Regardless of whether its the west coast or the east coast thats to blame for this mess, the reality is;- its a fucken mess.

And yes, theres a particular cohort of SF zillionares, Musk, Thiel, that weird psycho who loves to rant about killing people at Palantir, Zuck, Larry Elison, and the Nvidia dude, who are very clearly of the opinion that there is no cost too high, including the errosion of civil liberties, democracy, and public sanity to achieve AI supremacy while the rest of us are left wondering "Who actually gives a shit if China gets there first? Is it worth burning down the planet and causing massive poverty to avoid that?!"

Theres a simple way to clean this shit up that would end this kind of thing overnight.

Put Meta financially on the hook for these scams. If facebook convinces some poor old lady with low tech literacy to hand over her retirement fund, then facebook should be on the hook to repay her. Facebook then can, at their own leisure, chase the scammer down to pay them back, but facebook must be held accountable.

Do that, and those scam ads end overnight.

also it's extra surprising to the android that runs Meta because he can't comprehend why people would prefer to meet face to face instead of in the Metaverse

Interesting thought: do you think New York's new government-run grocery stores will let people just walk out without paying?

Because I don't live in SF and have no desire to go there?

But it's obviously just more fake security if all a shoplifter needs to do is get someone's receipt to walk out of the store past the guard.

So shoplifters just have to get hold of one old receipt and they're good?

The whole point of these "age limits" is to force people to accept digital ID. This is why we're seeing a coordinated push all over the world.

Sorry but from an outside perspective that just sounds nuts. So let's take your 'worst case' - $129M overall cost making it $434 per entry - you're saying there are only 297,235 (129M / 434) tax payers in the US? A quick search from me shows the number of filings to be at 145M+. If everyone could file for free, that $129M would be 88c per person.

And I'm speaking from experience. I'm in the UK. I've recently filed my annual self-assessment tax. I used the free service on the UK government web site and the thing that took the longest was working out how much to put as charity donation. Whole thing done in less than an hour and a half.

I seriously cannot comprehend the approach where you have to pay to be able to pay someone. It's...well...it's nuts.

You need to fill it out because by doing so you're authorizing the government to take your money. Otherwise they're literally just stealing it.

> Yes, those religions do have some empathy in their philosophy, and it is the first thing to go when they feel threatened or if they find something of someone else's that they like more than what they have.

Empathy means the ability to see the world from someone else's point of view. It does not mean "giving your country to foreigners."

Empathy tends to lead to inqusitions, pogroms and wars because empathic people can understand the point of view of others and don't imagine that those people are "all the same under the skin." Then they realize they don't like those people much and want them gone.

The left love talking about empathy, but have none. If they did, they wouldn't be the left.

With a president who solves an existential threat by finding the best expert he can find, and using his own formidable political skills and charisma to run interference for that expert.

Seriously, Comacho was a meathead, but Iâ(TM)d vote for him.

Sir, you are infringing on my trademark of Micro Softwad.

Sorry, but the only person here with Stockholm's Syndrome is you. You are held hostage to your failed beliefs that communism and socialism are the only way forward when history has shown that they simply lead to authoritarianism.

Well they sure as hell aren't when we get so intellectually lazy we dub anything to the right of ghengis khan "COMMUNISM".

Is Keynsianism too "communist" for you? Theres a solid and battle tested set of principles that build wealth while protecting the little guys.

If it is, then maybe just follow Adam Smiths advice and regulate capitalism in the interest of the common man. Is Adam Smith too communist for you?

What IS your baseline here beyond vapid libertarian-ish slogans?