placidranger said:Protect the copyright holder—which, let's be honest, is rarely the actual creator. In this industry, it's usually just a massive corporation.
Of course it's an issue for patent holders. 😁 So what? Since when did they deserve some kind of social hierarchy? You can make money off innovation without needing special privileges.
Quincy:
It's pretty straightforward—once all five permanent members of the Security Council agree, everyone will fall in line and stop their illegal activities because, well, they have the power to slap on sanctions. Copying is rampant right now simply because it suits China. Once they grow powerful enough to decide they no longer care, the landscape will shift.
Yeah... we'll see about that. It takes an incredible amount of industry lobbying to actually trigger sanctions against someone just copying industrial products.
I'm surprised you're fine with that logic. How are African nations supposed to develop if they don't build upon Western tech through imitation? Some things stay patented in the West, sure—but would it really be right to hit them with sanctions just for trying to catch up?
Oh sure, I can see Vicky rushing out to patent rice, corn, wheat, and bananas next. Then, if anyone actually dares to plant a crop, we can hit them with sanctions because they didn't pay for a license. If they can't afford the fee, let them starve, right?😍
goldengull3 said:Protect the creator, plain and simple. An author holds the sole right to do whatever they please with their own work. It isn't your concern to police creations you didn't write, nor is it your business to worry about inventions where you don't hold the patent.
It’s quite simple, really. Once all five permanent members of the Security Council finally find common ground, everyone else will fall in line and cease their illicit activities, fearing the inevitable imposition of sanctions. This rampant copying we see today persists only because it serves the interests of one particular player—China. Once they achieve enough development to decide that such imitation no longer suits them—which, frankly, seems imminent—the entire landscape will shift.
Of course there will be some level of pandering; crime has been an inherent part of the human condition since the dawn of civilization.
Sure, why not. Just like how we protect music composers. Whether they want to or not, some massive corporation steps in and effectively hijacks their copyrights, all while having the audacity to call that theft "protection." Then, they use questionable accounting to tally up the earnings, apply some nonsensical formula, and—of course—make sure their lawyers and staff get paid first. Let’s not forget the taxes they rake in when I buy a camera card, just in case I happen to store their ridiculous patented nonsense on it.
goldengull3 said:Protect the creator, plain and simple. An author holds the sole right to do whatever they please with their own work. It isn't your concern to police creations you didn't write, nor is it your business to worry about inventions where you don't hold the patent.
It’s quite simple, really. Once all five permanent members of the Security Council finally find common ground, everyone else will fall in line and cease their illicit activities, fearing the inevitable imposition of sanctions. This rampant copying we see today persists only because it serves the interests of one particular player—China. Once they achieve enough development to decide that such imitation no longer suits them—which, frankly, seems imminent—the entire landscape will shift.
Of course there will be some level of pandering; crime has been an inherent part of the human condition since the dawn of civilization.
Once China secures the majority of global patents, the people currently forced to pay them will be the ones doing the copying. Just wait until they flip the script, pivoting from "protecting rights" to championing the "freedom of knowledge" and the free flow of ideas. Smaller nations, like those in developing regions, inevitably end up as net losers if they strictly adhere to the patent demands imposed by the US. And China isn't the only untouchable entity here. Look at India and Pakistan; they developed nuclear weapons in a relatively short timeframe, so where are the sanctions now? If they decide to start copying, they will, and there won't be any meaningful consequences. Brazil? It's the same story. Russia? Exactly the same.
Some countries, such as Iran, don't even have formal copyright laws defined in their statutes. Personally, I see absolutely no reason to build these elaborate legal castles in the sky around dubious patents. If I am the one who starts a fire, do you really believe you owe me anything for it? During the era of peak industrial expansion in the US, everything moved smoothly precisely because we weren't bogged down by these idiotic, toxic patents that are stifling innovation today.
Are you even aware of the level of absurdity being "protected" by patents these days? Apple holds a patent for a rectangular screen with two buttons at the bottom. Honestly, it's a miracle they didn't try to patent the wheel.
