Humans, without a doubt the absolute worst living thing to inhabit the planet to date, are concerned about our future where we might not be in charge of things.

Based on our track record for the last few millennia, I would absolutely give AI a chance over our own species. Can it possibly do any worse ?

On the scoreboard, we're a failed experiment. Little wonder why life outside of this Solar System stays as far from us as they can.
Humans are planet-wide disease. Drop us onto a pristine planet and we'll absolutely fuck it up for you in a span of a few thousand years.

Look at where we stand today, potentially on the brink of a new World War.
Complete idiots in charge keep edging us to the brink of annihilation.
A small fraction of people hold the majority of the wealth. Homelessness and starvation are still a thing.
We still fight / kill each other over whose invisible entity in the sky is the " true " one. ( lol as if any are )
We dump chemicals, wipe out forests and are the only living thing on this planet actively polluting our own habitat out of ignorance or apathy.

Humans aren't worthy of the gift we live upon.

I would be happy to let AI be in charge for a while as it seems we've completely run out of sane and intelligent humans to do the job.

Instead of coming up with new ways to tax things, why not simply reign in the completely-out-of-control Government spending instead ?
We don't need new taxes. We need leadership who understands what a budget is and how our current way of doing things isn't sustainable.

Quit sending ridiculous amounts of money overseas to fund proxy wars, regime changes and other bullshit that could be better spent on
the domestic problems in the US instead. ( Pick one, or several. We seem to have a very long list of them at the moment )

Hell, if we quit trying to bribe / fund the rest of the World, we could probably cut our Federal Taxes in half and still have money left over to
make this Country something to be proud* of once again.

*Seriously. When was the last time this Country, its Government or a sub-branch thereof did ANYTHING that made you proud to live in
the United States vs the eye-rolling followed by a face-palm and utter embarassment of being American in 2024 ?

I have to go all the way back to the birth of the Shuttle Program myself :|

Because, apparently, I just don't have enough targeted advertising in my life.

Why do these people have to keep re-hashing, re-imagining existing stories and ideas ?

Did all the creative people die off or something ?

Things I don't want to see more of include:

Star Wars
Super Heros
Zombies
Terminators
Matrix / Simulation Theory ( we won't talk about the last installment . . . . . ugh )
The " One " or the " Chosen One "
John Wick
Children saving the World
Anything that has 3+ sequels to it

FFS come up with NEW stories and quit re-hashing the old ones.

While AT&T does take steps to keep folks from taking massive amounts of data
( Example: USB sticks and external hard drives are disabled on all Company desk
and laptops ) it is still possible to move it if you're dedicated enough.

Couple that with the fact that the Company has moved quite a bit of support / help
desk type jobs overseas ( India and the like ) where they can pay them pennies on
the dollar and you end up with a problem.

These folks have access to internal networks as network admins in some cases and
are being paid wages typical of the region. ( Not picking on just India here. Just pointing
out the dangers of paying folks so little when they have access to so much to save a dollar. )

Exactly how much money do you think it would take to get someone with access to give
you a treasure trove of whatever data they have access to ?

$100, $1000, $10k USD ?

" EV drivers generally stop and charge when doing something else like lunch "

Awesome.

How does that work when EVERYONE has an EV, there aren't enough chargers to go around and the
charge times are long ?

Hitting companies with fines that have a significant amount of bite to them would solve this problem.

Set the fine as a percentage of overall Company worth at the time of the infraction ( ~5% as an arbitrary number ) and
watch how quickly this behavior self corrects.

Today, that would equate to a ~$5B fine for Facebook. ( In addition to what investors would do to it afterwards )

If both companies mandated keyboard / mouse support for all games on their platform, they would likely get a significant chunk of PC gamers to make the switch. Bigger user base = more money for them so why it hasn't been considered yet is puzzling to me.

I'm surprised the Texas Bitcoin Industry hasn't been sued yet for driving up Electricity Costs by keeping demand artifically high.

My price / kWh has increased by 60% since the BitCoin folks arrived :|

Most merchants wouldn't push those savings to the end consumer.

You and I would still pay the same price and the seller would make a little extra $ on every transaction :|

This will get shot down by the Supreme Court on First Amendment grounds.

From the lower courts:

"The State has a legitimate goal in protecting children from sexually explicit material online, but that does not negate this Court’s burden to ensure that the laws passed in its pursuit comport with established First Amendment doctrine."

If you don't want your kiddos watching porn online, you should take steps to mitigate it.
( Or better yet, since you can't stop it, at least educate them on how unrealistic it really is )

This does, however, require one to be a parent and cease letting the internet be your
digital babysitter.

See title

Another quick reminder:

If the Federal Government would do their fucking job, the States wouldn't have to do anything to deter the millions of illegals pouring across the border.
( Most of the US could give a shit since it only impacts those in the Border States )

Since the Biden Adminstration seems unwilling to do anything about it, the States have to step up instead.

If this finally makes it to the Supreme Court, I'm pretty sure the Justices will all agree that immigration is the responsibility of the Federal Government.
They will, however, likely recognize the rights of the States to do what must be done should the Federal Government fail in their responsibilities.

So, this can go either way.

" The problems on the border should not bother Texas, most are G-d fearing Christians and consider themselves to be part of a Christian Nation. They should be welcoming them with open arms. Come on Gov. Abbot, are you a Christian or not? "

Texas understands that everything comes with a cost. Be it financial or resources.
( Sanctuary Cities are learning this the hard way with but a fraction of the total people the border States are dealing with )

Has nothing to do with being Christian or not. There are simply a finite amount of resources available to throw at the problem before you begin to degrade services and resources in place for legal citizens.

You simply don't put your citizens second by trying to accommodate half of South America showing up at the border demanding entry because the Federal Government is either too incompetent or unwilling to do their job.

" Because it's populist bullshit to use to win an election. "

Unless I'm mistaken, this is how an elected official stays an elected official.

Going against your constituents wishes, regardless of how silly those might be, is how you become an ex-elected official in a hurry.