This is why it’s important to build strong democratic institutions to resist fascism, populism, and the like. They won’t last forever, but they can take a few election cycles of abuse. Part of the problem with many countries that have truly fallen to fascism or fascist-like movements is that they started out with weak or non-existent institutions. Contrast that with the US, where even the election of Donald Trump of the “Lock Her Up” slogan (very fascist) got basically nowhere with both prosecuting Hillary Clinton and overturning the 2020 election.
I consider voting to be the minimum buy-in to ask something of your representative. You may not get that thing, especially if your ask is far outside the mainstream. That’s part of a democracy. The next part of democracy is protecting its status as a liberal democracy, where the people’s freedoms are protected from the government so there is remove for improvement.
Where I would love to see micro-transactions be a thing is news articles, videos, and other creative works. I’m happy to pay for someone’s work, especially if I’m not paying a bunch of overhead to some shitting credit card company. At the same time, I have no wish to pay for a $20 monthly subscription for the local newspaper in Middleofnowhere, Montana just so I can read one article.
The mods on /c/worldnews actively put a thumb on the scale when it comes to subjects like the Israeli-Palstinian conflict. If you don’t follow the party line, your comment is subject to removal. That “No hate speech, bigotry, propaganda, etc” rule does a lot of work. It’s not worth getting in a fight over, but I was a little sore that my comment about taking Hamas’ casualty statistics with a grain of salt would be prudent was deleted, while downright hateful comments towards Israel were left standing.
It would be awesome to have a base-12 number system paired with a base-12 measurement system. It’s just so much nicer to deal with than metric or imperial. So many measurements would become much easier. Take length. You could have the base measurement be equal to a meter, then use 1/3 meter sticks as roughly equivalent to a 1 foot ruler.
It’s not even that. At the time they split, English wasn’t as standardized. You can see it looking back in the Lewis and Clark expedition journals written by Meriwether Lewis. He doesn’t even have consistency in his own writing, and he was no country bumpkin.
I had a mattress that I had directly on a cement floor in a basement. That was an expensive mistake. The mattress retained moisture because it couldn’t breath, contributing to it collapsing. A basic bed frame is cheap, makes the room look nicer, and provides extra storage space underneath.
I’ve been having some fun with my current setup. I have a bed, nightstand, desk, dresser, and closet in one room. It’s maybe a little cozy, but functional as long as I put some thought into it. I even have a nice space in the middle that I can pretend I use to work out in.
I get where you’re coming from, especially when it’s something like OP’s post where it’s just a bed and some junk. But there’s a difference between spartan and efficient. A spartan setup doesn’t provide much functionality beyond the basics (sleep, clothing). An efficient setup might take reworking, but it squeezes a multitude of uses into a small to medium sized room.
Even TV shows that have been off air for a decade often have a thriving community. Merlin, the BBC show, has several posts per day. Similarly with Smallville. Lemmy’s communities are smaller and tend to be broken up across instances.