People used to have social lives and meet and make friends and go out before apps or broadband. In the dialup days the internet was an addition to an already completed life. Facebook and iPhone was where things started to go to shit. Suddenly everyone was permanently online instead of just the cool people. And their brains all went to mush and they forgot how to relate to other people and have a life.

The problem with having a gun is if you aren’t prepared to use it someone can take it and turn it against you and your family. An incident that may not require deadly force to resolve becomes one of us or them of an agressor does not back down.

Very happy to live in a society and location that is less violent and where we don’t generally solve confrontations with firearms. But can’t say I wouldn’t act the same if I lived in a dying empire on the verge of social and economic collapse.

deleted by creator

Sugar alcohols are in a huge number of processed foods and might be responsible for a non negligible number of people feeling like shit. Fairly sure a local family owned bakery reduced some amount of sugar in their baked goods with sugar alcohols and it is not advertised and no ingredient list required unlike supermarkets. It is getting hard to escape stuff like this.

Not going to happen. The ALP is losing strugglers to One Nation across the country. They feel abandoned and have a perception Labor is out of touch with cost of living and in the pocket of lobbyists and big business.

To be very clear I think One Nation are full of shit and people putting their trust in them are being scammed and are putting our whole country in danger. But with the cost of petrol and smokes and rent and food and stagnant wages, living standards are going down for many people. I don’t think they are going to see any regressive tax as a positive. A policy like this will only sell well amongst affluent educated Labor and Greens voters and they aren’t the ones deserting Labor. Free dental on the other hand is a winner.

deleted by creator

No Lake Michigan is Lake Epstein. Don’t need to rename Canada’s great lakes and Lake Michigan is all in their borders. Also that is the one the FBI complaint alleges Trump witnessed the newborn of a 13 yr old Epstein victim murdered and dumped. If people want to get under his deathly orange skin run with that one.

Despite what their marketing says the service gets worse every time the price goes up. The word enshitification is overused and often misused but not where YouTube is concerned.

I have had premium family since it was red or something. It is my last streaming sub if you don’t count nebula which I never use. I still need to use smarttube and Firefox+ublock and various extensions as modern YouTube is a disaster.

I want to send google a message that here is someone prepared to pay money for a decent experience but they don’t give a shit. Its going to be very tough to win me back as a customer when I go which won’t be much longer.

Nah, these always go into general revenue. End up in the hands of KPMG, some politician’s family child care, job seeker business, or a religious enterprise. Can’t have free dental because we have to buy submarines that won’t be delivered so we can have a war with our biggest trading partner.

Yay, more sugar alcohols causing allergies, stomach cramps and the shits. Millions of people suffering reduced productivity and lower life quality. But we got to punish the poor/fat people for being poor/fat.

Australian government sources say low income Australians are over 2 times more likely to die from preventable deaths than wealthier Australians. So the obvious way to improve health is remove regressive taxes, increase their incomes to track cost of living increases and do something about rents.

There are always classist do-gooders. Taking indigenous kids from their families. Putting welfare payments on cards to control spending. What they never want to do is lower rents and utilities or raise wages or benefits. The data is very clear. Poverty kills. Put a tax on one junk food and I guarantee supermarkets are going to increase their margins on healthier alternatives to match leaving everyone worse off. Shareholders are the only ones who benefit.

You are massively more likely to die of a preventable cause of death if you are on a low income. Increasing taxes on low income earners is only going to make them poorer and sicker.

So why not increase taxes on companies and higher income earners and increase wages and benefits?

deleted by creator

A lot of tech bros who were deeply into crypto currency scams before they latched onto AI. There was a fair bit of anti-government feeling to that lot. Naturally scammers and criminals fear regulation. Now they arguably control the government it is more about retaining their influence. It can be difficult to separate self interest and politics with the rich. I think amongst average people distrust of AI is fairly split across political divides but that might change with funded, targeted campaigns.

Seeking social connections and belonging satisfies a very deep human need. Perhaps it is more exploitable when people have other issues in their life like failed relationships or a mental health crisis which is why certain groups get targeted. Cults are onto students like flies at a BBQ because its a vulnerable time for a lot of people.

That need is likely mostly harmless. All that neediness helps create social bonds and harmony but if something is exploitable for money or power someone will do it.

We have seen the pathway from loving Jesus to right wing hate. We have seen hippies marching with nazis. We have seen parasocial media to alt right. Finding the people desperately looking for something may be half the battle. Once you have them it becomes a matter of indoctrination. The indoctrination is abusive and exploitative but not sure I can find fault with people who get sucked in without finding fault with a large proportion of humanity.

These sick fucks love their nazi history and I am sure they know about shit like Am Spiegelgrund and you can bet they simultaneously despise the people they recruit while exploiting the fuck out of them.

Never see them inject performance enhancing drugs either but modern physiques are impossible without them.

If you enjoy a small independent band please consider going to their website and ordering physical media or buying a digital copy from their bandcamp or something. You can still pirate content you will never play to to fill up your storage. Small artists aren’t getting hugely rich from their music and touring costs are out of control. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing with the piracy.

There are 300 million more morons who either support him or are doing nothing serious to get rid of him. At some point we have to question if Trump is the problem or a symptom of a wider issue.