I can only speak from my viewpoint in Eugene, Oregon area, but two of the three you name are each the third most expensive in their respective areas.

Half the stores in the area were closed in the Kroger/Albersons/Safeway merger. There is now no competition between them in any neighborhood. You get one or the other.

ATT owns all communication infrastructure in Oregon (going back to the Ma Bell break-up and the acquisition of some Internet backbone), they license to Verizon, who sell licenses to anyone else. T-Mobile has a nice pre-pay plan, but their regular service wasn't cheaper, you just got a better free phone.

There is one tower where I live, it belongs to Verizon. There is one cable company (under many names, but all are equal to Comcast, who leases hanging wire space from ATT, or WiFi/Satellite from Verizon) and it's not cheap.

And before someone tries to blame the big corps here, Oregon as a State issues all these exclusive licenses, and is 95 percent Democrat and has been since 1982.

Mergers are never for the consumer.

Unless they own stock.

I think this is an example of something that I see far too often and which took me years to realize was even a thing: a person reading a question and interpreting it as some kind of attack or implication. It's exhausting.

This caught my eye so I looked it up. Here is a quote I found in relation to your claim: "Intense at the Top: Venus is closer to the Sun and receives intense solar energy, especially ultraviolet (UV) radiation, at its cloud tops."

Explain your position here please.

Interesting. No thoughts at all on whether or not the elections are legitimate. I wonder why that is Mr. Anonymous Coward...

I fixed electronics for Naval Aviation. Without schematics and access to parts, a naval ship with planes/helicopters would be useless about 2 months into a deployment. During my last deployment, we had to do without our Harrier jets because of nonsense like this. I was able to perform depot level maintenance on most of the electronics which allowed most of our birds to continue flying. This law will entirely cripple the US military. The US military does not just sit at home next a depot level maintenance facility.

Everyone loses World War 3 bro. EVERYONE.

Ask Andrew Jackson about ignoring the Supreme Court sometime. Go ahead, read about it, and see if the moron known as rsilvergun has a point or not.

I was nodding along with the thrust of your comments until I hit this gem that I quoted. Civilians are being shot by police all the time. Sometimes, there are repercussions, most of the time, there is not. ICE agents have not been prosecuted even once and are completely above the law. Anything they do can not be reviewed.

I am guessing none of them have ever had to repair equipment a thousand miles from home in a combat zone. Well, at least the companies are getting wealthier... unfortunately, they will not be able to protect that wealth as the military will fall flat on its face if it can't do field repairs. The USA was nice while it lasted, but it can not last much longer at this rate. I wonder who will buy us or if Israel will use the blackmail it has on all of our leaders to just keep us as a puppet state. Or maybe we will become a vassal of Russia. Who knows for sure?

Do they? Government does need to provide infrastructure and a coherent ruleset that we can ALL abide by, but does it REALLY need to control the social affairs of its citizens? If so, why? Make sure to include how it affects/effects the concept of Freedom... or is Freedom an antiquated concept and we should all sacrifice our individuality for the Greater Good?

LOL, one of the kids in the peer group will figure a way around the ban and then share it with their peer group... and now, it will be impossible for the parents to monitor it. You clearly didn't think this through... but authoritarians never think things through. They assume that what they say is true and real, but, reality is far more complex than they give it credit for, so they, and you, are blind.

If I understand your argument correctly, what you are saying is that since Meta already thinks it knows everything about you, then you should be forced to validate that information?

I would be fascinated to see a study showing that education does NOT help people to be avoid being manipulated. I mean, if you tell someone about a trick that you are about to perform on them, do you REALLY think they would then fall for the trick after being informed? Is that REALLY your thesis here? What the fuck is wrong with you?

Sure. But the suggestion here is that they were specifically inviting it, ostensibly because it would harm competitors.

They are not going to support the idea that "glyphosate causes cancer" for some short-term market advantage.

It is kind of hilarious that the person you are speaking with seems to think all of that shit is being taught in K12 education. "They are putting kitty litter boxes in the classrooms!". Sure bro.

Except nobody cares about the children. That is the false flag that this was enacted under. They want YOUR information, your identification. They will use AI to go through all of your history and come to a determination of whether or not you are a "good" citizen. If so, life continues, if not, you will find yourself getting queried deeply at every traffic stop, find it difficult to get paperwork through the government, and possibly carted off to a 'camp'. But yeah, keep arguing about whether or not children should have access to social media.

Uh, *stop* spending on AI IS "just not spending *more* right now".

That's the entire point. To stop doing something is to not do it "right now". Lol. You will twist your mind around anything, it appears!