They lost their fucking minds because Democrats put up a woman to vote for (twice), and apparently America is very misogynistic.

Ah yes, this old chestnut. Any excuse to not accept any bad policy responsibility. That election result was stupid obvious. Biden was an unpopular president due to a number of bad policies (the most glaringly obvious being a failed border policy) + runaway inflation. Republicans jumped on it and Harris did nothing to distance herself from Biden, even when asked point blank what her policy differences were. Stop kidding yourself -- gender didn't matter at all, and you continue to keep thinking in these terms, you're going to lose again when you run another shitty candidate "of the correct gender" and wonder why you lost again.

Have you even seen the original series? Racism, bigotry, classism, human rights, ethics, not to mention nationalism, were all dealt with. TNG went further, particularly with Riker's penchant for rather open sexual interests, and of course DS9 dealt with everything from war crimes to the undermining of civil society. Voyager and Enterprise in their turn covered similar issues, though perhaps not always as ably as the first three series did.

I've never seen TOS, but I've seen all the rest. And in the end, it's an issue of subtlety and focus (which all comes down to writing). It's something the modern day PC/woke generation seems to woefully not understand (or just not care about...there's writers on record out there as going out of their way to put these issues centerstage, which wasn't the original Star Trek focus, which was telling a good story while sprinkling in progressivism). The perfect analogue of this is the "do better" speech from the Captain America TV show, where he basically rants at the audience -- that kind of thing didn't exist in 90s star trek. Like I've seen people try to compare the fact a biracial kiss exists in less than a minute of an hour long episode that had nothing to do with race be comparable to full modern day episodes that sledge you over the head with messaging for like 70% of the episode. And there's really no comparison. Modern day Star Trek writing has become so obvious, it's drifted into somewhere between "cringe" and "annoying". It'd be like if a liberal could actually read Atlas Shrugged (which is actually a great book) without getting an "ick" factor from Rand's political soapboxing (particularly in the final chapter). I don't blame them if they can't -- Rand only knows how to sledgehammer.

Your argument all rests on absolute average wages ($7 vs $30) and ignores that the overall purchasing power for Americans hasn't increased for decades (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/).

You'll note that all the articles making this claim come from 2018. Things have changed alot since then: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/se...

Wage inflation is also currently still outpacing nominal inflation, and has been since mid 2023: https://usafacts.org/answers/a...

the screenwriters really tone down his campy dialog and cut out the slow parts perfectly.

Toned down? If anything, they added camp. Like turning Rocky into some kind of overly excited dog. And the ludicrously long and stupid posing scene in the airlock? Was that even in the book? A lot of the science in the book got chopped out as well. The movie felt dumbed down. I preferred the book.

This is an incredibly superficial view of graphical fidelity. Most games do not just push for realism in the sense that it looks just like real life. Instead they pursue artistic realism

I'd be careful throwing the word "most" around there, because personally I think it's highly genre dependent. In a horror game, I'd likely agree with you, particularly in regard to something like lighting. But in something like an FPS, I guarantee realism is likely higher on their list. The "can it run Crysis?" meme didn't come from nowhere...that whole genre was all-in on pushing the edge of photorealism while maintaining frames per second.

WW2 was already won by the time the USA officially joined in.

What? WW2 started in September 1939 and ended in September 1945. The US was already assisting the Allies with cash and carry purchases as early as November 1939 and joined the war December of 1941. For a war that was "already won", why did it last 4 more years? Also, this timelapse doesn't show the Allies making any real counter-gains until mid-November 1942 in North Africa. Most importantly, the reason history says the US was critical to the war effort is because they not only opened up a second front with Japan (If that wasn't present, Germany and Japan together could have taken Russia), but also supplied critical materiel for the war effort via the Lend-Lease Act. The US spent about as much as all the other allies combined, paying for nearly half the war.

You're deluded if you don't think the US had a critical role in ending that war.

The only one of your responses that applies specifically to blue states, is "Ideological and political reasons." The other hinderances apply equally to red states. So what is it about blue-state ideology and politics, that hinders expansion of green energy? They *say* they want it and that it's important, so why is it not happening? Texas, by contrast, has a governor who is openly against green energy. And yet, Texas has *3x* more wind power than *any* other state, and is #1 in solar and soon, #1 in battery storage. What gives?

I mean it's not rocket science...it's not politics. Red states have the most wind. And the most sun.

https://www.google.com/search?...

https://www.google.com/search?...

It's almost as if there's an invisible hand at work...

Last I looked, about a third of Americans weren't working.

