You do realize that engineers are the single most dangerous group of people on the planet... right? This is not hyperbole or exaggeration. An engineer could tip the economy overnight. Lots of engineers have caused all sorts of economic disruption. Engineers represent the power of the mind over the physical.

Don't piss of engineers with authoritarianism, they will be making the drones, attaching the guns to the vehicles, etc.

The true issue is the same issue that we saw in the 70s and 80s: The executive class wants to keep what they had instead of inventing new stuff or improving their current stuff.

Well, they kept it, and they are close to losing everything because of it. Again. As long as money is the focus, everyone whose primary focus isn't money will outrun us every time.

This is why IBM died. GE died. Sears died. etc. Sure, they are still existing concerns technically, it takes a long time to fully blow through what they originally created... but GE used to be the third largest economy behind the USA as a whole and then California. And, look at it now. Greed is gross and disgusting.

I'm pretty sure not one of these crypto companies could obtain, much less keep a banking license (at least, not in a proper country where you can't just buy your way in).

And you would be wrong. The first stablecoin bank, backed by billionaires who backed trump, was just approved by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency after a rigorous two month review (that's sarcasm in case you missed it).

Supposedly this "bank" will have to adhere to money laundering rules, but as we've seen with other digital money, that goes out the window because who needs regulations.

I think political discussion is increasing in the USA because the USA has been troubled for a very long time and it is coming to a head. Most people want to talk about how cute cats are or what they did today, not waste time getting worked up over stupid and corrupt political shit.

The only reason these arguments against factual data hold any water is that the IPCC compromised themselves while trying to convey urgency. Once you lie, you will always be labelled a liar, even when producing incontrovertible facts. They made a huge mistake, 20ish years ago (?) and now, the whole planet pays. (don't worry, the whole planet would/will be paying anyways as nobody who has the ability to change anything has been paying attention,)

This is going to sound contradictory to what I stated previously in this subject, but, sometimes, you have to get their attention. I think it was Robert A. Heinlein that said nature gave us a way to apply pain without causing long term physical damage: the buttocks. As Robert Anton Wilson said, sometimes, pain is the only method of catching someone's attention.

Hitting a child because you are angry or upset is plain abuse. Period. Literally.

Applying some instant pressure to the buttocks can get their attention. Once you have their attention. You speak the words that you want them to retain and then you are done. If you find yourself doing this regularly, you have failed as a teacher; although to be fair, some children can be hard headed. My daughter never once required anything physical like that. My son required it something like 4 times in his whole life. The Real World is nowhere near as gentle as I was.

Instant authoritarianism. I love it. Children do not need to learn, they need to be told what to do. They will eventually figure out what they need to know to survive regardless.

You should apply these theories of compliance against larger problems like illegal drugs. Let me know how that works out for you.

You have already surrendered almost all of your power to others. You don't have to give in, they do... and they have. Enjoy the results.

Eh? All that happened was the dude failed to pay off the right people in Congress. Yes, the DOJ can do good things. No, the DOJ will not do good things if certain people ask it not to do so. An investment of less than 10% of his fortune would have yielded a free pass for his crimes in the USA. Some people never learn.

Most people are forced into relatively sedentary careers with long commutes

Because working from home would be completely different with the refrigerator only feet away or not having to do much more than roll out of bed.

Was it whitewashing to pull statues and rename schools?

Why would we want to honor traitors who wanted to keep slavery and who lost the battle?

You have bad hardware bro. I am no Windows 11 evangelist but I do have enough experience to know that file explorer crashing is insufficient to take down the entire operating system without an underlying issue of bad hardware.

It is unfortunate that the 'nobody' group is such a large group, or, in other words, plenty of people care it is just that they do not matter to you or anyone else.

How much have U.S. farmers grown this year which will sit and rot because not a single bean has been purchased by China due to tariffs?

While growing food isn't the main issue, distribution is, how many tons of food goes to waste each year because of price supports or deliberate over production due to government programs?

That was the catalog I was thinking of. Thank you. An entire industry wiped out, not because nobody would buy the products, but because some people wanted to get wealthier. This isn't Freedom.