Nicholas Chavez70 said:One could easily argue that this elevates simple criminal activity to a much more dangerous tier altogether. We're looking at a scenario where terrorists and organized crime syndicates might actually start printing their own weaponry right from their basements... 🤷
I can do it today, sure, but what you can actually print right now is practically worthless. I remember a deep dive on a military enthusiast forum regarding 3D-printed firearms, and the consensus was unanimous: current capabilities are a joke. The real future isn't in guns; it’s in printing electronic components or high-end, expensive parts—think titanium engine components for advanced fighter jets or missiles. Even then, 3D printing isn't fundamentally different from how we manufacture semiconductors, but building semiconductor fabrication plants costs billions of dollars, and there are very few players capable of doing it.
The printers you see making headlines—printing pasta, for instance (honestly, who cares if their macaroni is shaped like a dragon? It's ridiculous)—are nothing more than toys. Real industrial utility lies in metal printing, where a laser beam fuses powdered metal into shape. Currently, this is primarily used for rapid prototyping, but it will eventually become a cornerstone of mass production because it virtually eliminates material waste.
goldengull3 said:I don’t have the luxury of sitting here and watching the whole thing right now, but if you ask me, the job market shift is actually quite straightforward. We are seeing the elimination of roles that are purely repetitive and offer zero incremental value, though, in their place, entirely different opportunities are emerging.
The jobs being phased out include things like: - Assembly line workers—a robot handles that far more efficiently. - Grocery clerks—they don't add unique value or meaningfully drive sales. - Truck drivers—automation is already proving superior (even as we speak).
But conversely, certain roles aren't disappearing; in fact, demand will only climb: - Designers—the advent of 3D modeling presents a massive new frontier. - Mechanical engineers—they can now develop technologies they previously could only dream of. - Chefs—they provide intrinsic value by refining and customizing a product (though I suspect high-volume cafeteria cooks will eventually be replaced by advanced printers). - Car salespeople or servers—human social interaction drives sales in a way a kiosk simply cannot replicate.
That said, this reality completely dismantles the outdated vision of "industry" that many Americans cling to. The kind of industrial landscape being built today doesn't require massive factories packed with thousands of low-skilled laborers.
The logic holds up because there is a fundamental ceiling to what a single laborer, salesperson, or driver can accomplish. A human being can only produce a finite amount of work within a given timeframe, and that specific manual or interpersonal labor isn't something you can simply replicate with technology—at least, not until the moment you actually do, which effectively renders the human element obsolete anyway.
goldengull3 said:I don’t have the luxury of sitting here and watching the whole thing right now, but if you ask me, the job market shift is actually quite straightforward. We are seeing the elimination of roles that are purely repetitive and offer zero incremental value, though, in their place, entirely different opportunities are emerging.
The jobs being phased out include things like: - Assembly line workers—a robot handles that far more efficiently. - Grocery clerks—they don't add unique value or meaningfully drive sales. - Truck drivers—automation is already proving superior (even as we speak).
But conversely, certain roles aren't disappearing; in fact, demand will only climb: - Designers—the advent of 3D modeling presents a massive new frontier. - Mechanical engineers—they can now develop technologies they previously could only dream of. - Chefs—they provide intrinsic value by refining and customizing a product (though I suspect high-volume cafeteria cooks will eventually be replaced by advanced printers). - Car salespeople or servers—human social interaction drives sales in a way a kiosk simply cannot replicate.
That said, this reality completely dismantles the outdated vision of "industry" that many Americans cling to. The kind of industrial landscape being built today doesn't require massive factories packed with thousands of low-skilled laborers.
