Garbage regulations like IP create these behemoths. If you want freedom, stop regulating monopolies into existence.

Statism creates billionaires.

definition of "socialism", which is: worker ownership of the means of production

Bzz, false. The dictionary definition of the term is:

a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies

See? No "worker ownership" — government ownership. Schools don't need to be owned by the teachers for public education to be socialist, they need to be owned by the government. And they are!

Same goes for retirement financing, and medicine for retires — with millions clamoring to expand it ("Medicare for all!!") — what GP enumerated. The "single-payer healthcare" — another euphemism — would be exactly that too.

Workers can own shares of their employers — indeed, Anthrophic employees do (and anticipate to profit handsomely). That's not socialism at all — not by the dictionary definition.

I blame the libertarians for making the definitions unclear

I blame you for pulling the definition from under your tail — and the morons upvoting you.

"anything the government does that benefits the people instead of corporations."

That's spelled "KKKorporation$". Make a note of it. Benefits the people, eh? The per-pupil spending nationwide went up (inflation-adjusted) from $9083 in 1989 to $13790 last year. And what did this expense buy us — the barely literate population unable to even define such terms as "socialism" correctly...

And they've adopted the word "democratic socialism"

The term (not "word"!!!) was adopted by "former" Communists, who've proudly elected a Senator some Congresswomen and, most recently, New York mayor. Who immediately proceeded to establish a government-owned supermarket.

some wondering if they were being picked on by President Trump

Seriously? "Some wondering" — and it is on front page... What a contrast to Trump's supporters accusations, his electoral win was stolen in 2020 — no, any time someone mentioned those, a bunch people would jump up to add: "unproven" and "without evidence".

AKA: mass layoffs.

AKA: people doing stuff, that does not need doing, having to find something else to do.

it is relieving workers of tedious old chores but creating new ones

Bot-sitting does not require as much attention as doing it myself requires. While the AI is handling the tedium, I can do something fun — both work-related and otherwise...

A co-worker next to me is doing cross-word puzzles, for example...

If there's cellphone signal enough for voice, there's enough to run an app that is designed to handle the low bandwidth.

But now you're shifting from Colorado to Canada. See what I mean by constant retreat?

Besides, like I said, I drove through the mountains of western Canada and always had enough cell signal. And caching is still a thing. GPS still works as long as one can see 3 satellites, and some can use the EU and RU versions to improve accuracy even more.

Worst case, Starlink is deploying cellphone technology, so we'll have signal from satellites soonish.

Man, it's just constant retreat with you, isn't it?
You're seriously saying Alma doesn't have cellphone signal? I've lived in a smaller town and still had signal.

Generally speaking, those installing EV charging stations want to be able to bill for it. Which means that the station itself needs connectivity, even if it doesn't need to be much. They need a big fat pipe of electricity as well.
Sounds like an excellent spot for a cell phone tower, if one isn't already in range.

Besides that, I managed to drive from Alaska to Florida, through Canada, without ever being out of cellphone signal.

Worst case, the app developers are aware that you might be out of signal occasionally. Therefore they cache information.

Apparently a *lot* of people on Slashdot are completely fooled by the CCP propaganda.

And some of them are CCP propaganda, using multiple "sockpuppets" to both post and moderate.

Decades earlier — during Vietnam war — USSR was financing all of "peace" movements in the West in particular, while attacking the "Capitalist way of life" in general. It'd be quite foolish for China to not be doing the same now. Even more foolish would be for us to not realize, that they do.

If you have a cell phone, you have mobile internet. Even if you're just using it as a hotspot for a laptop or tablet.

In any case, those purchasing EVs are overwhelmingly fine with using an app. Or the in-dash infotainment system that can do the same thing. Plug in where you want to go, it finds a route including chargers. Question: Do you use google maps?

Most people don't need to find EV charging stations, only those with EVs need to be able to, and they all generally have cellphones.

And why would they need an attendant? They're fine with being open at night. Gas stations only need attendants because of the large quantities of flammable liquids stored on location. Even with that, I've seen the occasional gas station that, late at night, doesn't have anybody and it is pay at pump only. But they get most of their profit from the attached convenience store, so they need an employee for that, to make money.

Now, there have been some problems with people stealing the charge cables for the copper in them, because current doesn't flow until the car and charger have verified the connection and negotiated charging stuff, so they're safe enough for unattended use.

But said people have also discovered that said lots tend to have very good cameras and end up being caught.

It isn't so much that it "flowed", it is that aluminum has a greater coefficient of thermal expansion than copper. So it would expand more when it heated up. This was exasperated by the greater gauge of sufficiently rated cable or the installation of the same gauge as copper, insufficient due to it's slightly lower conductivity, causing it to heat up even more.
Over time, this could allow the connection to work its way loose, at some point leading to higher resistance at that point and thus more heat, and even sparking, leading to fires.
Modern connectors address this a number of ways, but the primary way I've seen is to make the connection a little springlike, it doesn't even have to look like a spring at first glance - the expansion isn't that much, after all. Some are even "self tightening", in that they'll tend to pull the wire in rather than let it loosen. Very clever designs that generally don't take anything more than the old connectors. In addition, in wire gauges large enough to be stranded, the very stranding helps with handling the expansion.
As I understand it, when installed to code, the aluminum wiring was safe, the problem was that the code was too stringent for the electricians used to working with copper, and they'd use stuff rated for copper and not aluminum all over.

You mean like all those US voters that elected Trump in large part because of his "no wars" promises?

I don't know, what voters you're talking about. I voted for exactly the kind of aggressive stance Trump is showing, thank you very much. If anything, I'd like him to be still more aggressive — long years of appeasing foreign assholes have made them too confident, America's "red lines" can be ignored with impunity.

Looks like they lost control pretty quickly.

Do you seriously think, Chinese citizens have better control of their foreign policy? Or are you going to claim, America is "the same" or "just as bad"?..

How many American companies have ties to the U.S. military-industrial complex?

US military is controlled by American voters, such as myself. The rest of the world, make a choice already!