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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: July 26th, 2023

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  • The actual text concerning religion says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…”. It’s arguable that requiring publicly funding schools to display a specific religions moral code is establishing their religious views as a standard others must follow.

    The second part of that (prohibiting the free exercise thereof) is not affected. They are free to do whatever they want in their private homes and institutions. They just are not free to force those practices on others or other’s children. You don’t have the freedom to “exercise” if exercise means forcing your will on others. And anyone that thinks that should be the case is specifically calling to remove that constitutional freedom from our society.

    It’s un-American… by definition…





  • This is how free speech works. You are allowed to say anything you want and the government can’t stop you. You are, however, accountable if what you say is false and causes harm to others.

    Unfortunately, because of the way our media cycle works, the damage is done way before the perpetrator is held accountable and the corrective action is not broadcast well enough to reverse the damage from the original action. Especially, when the correction gets shrugged off while the perpetrator goes on another round of disinformation.

    It’s a big problem.


  • People can’t seem to understand that it’s a tool in the early stages of development. If you are treating it as a source of truth, you are missing the point of it entirely. If it tells you something about a person, that is not to be trusted as fact.

    Every bit of information you get from it should be researched and verified. It just gives you a good jumping off point and direction to look based on your prompting. You can drastically improve your results on any subject with good direction, especially something you don’t know a lot about and are starting out in your research. If you are asking it about specific facts you want it to regurgitate, you are going to get bad information.

    If you are claiming damages from something you know gives false information, maybe you should learn how to use the tool before you get your feelings invested, so you can start using it more effectively in your own applications. If you want it to specifically say something that can grab a headline, you can make it do that, it’s just disingenuous and not actually benefiting the conversation, the technology, or the future.

    They have a long way to go to solve AGI, but the benefits to society along the way outpace current tools. At maturity, it has the potential to change major socio-economic structures, but it never gets there if people want to treat it like it has intuition and is trying to hurt them as the technology starts getting stood up.




  • It’s not a “sex scandal” case. It’s a campaign finance fraud case. The media has tried to make this an attack on Trump for amorally fucking a prostitute… well, a pornstar that was bait-and-switched into fucking him, according to her testimony.

    It’s because he broke financial law by taking donated funds, from his support base, intended for use on his election campaign and used them for personal expenses.

    You can make your own judgement on his lack of morals, but this was a criminal act. He stole from his donors and should be held accountable.




  • Recession is coming. What we are seeing is how capitalism works. Businesses are squeezing as much profitability as they can out of existing products. The stories you see about record profits drive those actions. As long as they are making money, they push the strategy. The stories we are just starting to see about price cuts (like Target lowering grocery prices and the likes) are early indicators that corporate profits are peaking and adjustments need to be made to continue sales before revenue falls off a cliff.

    People suffer when they get priced out of purchasing power. Businesses will suffer when they squeeze the market too hard, which is where we are. Unfortunately, people are going to suffer on that side, too, as businesses cut jobs to try to stem the bleeding.

    We are in for a few fucked up years regardless of who gets elected in the next presidency. It takes a long time for real changes in the economy to show up. A lot of what we are dealing with is from the money flooded into the economy during Covid (under both Trump and Biden) and the swings in pricing due to loss of supply chain and the stickiness of pricing associated with its return.


  • Agreed.

    …and where you are unhappy with Biden’s policy, look to see what Trump’s policy would be. If it’s not better, for instance the US policy on Israel/Gaza, don’t use that as a reason to not vote. Protest and let your elected officials know how you feel, vote in every election all the way down to school board levels, and try to change who is in all of the supporting roles in an administration if you are unhappy with them, but don’t abstain. Apathy is better for regressive candidates than progressive candidates.

    Government is a ‘big ship’; and, it takes a long time to turn the direction it’s moving. Republicans are far better at playing the long game; and, we are reaping what they’ve been sowing since the Southern Strategy started under the Nixon administration and was the driving force under the Reagan administration.

    If you don’t like what our government has become, you are working against a 40-50 year track record that put us here.




  • I don’t know why you’re being downvoted. They have a large waitlist and are early in iteration on this product.

    I’d bet they have hardware recalls for the next 18 months that taper off as they ramp up. The amount of new engineering that went in the cybertruck is insane compared to any other vehicle in their lineup.

    This is why you see all of the legacy automakers having problems making EVs, having tons of recalls, and pulling back. New technology is hard to mass produce until you work out all the kinks in the design and workflow.

    I wouldn’t by a CT because I don’t like the aesthetics; but, if I did, I wouldn’t buy one for at least 3 years from now. Same reason I won’t buy a Rivian R1S. They aren’t at the point the recalls are down to manageable. Rivian may be good in another year or 2. The ford EV line… seems like them pulling back means they won’t have a decent EV track record for at least a decade, if they’re still around then.


  • This is not an unreasonable statement. I’ve had a Tesla for 7 years and tell people that don’t have a way to charge at home that it will be the only drawback to owning one. Especially if it’s a commuter and you don’t travel.

    When I had a charger at home, it saved me about 1800$ a year on gas alone compared to electricity increase. Plus, you don’t have to leave 15 minutes early for work to stop and fill up on your way in and the incidental breakfast taco or Red Bull purchase while you fill up stopped, as well.

    I work remotely now and travel all over the country. There are plenty of superchargers on major roads and destination chargers at hotels, but I have had 2 instances where I had to plan specific routes to visit remote national parks or I wouldn’t have enough charge to get back. I was able to plan them and see the parks, but it took a bit of forethought to make sure.

    If you have a way to charge at home, it’s a no-brainer. My gas savings alone would have covered the cost of the car in the life of the vehicle if I kept the same driving habits. If you drive a ton in super remote areas, you have to pay attention to where the 2100 superchargers are. The car does that for you, but on the occasional remote trip, there are pockets of road uncovered by charging stations.

    As for superchargers eating batteries, I’ve lost around 5% of my total range in 8 years and can get around 317 miles on a full charge (335 from factory). I hardly ever drive more than 250 miles before I stop for a break, so it hasn’t affected me at all yet.




  • Tire inspection is still part of vehicle registration inspections. You can’t delay more than a year, and states can always require a tire change within a certain % of being totally worn out if having tires within x-% is showing evidence of causing more accidents.

    Unless the argument is that any additional cost will prevent people from performing maintenance. Like, “gas prices can’t go up because people will stop buying gas”. Or “if you make registration more complicated, people won’t register their cars”.

    Taxes in the US also have a precedence of decreasing as you get into higher values. There is nothing saying taxes can’t be a higher % on low quality tires. Buy a better tire that last longer, lower percentage tax tier. The point of taxation is to deter behavior you don’t want while recouping the cost of operation over time. Cheap tires that only last 1k miles can be taxed at a much higher % than those rated at 50 or 100k miles. We do that shit all the time.