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Joined 3 months ago
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Cake day: September 15th, 2024

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  • Assuming you’re a US citzen:

    1. Identiy that the fault is how we fund healthcare, not “government meddling” or “bad researchers”.
    2. Pick a major political party.
    3. Register as a member and find out where your local meetings are.
    4. Make clear that the ONLY issue you care about is fixing healthcare.
    5. Volunteer, donate, or run if you can.
    6. Vote in every general, primary, or special election for whomever makes fixing healthcare a priority. Spoil if you must, but VOTE.
    7. Dont fall for lies.

    Fixing healthcare funding is itself broadly popular, but since its inherently unprofitable to care for sick, disabled, or elderly people all possible fixes are either “socialism” or “die quickly”

    Healthcare should be like roads or schools or calling the police, not like cars or contractors or hiring a lawyer.


  • For actual fast food - - that you can order in a drive-thru and not have to wait around for - - the best around here is honestly Wendy’s. They’re not anything id pay $20 each for, but their average burger is better than their just-as-fast competition.

    If by “fast” you really mean “without waitstaff”, they’re all great. 5 guys, smashburger, fuddruckers", and a dozen tiny chains all make burgers worth paying a premium for.

    About the only place NOT worth getting a burger at is anyplace with waitstaff. They just dont take them seriously enough to do a good job, and wind uo about as good as a slightly well-run McDonald’s.

    (*: i think this one went out of business.)


  • Social media servers cost money. There are only three options.

    1: (Lemmy, bsky now) - someone runs it for their own private reasons and users bemefit as side effect or charity.

    2: (Twitter, facebook, reddit) - someone runs it as marketing, and sells user eyeballs or data.

    3: (some MMOs, bsky future) - someone runs it and sells users things to keep it running.

    Baky says they want to keep the current experience free, and are contemplating a freemium add-on subscription. Maybe they’ll stick to this and maybe they wont, but “they sell subs” isnt guaranteed enshittification they way that an IPO and ads are.



  • Thats not really what happens, unless you’re so toxic that old-twitter would actually ban you.

    Bsky has a “nuclear block”, that essentially removes you and the target from even existing on the version of the site each other see. If you’re ok with just talking to folk who are on your side of a “no, shutup” line, like “trans women are women” or “trans is a mental disorder” you’ll be fine.

    The issue is that a bunch of folk who abscribe to the second apparently just want to troll the first, so they get blocked by their targets, have no fun, and then complain to reporters still on twitter.


  • Nbcnews linked to a report by the college board, that look like it tracls the relative cost of college all the way back to 1994 - - ten years after Regan’s fuckery, and at least 20 yeara too short to show a real drop. And the drop they show is over only about 4 years.

    Today’s students were raised by a generation who lived through crippling debt, and see no reason not to expect tuition to skyrocket over the nexr few years.

    Not to mention “tuition and fees” ignores the absurd cost of housing.


  • What’s your alternative?

    Do you have a ready-built national organization that can be successfully co-opted to supplant the DNC i dont know about?

    DNC isnt just a sunk cost, its an established civic investment. Unless you think the whole system is going to collapse overnight, a takeover of an existing party is the quickest way to get real change. And if the DNC is rotten and needs to go, we can best do that from the inside.

    Every “third party” either merges into a major party or devolves into a vanity party, because the only positions that matter electorally in a winner-take-all system are “i suooort the current person” or “i want them out of office.”







  • There isnt a debate.

    One of the major parties in the USA knows that they are able to get power only because the 1929 Apportionment act artificially buouys the power of less populous states in the House and by extension the electoral college. The other one is just fine with actual proportional representation.

    Not t metion that the EC doesn’t encourage presidential candidates to campaign nationwide: most states are ignored, and focus is on the minority of swing states.

    (and Lincoln had a clear plurality of the popular vote. He woukd have won a national vote too.)