vkou

107 ms·

2161.
by vkou 3y ago
> Throughout that time it has appropriated billions of dollars to keep the government running. In no other country is it considered an accomplishment for a government to debate a budget, agree on it, pass it, spend it, and then three qua
2162.
by vkou 3y ago
It's funny how his speech is an indicator that he is too old for office, when his opponent's speech is so frequently and completely unhinged[1], that it sounds like a self-parody. --- > [1] I have broken more Elton John records
2163.
by vkou 3y ago
We are flipfloppimg because the legislature is paralysed, so only the executive can function. This is a fundamental issue with the American form of government. Parliamentary systems which have the executive made up of members of the legisla
2164.
by vkou 3y ago
I'm referring to the settlement land grabs and displacements that happened after 1967, not to its existence of either 1947 or 1967 borders. (Which have their own humanitarian problems, but that's something else.)
2165.
by vkou 3y ago
A screenshot or a diary entry locks you into a snapshot of a single story. Someone saying something about what they talked about does not. You can say one thing today and another tomorrow. This is why the written word has magic that the spo
2166.
by vkou 3y ago
I will point out that I am well aware of, and respect the stance that bad things done multiple-degrees-removed-from-you are not, like, entirely your responsibility. Or even necessarily your responsibility at all. I did, however, have to exp
2167.
by vkou 3y ago
Russia's aggression against Ukraine, started a decade ago, the war on Palestinians has been going on for ~55 years.
2168.
by vkou 3y ago
From a principles perspective, if someone wronged me, I'll burn them down, even if I end up getting zero. Getting 75% would be a windfall.
2169.
by vkou 3y ago
Only if their warhawk counterparts hold their next shindig somewhere in Gaza (So they can see first-hand what the consequences of their work and advocacy look like).
2170.
by vkou 3y ago
> Are they actually trusted to give independently good advice, or are they trusted to launder and expand on advice that leadership wants to hear but can't say themselves so that it can be plausibly deniable when it goes South? It&#x
2171.
by vkou 3y ago
Customer co-ops are nothing like employee co-ops. REI is a customer co-op, and in the past few years, hasn't exactly been a model employer.
2172.
by vkou 3y ago
It's used for both, and as a consequence, European freight prefers to go on trucks.
2173.
by vkou 3y ago
Green fertiliser can be produced at ~3x the cost of petroleum-based fertilizers. Nobody does it because it's uneconomical as long as oil is cheap. Climate change will ruin food production, not global fertilizer shortages.
2174.
by vkou 3y ago
What objective metric would you recommend they use, instead?
2175.
by vkou 3y ago
That data doesn't actually counter-indicate what I'm saying, for a myriad reasons. I'll name one obvious one: Homeschool parents are, at minimum, present in their child's education. Compare their numbers to public scho
2176.
by vkou 3y ago
Force charter schools to take the worst students that the public system is stuck with, and you'll very quickly find that they will perform just as poorly as the public system. Let the public system expel anyone it doesn't like (pr
2177.
by vkou 3y ago
And regionally, parents are wildly wrong about what to teach. Evolution, religion and its role in government, carbon dioxide, fundamentals of medicine, basic civics, recent history, how to navigate a world where gay people exist...
2178.
by vkou 3y ago
I'm sure you buy all sorts of products that are built using conflict minerals, slave labour, etc. Is your ignorance a defense? Should we hold you accountable for the entire supply chain that goes into what you consume? Or can we just s
2179.
by vkou 3y ago
Financial markets for their participants are at worst, a zero-sum game, and at best, a positive sum game. (Blah, blah, efficient allocation of capital, blah, blah, hedging, blah, blah, futures, blah, blah, interest rate swaps, and so on and
2180.
by vkou 3y ago
That's not the thrust of the argument. It's just the opener. The thrust of the argument is that gambling is addictive, destructive, and we don't need to encourage more of it. Here's a radical idea: Ban all gambling adv
2181.
by vkou 3y ago
It's an enormous organization (one of the largest in the world) that is largely getting audited on physical objects that either spend 99% of their life sitting in stockpiles, or getting actively used and discarded. Passing an audit isn
2182.
by vkou 3y ago
If so, you don't seem to understand why the DoD is failing to pass one, but are very well versed in the outrage you're supposed to feel when it does.
2183.
by vkou 3y ago
What do you think 'can't pass an audit' means in the context of the DoD?
2184.
by vkou 3y ago
It's more likely that a man will jump to the moon than a North American municipality is to recreate a Kowloon.
2185.
by vkou 3y ago
If you're lying awake at 4am in the morning, I sure as hell hope it is over mistakes you've made in your personal life, not your professional one. In your obituary, when your life is tallied, nobody who matters is likely to give t
2186.
by vkou 3y ago
People building their own homes are outliers. Most homes are built by cookie-cutter block developments, and they make the most money by: 1. Minimizing the size of their lots. 2. Maximizing the size of the homes on the lots. They subdivide a
2187.
by vkou 3y ago
Having a television or radio blasting propaganda into your living room is real. It's an actual physical thing, it's not a concept. So is the Facebook app, and the social dynamics that prevail on it. So are screens in general. I&#x
2188.
by vkou 3y ago
Let's also not forget the scares about the dangers of smoking, leaded gasoline, asbestos, licking radium paint, and drunk driving. Not all new inventions are a net benefit to society just because they are new, not all things are always
2189.
by vkou 3y ago
Unless you're a primary producer (photosynthesize your own food, or something of the sort), all life is built on death and suffering. We eat what we kill.
2190.
by vkou 3y ago
He was doing fraud, but the rest are mentally masturbating about problems that are about as relevant to the world as the number of angels that can fit on the head of a pin.

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