[spdrun]

The real robbery is BY the Federal govno-mint, not OF it … we’ve wasted trillions on a homicide spree by our military since 9/11/01. Same goes for funding for “anti terror” security theater.

That money could have been spent on infrastructure, healthcare, the environment, and education, but instead was pissed away for welfare for upper-level military, law enforcement, and their pet contractors.

Doesn’t it burn you that we could have had first-rate versions of the services above, but instead, we made a few hundred thousand corpses (if not millions) in places that aren’t worth a dime of US money? All this while leaving the true culprits behind 9/11 (the Saudis) untouched.

Federalism is overrated; California would be better off on its own without having to pay for the military adventurism and moral panics of the rest of the USA.

[spdrun]

You can buy a 100 square meter (1000 sq ft) apartment in many Eastern European cities for about $200,000. You’re in the middle of a walkable city with good public transit and nightlife, not in some Southern or Midwestern backwater.

[spdrun]

Screw PG&E — they caved in to NIMBY cowards and are planning to close Diablo Canyon. Nuclear energy = clean energy.

[spdrun]

flu: the thing is, gas prices are expensive in coastal CA, but at least you’re not dropping $200 to $300 per month in HVAC bills in most years.

[spdrun]

NeetaT: the problem isn’t high taxes — the problem is that Americans don’t get much back for their taxes compared to other developed countries. Shit infrastructure, shit public transport, shit education in many areas, shit healthcare unless you can afford very expensive private insurance.

California also pays more to DC than it gets back. Yeah, state vs Federal taxes, but if the money were kept in the state vs being squandered in Afghanistan, Iraq, and God knows where else, it would improve the situation.

And frankly, both parties have been guilty of being pro mass incarceration and pro perpetual war. The only hope may be the radical wing that’s starting to develop in the Democratic Party that supports spending money on actually useful things (see above), not welfare for defense contractors and private prison holding companies.

[spdrun]

What’s wrong with Czech Republic? They’re also nice because they’re fairly socially liberal.

[spdrun]

Isn’t CA registration valid for two years? $11 per month to register a car doesn’t seem expensive at all.

[spdrun]

I’m not bitter. Bitterness is self destructive.

Bitterness got Trump elected, which may not be such a bad thing. Trump is a rightist authoritarian asshole, and he has generated a lot of anger and backlash. If the backlash consists of leftist candidates with looser views on “law, order, God, and patriotism” coming into office, this could be a great thing. End the wars on drugs, stop fighting in foreign wars that we have no hope of winning, spend money on lifting people up, not throwing them in prison.

Education, infrastructure, public health care. Live and let live. Decriminalize personal use of drugs. Lower the drinking age to 18. Abolish capital punishment. Reform criminal sentencing laws. Make it 1975 again, politically speaking.

[spdrun]

The problem isn’t that I’m bitter. The problem is that other people aren’t bitter enough about a system that costs huge amount of taxpayer money and ruins lives 🙁

Balzac once wrote that it’s equally illegal for a rich man and a poor man to beg for food or sleep on the street. If the homeless don’t have a place to sleep, how is citing them or fining them really going to help things? I guess jail will give them a bed for the night, but it’s an expensive and inhumane way of doing things vs building more shelter space.

[spdrun]

What if it’s cheaper to give them a place to live than to deal with ER visits, illness due to human excrement on the streets, and incarceration? Use public money to get them clean, put them in job training, and get them the mental health aid that they need, if they need it.

[spdrun]

“Autonomous” vehicles today aren’t truly autonomous. They’re too reliant on detailed maps and outside data in situations where a human can rely on their brain and a set of fairly primitive sensors.

A truly autonomous car should be able to drive from L.A. to New York, taking local roads on occasion, while using maps with a similar level of detail as is available on Google Maps on any smartphone and its own sensors to read road markings, see vehicle positions, and detect signs and lights.

[spdrun]

The US has ALREADY been “hard right” since the time of Ronald “Alzheimer” Reagan (may his memory rot in hell). We’ve tried being hard-right by developed-world standards, and this is failing a lot of people.

If you’re trying to make a comparison to Nazi Germany, the US is not equivalent.

[spdrun]

Yeah. We have a fuckin’ moral crisis, but it’s not the PEOPLE being immoral. It’s a crisis of greedy piece of shit (generally local and state) governments using petty fines instead of taxes to raise revenue.

Set speed limits arbitrarily low. Go for a fishing expedition when people who are already poor are pulled over. Stick them with $2000 of fines which they can’t pay. Crack in the tail light? Cha-ching! Burned out headlight? Cha-ching!

Take their license. When they’re pulled over again, confiscate their car and jail them for a while. Congrats! They’ve just lost their job and are unable to get to work because public transportation stinks in the USA.

Show up at their house. Arrest them for having a run-down property. When they can’t pay the fine, stick them with contempt-of-court charges. When they turn to drugs to escape their shitty reality, bust them for felony possession, jail them, take their voting rights.

Case will never see a jury that could mitigate punishment, either — excessive sentences tend to be used by prosecutors to bully people into accepting “time served” and a felony record. I’d suspect that 90% of felons are made by the American system, not born with criminal tendencies.

When I look at what happened in places like Ferguson, MO, I think that the rioters didn’t go far enough. Their anger was justified and then some. Yellow vest protests combined with some public floggings would have been about right.

I don’t like Trump, but I see him as a catalyst. Make voters so angry that they elect more left/less authoritarian candidates on the local, state, and Congressional level who support things like sentencing reform, decriminalization of victimless crimes, and expanding the social/health safety net.

[spdrun]

Thoughts?

Self-fixing problem. Gentrification and pricing people out of the market lead to homelessness. Now, the gentrifiers are feeling a pricing pinch due to the homelessness problem that they in part created.

Karma’s a stone bitch.

[spdrun]

Induction is less efficient. Say the stove is 90% efficient, power transmission is 90% efficient, the power plant is 40% efficient in turning fuel to electricity (limited by thermogoddamics). .90 * .90 * .40 = 32% efficient. Unless you’re running 100% renewables, it’s more efficient to burn the fuel directly to produce heat.

I like gas because it gets up to temperature basically instantly. With induction, you need special (read: expensive) pots and pans. With a regular electric cooker, it takes a while to heat up and the heat is harder to control.

[Author]

Posts