gAlienLifeform

according to some people on this platform now

But your point is well taken

total shithole

Hard to ironically quote Trump without picking up his pernicious tendencies. Like, blaming victims to distract from the real root of problems (the US government and all of its agents who did this).

What's the difference between Chuck Norris and Chuck Norris jokes? The jokes keep getting older.

The real takeaway here is that the war isn't doing anything to stop Iran's violent repression

It's not relevant until it is. Self described democracies that are unable to respond to popular sentiment get unstable.

Exactly. It's anecdotal but most people I have met in my American life are quietly good people. Their biggest problem is finding the courage to speak up when a loud jerk is doing their thing.

I know there are some members of this community who are at least as surprised that anybody living in Arkansas has a moral compass

Agreed with a lot of this, but

Yes, AI will probably not be used to replace plumbers, car mechanics, carpenters, etc.

Lots of those people did get replaced already by technology, it was just called industrialization and assembly lines. What's left now is artisan wood working and emergency repair work for plumbers and mechanics, and you can't employ all of America's blue collar workers with luxury stuff and emergencies.

Another thing that doesn't get mentioned here - if AI and self driving cars work out like they want them to, goodbye delivery work and long haul trucking, which actually is a ton of blue collar jobs. Also, self checkout machines and chatbots are eating customer service jobs that less educated workers might otherwise be doing.

The biggest portion of blue collar jobs that will be tough to automate will be everything associated with construction just because they're moving to different sites and jobs faster than it would take to get bots well trained to do that work, but if unemployment jumps and new home sales even look like they might slow down those jobs disappear fast.

My point is - if technology and labor rights get to the point the office workers are starting to feel the bite, guaranteed blue collar workers are all teeth marks by that point. Not that I would expect a CEO to talk honestly about that.

Yeah, I'm not totally sure I would go as far as requiring criminal charges to kick things off, but their ought to be some restraints on recalls. Besides stability in government being at least somewhat important, it's unfair to the past electorate who voted whichever candidate in for a given term to have a different electorate (because new people are always becoming eligible and other people are passing away or otherwise becoming inelligble) come along and mess with that.

Fair point in practice, but in theory that's a campaign finance regulation problem not a recall election problem

I think it's less a matter of people clinging to anything than just not knowing what to do because of everything you mention in that final paragraph. I think more people are willing to sacrifice for a greater good than is commonly realized, but nobody wants to sacrifice themselves for nothing, and that's almost certainly what would come from trying to take forceful action at this point. I sympathize with being deeply frustrated, but honestly I think the best thing a good comrade can do for the revolution right now is to try to survive for long enough for a better opportunity to present itself.

So it costs the Pentagon $435 to purchase a $15 hammer, maybe, but it all depends on which numbers they choose to present because their accounting practices are a total mess. Yay?