting to running such a trial because “duh of course” but I disagree that it’s that simple.
And yes beyond that there are of course issues with how to scale it up. Personally I don’t consider UBI to mean that 100% of the population gets income. As with the COVID stimulus checks, we should exempt the affluent.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a new law on Wednesday that aims to stop other states from prosecuting doctors and pharmacists who mail abortion pills to patients in places where the procedure is banned. California already has a law protecting doctors who provide abortions from out-of-state judgments.
That’s what masters do: dominate the game to such an extent that people don’t even know they’re doing it. And cry out if anyone else even tries to play, without irony.
The Cathedral of Hope — an LGBTQ±affirming United Church of Christ in Dallas, Texas — has made a concerted effort to defend the queer community from “persecution,” as the state government targets drag queens and transgender people....
I never imagined that drag would become such a battleground. Of all the things. Conservatives really drive these culture war issues because they energize their reactionary base, and distract from core issues where they know their platform is against the public majority. If we’re talking about drag queens, we’re not talking about school debt forgiveness or climate change. It puts the left in a hard position because we don’t want to just let trans people be attacked, but the process does distract from more existential crises like climate change and wealth inequality. Both of which hurt the vulnerable most.
Speaking as a California native and blatant leftie, I’m very proud of the Texas liberals I have met. They are actually better liberals than most people In CA, because they aren’t just inculcated into it, and they maintain their liberalism against adversity. Texas the state is fucked up, but I have a lot of respect for Texans. You just have a slightly larger asshole block than we do.
“Drag queens are pedophiles” is the wrong reading of drag queen story hour, but speaking as an LGBT male who has always enjoyed drag and drag shows, I really think that drag queen story hour at the library is something we could have gotten along without. The amount of shit it stirred up is not a good trade for the intrinsic value it has. And of course now we have well-meaning liberals scheduling more drag queen story hours than ever, just as a fuck-off to conservatives. It is so much sound and fury from both sides with an absolutely empty center.
So let the US absorb the environmental cost rather than exporting it to developing nations run by warlords who have ZERO environmental regulations or accountability for the health of their citizens.
The US isn’t some environmental paragon but it is one degree removed from 3rd world hell holes that can’t wait to exploit their environment to the maximum.
Also be glad this was found in an arid rocky nowhere desert instead of in the heart of the Amazon or on top of an aquifer that millions depend on.
It’s all relative, but if you accept that litihium is already established as an essential element for the modern world (and how can anyone deny this) then everything about this discovery is relatively good news.
And that’s not even to mention the environmental benefits of making batteries cheaper so that renewable energy storage and electric cars and other beneficial technologies can scale up more.
Mining is a much more significant part of life than most people suppose. There’s an old saying “if it isn’t grown, it’s mined.” Think that one through with as many examples as you can and you’ll realize that aside from wood and food, we mine virtually everything: salt, metals, all the gravel for roads, rare earth elements, gases like helium, all petroleum products namely plastics, etc etc it goes on and on.
Yet there are still people in the world that think “It’s 2023 - why haven’t we done away with mines?”
I’ll go first: “You have to have children when you’re young,” told to me when I was in my late 20s, with no desire to ever have kids, and no means to support them, by someone divorced multiple times with at least one adult child who does not speak to them....
Sold it 5 years ago for somewhere in the 700s. So ultimately it turned out okay. But there was an extremely awkward period where I had to move out and would have sold if it wasn’t underwater. I wound up becoming a landlord for several years which I wouldn’t have chosen and felt pretty scummy but it did save me in the long run.
I used to make sandwiches at a deli counter. There was one male customer who insisted that his sandwich be made by a woman. Didn’t matter which woman. I guess eating something made by a man was “too gay” for him or he just felt like women preparing food was the correct order of things in the universe. Anyway, he would totally just stand aside and wait for a woman if they were all busy. If it were my shop, I probably would have invited him to fuck off, because how are you supposed to feel, as a woman, when some guy is getting extra jollies out of his sandwich because it was made by a person with breasts? That’s just gross. Customers shouldn’t be allowed to discriminate any more than employers.
This is why we used a female plumber for years. She was extraordinary. Whereas you’re flipping a coin with every dude plumber, knowing half of them are morons and suck at the work.
The US is bringing back nature's best firefighters: beavers (lemmy.world)
Sorry, for some reason Jerboa didn’t add the url…...
Scientists discover first new antibiotics in over 60 years using AI (www.euronews.com)
The world's largest single-site solar farm just came online (electrek.co)
Prove it (dmv.social)
What were we talking about again? (startrek.website)
admit it (discuss.tchncs.de)
It is amazing how beautiful it can be when forged by its ancestral artisans. (i.imgur.com)
Denver experimented with giving people $1,000 a month. It reduced homelessness and increased full-time employment, a study found. (www.businessinsider.com)
cross-posted from: lemmit.online/post/1021018...
Leave Texas and other Draconian states and risk getting pulled over for driving pregnant? Nope, just have the pills mailed from California. (www.cbsnews.com)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a new law on Wednesday that aims to stop other states from prosecuting doctors and pharmacists who mail abortion pills to patients in places where the procedure is banned. California already has a law protecting doctors who provide abortions from out-of-state judgments.
Texas church defies government crackdown by blessing drag queens (www.lgbtqnation.com)
The Cathedral of Hope — an LGBTQ±affirming United Church of Christ in Dallas, Texas — has made a concerted effort to defend the queer community from “persecution,” as the state government targets drag queens and transgender people....
Potentially the world's largest lithium deposit has been found in a US volcano (www.techspot.com)
What is the most unhelpful advice you have received?
I’ll go first: “You have to have children when you’re young,” told to me when I was in my late 20s, with no desire to ever have kids, and no means to support them, by someone divorced multiple times with at least one adult child who does not speak to them....
[REPOST] Don’t Want A Woman Working On Your Car? Have Fun Waiting
[REPOST] Many years ago, I worked at a car dealership. The attached service garage was small and I was the only licensed mechanic....