"Economic Hardship" has jack-shit to do with most of the declining birthrate. Women have more money than ever. If being poor hurt the birthrate, the Third World would have ceased to exist centuries ago. Women choosing careers over marriage has far more to do with it. Those that are getting married are doing so much later in life, when their fertility is already declining, and having few children is a consequence of that. Why do you think IVF and egg-freezing are in such demand? Because women that waited until 30 to get married discover, often to their surprise, that their best chances of pregnancy are in the rear window.

Women were told that they could have it all, the best of both worlds: that they could live like men in their twenties, living the single sexual life and moving up their corporate ladder, and after they had their fun, then they could marry the man of their dreams and have their family. All in a neat package. Except nature doesn't work that way. The Biological Clock is a thing, women have a set number of eggs, and by thirty, they start heading downwards in terms of fertility. Late pregnancies have a greater chance of complications and birth defects. The peak year for fertility and healthy birth is, IIRC, age 24 on average for females.

That and the women in their 30's and 40's that you describe, while having their fun, are running up very high body counts....and when they are ready to "settle down"...the men that are in their 30's and 40's, largely are not interested in them...

They are interested more in the younger, more virile good looking women...either to just get laid, or if looking for marriage, to grab younger women before they get that high body count.

It also seems, that women that have high body counts, have difficulty pair boding with a mate as deeply and intimately as those that do not.

I supposed because, in general, the old standard that women almost by nature involve emotion with sex, while men can largely separate the two, and it doesn't seem to "ruin" them later down the line for marriage or pair bonding.

Do you think trans kids would have otherwise been pumping out babies, and that it would be a good thing for more kids to be having babies??!?!?

No, but instead go with the stats, that well over 95% of the kids that are "confused", grow out of it....so, let that happen as it does naturally, rather than give them irreversible drugs and surgeries that will fuck them out of sexual activity or enjoyment for life.

The lack of clear English isnâ(TM)t the frustrating thing with modern day customer "service". I have lived in non-English speaking locales and can roll with a language barrier. The problem is outsourced customer "service" ain't empowered to do a damn thing except read from a script and by the time I'm frustrated enough to make a call it's invariably for a problem too complicated to solve with a script. AI will not fix this problem. It will just leave you yelling at a disempowered computer rather than a disempowered human being. The solution to this problem would require the C-Suite thinking of customer service as SERVICE rather than a pointless expense to be minimized.

Hey, look on the bright side.

I might now be able to get a voice that speaks clear English I can understand when I dial in for support.

so there's gobs of extra capacity at night when air conditioners and electric ranges and clothes dryers are not running.

Not running the AC at night???

I dunno WTF you live, but here in the New Orleans area...my AC comes on early to mid April and really doesn't hardly shut off till mid November.

Night is when I REALLY crank the temperature down so I can sleep.

As the person who has been responsible for responding to law enforcement video requests and occasionally (three times) testifying as to that process and their authenticity, it's exceptionally rare (never personally seen it) for CCTV footage alone to convict someone. Most of the time it leads the police to a suspect, usually because someone they know recognized them (not for nothing that the police frequently publish these videos/images) and then the idiot convicts themselves by talking to the cops (pro-tip, never do this). Less frequently it leads to other witnesses and/or evidence that gets them convicted.

Most of the time it doesn't do a damn thing because the crime in question isn't worth the police resources to follow up on, even if you have something pretty damning, like a legible license plate.

If AI enhancement results in more arrests for crime, I'd wager it comes about largely through the police releasing the enhanced images to the media, with the suspect(s) then being outed by their friends/family. Cops go talk to the suspect, he's an idiot and thinks he can outsmart them, and ends up saying incriminating things. Same as today, it'll just be higher quality images on the local news.

And porn. I knew I saved all those early aughts videos for a reason. ;-)

This is some racist ass bullshit and the people modding it up should be ashamed of themselves.

If you want to condemn India for something, condemn them for copying the worst parts of American capitalism.

Tell me, how many Indians do you see here? I count zero. You might be able to claim one, if you discount the fact that Ms. Amuluru is a natural born US citizen, about as Indian as I am German, but whatever, even if you include her I doubt very much she was a decision maker when it came to the aggressive cost cutting -- err, I mean "optimization" -- that lead to this, this, or this.

