Both Amazon and Walmart are extremely well known for treating their base level workers like utter shit. Just go shopping at any Walmart, the employees are fucking miserable. Now try Costco, a similiar company known for treating their employees well. Generally pretty happy employees.

Interesting you posted this.

I likely do 99% of my shopping and purchases from Amazon...I pay for Prime, I might as well get all I need delivered.

I spot check prices on things at other places....and for the most part I find what Amazon presents to me is on par of slightly less than the best I can find elsewhere.

That being said...my favorite brick and mortar store is Costco. I basically treat that like my grocery store of most all of my proteins, house needs and much of my veggies, etc.

I like to buy LARGE more primal cuts of beef (if you ask them they'll bring out stuff that haven't cut up yet, like a whole chuck roll, etc)...and carve/separate them out myself.

There's tons of YouTube videos on this.

I have my own vac sealer and can vac seal lots of this meat...especially when I buy a whole NY strip roast...I cut it myself into 1.5" steaks and seal them up. (YUM).

I have a nice offset smoker...I like to cure and make my own bacon from whole pork bellies....grind and stuff my own sausages, etc...

And hell, at Costco..I buy a bag of lemons or limes...and even if I don't use all of them and have to toss the last few, it's STILL cheaper than buying small bags at the local grocery store.

I usually only hit the local grocery store for the few small things I can't get at Costco or really nice specials, but not that much really.

All that being said, I do find, for the most part...that Costco employees seem much happier.

I haven't set foot in a Wally-mart in ages. I can probably count how many times I've been in one on one hand in the last decade. Their meat and veggies suck from what I've seen in the ones with grocery stores...and well, I just don't care for the shopping experience there.

I guess some do.

Now...of course with all that being said, I just saw one of our local grocery stores had choice grade, whole briskets on sale for $2.99/lb.

While I remember not that long ago sales were $0.99/lb...but those days are long gone.

I'm loading up the deep freezer with these for smoking whole and grinding into yummy burger meat.

But back to the Costco thing....do the people that push the 15. minutes cities, and public transportation not have an Costco to enjoy?

Hell I have trouble stuffing my stuff into a 2-seater car, but thank God for playing Tetris to learn how to stuff a bunch into a small space.

But I can't imagine not having your own car to go shopping like I do...

I think I'm hungry and rambling now....?

The dollars may not leave the country, though I'd question that assumption. But the dollars absolutely *WILL* be used to remove jobs from the market. That's the big push for AI, and the big money is all about making things "more efficient." Efficiency = less people doing more work. Not to mention, if it works like every other government handout program, the funding will mostly end up going to C suite bonuses, while they continue to lay off massive numbers of people or attempt to come up with ways to lay off *ALL* the people.

I'd like to see tax dollars spent on things that will make a positive impact on the whole of society, not just the tippity top of the oligarch day-dream sect while beating the rest of us into oblivion. If you see handing 32 billion dollars to the tech bros as a big positive for society, I'm afraid we're living in two very different worlds.

My best guess would be, this AI funding would be for Govt. use for the most part.

Those type jobs pretty much require US companies to work on them (often by law), and if there is any type security concerns about them, you can pretty much count on US citizens being hired to do the actual work.

And that's not even considering any initiatives which are defense related...I was just talking about regular Federal systems....and likely put into the State level too for the US.

As for AI replacing jobs in the US (and world) markets...yup, I can definitely see that coming, but that's most likely a future we cannot avoid.

Much like the auto doomed the buggy whip makers....jobs today will be replaced.

But historically, it such events brought up other markets and jobs, often to support the new tech.

I dunno what the future will be...but it is inevitable, and getting ahead of the game is not necessarily a bad thing IMHO.

I've only dabbled with the AI offerings to the public and it's pretty amazing what it can do.

As a youngster watching Star Trek (yep, I'm that old)....I dreamed of a "Universal Translator" and I've seen the latest ChatGPT4o do just that in real time.

That's only scratching the surface.

I would like to see the govt look at some monopolistic actions against some of the mega-corps....I do believe they need to be reigned in a bit, but tearing apart everyone that is rich, I don't see that as a positive thing.

I don't see the situation as being nearly so inflammatory as you do with the "oligarch" speak.

But to date...humans have proven to be quite resilient.....I have faith that our societies will evolve with this.

Although I am a bit concerned about some pain that will hit due to how the past couple generations have been raised and the severe lack of basic education of many of the youth today that will bear the brunt of all of this.

It's gonna be a tough few years for some of them.

We can't do anything to help the average citizen.

What are you talking about?

This money will go to fund jobs to US citizens and companies....

This type stuff is actually tax dollars that don't readily leave the country.

This $32 billion doesn't even include their recommendation for defense related AI R&D. Anything defense related would probably have a much larger slush fund.

