While you are technically correct in your definition of true democracy, the USA does have a functioning democracy in that voters can (and do) play a role in change of power (see 2008, 2016 and 2020). A true oligarchy gets power and doesn't release it. The USA has had many dramatic changes of power over the years negating your assertion of oligarchy.

While there are certainly some very rich politicians, the bigger problem is those "influencers" who use their money to get the politicians to do what they want. The problem with rich politicians if their self serving attitude in following their own "rich get richer" interests. The problem with poor politicians is that they are easy to "buy" in their quest to get richer.

I am pretty certain you won't find any "democracy" in the world with only "common worker" type politicians. Russia tried it in 1917 and look where that got them....China, Cuba, Venezuela all had so called revolutions that left them worse off.

There is no perfect system. The USA needs to find a formula to get the extremists (on both sides) out of the equation and things will settle down.

It's not about the odds when all cards are known. It is about the perceived odds knowing only what you are "supposed to know".

She was "supposed to know" only that she had nothing but a high Jack with a offsuit 4. Her best hand on the last card was a pair of jacks or a pair of fours.

She was not supposed to know that he had a possibility of a flush, straight flush, or whether he already had a pair, or even a jack or higher in his hand already which would beat her hand.

So she bet 100K before the last card was seen on the chance that he had 2 offsuit cards lower than tens, or the chance that she would see a jack or a four on the last card giving her a pair.

The 47% odds would only come into play if she already knew he had a seven and eight. Then she would know it is almost a 50/50 bet. Without knowing what he had she should have thought that her chance of winning with jack high were poor.

The cheating accusation stems primarily from whether she had some foreknowledge of his hand. Her last bet was not a bluff...it was a huge risk.

I suppose if money is no object you can take those risks. Or if she was confused and made an incorrect analysis of the situation thinking her odds were better (this is where my bet would be).

In any case, I agree with others that she should not have given any money back.

Ummm. No.

You really need to get an econ book and read it. The only banks that "create" money are the central banks of the various currencies. The money that banks lend out came from somewhere...could be "customers" deposits, could be investors (investment banks arrange these), but they managers of any given bank doesn't wake up in the morning and say "Hmmm I think I will give XYZ a 100million loan...write that up!" without already having the asset on their books from somewhere else.

Sorry, you are 100% wrong that with the statement: The money the bank loans out does not exist before the loan.

I think you are confusing used cars and new cars. You are correct vis-à-vis new cars... a car with 10 km on the odometer is much more valuable than a car with 100 km on the odometer.

But a used car is different. If a car is taken from a dealer with 10000 km and returned with 10100 km it doesn't lose 20% of its value and the dealer can still market it for the same price to some other sucker.

For used cars the grandparent's suggestion is excellent as long as there is some 'fee' attached to the return to prevent people from abusing it. Examples: arrive in a city go to a dealer and 'buy' a car and return it after a week's stay. Or alternatively, I go and 'buy' a used Ferrari and then do a 'no quibble' return after a week of fun.

This type of law probably has other unintended consequences which will ultimately make used cars more expensive if the laws are abused.

The used car dealers in the USA that I have dealt with also let you do "buyer's check" with your own mechanic, but that is normally "pre-sale" meaning you haven't committed to the purchase yet. These are not 'on-line', but I would think that 'on-line' sales (at least with a semi reputable dealer) would be similar. The trick is to only deal with reputable dealers, and read what you are committing to.

So TFA touts the ability to make 50cm circular wafers which can hold 25 exabytes. But it also says that there is an existing ability to create 4mm chips of pure diamond already. If I do the math their large wafers are about 125 times larger than the 4mm chips which implies to me that they should be able to create storage that are 125 times smaller.

If I divide 25 exabytes by 125 I get 200 petabytes. That is a pretty big flash drive, and a much more impressive story if someone could actually make one. Me thinks quantum storage is not quite ready for prime time either. See you in 25 years.

From what I have read, they want to 'sneak' up on the final velocity. They cannot decelerate if they exceed the intended velocity since that would entail turning the spacecraft around (apparently no reverse thrusters). They can't turn the spacecraft around since that would present the wrong side to the sun and cause unintended heating of components that must remain super cooled in order to detect the low infrared.

Their statement seems to indicate that they calculated fairly accurately what the thrust required would be for their velocity/trajectory and hence will not need planned contingency burns.

I find it cute that you call me naive, and then go on to state:

There have been arguments over what is and is not pornography for decades. Even the Supreme Court could not 'define' it. One man's 'art' is another man's 'pornography' and you will ALWAYS need someone to judge each individual item against the policy. In most case those judgments are NOT objective.

"no hate speech" is certainly easy to state, and for most 'normal' people a no brainer. I am pretty sure that all the socials already have a 'no hate speech' policy. If gab and parler would have had those policies (and enforced them), then they would not have been banned. But take a gander at gab, and you will see plenty of racist/nazi stuff brought into most any discussion (even as innocuous as 'smoked meats').

"no fomenting insurrections" is another no-brainer for most people. Did the Trumpster foment the Capitol Insurrection? I think so...others think not.

Your world is a bit too black and white. Gab was banned for all the nazi and kkk stuff that was not hard to find...if they stuck to "trump is great" they would not have had the trouble. If you go on Twitter or FB and state "trump is great" you won't get banned. If you go on Twitter or FB and state "the election was stolen and take your guns down to the Capitol and let those people know you mean it" you might get banned. And good riddance.

So I have not heard a a solution; force every platform to allow every form of content? What about porn? What about child abuse? Terrorists threatening to blow things up? School Shooters? Who would you have draw the line? Politicians? haha.