I don't really think it's incumbent on me to prove to you that the perspectives of myself and others are valid.

That said, have you tried to find a non-astroturfed product review for literally anything these days? Have you not noticed how Google -- who used to have the philosophy of getting you off their page as quickly as possible -- has plastered search results with "panels", using data stolen, err, I mean "borrowed", from actual webpages, and frequently directing you to other Google products and services? The last bit is the straw that broke the anti-trust camel's back on both sides of the Atlantic.

That's just Search. If you've worked with G-Suite/Workspace, you're well aware of the anti-consumer changes they've made to that product over the years. If you've come to rely on any Google products as part of your personal or professional workflow, you've probably had the discomforting experience of having the rug pulled out from under you. Is it really a wonder how they managed to go from being hip, cool, and disruptive, to the focus of so much ire?

I weirdly prefer working with Microsoft, despite their countless flaws/problems, and that's saying a lot. If you had told me 10 years ago that I'd feel that way I would have laughed in your face and asked how high you were. Hell, I became an Apple user because of a multitude of negative experiences with Nexus phones, specifically, the complete lack of QA/QC Google maintained over that flagship product line. Dismiss this as an anecdote if you want, it's not, the Nexus 6P ended in a class action lawsuit, countless people had the same lousy experience I did. Android had me for nearly a decade. If you had told me at any point prior to October 2016 I'd end up an iPhone user, again, I'd have laughed in your face.

If the products still work for you, great, but don't discount the multitude of voices saying they're inferior to yesterday's products and deeply frustrating to use.

3) It will undoubtedly be used to push ads nobody except the MBA asshats asked for.

Biden is really concerned that high gas prices might hurt his reelection chances, even to the point that he's considering tapping the strategic petroleum reserve again.

I dunno if he actually can without draining it dangerously LOW.

I don't think that fuck refilled it fully from the last time he gamed its usage for temporarily lowering gas prices....even if using the whole full thing, it isn't enough to cause much more than a blip on prices for a week or so maybe?

No, the only mention in the Constitution of "citizens" is in reference to the qualifications to hold certain offices. It applies to everyone here, citizen or not.

If that is the case currently in practice, then someone needs to challenge this...up to SCOTUS if need be. I can't imagine the founders intended to promote the US protections, etc to anyone outside of the US or Non-Citizens....and with current SCOTUS leaning towards originalism....we might get this fixed.

We are our own country, we are NOT the fucking world.

No it's not. You're not wrong about Instagram and other platforms but even the Gen Z'ers who think those platforms == the Internet still use Google. With the possible exception of Reddit (always a toxic place and now that it's public it seems highly probable they'll add 'enshittification' to the toxicity) what platform can you use to find recipes, instructions to repair a broken appliance, swap a part on your car, reviews on some product you're looking for, experiences people have had with credit cards, airlines, etc.?

Google is still highly relevant, for better or worse, and the erosion of their core product is so commonly known that it has been covered by the MSM. Google Search is objectively less useful than it ever has been. Google (err, Alphabet) as a company lost its way a long time ago, probably around the time "Don't be evil" was removed, and it has been run by the same MBA asshats that ruined everything for at least the last decade if not longer.

A lot of this may also be coming from the rapidly dropping marriage rate.

More and more guys are seeing that legalities with marriage and modern feminists attitudes have made marriage something that is just NOT a good deal for them.

Young men today have everything to lose (fiscally and emotionally) with very little to gain by getting married and having kids today.

I see that a lot if not most of that is the US and greater western countries' legal system and attitudes against men and "masculinity" as the culprits in this trend (not discounting inflation and cost of living too)....

I think that's why you're seeing more of the "passport bros" trends of western men seeking out foreign women that have more traditional views on marriage and the male/female relationship.

But back on topic...less marriages...less diamonds to be purchased for wedding rings.

Courts may rule evidence is needed before "punishing" Tik Tok, otherwise could be considered unequal treatment.

I believe the "National Security" ban hammer still holds a lot of sway in instances like this.

TT is held closely by an enemy/antagonistic foreign country...giving them the ability to sway discourse and public sentiment via their algorithms.

This is a bit of new ground granted....

But, the US constitution protects the US and it's people, not hostile foreign countries.....right?