Where did you get that number? It's nowhere near that. Are you included the ~25+% of the country that's retired and wouldn't return to work no matter what the jobs are paying?

different configurations of bacteria extract different levels of energy from the same food?

Yes, different people have slightly different numbers for "calories in" for the same food

You do know that metabolic response can dramatically alter how the body conserves and expends energy, right?

Yes, different people have different metabolic burn rates

Nothing in what you said alters the laws of thermodynamics, and you should stop pretending it does. If you know your body's burn rate and your body's general caloric intake from the food you eat, you can 100% with absolute certainty use calories in/calories out to guarantee the direction of your weight gain/loss. I will literally never understand you people that latch onto very niche biological processes and use them to try to make insane claims about energy conservation. I'll tell you right now...ANY human that limits themselves to say ~1000 calories a day will lose weight. I don't care what your "gut biome" is or your genetics, or whatever. Just because people are slightly different doesn't make the physical laws of reality stop. Yes, it sucks that one person can eat an extra piece of cake than you and still lose weight easier. Maybe your body makes you feel hungrier than the next person with a smaller caloric deficit. Make you're dealing with insulin resistance that another person doesn't deal with. NONE of that means you're "doomed to be a fattie" because minor biological differences are "impossible to overcome". It's always a matter of willpower.

I was riding as a passenger in my friend's Tesla (forget which model). And it apparently had a feature where it ran the high beams all the time unless the car detected a vehicle a certain distance in front of it. However, whatever that distance is/was is wayyyyyy too short. Because I kept saying: "dude, that guy on the highway a quarter mile away is totally getting blinded by you right now". And he was all "nah, the car knows best". To say nothing of opposing traffic in other lanes the car likely can't even see.

Why not though? Moderating as part of a discussion should be perfectly normal. If I think you're an idiot I should be able to mark you as one while also explaining to the world (and you) why that is the case.

Because many (most?) people use moderating just to bury posts they disagree with. Even if they're factually relevant. Which is generally what creates silos. That' encourages an environment that is the exact opposite of "discussion". More "soapboxing", less critical thought.

the real story is way more complex than that, because the legality of the permit was in question and had been under scrutiny by the courts for the entire period in question

It's really not. The vast majority of lawsuit were bourne by environmentalists challenging with laws that were effectively EPA fiat (which change with a favorable administration, or by spending additional time addressing deficiencies). None of them were insurmountable (which is why the project continued on, even in light of the lawsuits). The permit rescinding by a hostile administration, however, was insurmountable.

There's a reason that the oil companies did not bother to fight the Biden administration's decision to rescind the permit, and simply shut down the project.

The project was never shut down; it was suspended: https://www.theguardian.com/en...

And I don't understand why you think they would fight it. The President clearly wasn't going to let the permit through. His words had nothing to do with legality and everything to do with ideology ("Obama said his decision was in agreement with the State Departmentâ(TM)s assessment that the pipeline âoewould not serve the national interests of the United Statesâ): https://www.theguardian.com/en...

The construction companies correctly surmised this project was going to be shelved until they got a more favorable administration.

So it's not really the same thing. It's not even close.

I mean, it's not far off

Also, fuck off with the open borders bullshit. No one wants completely unregulated immigration. The far left in the USA and presumably everywhere else just wants lots of opportunities to move here...not let ANYONE without any sort of security checks whatsoever.

This is only recently true, after substantial political losses. There were next to no checks during the Biden period...you'd just say "asylum" and you'd get in. Then you'd live in the US for years waiting for a court case. Then if you got booted out, you'd just do it again. Wash, rinse, repeat. Dems did not care. One iota. Now that they've lost pretty brutally in the recent election on the topic, they suddenly changed their tune. Funny that.

really need to have the banks and schools take loan risk then you will costs come down.

That's not the only thing that would occur. Risk assessments would then necessarily come into play and way less student loans would be offered. So average cost would decline, but less kids would be able go to college. This is the extra same mantra that gave us the shit home loans of the housing bubble, where risk was a secondary factor to making sure everyone got to live the american dream of home ownership

Eh, Republicans choose not to vote for Nikkey Haley

Yes, Republicans did. Not independents, which is the comment I was replying to. Because of the way our shitty party system works, both Republicans and Democrats effectively vote in their extreme candidates during the primaries, and the moderates and independents in the middle are forced to choose between two shitty options every year. So it oscillates back and forth. Just because "your guy" gets picked in the general election doesn't mean we like his ideas. It just means the last guy was shitty and we're hoping your guy wises up and returns to a sensible middle (or at least a more sensible spending pattern). Though that hasn't happened in several decades.