Hey, at least it keeps it US jobs tho....eh?

Anything that level is NOT going to be allowed work on by foreign companies/interests....and pretty much limited to actual US citizens.

So, at least those tax dollars are coming back to help actual US folks in the various states.

No, the algorithm is not in charge of what gets posted. They have some safeguards in place to deny things from getting posted (well, really to handle them after they are posted) but the users decide what is posted. Hell, even if you want to claim they can shadowban people, they can still post things, they are just harder to find. Something being promoted is entirely different than something being posted.

It is the stuff being suppressed, shadow banned, and outright removed that is the problem....and why they should lose 230 protection.

They are actively (through algorithms and by hand) editorializing as to what is seen and offered to their user....and that makes them more a publisher, than a public square.....if they are going to editorialize, then let them be responsible for what is published....but hands off and they get the 230 protections.

Why are you against freer speech?

Surely you don't think any legal speech should be squashed by the govt or our corporate overlords, do you?

Chronological order is an algorithm too, along with *any* method you use to present things. So... yeah, your argument is literally nonsense.

Please see my reply to your other post that was basically this same exact comment....

TY

promoted means something different to published though I think, it's more active

Both promoted/published require active action by the corporation/company to move what information they want out in front of "eyes" and suppress information they do not want seen.

With online content, it's promoted...in written/printed form...same thing, but its term is published.

This is in general....sure you can "publish" things online...but we're just playing with semantics and synonyms for the same thoughts and actions here.

So you want government intervention on social media algorithms?

We already do...the govt is giving 230 protection where it should not.

It needs to go back and set it to where you get 230 if you as a company do not use algorithms to push or suppression content, do not push content to people, but let them select.

Basically to get the corporate "thumb" off the scales of information flow...

Otherwise, they can still do it....they just don't get 230 protections since they are not publishers and editorializing......which is what they are currently doing.

Hey, you do know that "Chronological order" is an algorithm right? Any method of presenting *things* is going to require an algorithm. Always.

ok....but you know what I'm talking about when I say social media companies' "algorithms".

I'm sure we could come up with some wording that would work...and allow simple things like "order by date posted"...etc.

Perhaps only allow controls on the screen that allow the USER to decide how to sort, what to see, etc?

The main problem, is the social media provider, using complex algorithms, pushing content to people, suppressing some and enhancing others, often based on the political bent of the top leadership of the company.

I'm guessing we could come up with some legal speak to properly regulate this....good way, you keep 230 protections, bad way....no 230 protections for you.

In the end, this turns all the online forums more into the "public square" that the founders had the concept of in the early days of the US, a place where all could speak freely....

Private corporate censorship is right up there with govt censorship, except the govt has guns and can take your freedom away....corporate is just a bit less than that, but not much considering how much control the have on the flow of information.

I had no idea that Apple buillds and sells Android tablets - Who knew?

Canadian checking in, eh?

Oh? Really? You had your house DoD certified and underwent the yearly inspections? What kind of safe did you have? What room of your house was cleared for classified work?

I knew of exactly 1 person who worked on Classified Data from home. His work area was handled as a SCIF, and he had to follow all of the rules that we did at work.

Point is, if I knew your name, I'd be on the horn to the FBI. I suspect they would be really interested in taking a look at you.

Do you think? My stated point was that only a subset of workers have employment that they can only work from home. I don't think that is misrepresenting anything

And that is your specific work case. My specific work case at present is half home, half workplace presence.

The job I retired from was research, and no work could be done at home. It was often dangerous - as experiments will be, required travel, and was sometimes of a sensitive nature.

Another sub point I was making is how they measured that the top tier of Tech workers demand to work from home, and have left And how these senior difficult to replace employees are now all working from home.

Interestingly - how is Spacex going to build and test Rockets from home, and how is the classified work they do being done from their best employees from home?

And my final point is - Give me the numbers of where all of this top talent that will not work anyplace other than their homes - where are they employed now? Seems for all the numbers they have given that are essentially saying that the companies are left with bad employees, that should show those numbers of where the best employees ever went. A cadre of elites, working from home (or Starbucks) and taking the world to a new level of excellence. Yeah, sarcasm.

Differential analysis - Since we don't have the data of where they went - it is not unreasonable to think that many or most of these top level senior employees simply retired.

In an interesting twist, in my previous work as a top level senior person, I retired when I was transferred to a different group, under the supervision of a person I did not care for.

Facebook does not choose what users post,

No..the algorithms DO.

And FB is in charge of the algorithms...hence they have their thumb on the scales, determining what gets seen or promoted and what doesn't....

Opinionated Moderation was specifically the goal. What we have, was the goal.

If that were the case, then...that needs to be changed.

It should read more like the OP in this thread was describing.