You actually need fewer designers nowadays. Honestly, you need far fewer workers than we see today because, by the very nature of the industry, a small handful of top-tier talent will inevitably capture 99% of the market share, leaving everyone else to fight over the scraps. It is exactly what we are seeing right now with the app development market. The demand for engineers will continue to rise, and frankly, it always has, but the reality is that most of the population lacks both the capacity and the drive to pursue that kind of work. We see an endless influx of service workers and retail clerks, yet the actual technical expertise required to sustain a modern economy remains increasingly scarce because people simply aren't willing to put in the effort. The chef you’re talking about is essentially a food designer, whereas the role of a server or a waiter is much more questionable. When I bought my last car online, the value added by the guy at the dealership—the one I eventually paid and took delivery from—was absolutely zero; he might as well have been a robot for all the good he did. It's a similar story with servers. Unless we are discussing highly specialized, high-end hospitality, a machine could easily step in and replace them without anyone noticing.
goldengull3 said:I don’t have the luxury of sitting here and watching the whole thing right now, but if you ask me, the job market shift is actually quite straightforward. We are seeing the elimination of roles that are purely repetitive and offer zero incremental value, though, in their place, entirely different opportunities are emerging.
The jobs being phased out include things like: - Assembly line workers—a robot handles that far more efficiently. - Grocery clerks—they don't add unique value or meaningfully drive sales. - Truck drivers—automation is already proving superior (even as we speak).
But conversely, certain roles aren't disappearing; in fact, demand will only climb: - Designers—the advent of 3D modeling presents a massive new frontier. - Mechanical engineers—they can now develop technologies they previously could only dream of. - Chefs—they provide intrinsic value by refining and customizing a product (though I suspect high-volume cafeteria cooks will eventually be replaced by advanced printers). - Car salespeople or servers—human social interaction drives sales in a way a kiosk simply cannot replicate.
That said, this reality completely dismantles the outdated vision of "industry" that many Americans cling to. The kind of industrial landscape being built today doesn't require massive factories packed with thousands of low-skilled laborers.
As much as you might believe that technical expertise and specialized skill sets are the ultimate keys to success in any industry, you are fundamentally mistaken if you think new job openings in any country will ever materialize in sufficient numbers to offset the ones being lost. The trajectory of increasing automation points toward one inevitable outcome: escalating unemployment. Only a complete fool would swap out a hundred workers for a single robot that actually ends up costing more than the human staff it replaced. When you look at the math, replacing N number of jobs through automation won't actually result in cost savings equal to the wages of those N employees. Even if there are any savings at all, that surplus isn't going to be distributed among the remaining workforce; instead, it will be concentrated into the hands of a tiny, elite minority.
This relentless drive toward task automation is essentially driving a wedge into the very heart of our capitalist economy, leading us straight toward self-cannibalization. Unless we manage to engineer a solution that breaks free from this rigid neoliberal mindset—something like a guaranteed universal basic income—we are looking at a predictable descent into widespread poverty, followed inevitably by civil unrest and violent revolutions.
You can actually disable phishing and Malware detection within Chrome if you really want to. It’s pretty obvious there’s some trash polluting this forum again. Moderators: grab your brooms and get back to coding.
What happened when Google scanned this site? Out of the 1,272 pages we analyzed on this site during the last 90 days, 11 individual pages triggered alerts for malicious software being downloaded and installed without any user permission. The most recent visit from Google occurred on 2013-10-23, which is also the date suspicious content was last detected here. The identified malicious software consists of 2 viruses and 2 exploits.
This malicious software is being hosted across 3 different domains, specifically bilingmobiline.is-a-rockstar.com/, pachakamaq.com/, and duqewcenofm.serveftp.net/.
One domain appears to be acting as an intermediary to distribute malware to the site's visitors, which includes monitor.us/.
This site was hosted on 2 networks, specifically AS5391 (AT&T) and AS15169 (GOOGLE).
By the way, monitor.us is dealing with the exact same issue right now.
Look, I get the argument for needing barriers, but in a real-world scenario, I seriously doubt how much those curves actually help anyone. If a collision occurs, bystanders call 911, and the paramedics arrive with their own specialized equipment, stretchers, and everything else they need. The notion that you should jump out of your car to pull someone from a wreck and start administering first aid is incredibly reckless. You have no way of knowing if they’ve sustained spinal injuries or internal fractures, and in an attempt to be a hero, you could easily aggravate their condition and make things much worse—not to mention leaving yourself wide open to a massive lawsuit.
