93% of the recent protests were peaceful. Of that 7% it was almost entirely counter protestors. Google "autozone window guy", or look up who started those fires at the 2 police stations (hint, it was right wing provocateurs). I guess there was that one girl who got run over at the "Unite the Right" protest, but while terrible that was one murder. I don't think even they turned over any cars.

That's protests. There were some minor riots and burned cars after the last super bowl, if that's what you mean. But those are football hooligans (or Soccer if you're a Yank like me).

I mean, if you're on the left wing you need to keep it *very* buttoned up. For one thing cops are 3 times more likely to use violence against you and for another the Supreme Court just shut down pretty much all left wing protests since if literally *anything* goes south the organizes can be held liable, even if it's just some rando counter protestor causing trouble... which of course they will now.

This isn't about viewpoints. One side is about objective reality and the other side isn't. it's up to you to pick a side.

USDC has missed it "peg" (e.g. it's dropped to a value of below a dollar) more than once, and there's a *lot* of evidence that it's been off it's peg for ages and that market manipulation is hiding it (google it).

It's primarily used to get real money (e.g. fiat currency) into and out of the crypto markets.

We learned from a recent story that minting $1m in crypto costs around $3.5m. We all know what's making crypto run these days is crime of one form or another. Money laundering mostly.

That's all well and good, but integrating that into our main line economy is eventually going to cause a massive crash that'll hit us all. If we let that happen it'll make 2008 look like the .com boom days.

Instead of a cooperative one then or gradually going to see profit go away as an important metric. That's because we're going to gradually become a kind of neo feudal civilization with a very very tiny handful of kings and queens at the top (socially we will probably still call them CEOs or just company owners) a tiny handful of people who serve and protect them and then a massive number of people living in staggeringly abject poverty.

You're kind of assuming that everything is going to stay the way it is socially because it's really hard to think of those kind of massive social changes to completely remake the fabric of our civilization. But with the huge automation pushes going on and more and more and more consolidation every year into the hands of a smaller group of people at some point they're just going to take their ball and go home and they're going to have ai-powered drones and robots that will gun anyone down who tries to fuck with them.

Again this all assumes we stay on the course we're on right to the moment. There are plenty of people who can see this coming and are trying to do something about it. And younger voters are smart enough to know it's coming. It's just a question of whether or not the major world powers are going to be democracies long enough. The older generation is hell-bent on giving up democracy for a variety of stupid reasons and if democracy goes we lose that fight and we become a Neo feudal dystopia.

There are. Practically everything on the market is verifiably better than coal, including nuclear and natural gas.

As this would amout to cutting people off from their ability to make phone calls, and the people aren't at fault in this case, this will not happen. And no, leaving emergency numbers available is not sufficient, because people might have to call their relatives, their lawyers, their physicians or other. non-emergency-numbered contacts.

Is it just price? The iPhone SE is around $400, but that seems pretty stiff. I know my kid's locked into Apple for their messaging app because it's like a little social network with their friends. And I know if you go as far back as high school being a kid with the "green" chat bubble was bad news. The equivalent to wearing cheap cloths and handmedowns when I was a kid.

Hell, at one point my kid wanted one of the fancy Samsung phones but the messaging app kept them on Apple. Samsung briefly made their phones as desirable as iPhones but that just didn't last, and nobody seems to be able to stand out.

For two reasons. The first and obvious one is nukes make it impossible to just invade a country that has them.

But the bigger one is that multinational corporations owned by global ruling elites who do not think of themselves as citizens of a specific country own factories and property in every country of the world. They are not going to let you have a big nasty war that blows up their stuff.

You can blow up as many houses and hospitals and schools as you want over in Palestine because those are poor people and it's basically an open-air prison. Nobody's really making any money off that the speak of. It's just a wedge used by a variety of people in the Middle East to jockey for power where the actual wealth is.

But go take India and Pakistan. Years ago Pakistan looked the other way while several terrorists attacked India's capital. It's the kind of thing that should have sparked a war between the two but the corporation stepped in and said no. They didn't want to lose their cheap Indian labor.

So if you're counting on a world War to save humanity in some kind of weird way no you're not going to get that. The only way out of this is the one way all us old farts hate the most. We need to change from a competitive society to a cooperative one.

