It really wouldn't come down to the penny at all but the actual products in the vending machine. If there is a Coke and Pepsi machine next to each other, you aren't going to make your choice based on that penny but rather which sugary poison you prefer best. Both machines have unique menus.

It Doesn’t Feel Pity, Or Remorse, Or Fear, And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You Are Dead

I just mentioned school shooter since it affects children and that tends to bring in more emotions to the answer.

I think your position has a lot of good points and would be worth trying here in the USA. Though that isn't tackling the root problem, which is typically poverty or poor mental health. We would have to change quite a few things for us to get to there.

Out of curiosity, are you opposed to capital punishment across the board or is there some exceptions? For instance, would you be okay with capital punishment for a school shooter where there is zero doubt who committed the crime? What about raped at gun point? What about someone like Epstein?

There's no right or wrong answer here, I'm just curious on your position is all.

Honestly, I am to the point where I can't stand either Democrats or Republicans. I'd be just fine handing it over to the Greens and the Libertarians. Even if it didn't work, what we have now isn't exactly "working" for most of us at this point. It would be worth a shot.

A portion of the Democratic party was very unhappy with Obama for those deportations. Fox of course wasn't going to highlight Obama doing something the Republicans wanted, that would be to close to reporting the news. I doubt most Republicans knew/know this fact about Obama in the first place. I know I've educated a few.

I think a big part of it is all the rhetoric around it. Obama did it without talking about it at all. Trump can't stop talking if his life depended on it.

The military runs as an authoritarian. You have your top guy, his team of generals, and down the line it goes.

Fascism: A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, a capitalist economy subject to stringent governmental controls, violent suppression of the opposition, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

Now we can pretend the USA is a fascist regime for sake of argument, but that does not mean that all armies of all history have been under fascist regimes. Stalin was most certainly not a fascist. Mao also was not a fascist. I don't remember the Japanese Emperors name but he was as the same suggest, the Emperor, not fascist.

Before modern economic systems, most armies were under the control of the Monarchy or Emperor or Republic.

Armies aren't controlled by economic systems. They are typically controlled by governments that belong to different types of economies, such as capitalism, socialism and communism. You can also be democratic, theocratic, authoritarian or some mixture thereof. How you choose your government doesn't automatically demand your economic system.

And to directly address your post, if they are paying for access, they should be able to access the digital version of it.

I do get that maybe some of these books may not be digitalized but is it really such a high number or is this just cheaper then dealer with the publishers? I imagine it is cheaper and simpler to buy the books and then use them up. It's just unfortunate since the book has to be destroyed for them to scan it. If a person bought it, their is a high chance the book gets passed on to another at some point in time.

I just find that sad. Also, you can't retcon a printed book. You can retcon the material going forward for future publications, but not your paperback.

I would rather they pay for access to the material and it would be accessible in a digitalized form. Way to simple for business logic though.

I think by and large AI will be a wonderful advancement for the species. The problem with AI isn't so much the technology but rather the politics. If we trusted in our government and our business leaders to do the right moral thing, we would be less worried about AI taking our jobs.

We don't have that kind of society. Big business has clearly showed it's not concerned with anything but the bottom dollar. They want to "appear" to be for whatever is trending, regardless if they don't believe it at all. The phrase "business ethics" should make everyone laugh.

Government is owned by business and here we are. If we are some how "permitted" to be allowed to live, it won't be glamorous.

Yes, that's dystopian but do you really think all the gains of AI will magically uplift all of humanity out of poverty and into a climate controlled homes with stability in food, water and electricity? With clothing and some entertainment as well? I just don't see that happening.

We'll probably get a mixture of both. Only time will tell.

..as if millions of books suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

It is bad enough that we have AI consuming the Internet for training data, which it is not paying for. Then, AI is being used more and more to replace out exactly those who made much of the training content in the first place.

Now, they are buying up all the used books, consuming them and then DESTROYING them because of copyright?! The irony here. Now we can't even buy used books to read what the author actually wrote. Nope, they'll buy them all up and then produce slop out of them.

Very sad and depressing.

I was having this conversation with my coworker. If "meat" didn't just come all nice and tidy on a tray at the grocery store, I very likely would be pescatarian instead. I suspect it's because the trout I have caught were not cute and fuzzy and killing and skinning them was overall rather easy. If I had to kill my own chicken or pig or cow, haha, yeah, no.

Maybe I could the chicken but I don't know about that. Being a servant of three cats, hard for me to see myself killing another mammal.

The gas station is a front business, that's all. Also, if you sell your gas cheaper, people are more likely to buy something in the store, and you make even more money off them!

+1 Funny!

Trump can only pardon Federal crime. So you can't just commit a state crime, it's got to be bigger or done across state-lines.