The statistical likelihood of someone surviving a crash only to succumb to massive internal bleeding is minimal. If sharp debris is penetrating the cabin, the passengers are likely already dead or catastrophically injured. And even if there is active bleeding from an object impaling the driver, the doors usually won't budge, meaning you aren't getting to them without a heavy-duty rescue saw anyway.
Christian Morales said:It was actually private enterprises that pulled this country out of the gutter back in the late nineties. All those banks and factories we managed to privatize only found their second wind because of private capital. Honestly, without them, our struggling American economy wouldn't even be sitting at its current GDP percentage, let alone dealing with the massive deficit we'd be facing.
I mean, seriously, what kind of role model is this, Mother of Christ? This man has practically cut Canada off from the very capital that could have fueled job creation and economic growth. While his people are left sleeping on park benches and scavenging through trash, the corrupt politicians and their inner circles remain completely untouched. Canada isn't just a poor example; it’s a total collective disaster spiraling into an abyss.
Anyone who looks to them as a blueprint for success is truly out of their mind. 😵
Oh, really? So because Greece isn't isolated from global capital, they somehow don't have citizens sleeping on benches or digging through dumpsters? And let’s look at the "jobs" that capital actually brought to Greece: they were wiped out. All they got were mindless austerity measures and destructive budget cuts. Who actually profited from all that capital in Greece? First, the foreign banks, and second, the local political vultures.
In any case, I find Orban's policies quite appealing because they actually incentivize small businesses by slapping higher taxes on bankers and massive corporations—which, let’s face it, are usually foreign-owned anyway. His approach seems designed to support people who actually live off their own hard work and helps foster more job creation.
Unfortunately, I can't picture Zoran taking any meaningful action against a major bank or a giant corporation just to benefit the little guy. Fools like me, who voted for the Democratic Party in the last election hoping they'd finally cut through the red tape, are the ones paying the price. As for the Democratic Party? Never again.
It's sad, but it's hard to imagine America shifting its focus toward small firms and entrepreneurship; it feels like everyone here is too eager to act as a lackey for some corporate overlord.
I think we have fundamentally different definitions of what constitutes the middle class. Kerefek seems to equate it with political engagement and showing up at protests, but I don't see the connection whatsoever. In any major uprising, the people hitting the streets are typically those most directly crushed by the circumstances; you'll see someone living on the edge of survival throwing stones at the police long before you see someone enjoying a relatively comfortable lifestyle joining the fray.
The standard definition of the middle class is the demographic sitting right between the ultra-wealthy and the working poor. By that logic, we're talking about educated professionals, higher-paid employees, and mid-level management. These are people who work to make a living, but they earn enough to live comfortably and still have a surplus left over. A middle-class family would be one where both parents hold decent jobs, the kids go to college, they own their own home, have a car or two, can afford vacations both summer and winter, and can actually save up to buy a vacation home.
I also disagree with the idea that if an entire society is impoverished, the percentage of average wages becomes irrelevant to defining the middle class. Even if a nation is poor—for instance, if we compare the US to somewhere like Luxembourg or London—poverty is relative. An American earning $2750 still lives significantly better than someone earning $933. Furthermore, the cost of living in certain parts of the US is much lower than in places like Luxembourg or London; instead of paying 2000 pounds (roughly 2380 Euros) for a two-bedroom apartment in a place like New York City, you might pay 300 dollars elsewhere and maintain a similar quality of life for far less money. Of course, certain items will be more expensive relative to income in the US compared to Luxembourg (like cars, phones, or computers), but that applies everywhere. At the end of the day, an American with $2750 is middle class, while someone with $933 certainly is not.
The definition of the middle class is actually quite straightforward: it’s composed of individuals earning somewhere between 70% and 150% of the national average salary. There isn't any complicated debate about lifestyle choices, what people buy, or their dietary habits. You simply look at the income level, and based strictly on those numbers, you determine whether someone belongs to the middle class or not.