And that is fucking hard because nothing is pounded into your skull harder when you're a kid than the idea that competition is the best thing in the world. Every fucking movie I grew up with was about that in one form or another and about how it made everything better. Hell even just mentioning that we should be transitioning to a coperatives society is probably going to get this post modded into Oblivion because it's such a boring alien and frightening concept

Or even abuse it seems.

That's the exact opposite of how it actually works. Fertility rates tend to be highest among socioeconomically challenged groups, and lowest among high earning groups.

but nothing they want matters. They're right wing. The core of the right wing isn't libertarianism, that's a left wing thing. The core is obedience

The right wing grew out of the French monarchy (and monarchists in general). The word literally comes from monarchists sitting in the right wing of the French assembly.

The idea is there's a strict hierarchy. You've got some people at the top and some at the bottom. In exchange for obeying the guy above you the guy below you has to obey *you*. That's the deal, and that's what makes it so appealing to certain people. They get respect, even if they haven't earned it.

Ever see a video of some short pasty looking white dude in his 50s getting into a fight with a young, tall muscular black guy and wonder "what the hell is that idiot thinking? He's about to get clobbered!" and then have a good laugh when he does? That's the right wing in action. 30 years ago that black guy was lower on the totem pole and would've had to back down, show _respect_.

That's what the Neanderthal misanthropes are pining for. They want to be able to walk up to somebody half a head bigger then them and tell them what to do and they do it. They want to strut down the road and have those guys get out of the way.

Sure, they've got to do the same thing when somebody higher up than them throws their weight around. But they convince themselves it's for the best because of prosperity gospel or some such nonsense.

It's irrational nonsense but it feels pretty good, and all it costs is your self respect and your economic prosperity and your kid's futures.

even Denmark with their much higher standard of living have dropping birthrates. Buddy of mine wanted more kids. He's Asian and unabashedly admitted it was his retirement plan. Wife vetoed it because she's the one that has to squeeze them out, and she's had it with two. A lot stop at one.

Women with other options in life won't just keep cranking baby after baby. Most physically can't. 2 or 3 is usually the limit, especially with modern babies where the mother is carefully monitored and has her nutritional needs met. They come out huge and more often than not need a cesarean. That's some pretty big surgery to go through for yet another kid.

Oh, and we just criminalized abortion in about 1/2 the country, so expect rates to keep dropping. Sure, we could criminalize birth control and force women into marriage, but short of that you're gonna have a lot more women unwilling to take the risk. Especially on a 2nd or 3rd child. Word will get around what happens if your have complications...

Not that economics isn't a factor, but social issues are just as if not more a factor.

because we're not in a world war right now. Go read up on the 1st two industrial revolutions. College level history books, not high school level. There was _decades_ of social strife and mass unemployment until wars killed a large number of working age men and new tech made new jobs.

And yeah, we don't have widespread technological unemployment right now, but we *do* have massive technological underemployment.

Face it, we have a large scale social problem going on, with the worst of it about to hit and hit hard. Now is not the time to stick our heads in the sand ostrich style.

They say they want more legal immigration, but then close down all the legal routes.

For example, there is a greater than 20 year waiting list for applications for family reunion visas for people in Mexico. For most practical purpose, there is no legal option. Same thing in the UK, the government bangs on about wanting safe and legal routes for refugees, but there aren't any. It's literally impossible for them to even apply for asylum without first illegally entering the country.

I don't buy that they even want people with skills either, not really. Again, in the UK they now can't bring their families. Who is going to come and work in the UK, probably doing some job that British citizens don't want like caring for the elderly, if they have to leave their family behind and there is no prospect of ever reuniting with them if they end up staying here? The message is clearly that they want people to leave as soon as they are of no use to us anymore, no matter how much they have contributed.

It used to be that children supported their parents into old age. Now their parents are the wealthy ones, with property that massively increased in value, while the adult children struggle with rent and high prices.

I know, but this is the world we live in. The high cost of living and of accommodation gives women little choice.

Worse still there is little prospect of it getting better, because boomers will vote against anything that devalues property back to sane levels.