Wheeling around corpses to secure votes is nothing new nor is it exclusive to the gop

And Israel

I think it was just a typo and they meant 1pm

Bro stormfront was launched in 1996, and they were active in usenet prior to that. nazis have always been on the internet to meet, distribute propaganda, and recruit and they and fascists have always had a notable presence in tech nerds

This is basically the argument Charlie Kirk made about guns

There’s already a number of hospital networks who refuse to provide pediatric trans care because they were essentially bullied into submission by this administration

Fwiw his point to bring back mental institutions has some merit in that interim programs and supported rehabilitation should be expanded though there’s no way he means it this way and he has no intention to fund mental health treatment, only pseudo prisons.

Starting in the 1960s the number of mental hospitals dropped precipitously. Mainly because of outrage at conditions, watch the Geraldo documentary on the willowbrook school, released in 1972, which further accelerated an already started trend because it was correct and conditions were atrocious

However, what is left out is that these places weren’t replaced with anything until much later. This led to decades of issues. Hospitals focused on physical health took the brunt, and social issues measurably worsened. This led to a rising trend in jailing people who were suffering from mental health issues and homelessness, which drastically hastened under Reagan in the 1980s

In the roughly 50 years since then psychiatry and social work in almost every state have moved towards community programs, in home services, and when things are extremely severe residential treatment and supportive rehabilitation residences. However, funding for mental health dropped almost constantly as asylums closed so these programs often started with shoestring budgets. Further for every president since Reagan these budgets have essentially continually dropped year after year. Sometimes tremendously; many states destroyed Medicaid and mental health funding in 2008 during the recession and since then it continually goes down or at best stays stagnant year after year

As a result most of these interim programs are inaccessible for many because they can only staff so much. On top of that the clinical fidelity is often poor to extremely terrible because you simply can’t attract talent. When I started in the field I did residential treatment for $9/hr. I then did mobile case management for $11. That was almost 20 years ago and those jobs now pay $13 and $15 respectively, still atrocious. Staff turnover is high because why not just work at target? You won’t have the constant threat of severe injuries (I literally just got an epidural steroid injection today to deal with a progressively worsening back injury from like 2015 at work), extremely depressing situations (I still remember the several case management clients I had who are dead because it was during the Wild West opioid days), terrifying liability (what do you do when someone is suicidal with a plan and begs you not to hospitalize? What do you do when you witness child abuse that is borderline at best and you know cps will just waste everyone’s time and destroy the rapport you have for no consequence? (You still report)). It’s not like when you have commercial ppo insurance through work and can see a decent licensed clinician for $10 copay (and the clinician gets 100-150/hr)

So then you get the people who actively resist funding these programs because they’re shithead politicians that just block any social service. But you create a situation where they give themselves ammo. They underfund the system so much as to cripple it. Then they can point to poor consumer satisfaction, poor outcomes, etc and starve them further. They can also gain constituents by having them experience this subpar treatment and then campaigning on tearing it all down (once again with no alternative proposed, which means prison)

That can theoretically be done with read only access

its absolutely wild to give an LLM write access to your email

This implies neurosurgeons aren’t talented

Ease really. Once the patents expired it was fairly simply to make a 3d printer, which is essentially a hot nozzle squirting plastic. It’s more akin to a pen plotter

An inkjet printer is significantly more complex. Even if you know how it works you essentially need a semiconductor level fab to make the printhead. That’s why all these projects just reverse engineer hp cartridges. Literally every inkjet printer patent could’ve expired 10 years ago and it wouldn’t change the engineering and manufacturing challenges

Yeah true, and I think that makes him more authentic tbh. When I worked with domestic violence situations the perpetrators often hit the same vibe, super charismatic and many people around would second guess claims against them. but underneath they had serious anger issues that made them increasingly assholes and eventually straight up dangerous during periods of high stress. The charisma is a cloak that takes a lot of effort. That’s what people ignore with the character and irl too, they rationalize it away to try and make sense of caring about a person who is objectively shitty

God I love the sopranos, I wish I had time to rewatch that glorified crew

In a similar vein Walter from breaking bad, though that makes less sense. Tony soprano was at least a charismatic sociopath, Walt was just an asshole

Also the classic nerd version, Rick from Rick and Morty. Bojack horseman too, which is extra funny because the show eventually called this out (in a way that almost certainly went over the head of some of the people who idealized him)

creating slave labor

Definitely and the processor makes sure the floor is covered; my processor has 2.7%+ 15 cents per transaction to ensure they make a minimum amount per transaction, but there is no ceiling with any processor that I’m aware of

What’s also interesting is that with most processors the fee varies for in person and online with online being notably higher (1.5 vs 2.7% with mine). I suppose because online transactions are more likely to be fraudulent or something but ultimately the processing of the payment shouldn’t change between the settings

I eat the fee fwiw

And then the 3% surcharge is tacked on

Essentially a bunch of retailers decided they don’t want to absorb “the costs of doing business” anymore so they now charge $1-5 fees to cover when they have to replace a package that is damaged or lost in shipping. They sell it as “package insurance” but it’s once again consumers getting shafted to offset what was typically seen as a potential liability in running a business based around shipping. As a bonus if you don’t pay their extortion and your package is lost or damaged they will tell you to go fuck yourself

See also: merchants charging a ~3% fee if you use a credit card because similarly covering the cost of a payment processor is increasingly becoming a cost that is not absorbed. Even with medical practices!

Pizza Hut was never good but it was one of the conglomerations that led to a fairly universal experience. Everywhere had and has a Pizza Hut. It wasn’t limited to the northeast people that genuinely have access to good pizza. It was also generally a childhood experience, where one cared more about the other parts of the whole thing rather than the quality. 90s Pizza Hut was known for “book it”, a program that joined with schools. If you read a book you’d get a star, 5 stars meant a free small pizza. In a world not over saturated by gamification of every single thing it was pretty meaningful

Basically every time America gives huge telecom conglomerates money to expand rural services they literally just steal it and face no consequence whatsoever. It’s such a scam, politicians look good because they vote to spend 400 million dollars to expand rural access, comcast and Verizon take with the promise that in 5-10 years things will be better, then they do nothing hoping people will forget. Even when an expose article is written on the issue American cynicism kicks in and the politicians get away with letting them steal literally hundreds of millions of dollars.

It’s basically money laundering. It’s also a reason rural areas (which already tend to skew republican) have more support for musk, because for a lot of them starlink is the only real option for passable internet, but that’s expensive for internet that is pretty shitty compared to a basic broadband connection. And thus ~20% of rural Americans and almost 30% of Americans on tribal lands have no access to broadband in 2026

yes exactly. Why do you think that is???

Human behavior is motivated by several functions, one of the most common being attention. Note that attention is not qualified or given adjectives. This is because behavioral research has shown for decades that attention is attention and serves to reinforce the behavior, thus increasing the likelihood that it continues

“Don’t feed the troll”, basically

Think about it, what does Elon (or anyone like him) get from posting nasty shit or doing hitler salutes? Notoriety. And what happens when you engage with this to label it as bad? Does he suffer? No, he is emboldened. Both financially (as you’ve mentioned) and through the function of attention based reinforcement. Someone telling you you’re a fucking piece of shit is still someone willing to give you the time of day.

However, this very basic concept is both apparently extremely difficult to understand as well as reliant on impulse control which is increasingly in short supply. Thus, we are doomed.

“Why do people say such atrocious things” they wonder, as they endlessly reply, retweet, screenshot and spread to other social networks, etc

Engagement is engagement