Porn has been banned from Youtube and Facebook, so I would think that you also support forcing them to allow porn on their platforms as free speech right next to the hate speech.

At the moment there are hundreds, if not thousands of platforms where sites can be hosted. If Gab was banned from all of them, then I believe it really was hundreds or even thousands of independent decisions that led to that result. If all the payment processors decided not to support them I believe they also independently made the decision, albeit probably one after the other. Did they 'pile on' with the thought process that "if they can ban them so can I?" Probably, I have no idea how you would legislate the prevention of 'piling on'.

My solution is to allow every platform the right to police their own content. What is your solution?

I would agree with you if we were in a regime where only a few entities largely control what can and cannot be effectively discussed.

Except we are nowhere near there. There are literally tens of thousands of sites to vent on. Are they as big as Facebook or Twitter or Youtube? no. Should we prevent Facebook and Twitter and Youtube from gobbling up competitors? yes. Should we force them to allow any lie that anyone wants to post? Only if they were the ONLY game in town which they are NOT.

We have anti trust laws to specifically address the issue of "few entities" and if we feel that there are anti-trust violations that allow them to abuse the market I would be all for splitting them up. But, as of today, I don't see that problem. I do see a problem with attempting to get school boards to toss ideas such as LGBTQ and CRT as they are publicly funded. These are topics of some interest to some segment of the population and no government entity (eg. schoolboard) should suppress them. You haven't even addressed that aspect where cohorts of the Republican party have passed laws trying to influence what can be taught in schools simply because they don't like those ideas. That's censorship in its purest form, and a bigger problem than the current social media companies.

I also agree that if there were only three companies that controlled all speech that gets broadcast it would be a problem. But I don't see that happening in the next 10 years. Go build a Q loving social network and start attracting adherents. Currently there is NOTHING stopping you except lack of interest.

I think you also don't know what "intellectually Bankrupt" means either; please look it up. You don't like my argument, so you call me Intellectually Bankrupt but that has nothing to do with it.

Regarding censorship, there is censorship everywhere you look. By preventing me from putting a sign in your yard you are censoring me. Your argument will be "put your sign in your own yard". Tell me I am wrong and I can put my sign up. If you are so against censorship what about all those school book bans that the Republicans are trying to get passed across the USA? What about all the bans on teaching Critical Race Theory? Do you think those are wrong? They are censorship!

I am not trying to justify censorship. You are free to spout lies and I won't ask for you to be arrested. But I also don't want to hear your lies and you should not be able to force me to hear them by demanding to have a megaphone that the owner of said megaphone doesn't want you to have.

Free speech is ONLY about government. First amendment is ONLY about government. If you want it the other way, then that bakery needs to supply the LGBTQ wedding cake. I am guessing you won't like it the other way where I can say what I want and force you to listen to it.

We have already made it so any idiot can say any lie they want. Go to parler and say what you want. But on my platform you abide by my rules.

The consequences of idiots with megaphones are dangerous as we have seen with the Capitol insurrection and with the AntiVaxxers who believe I am shedding Covid Particles. People died because of these idiots.

You are 100% correct. And the idiots had their echo chamber until they got dangerous.

The problem with Parler and others that got them booted was that their users created dangerous situations and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Idiots raided the Capitol partly because of what they heard on Parler. Parler users and their lies also have caused the AntiVaxxers to surge which is also dangerous. People have died because of their echo chamber.

Google/Apple didn't boot them because they didn't like what they said...they have been actually very tolerant. They got booted when things got dangerous and that is how a civil society should operate. Just like you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theatre, danger to others trumps your right to spout lies.

I know the argument is "who should judge when things are dangerous?". At this moment the private entities are well suited to do that. Sorry you can't have your wedding cake (as you legislated) and eat it too.

You clearly don't understand the First Amendment and its implication for free speech.

The link you posted refers to a government supported entity (University of California school system) which was denying students their speech. The key word here is 'government'.

Social Media platforms are NOT government. If you believe that these platforms must allow anybody to say anything they want, then you must also believe that I should be able to park a Biden sign in YOUR front yard and there is nothing you can do about it. I doubt you support my right to plant a sign in your front yard....just as you should NOT require that Social Media platforms allow any idiot to plant their misbegotten thoughts on their 'front yard'.

If the US government creates a Tax Payer supported social media platform then they indeed would be required to allow all speech. But I am not aware of ANY Taxpayer supported social media platform and as such, First Amendment rights do not apply to the existing Social Media platforms.

Indeed the Right Wing platforms are also engaged in keeping speech they don't like off their platform which is OK.

Bottom line is that as far as I can tell, the 'left' does support free speech. You can say what you want and I won't try to prevent you from saying it. Scream it from your front yard or from any public street corner. But I won't permit you to scream it from my front yard, you can't force me to listen to you, and if I own a private platform I don't need to allow you to speak on it....just like you can keep me off your front yard.

Not sure where you are located, but in my state banks can only force an auction on the courthouse steps. And they must bid the amount of their judgement.

If someone else bids more they get the property and the payment is split with the bank getting the judgement while the owner gets the remainder after all other lienholders are paid.

If the property is worth more than the liens the owner can get somethingout of it.

Pawnshops are different... It is all in the agreement, but I doubt you can get the property back before paying it off in full. Need to come up with the cash and hope the value is real...

I fear that if we continue this constant trend of attempting to remove bacteria from everything, humans will evolve to the point that one good bacterial infection will wipe is out.