For 20 years, plus or minus, personal computers reversed that idea.

I gave all my Apple wealth away because wealth and power are not what I live for. I have a lot of fun and happiness. I funded a lot of important museums and arts groups in San Jose, the city of my birth, and they named a street after me for being good. I now speak publicly and have risen to the top. I have no idea how much I have but after speaking for 20 years it might be $10M plus a couple of homes. I never look for any type of tax dodge. I earn money from my labor and pay something like 55% combined tax on it. I am the happiest person ever. Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about Happiness, which is Smiles minus Frowns. I developed these philosophies when I was 18-20 years old and I never sold out.

What point are you trying to make here? Your defense of Trump is he's too stupid to do the Project 2025 things. Okay, great.

So he should be impeached because he's too stupid not to hire Project 2025 people.

Seriously, how does this idiot have a job? If you can't tell malice from incompetence -- then why does he get to be in charge of anything?

So no real changes then.

You can predict by Zip code people who end up in prison. It's where the police presence is, and where they treat crime SERIOUSLY.

It's a self reinforcing statistical pipeline from grade school to juvenile detention.

Third AI walks into the bar and is strutting, all proud of itself. Upon witnessing the AI bragging about job postings, and the other job applications, the third AI ask the human bartender for a double.

"What's got you so glum?" Ask the two AI.

"My job is to scrape job listings and applications to learn about human interactions and the employment market from humans."

Then they all get on social media and comment about how everything is fake now. Also, the current troubles in the stock market and US trade are going to build character. "Buy the dip!" They all posted. So that cheered them up again.

Having spent a few years in the past applying over and over again to jobs that looked great, but never seemed to be filled -- I can say that I am very happy the fake job market is getting a taste of the fake applicant flood.

It could not happen to a more deserving bunch for wasting millions of hours of people's time for data harvesting or some twisted tax break they were scamming. They all should have been fined and the class action money going to job seekers.

I agree. I'd actually rather the Chinese military be sucking up my data than a US corporation. They'd at least see that I have no influence in government or technology and put in the "not a target" category. Would they even bother selling the data?

But I'd also like to say; "Told you so" to all those people who gave me a hard time when I said; "Don't put too much trust in VPN." They are only pretending to not know it's you doing what you do. They will let you download a movie. They will let you order drugs.

But if you ever want to change the status quo -- they'll find you faster than Luigi.

Unless your VPN is open source and backed by some country that can stand up to another nation like the USA or China, then that company likely got visited by a person with a briefcase. And just like a Latin American leader, you can deal with them, or they will deal with your successor.

There are spy tools on routers, there are spy tools in VPN software. I don't know that for a fact, but I damn well know that those who want to know everything, would make sure.

The Wall-E movie was pretty disturbing to me. It's all the "implication" of what isn't said or pointed out. You know, SOME people made it off the planet. And they were reduced to useless puddles of consumption to keep them happy and sedated.

The writers knew what they were doing, and they threaded the needle to keep it a kids show.

And Idiocracy is a brightly colored adult version, but the jokes cover what a hell hole that world would be.

And these are all better than the path I see we are on as a nation.

Remember that study done with rats and cocaine? You have two waterbottles, one with cocaine in it. AND THAT IS IT.

So the rats take the cocaine laced water. And SEE; addiction!

Then someone else did the experiment with a rat playground. Good food. Things to play with. Tunnels to explore. Some nature. Maybe an Xbox. And guess what? Rats didn't get addicted to the cocaine water. I suppose they tasted it now and again for the rat party, but there was no self destructive addiction going on.

So, if I'm a rat stuck in an empty cage, or a homeless person in this God forsaken place we call a country, I think drug abuse would be the only thing keeping me from stepping off a bridge.

We don't have a drug problem, we have an empathy and common sense problem in this country. Give people no reason to live and complain about their bad choices -- how is that working out?

It's not a mystery to me; education gets in the way of education.

They are too much into being "educators" and not enough into helping kids have a good life.

As others have said; kids are in school all day long. Not playing. Not having sports. Less liberal arts. Suicide rates go up.

If people don't have a REASON TO LIVE, then performing in academics takes a back seat. The kids are on social media, seeing other people doing interesting things having wonderful lives and relationships. They go to school, and it's 18 minutes for lunch. Back to work! And then they go home and have homework.

They shuffle from one class to another. Testing, testing, testing. And you learn to study for a test. To do that mountain of "busywork" which I suppose prepares you for the labor market because they damn sure don't pay you to think most of the time.

We do not have IN DEPTH experiences. We are not fostering relationships. I'd rather have a lot of "screw off time" after school programs then one more course in STEM. Kids need to be kids around other kids in a supportive environment -- or, at least get books and adults out of their damn way and confiscate the electronics.

My eldest kid was lucky enough to have a wonderful experience in band and theater. That kept him positive.

My younger son got behind the curve and got remedial courses and could never pull himself out of the self-reinforcing "left behind" group. If you aren't in AP -- you are in the "left behind." It's demoralizing. He had some health issues that would have been nice to investigate, but all those resources go to tax breaks for someone like Mark Zuckerberg. There's no real help for anyone NOT performing perfectly.

But again; I'm shocked nobody took their own life. School was more dismal than I remember growing up. Their idea of "educational help" is a Study Skills class and adults talking slower. Sometimes it's the smart kids who have the hardest time with Educators.

The only plus side is that the shrinking group of those benefiting from kleptocracy are those learning experiences of "I liked fascism until I was the one on the outside looking in."

It couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of self dealing pricks.

Who here didn't immediately think; "Well, that sounds a bit young for someone working with DOGE, but, not so very shocking these days."

These little piggies always forget that thereâ(TM)s a marketplace. They want no constraints.

But if you donâ(TM)t have a set of rules for food and drugs. Then suddenly you canâ(TM)t sell to Europe. Everyone starts growing their own crops and heads to YouTube for home remedies.

Itâ(TM)s a libertarians wet dream but not really good for business when everyone loses faith in the commons.

If you keep spying and building database that end up on the dark web. Donâ(TM)t be shocked when people go back to an old IMac and set up a BBS with modems because they donâ(TM)t need your crap any more.

Reagan sold out to big oil, big banking and big war, and I suppose to Wall Street as well. So of course all of them would pressure their media outlets to sing Reaganâ(TM)s praises.

Other than that, Carter was introducing a bit of neoliberalism, but on balance, a far better President than anything weâ(TM)ve had since. Although Biden wasnâ(TM)t as bad as I thought he was going to be but the bar is low.

Maybe now one of the Carter family can say what âoereallyâ happened.

It wasnâ(TM)t just Iran/Contra. George Bush actively sabotaged the rescue efforts of Delta Force.

Of course that will be written off as a conspiracy theory. But letâ(TM)s run down all the proven evil deeds;
Ollie North helped run cocaine drops to fund corporate slaughters by mercenaries in Latin America. These operations also helped pay for weapons to be shipped to anti US religious extremists in Iran. Meanwhile, this same administration poisoned marijuana that killed a few people and ran those âoejust say noâ campaigns. But their cocaine was clean!

Theyâ(TM)d be rotting in prison if the lead witness didnâ(TM)t have sudden emergency brain surgery the day of the trial.

When you want to look back on the road to hell and how corrupt the USA got, Nixon-Reagan-Bush put down a lot of pavement.