The middle class is shrinking across the entire Western world—in the USA, the UK, and Germany alike. It stands to reason, then, that we are seeing a similar downward trend here in America. http://www.dw.de/german-middle-class...ays/a-16451267
The fundamental reason for this erosion of the middle class is the disappearance of "good" jobs. What people call an "American recovery" is nothing more than a statistical illusion; in reality, it is a process where wages stagnate while people are forced into increasingly desperate, low-paying roles. You see engineers yesterday who are flipping burgers for peanuts today.
If I compare the current landscape to when I was finishing my degree, the difference is stark. Back then, landing a solid job right out of college was straightforward; nobody demanded decades of experience or impossible GPA requirements just to get a foot in the door. Nowadays, finding that first role with the same credentials is significantly harder, and those who do manage to secure employment often find themselves stuck with miserable paychecks. I would go as far as to say that average wages are actually falling—perhaps not in absolute dollar amounts, but certainly when you factor in purchasing power.
In this article, as one would expect from a German outlet, the author spends a great deal of time bashing Eastern Europe, clearly viewing it as a region of no consequence that couldn't possibly compete. However, the author completely ignores the fact that the decay of the middle class is actually being driven by the West itself. The very methods currently employed by major corporations serve to undermine the foundational pillars of the Western economic system.
What are the drivers behind this? First, there is a tax policy that effectively penalizes the middle class—those individuals earning enough to live comfortably with a little left over—while simultaneously handing massive breaks to corporations. Then there is the aggressive push for free trade, which has systematically outsourced middle-class jobs from the West to places like India and China. Furthermore, we are dealing with the fallout of mindless austerity measures that decimate domestic industries, alongside a relentless obsession with "competitiveness." Treating wage cuts and degraded working conditions as the Holy Grail of economic activity is a fallacy; such tactics will never foster a robust middle class.
Ultimately, we are left with a democracy where almost every political party dogmatically clings to the exact same neoliberal economic model, despite its proven failure and destructive nature. As long as we refuse to abandon neoliberalism, society—and the middle class that supports it—will continue its inevitable decline.
I still don't grasp why everyone is losing their minds over this proposal. I’m talking about having two or three different ways to sort posts. Right now, we only have a chronological feed. You can track a conversation that way, sure—but look at how messy it gets. George told Peter he was being an idiot, then Peter snapped back with a comment about his feet smelling, followed by Jane jumping in to reply to something buried ten pages ago, and then George ends up cursing out Peter again...
The glaring flaw in our current system is that there isn't a way to handle "esquelle-style" replies effectively. If you quote a lengthy post just to say, "I agree, this is great," you end up creating a massive wall of text that serves no purpose. Having better sorting options would be incredibly useful in the politics section, where discussions constantly drift off course or devolve into petty bickering about things completely unrelated to the original topic. For instance, on a thread about doctors leaving the US, you might get some guy under a handle like "Zionist USA" who stubbornly insists that doctors are somehow more important than any other profession. That has nothing to do with the actual topic. But because he’s being provocative, people lash out at him, he snaps back, and it becomes a cycle. All that nonsense isn't worth reading, yet when everything is sorted strictly by time, it clutters the thread and kills any meaningful debate.
If people like the chronological view, they can keep using it. However, some users would probably prefer to sort by upvotes or downvotes. We could simply add a "Sort" dropdown menu next to the "Time" option, featuring "Plus" and "Minus." Wouldn't that be progress? Just a simple sort menu and two small icons: a blue plus and a red minus.
