Grievances? What the fuck are you talking about you imbecile?

Monopolies have a enormous and well-documented negative impact on consumers. How the fuck would any sane human being who knew what the word means be opposed to antitrust law enforcement?

I'm guessing that you're a bot. Because nobody in their right mind would write something that fucking stupid by themselves. I'm guessing the prompt was write a reply to this comment regarding antitrust law and mentioned grievances.

I think that's kind of the new game around here is to see the bot posts and wonder and figure out what the prompt was that created them from chat GTP or Grok. I don't think it was grok though because there's no sign of pedophilia

Is that large companies weren't too large so they were keeping each other in check.

As a voter Americans were disorganized and distracted to focus on antitrust law enforcement under normal circumstances.

So what would happen is McDonald's would be getting overcharged by the beef producers and they would file a lawsuit and get the public's attention to break up the cartel. This would benefit the public in the form of lower beef prices across the board.

These companies have gotten so large they don't do that anymore. McDonald's doesn't bother suing. They go to the four beef producers and they say give us a kickback and we won't Sue and you can keep over charging everybody else. Just as long as you don't overcharge us and you have to give us that kickback because we are actually big enough we can fight you in court.

So McDonald's gets their kick back and they get the pocket that money and the price of beef keeps going up and up and up because the system where these businesses were small enough that they could fight amongst themselves, AKA competition, has been broken down.

This is what is called a chesterton's fence. The idea is that if you have a fence you don't take it down unless you know why it was put up.

We had a fence up in the form of limiting the size of corporations and private equity and we took it down without knowing why it was put up in the first place.

Communism is a dictatorship.

Prove it.

Bad assumptions. It may be a State that doesn't allow datacenters to raise electric rates, and they don't use that much water.

Was that letter at all related? They don't use much water once they're up and running. Most of the water they use goes into making concrete.

A data center near me was in the news (here) recently, because the town's new water meters didn't work right, leading to the datacenter being underbilled. The story was framed as the datacenter trying to steal water.

Yeah... no. There is no national law about it, but many States do require datacenters to power themselves in a way that doesn't raise everyone else's rates. Georgia, for example. Maybe Virginia lacks this rule. If that's the case, it is a political failure they can rectify at any time.

Maybe they did! I don't know why their rates are going up. The summary implies it's because of the data centers, but is it? For all I know, they're all powering themselves, and the State's PSC allowed the rate hike for some unrelated reason. The article is paywalled, and I have little faith in 404's reporting anyhow.

Other States have rules that require datacenters to power themselves without raising rates for anyone else. Does Virginia not?

Well, the data says the exact opposite. Democrats are 30% further from the center than they were when Obama was elected. Republicans are only 3% further, and if the 1994-2014 trend held, they've been swinging back and forth, not moving consistently in one direction as Democrats have.

If you are a Democrat, then yes, it looks like the right has moved away from the center. That's a perspective problem. And at the speed with which the party moved, possibly redshift.

Oh, wait a minute. That works on multiple levels. Neat!

Ranked choice won't do that. It's not even intended to do that. It's intended to give worse candidates a better shot, and I see no reason to do so.

RCV is founded on the entirely unsound premise that a significant portion of voters are picking candidates they don't like because they think those are the ones who will win, and that having to make that choice is somehow bad. So, in order to let people both eat and have cake rather than make a decision, they invented a system that seeks to promote candidates that shouldn't win. When someone says, "I like candidate A's policies, but I don't think they could win", what they're saying is that candidate A is too extreme to win a general election, not that they are too centrist. What they tend to do is pick the more centrist candidate because a good enough winner is better than a perfect loser.

I don't buy the premise. And to the limited extent that it is true, that's what primaries are for and choices are about. I see no reason to let people vote five times at once just so they don't have to make a decision and stand by it. Each voter has to make a choice about who to vote for. Sometimes that's hard. Hard choices are a fact of life.

And especially since the idea is promoted specifically to give an advantage to extreme left-wing candidates. Our system is already structured to disadvantage extreme candidates. Note that in places where RCV is being tried, the winners have been decidedly more extreme, not less.

Okay, what did you find to be so insulting about what I said?

You're absolutely right that there is an insular mindset that emerged within the DC Beltway. And everyone else knows it - hence "not an insider" being an issue in elections. People have looked for ways around it - term limits, more time in the district, allowing more telepresence, etc. - but it's a tradeoff. It's harder to get things done in DC if you don't have that network of beltway relationships, and basic group dynamics says the insiders will close ranks against outsiders despite party affiliation. And that puts the parties' national committees in a complex position.

I won't go so far as to agree with your "farmable resources" statement, I think they just lose touch. The bureaucracy though... Yeah, while I'm sure there are some who don't care about politics, human nature tells me there are plenty who do, and more who are just interested in getting as close to power as they can. And then there are the people lauded as "institutionalists", who should instead be evicted. They're the ones who put preserving agencies/institutions above the missions of those agencies/institutions (that's what it means). I don't want an institutionalist running the CIA, I want someone who would be willing to tear its heart out and let it die if that's what the mission requires. J. Edgar Hoover was an institutionalist, and he was happy to use illegally obtained blackmail to preserve his agency. They may not be partisan, but they are petty tyrants.

But don't forget the legislative staff. Elected officials get changed out, they don't. And they're the ones who do most of the work, like reviewing and drafting legislation. So, there is an entrenched legislative bureaucracy as well. And the worst part is... what are you going to do? Fire the people who know how to get things done, thus shooting yourself in the foot? Because let me tell you, legislators don't know how to do anything. They won't even remember to staple their bills together before submitting them despite being reminded a dozen times and having their bills tossed in the trash (true story from Georgia's State House).

And as much as I prefer it when Washington does nothing, sometimes it needs to do things.

I may have rambled a bit here. I hope it wasn't too unpleasant.

Oh yeah, I remember. My PC experience started with DOS 3 on an XT. Maybe 3.1, it was a long time ago.

DarkOx provided the better answer though. If this were a contest, you'd get 2nd place. Beta went to magazines, magazines reported on the errors, the harm was done.

Though I do also remember DR-DOS being horrible anyhow. Lots of incompatible games, which was all I cared about. Couldn't tell you which, but when Jake's dad put it on their computer, lots of stuff stopped working.

Because they belong to the ruling class.

The word is ration. And you're next.