Pace makers keep you from dying so they’re sort of on a different level of need. Also, if corps did planned obsolescence on one, you’re probably not around to buy another.

If they were invented today, they would definitely have a predatory subscription model for “monitoring” your heart, or require occasional maintenance at cost to the end user.

The prequels were redeemed? That’s news to me.

I’m with you on 1 and 2, but “reduced lingual skills” I think is a bit of a stretch. Becoming fluent in another language takes a lot of effort and people only do it if they have a good long term reason.

I think it’s more likely this would cover the vacation / short term business case that is already covered by human interpreters (or apps already) instead.

Any billionaire would take this deal. The hit is in imaginary money (i.e. stock/corporate assets) that won’t affect their daily lives and in return they get unspecified favors from the (other) oligarchs.

Hell yeah, congrats! I get back into DCSS every few years but I have only escaped with the orb once, a lucky MiFi run. Just getting there is huge!

Yep. If they somehow were left with only cis white men, they’d redefine cis, white, or man to divide the remaining people.

Been listening to the 5-4 podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks and it’s been partisan bullshit forever, but yeah Citizens United will probably be considered the death of American Democracy (even though it was terminally ill beforehand).

The Court will literally just make up rules out of thin air to justify whatever the fuck they want.

What are you going to criticize Republicans for? Sure, they’re morally bankrupt and destroying the country, but they’re doing exactly what their dipshit voters asked for and succeeding beyond their wildest dreams.

Democrats are the ones who are being laughably inept at what they claim to want.

As if the Democrats would do a damn thing. They had four fucking years to put nails in Trump’s coffin and couldn’t do anything for fear of their corporate masters being denied the same grifts.

I’ve only used Jellyfin, what does Plex do better for the non-expert user?

I agree that a primary probably still ends up with Kamala and would probably just be the illusion of choice. The DNC would close ranks around her in the name of Biden’s legacy, just like they did for Biden back in 2020 when the vote was splitting in Bernie’s favor, and in 2016 when it was obvious they just wanted to coronate Hillary and move on.

That said, even with a rigged primary, putting your candidate on the debate stage to address your constituents instead of skipping directly to fellating non-existent centrists in the general would have been good.

Cheers to that, fellow Texas drunk

Texas is incredibly resource rich, even if the people who live here are generally fuck faces.

I mean, fuck Elon and Tesla but if you’re spending money on a car you’re giving it to a bastard one way or another. The CEOs of Ford, BMW, et. al. might not be making asses of themselves on the global stage, but I’m sure they’re still horrible. Even used cars run on gas 99% of the time.

Everything on that list is typical neoliberal Democrat tinkering around the edges while the world burns.

It’s not that the individual ideas are bad, it’s that they have no vision of a better future for most people. Where is Medicare For All? Where is tuition free college? Where is anything that isn’t just a bandaid for a specific paper cut when the whole goddam country is being devoured by fascists and corporations?

That’s the meat I’m talking about - something that millions of people on the left could vote for in self interest. What we got was meat for checks notes non-Medicare diabetics.

Israel is currently genociding Palestinians under a Democratic president, they didn’t need Trump’s approval for anything. The bulldozers are already running, the people are already having their lives destroyed.

Again, I voted Harris for harm reduction, so I see your point about Harris possibly being better for Gaza in the long run, but it’s not “kill my friends now” or “kill my friends later” it’s “kill my friends now” or “kill my friends now and maybe, just maybe, stop sometime around the midterms when it’s politically convenient and only if Harris doesn’t need to keep getting the fascist vote”. I don’t blame Gaza voters for looking at that choice and holding out for what they really want, which is “stop killing my friends now”.

Those Palestinians were going to lose their land, families and lives either way. Biden has done nothing to stop Israel, neither would Harris. She made it abundantly clear that “protecting” Israel was more important than stopping genocide.

Gaza didn’t cost Harris the election. Maybe Michigan, but even that’s a stretch. Democrats lost ground in literally every demographic other than 100k+ income because, again, they campaigned to the right and offered absolutely nothing to the left.

If Harris told any other assumed Democratic group to fuck off this hard, nobody would be surprised they didn’t vote for her. If she ran as pro-life to court Trumpers and her support from women collapsed we wouldn’t be screaming about them getting in line, we’d be talking about Harris betraying those voters. This is no different, it just affects a far smaller voting bloc that people feel comfortable scapegoating.

Everyone pointing at people that didn’t vote for Harris over Gaza like this is some gotcha moment are totally missing the point. If Gaza was your primary concern (like if you and your family are Palestinian perhaps) neither candidate was going to do anything for you at all. Harris paid a tiny bit of lip service to Gaza two days before the election after months of shutting down and ignoring everyone demanding ceasefire.

I voted Harris purely out of harm reduction, but she offered nothing to anyone on the left. The DNC assumes everyone that is queer or bipoc or a woman owes them their vote and then used the platform to court non-existent center right voters.

But nah, let’s pretend that Harris, who took Biden’s positions wholesale, would have done something different as if they weren’t currently in power. Let’s pretend they would have done something to restore abortion rights too, or tackle climate change or raise the minimum wage when they’re so busy trying to get fascist votes and not piss off the coporate donor class.

The Democratic party needs to be rebuilt from scratch or not rebuilt at all.

I feel guilty about it, but I appreciate the monthly pass. I played EUIV for exactly one month, at a total cost of like $7 (got the base game for free at some point) with all the bells and whistles. It seemed like a good compromise because you’d have to pay it for years at this point to cover the DLC out right, but it is a disgusting level of rent seeking behavior.

Now it bothers me that I’d need to put another $7-$10 into the machine to access those saves, but not as much as if I’d throw down hundreds of dollars on it to own the content for a 10 year old game.

Yeah, but you see they were in danger from the Vietnam draft, doesn’t take empathy to act in self interest.