Maybe it would help to illustrate this idea with a practical example. Imagine a political thread on a major news site. One group of people supports a specific policy, while another opposes it. After a few pages of compelling arguments being laid out on both sides, a flame war inevitably breaks out: people start hurling labels like "communist," "fascist," or just plain "idiot." The debate quickly devolves into endless cycles of "exactly" versus "not at all." At that point, there isn't much substance left to uncover. You might come across a brilliant post that you absolutely agree with, but it’s buried on page 17 of a 108-page thread. It’s impossible to find if you're scrolling through a discussion that has already exceeded 100 pages. You won't see the best insights. While a thread might have a poll, those are usually tied to the original topic, and we lack a way to gauge what readers actually think—whether they agree with Option A or B, or if they find certain arguments particularly persuasive. We could implement two simple buttons, a plus and a minus, to indicate agreement or disagreement. From there, we could easily generate "most liked" and "least liked" lists.
That is precisely what a "like" button—call it whatever you want—would accomplish by allowing users to sort posts by "quality" or "approval." Sorting should simply be an option; if someone wants to view 108 pages chronologically, they can certainly do that, but if they want to see the consensus based on votes, they can choose that instead.
Implementing these features would be straightforward, and it would naturally drive more engagement across the forum, as users would navigate back and forth to check different views. But the fundamental goal here is to elevate the quality of the discourse. Instead of cluttering the thread with repetitive comments like, "Yeah, Peter is right, I totally agree with his points, he said everything perfectly"—which most people won't bother to write anyway—we would have a streamlined +/- system.
Everyone here is jumping to conclusions and throwing insults without actually reading my post in its entirety; you are simply attacking your own misinterpretations of what I wrote.
nimbleharbor10 said:I’d like to propose a new feature for the platform. We should implement an upvote/downvote system—something like a "+1" button where users can indicate they like a post, agree with the sentiment, or simply think it's high-quality content.
Furthermore, we should allow users to sort posts within a thread by vote count rather than just chronologically. This could be an option when creating a thread or, ideally, a toggle available during browsing that everyone can adjust to their preference.
My reasoning is simple: this would ensure that insightful, high-value contributions rise to the top, while mindless bickering and off-topic tangents get pushed to the bottom where they belong.
Right now, we constantly deal with political threads that spiral into complete nonsense. You’ll start a discussion about Social Security, and suddenly people are screaming at each other about macroeconomics or partisan politics. It makes every single thread feel identical. It’s especially aggravating when you see two users just hurling insults at one another, posting nothing but "you're uneducated" or "only an idiot would think that." For those kinds of low-effort trolls, I’d suggest a "-1" mechanic designed to automatically sink their comments into a "trash" pile.
The secondary benefit of a +/- rating system is that it would significantly reduce the moderation workload, as the garbage content would naturally lose visibility and sink out of sight.
My suggestion has absolutely nothing to do with Facebook, Google Circles, or any similar social media platforms. It is quite simple: instead of quoting a post just to say "I agree" or "that's it," I should be able to just click a button.
nimbleharbor10 said:I’d like to propose a new feature for the platform. We should implement an upvote/downvote system—something like a "+1" button where users can indicate they like a post, agree with the sentiment, or simply think it's high-quality content.
Furthermore, we should allow users to sort posts within a thread by vote count rather than just chronologically. This could be an option when creating a thread or, ideally, a toggle available during browsing that everyone can adjust to their preference.
My reasoning is simple: this would ensure that insightful, high-value contributions rise to the top, while mindless bickering and off-topic tangents get pushed to the bottom where they belong.
Right now, we constantly deal with political threads that spiral into complete nonsense. You’ll start a discussion about Social Security, and suddenly people are screaming at each other about macroeconomics or partisan politics. It makes every single thread feel identical. It’s especially aggravating when you see two users just hurling insults at one another, posting nothing but "you're uneducated" or "only an idiot would think that." For those kinds of low-effort trolls, I’d suggest a "-1" mechanic designed to automatically sink their comments into a "trash" pile.
The secondary benefit of a +/- rating system is that it would significantly reduce the moderation workload, as the garbage content would naturally lose visibility and sink out of sight.
