I wish I had your confidence that capitalism can be tweaked into a fair system.

I honestly think the logical end point to capitalism is self-destructive extreme wealth disparity.

Where did you go?

Each time or cumulatively?

From an outsider’s perspective, although the Republicans are clearly the most corrupt of the two parties, the Democrats are far from being the good guys.

There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that the Democrat politicians don’t actually care about truth and justice either, they’re just less bad than the Republicans are.

Tldr: vote Democrat, but don’t kid yourself. Vote because they are the least worst option.

D&D with the classic Heroquest DM screen? Colour me intrigued…

When juries deliberate, they discuss their reasons for thinking this or that. Basically, by telling the jury to disregard something, the judge is saying that this shouldn’t be included in the decision-making process.

Of course people can’t just take things out of their heads, and of course the legal representatives take advantage of that fact.

Is it possible to just tell them it’s a medical appointment, but it’s about something that you don’t feel comfortable talking about?

It’s the truth, it explains the secrecy about the appointment, but it keeps the secret.

The trouble with “creepy” is that it’s emotive. Although it’s absolutely a correct word to use, it can easily be dismissed as an insult.

“Weird” is less of an insult, and can be taken objectively. I’ve got OCD, I know I’m weird - I’d be lying if I pretended otherwise.

But the thing is, Trump and Co don’t just want to be seen as “normal”, they want to be seen as the best at “normal”.

This is why “weird” works. It’s possible to argue that Trump being creepy is just someone else’s opinion, but it’s very hard to deny that he doesn’t do and say some weird things.

This is sticking because, even with the ludicrous amounts of good-faith his supporters have for him, it’s undeniably true, and possibly taps into any underlying misgivings they may have.

Something to add to this.

The people protesting against racism are counter-protesters. They are showing up to protest against the far right who are in turn protesting against migrants.

In the past couple of days they have been out-numbering the far right protesters by at least an order of magnitude, and a lot of the expected riots have been averted.

Does “World’s Richest Man” count as a leader? Because I’m struggling to think of any negatives to him being suddenly substracted from the world.

Also, TIL that substracted is a valid, albeit obsolete, variant of subtract.

This.

Alternatively, it might be that it’s just an additional identical role, but company policy means they need to go through a new round of interviews.

If you’re interested in smaller scale sculpting, it’d be remiss of me not to direct you to The Crafsman Steady Craftin’

https://youtube.com/@thecrafsman?si=IrZ7Ze0j5WnfyXXk

Lemmy was released as an open-source fediverse alternative to Reddit.

Just over a year after launch, r/ChapoTrapHouse, moved across after being banned from Reddit. This is likely what you’re referring to. It had well over 100,000 active users on Reddit, so represented a sudden sizable influx of users.

I’d wager the biggest influx of people by far, though, occurred when Spez upset a majority of mods and many users by banning third party apps.

People looked for an alternative, and Lemmy was it.

But why are so many people who lean left politically? Because the Venn Diagram for “people who like the idea of a decentralised platform that supports everybody and is free from the machinations of millionaires”, and “people who would like society that supports everybody and is free from the machinations of millionaires” is nearly a circle.

You might be underestimating the timescales involved.

For example, grass - super simple organism, right? Should have appeared early on? No, dinosaurs appeared before grass did. But when the first grasses did evolve, wow, they were successful on a scale that is hard to overstate.

The beauty of sexual reproduction, from an evolutionary point of view, is that by its very nature, it allows many experiments to take place at once. The success criteria of each experiment is how many babies can the subject make.

Little wings evolve on seed pods for the same reason they evolved on anything else. For whatever reason, each step along the way made them a tiny bit more successful at having babies than those without.

Maybe a little spike makes them slightly less likely to be eaten, a bigger spike less likely still. A flatter spike helped them catch the wind and scatter further afield, and broader ones further still.

There’s no feedback needed for individuals in this system - it’s literally a numbers game based on who/what can make the most babies. They’re the ones who, millions of years down the line, end up winning.

It’s not the boiling that’s the important factor - it’s the temperature.

You could make a cup of tea with it, but it wouldn’t be much different than just plopping a teabag in room-temperature water for the same amount of time.

Welcome to your doom!

Primary sources? No, but there are independent secondary sources by people with no skin in the game.

Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus (circa 93–94 CE).

Annals by Tacitus (circa 116 CE)

The earliest Christian writings are also more about the teachings of a disruptive Jewish preacher who was then crucified, than they are about magic.

Let’s not do the ‘every Christian’ thing. It’s worth remembering the US has a very ‘unique’ type of Christian.

This. There is evidence that a preacher called Jesus existed, was crucified, and was well-regarded enough to start a following that persisted even after his death.

There isn’t, however, strong historical evidence for any of the magical parts of it.

Is that actually true? I suspect not.

Most people start “enjoying their own company” years before getting to try for real.

If there was a question of insensitivity, then surely problems would be much more prevalent at ages when people are enjoying themselves more frequently. But it’s not the case at all.