I thought they die because they can no longer support their weight either because they can’t digest enough or hunt enough food to sustain their size?

It’s these bad faith arguments that caused the thread to turn against you. Gender isn’t a cat, and it certainly isn’t anything at all. You claim you wanted earnest conversation, but you undermined that with snide comments you knew would result in negative reaction.

Exactly, few people are laughing at people in any other tesla. It’s specifically this vehicle because it’s a impractical hunk of junk AND ugly as fuck.

I’m not at all optimistic. We have a broken system and what power we have left has been ceded to cynicism. Selling cynicism is powerful peoples most effective tool. Convince people they have no power, and they will just stay home. I’ve personally been involved with citizen lobbying many times in my life. I’ve been a part of minimum wage laws being passed, legal reform, net neutrality locally and nationally, school funding that saved schools, first amendment protection laws, etc. Locally, state, and federal. But it requires you have to get off your ass and actually try. Yes in south eastern states you have a bunch of crooked assholes that won’t listen to you, that’s why voting left is so important. Unlike the right, even moderate Dems will work with you if you force them to the table with popular political action. You have to elect them in and then do the hard work of political action.

Furthermore, lobbying is something ANYONE can do, you don’t need money, you literally schedule an appointment with your legislative office and then you go there and talk. I’ve done it multiple times, and it is absolutely effective. Those that get involved determine the future, not every politician is a criminal, many of them are people exactly like you and me. The got fed up with the system and ran for office.

Yes, our political system is fucked up, but selling cynicism when we still barely have a democracy makes things worse. We could have no democracy at all, and we very well might shortly. But while we still have one, I suggest actually fucking trying for once.

They aren’t mutually exclusive and both involve the same thing. The only reason money matters is because it is used to sway voters, people showing they are not swayed by the propaganda invalidates the money.

I’ve actually worked in politics, the amount of people that find it easier to give up because the system is deeply flawed instead of actually doing the hard work of change is astounding. If you want things to change, you have to make your voice heard on something more than lemmy. Representatives nearly all want to keep their jobs. If you show them your motivated enough to contact them, it shows them it’s important enough to you to sway your future vote. I’ve talked to many representatives in my life, at least on the left they generally see their job as representing constituent interests. If enough pressure is applied, they will often change their vote/introduce legislation, etc.

But they are not on lemmy getting the political temperature from keyboard warriors with more snark than braincells.

You know you can communicate with your current senator and representative right? Representative is literally their name, they represent you, if enough people apply pressure to the point they think their job is at risk, they will often magically have a “change of heart”.

If that is real, it is in pain. Overfed chickens typically spend the last ~month of their life in pain. I love chicken, but what we have done to get bigger yields is pretty gross.

I’d rather pay for security updates than invite more AI and Microsoft sponsored spyware onto my computer…

Ahh, I misinterpreted your post as a complaint. I’m not a hypermiler, but I do find the efficient routes are often the lowest stress routes as well.

That’s in your trip options “prefer fuel efficient route”. You can turn it off.

An alternate view for you, politicians can’t possibly be expected to know about everything, care about every cause, meet with every person. One of lobbyists roles is to educate and motivate where otherwise politicians may be complacent. The reason that education is currently problematic is because powerful people control much of the “education”. I think a well regulated lobbying system could remove some of the downsides while keeping the upsides. I’ve also worked in and around politics, that reality doesn’t make either one of us more or less correct.

I think you’re misattributing my intent. If you want to make corporate lobbying illegal or highly regulated I’m all for it. But lobbying overall is an inherently good and important part of politics. If you merely talk to a politician about a bill you want to pass you are lobbying. But you are likely very bad at it compared to a professional, so you pay an organization to do it on your behalf. Do you expect politicians to live in a black box completely disconnected from constituent issues as long as they are in office? Because that’s how you get laws passed that have nothing to do with human need. If I donate to the ACLU, HRC, or an environmental group, I expect that some of my money will be spent on lobbying congress. That is not bad or evil.

I absolutely read the question, accusing me of reading comprehension problems while having serious reading comprehension problems is some reddit level stupidity. Reread what I wrote, you read the first half and ignored the second half. I was merely illustrating that many paid lobbyist do very worthwhile things. From labor rights, to environmental justice, to human rights. The issue isn’t lobbyists, the issue is corporate lobbyists…

Let’s say you lose your job because a company lays you off without notice amid record profits. With your new found free time, you get so angry you go to your state senators and representatives and try to convince them to make a law limiting layoffs to a 6 month notice period for profitable companies. You are now a lobbyist. You are saying not to lobby the government full time. But for the sake of clarity let’s say your coworkers also got laid off and pooled their money to send you to lobby on their behalf, you are now a paid lobbyist.

I feel like most people that complain about lobbyists are really just complaining about corporate lobbyists or lobbying groups paid by corporations. Lobbyists are a good and necessary part of any democracy.

Absolutely, North America has a special level of stupidity. To clarify yes, the suburbs in the US mostly don’t even have a real town center, many are just residential, malls, and big box stores. The average property size and spread is also often much less dense than nearly any suburb in the UK. So the infrastructure and environmental cost is much much higher.

Most people suggesting we should densify are targeting suburbs, not rural areas. Suburbs are incredibly expensive and environmentally wasteful per square inch. They have all the utility of a city but spread out with more asphalt, cement, power, sewer, water, gas, cheap inefficient homes that leach heat/ac at an alarming rate, etc.

In rural areas the infrastructure isn’t always as expensive because some residents have their own septic and well, live on a dirt road, heat with a wood furnace, etc. A few of those things are also more renewable. Additionally, rural areas are still required for our way of living (farming, logging, mining, fishing), while suburbs have negative societal value (they take more than they put back into the system).

People can say whatever they want, no one can stop you. But people still have every right to judge your character. Being in a free society works both ways, you can say mean shit and I can think you’re mean.

People use “retard” to compare others or themselves to people they deem lesser than. It doesn’t work as an insult if you don’t look down on cognitively disabled people. You don’t have to use it on someone cognitively disabled, the implication is already there whether you have intended it or not.

For me, I think there are much worse words. While I don’t use it, I don’t waste my brain space judging people who do.

Hopefully you mean ones still in construction… No need to cause an unprecedented environmental disaster after all.

Yeah I’m only 10 lbs more than my wife and she is 5’ tall. I was the last in a long line of tall, usually thin, men for her. It’s definitely a type for some.