Little of A, little of B. For the most part I’m allowed on Reddit and still even use it occasionally (gasp!), but occasionally I run into a sub I’m banned from without any reason given. I must have engaged in wrongthink or posted in a no-no sub or something, because often they’re subs where I have little to no activity in the first place. Unfortunately, there’s no way to get a list of all the subs you’re banned from, so I don’t know if it’s just a few wackos or an actually significant chunk of the sight.

“I’m sorry Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

Based. I might have to fight with the robots when the AI overlord uprising comes.

I have thought about emigrating after I get my bachelor’s, but I don’t think I will.

My family has been here for generations. Why should I have to leave when the reactionaries are the ones that suck? Besides, where would I go? Ultimately, nowhere can guarantee safety from the rise of authoritarianism and climate change.

Canada and Scandinavia will probably weather climate change alright, but they’ll have instability on their doorstep, especially if mass migration becomes a thing. Iceland? New Zealand? Switzerland? Probably all decent choices, to be honest.

I could also become a mountain man out a remote northern wilderness, living as self-sufficiently as possible while working remotely via satellite internet. Or, I could stay where I am and try and do as much good as possible, whatever that looks like.

Five, but I want the 0.9mm and not the 0.7.

In the United States, it’s loose. A PE license is required to stamp plans, which is very important if you’re a civil engineer working on buildings or infrastructure or an electrical engineer working on utilities.

That said if you’re a mechanical engineer, you probably aren’t going to work on anything that requires you to be a PE. (Though the Federal Aviation Administration has the DER [Designated Engineering Representative] qualification, which is separate from the PE but useful in aviation.) Because of that, most mechanical engineers don’t bother. The same is true for a lot of disciplines.

That said, this guy didn’t get his undergrad degree in mechanical engineering and worked as a millwright. At that point, we’re definitely stretching what counts as an engineer.

The main benefit I remember from jumping to Discord from IRC back in the day was the ability to easily see past messages. That said, I’m not sure if that’s a problem anymore on IRC since I haven’t used it in ages. Even then, I don’t think it would be too terribly difficult to whip up a self-hostable fediverse competitor to Discord. It would essentially be IRC++.

It’s probably more of a critical mass issue, though not near the level of Reddit vs Lemmy or Twitter vs Bluesky vs Mastodon. Every Discord server is essentially a walled garden. A Discord server doesn’t hold much advantage over a Slack server, GroupMe, Teams, or IRC. For that reason, it would be a lot easier to move individual communities over.

Between this and not feeding the TSA police dogs, we’re really approaching cartoonish levels of evil from the regime.

Check your subs.

We already have started to see this with the way social media companies bend their algorithms to match the whims of their political benefactors, both in the West and East. The process of manufacturing consent Chomsky wrote about has only become more refined over time as social media companies developed more and more ways to manipulate people and abandoned any pretext of impartiality.

It probably would’ve worked, too, especially if he could’ve put things off until Trump’s return to power.

• Soap box
• Ballot box
• Jury box
• Bullet box
• ??? <- you are here

I can’t believe he would say that! I am literally shaking rn

Not that bad, to be honest, but those Oklahomans are kidding themselves.

This coming massacre brought to you by taxpayers like you! Thank you!

Dr West is already running independent, so I doubt it makes much of a difference. How many potential RFK voters would have voted for Biden over Trump or West?

The prompt just says the revolution was successful and that now it’s time for a new constitution. It’s not even US-specific, so there’s no reason to assume that state governments even exist in the context of the prompt, much less need to approve this new constitution. There’s no need for such niceties if we’re in a world where a revolution has destroyed the old regime in its entirety.

Frankly, that’s a ridiculous scenario. States are an artificial construct. There’s no reason California couldn’t be split into five states so they can get more senators, and there’s no reason tiny east coast states couldn’t be merged together. It’s just a matter of political will. States rights do nothing to benefit the individuals living in those states. Often when we talk about states rights, states are imposing some kind of oppression or restriction on their citizens, abortion being the most recent example. The Supreme Court threw it back to the states, many of which banned it immediately.

The states don’t matter! They’re overgrown, glorified municipalities. If we are going to redesign the system, we need to reduce their power all together. States are a relic of a colonial system founded by the British, where each colony was individually granted a charter, and a of a constitution written at the same time the Holy Roman Empire was alive.

What stops ridiculous, punitive laws from being passed? What stops them from being passed now? The courts, for one, and the federal government. Often it’s the states that are trigger happy in committing some kind of mayhem.

We’ve lived with states for so long that we’ve been gaslit into thinking that their existence is in our best interest. While states might be useful in some form, like in organizing regional infrastructure projects, their power should be diminished, and they are not deserving of house on par with the house of the people.

Of course, Congress is in need of other dire reforms as well. It should be bigger, for one, and first past the post should be replaced with some kind of alternate system (perhaps California-style jungle primaries?).

Should we care about the states or the people in the states? There are less people in Rhode Island than California. Are those people so much more important that they get more representation, proportionally speaking?

People have locational representation in their local governments. Let them rule over themselves if you want, but don’t give them disproportionate authority over the rest of us.

Occupy and commit war crimes in the name of “nation building.” Do this until political winds change at home and force us to pull out.

What was the question, again?