The above is a reasonable point--there are certainly more costs to the transaction than a simple approve/deny decision, the load on the network, and the eventual settlement. How much those costs scale with the transaction amount is debatable, but they certainly exist.

On the other hand, your original argument about "all the other things credit cards do" (for the cardholder) remains ridiculous, especially the bit about the amount of credit extended to the customer. The average credit card interest rate right now is 27.89%. Suggesting the merchant has to kick in on the card holder's debt service, which is already at usurious rates, "because it helps them spend money at your store" is crazytown.

Given that the subject is fees paid by the merchant this is a ridiculous argument. Why would the amount of credit that the bank chooses to extend to you be something the merchant should pay for?

Yes, I understand that perfectly, which is why I said what I said. Here, let me repeat myself:

But the conclusion that the carjackers are there with or without firearms is a faulty one. All you "know" (and they didn't even know that) was that something that was stolen was in a given location, but the carjacker could have sold the airpods, given them away, discarded them (because they were aware of location data) and an innocent party picked them up and went home...

Going from "we believe stolen property is at the premises" to "there are firearms, ammunition, and accessories" is not a reasonable conclusion to make.

Twitter is no longer a public company. With that said, it really shouldn't matter. The idea that a public company needs to "censor more" because of "regulatory requirements" sounds like it should be a first amendment issue (at least in the US, YMMV for other jurisdictions).

That's non-sensical. The US Code consists of laws that have been passed by Congress. Congress cannot delegate powers that it does not possess.

Going out on a limb and saying you didn't hear a damned thing, or you're just plain lying. Here is the whole quote:

Sounds a lot less like what it's being portrayed as when it's not take out of context, doesn't it?

With all of the above said, fuck you for making me defend Darth Cheeto.

I agree that plastics are here to stay for many reasons, but the reasons you list above aren't them. We had frozen foods before we had plastic packaging. Fresh foods need not be in plastic (they even have plastic-like vegetable bags made from cellulose these days, but there is nothing wrong with brown paper bags), baked goods don't require plastic (light cardboard with or without a wax coating works fine), and as you point out, rice (and anything similar) can be sold in burlap bags, no plastic required. You can sell liquids in metal cans or glass bottles.

Shelf lives will be shorter (sometimes a lot shorter, sometimes only minimally), the product will probably not be as attractive while sitting on the shelf (no little plastic window means I can't see the donuts in the box I am buying, the horror), transportation costs may increase (glass is heavy), but the reasons "we can't" are all because "we do business a little differently now" and not because some fundamental property of plastic makes it so. If you're over, say, 40, it is not hard to remember a world not dominated by single use plastics.

That's a possibility. Luckily, there are a whole bunch of "blue" counties you can use as a control. How did drug de-criminalization do in e.g. Portland?

To provide context on this one: Darth Cheeto was talking about China's growing market share in the auto industry and warned that if Biden were elected to a second term it would result in a "bloodbath" for the domestic auto industry. The media reported this as "Trump warns that if he doesn't win, there will be a bloodbath" implying he was calling for insurrection.

We can debate "better' but requiring additional services, requiring the covering of pre-existing conditions, and requiring children to be allowed to remain on their parents plans long after they were "children" was not ever going to make healthcare cheaper.

Err... no. The entire point of Starlink is that it's not in a high orbit like e.g. Hughes is because high orbit = high latency.

Remember: under capitalism, man exploits man... but under communism, it's the other way around.

Likewise. I can never fully explain how frustrating it is to try to debate with someone whose argument essentially boils down to "nuh uh" or, worse, can't hold a civil conversation. I can respect people who disagree with me but are at least willing to talk, even if we'll never convince each other that we're correct.

Please forgive me, as I'm going to reorder your comments a bit to make them easier to respond to:

The Colt model 1911 was introduced in 1911. It's a .45ACP semi-automatic handgun with a 7 round magazine. The US military still uses them in some applications. It's designer, John Browning, had several predecessor designs before then, going back into the 1890s. His auto-5 shotgun is a semi-automatic shotgun that entered service in 1905, and his Browning Automatic Rifle, a fully automatic rifle with a 20 round magazine entered service in 1918. Hiram Maxim invented the machine gun in the 1880s. It's not really true that "their guns don't compare to our guns." They absolutely do. A BAR is far more dangerous than e.g. an AR-15.

The Glock 17's primary innovation was its polymer frame and striker firing mechanism (though these likely existed before then). If you're looking for "9mm handgun with lots of rounds in the magazine" you can go as far back as the 1890s with the Broomhandle Mauser.

Why so? What's the "correct" reading? How do you square that with "a well regulated militia?" The implication of said well regulated militia (e.g. a well trained, well equipped body of men that can be called upon for the common defense) is that their equipment would be substantially similar to the average infrantryman--automatic rifle, hand grenades, the whole shebang. At the time the 2nd amendment came around, people personally owned artillery, even armed ships. Personally! How then, can you say "well, no, the second amendment really doesn't contemplate the level of destruction that we can inflict today (WMDs not withstanding).

This is a fair question. I don't see anything wrong with semi-automatic weapons in civilian hands. You obviously disagree with this, and I can respect your position, but I don't see how you square that with the constitution. While I'm opposed to the objective, I certainly support your right to try to change the constitution and I respect people who choose to follow that route to gun control. We disagree, but we both respect the law.

Here's the rub: You can't go back. It's too late. The genie is already out of the bottle, and nothing you can do will change that--in fact, things can (and will) certainly grow even more complicated. 3D printing will continue to improve. How long until fully automatic weapons can be made completely on such an apparatus? Already they're churning out switch kits for semi automatic pistols to turn them into machine guns.

Even ignoring that, though, there are more guns than people in this country. If you banned them all today, and had a tremendously optimistic compliance rate (say 80%) there would still be something like 80,000,000 firearms remaining in circulation. It would take you decades, even centuries for them all to go away. All of them, in such a world, would be in the hands of people who, by definition, do not respect the law. I don't want to live in a world where "bad people" have a monopoly on force, and I am forced to submit to their whims or die.

That's just a rumor based on spinning the Windows 95 CD backward.