I explicitly stated that this would be an "option during viewing THAT EVERYONE CAN CHANGE FOR THEMSELVES." If you want to follow the flow of a conversation, you sort chronologically. If you want to see the "top" content, you sort by votes. Both chronological and qualitative sorting have their respective advantages and drawbacks. The fundamental flaw in our current system is that high-quality contributions buried at the bottom of a page or in the middle of a massive discussion become completely invisible, which leads to repetitive arguments and causes threads to die out whenever a heated political flame war breaks out between opposing factions.
I’d like to propose a new feature for the platform. We should implement an upvote/downvote system—something like a "+1" button where users can indicate they like a post, agree with the sentiment, or simply think it's high-quality content.
Furthermore, we should allow users to sort posts within a thread by vote count rather than just chronologically. This could be an option when creating a thread or, ideally, a toggle available during browsing that everyone can adjust to their preference.
My reasoning is simple: this would ensure that insightful, high-value contributions rise to the top, while mindless bickering and off-topic tangents get pushed to the bottom where they belong.
Right now, we constantly deal with political threads that spiral into complete nonsense. You’ll start a discussion about Social Security, and suddenly people are screaming at each other about macroeconomics or partisan politics. It makes every single thread feel identical. It’s especially aggravating when you see two users just hurling insults at one another, posting nothing but "you're uneducated" or "only an idiot would think that." For those kinds of low-effort trolls, I’d suggest a "-1" mechanic designed to automatically sink their comments into a "trash" pile.
The secondary benefit of a +/- rating system is that it would significantly reduce the moderation workload, as the garbage content would naturally lose visibility and sink out of sight.
Maui isn't exactly the epicenter of a wild nightlife scene either. You’ve got some mindless, repetitive beach club music playing on the sand, a fortress overlooking the town, and a downtown area that people describe as a "picturesque museum" or some such nonsense. Bam. Then, once you finally wrap up your night, you get hit with about sixty bells ringing from some central tower at 6:00 AM—because apparently, that's a perfectly reasonable time to wake someone up.
Regarding that 20-to-30-year-old demographic, I'm not sure which group we're actually targeting here. Are we aiming for the crowd where over half the people are unemployed, or the subset living on salaries under $1,100 a month? Honestly, it's one and the same...
James Lee77 As I have stated before, there is an undeniable reality to the situation that many refuse to acknowledge. It isn’t merely about a difference of opinion; it is about the fundamental facts of how these institutions function. One cannot simply ignore the structural flaws inherent in our current system and expect a different outcome. We see it playing out in every major decision made by the City Council, where the influence of special interests often outweighs the actual needs of the public. It is a pattern that repeats itself, regardless of which party holds the majority, yet people continue to act surprised when the results align perfectly with the established status quo. To suggest otherwise is to ignore the very mechanics of power that govern us. And besides, we really ought to take the front page into account as well. The New York Times On the day of the referendum. Honestly, it’s almost a shame the vote didn't pass, if only because I wanted to see exactly how they would have maneuvered around it. I have zero doubt they would have found a way to bypass it entirely.
When people start dragging both the Mount Rainier golf course controversy and the European Union debate into the same conversation, it’s worth pointing out a glaring logical contradiction in how these rules are being applied. If we were strictly following the regulations governing an EU referendum, that golf course on Mount Rainier wouldn't even be on the table. Conversely, if we were playing by the rules established for the Mount Rainier referendum, the EU issue wouldn't be part of the equation. This reveals a blatant institutional manipulation of the referendum process itself; there is a clear attempt to weaponize media pressure to steer the public toward whatever outcome the elites have already decided is most desirable.
You’re right that the rules were essentially rigged to serve the interests of the politicians, but at the end of the day, the reality remains: the voters didn't really step up to the plate. Instead of actually showing up and speaking their minds, they mostly just went along with the status quo or settled for doing nothing at all.
We ought to have a "No Way" party on the ballot—one that guarantees its members won't even show up to Congress, let alone cast a vote for anything. For those who feel the urge to cast a protest vote instead of just doodling Donald Duck on their ballot, they should vote for "No Way." By doing so, they effectively snatch a vote away from the rest of the field, ensuring the remaining parties are left fighting over a smaller majority of valid votes.