It's easy to reach that conclusion if you have never been active in a party. The democratic party does have a good local ground game that is run by volunteers who actually have beliefs and principles. The problem is that at the end of the day the candidate who wins in the one who can pull in the most money, and that's true no matter what. Where do you see a situation where an independent candidate can pull in enough money to win an election? The message is important, but getting the message out is what brings in votes. Just as the democrats need a more coherent message than just "we're not Trump", an independent needs a better message than just "I'm not a democrat or a republican" - and they need backing in order to get that message out.

There have been some democratic candidates who have been able to get some local traction without taking special interest money, but that's only possible if they had a large war chest of money ready before they announced their candidacy. An independent would face the same challenge.

Laws are useless in general.

And by the time you get AT & T to fulfill the fiber delivery, Starlink will be providing Internet at Fiber Speeds to the whole planet. Starlink V3 is coming sooner (Within months) than the snails at the terrestrial providers could imagine.

Who knew TPMS reports would evolve into snitches?!!

I have that for my Mahir van in Night City.

Bob Dobbs returns to the chat.

Broccoli Hair is LIFE!

Same as it ever was.

Apple's taking a slow lean into AI and at it's core, Apple has always been a computing appliance company.

Easy to see Apple offering a home AI Mac Mini with home Siri support ("All your stay inside your house. Really. Trust us!"), along with easy to impliment IoT applicances.

This is just an evolution of Jobs' vision from the early '80s.

Raccons are the Norte America 'B-Team'.

Squirrels are the 'C-Team'.

I wonder what the other continents have as B-Teams?

1350s pompadours for teh winz!

The sandwich is a lie.

They're rich; consequences are for the poors.

Some people seem surprised by the glasses and how they can be used in perverse ways. These people seem to have forgotten what the original aim of facebook was. The website itself started as a way for "bros" - who would have been called incels had the term existed then - to trade pics of women from their campus. How many of those pictures do we think were taken with consent? Even if they were taken in public they still could have been creepy. This is just the same mindset, applied to technology that didn't exist at this scale in the early 2000s.

I'm gonna pirate your Pion, by changing it to Prion, (for the ARRRRR). ;-)

"prevent automation"

Buggy Whip Makers would like a word with you.

While your post has some interesting tidbits, some even worthy, the conclusions are incorrect. You're blaming government intervention while proposing government intervention as a solution.

The more government is involved in economic matters, the more screwed up things get, because that's the nature of regulations. We just need ONE MORE regulation, and that will solve all the problems (and somehow creates additional problems).

Supply Demand curves exist in all markets. Pushing them around artificially is a recipe to inefficiencies.