Mossy Feathers (They/Them)

Imo, we should have one, or at most, two Olympic states. They’d be small countries that are more-or-less politically neutral, and instead of sending teams, their purpose would be to host the Summer and/or Winter Olympics. Construction, maintenance and upgrades of the facilities would be paid for by participating countries, as a percentage of their GDP. That way, the hosting country(ies) wouldn’t have to spend billions building the facilities, they get guaranteed tourism every 2~4 years, the facilities get reused, non-hosting countries have a place to measure their penis size, don’t have to spend outrageous sums to build their own facilities (they’re all paying together, after all), don’t have to bulldoze houses or forests, be concerned with water quality, and probably many other bonuses I’m not thinking of.

Bonus points if the facilities are open year-round for Olympians to train at, so that the athletes are more used to the climate, equipment, tracks, trails, etc.

The biggest downside is that hosting the Olympics is prestigious itself and generates a lot of tourism revenue (which in this case, would only be going to the “static” host(s)). It’s a chance for the host country to show off their economic strength, culture (like during the opening ceremonies), and more. You’d have to convince countries that they’re better off without the tourism and chance to flaunt their wealth.

I’d assume they’d be required to pay taxes once they’re old enough to, but I’d be willing to bet that most of them don’t unless they plan to ever actually move to the US.

I wonder how often the IRS actually goes after American citizens who don’t live in the US, especially ones that haven’t traveled to the US in more than 5+ years.

Edit: they might also be completely unaware that they need to pay taxes. If I’m not mistaken, the US is literally the only country in the world that requires you to pay taxes when living abroad. Logically speaking, it makes sense that you wouldn’t have to pay taxes to a country you don’t live in.

That’s fucking dumb. How long ago was that? The antidepressants thing is particularly upsetting. We shouldn’t be turning people away if they’ve ever been on antidepressants (or are currently on antidepressants); I mean, it’s not like we get free government healthcare or anything. I’m sorry you had to deal with that. That sucks.

This. If I’m not mistaken, the system was meant to operate like a hybrid between patents and trademarks. Iirc, things weren’t originally under copyright by default and you had to regularly renew your copyright in order to keep it. Most of the media in the public domain is a result of companies failing to properly claim or renew copyright before the laws were changed. My understanding is that the reason for this was because the intent was to protect you from having your IP stolen while it was profitable to you, but then release said IP into the public domain once it was no longer profitable (aka wasn’t worth renewing copyright on).

Then corpos spent a lot of money rewriting the system and now practically everything even remotely creative is under copyright that’s effectively indefinite.

The 6-3 ruling penned by Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett in Department of State v. Muñoz held that a citizen has no “fundamental liberty interest in her noncitizen spouse being admitted to the country,” denying a couple’s plea after a U.S. citizen’s husband was denied a visa.

Hold the fuck up, I thought visas were basically guaranteed to those married to US citizens. This seems like a pretty big deal, so why haven’t I heard more about it?

'member when conspiracies were relatively harmless like flat earthers and ufologists?

'member when the main source of Christian extremism (in the US) was the Westboro Baptist Church, and most people just laughed at them because no one really took them seriously?

What the fuck happened?

I’m actually very confused because the US 10yrs ago was radically different than the US now. How did everyone completely lose their minds? This is a semi-rhetorical question because I’m aware of some of the contributing factors, it’s just… I feel like somewhere in the past 10-15yrs I slipped sideways into some kind of an alternate reality.

The most extreme Christians I knew didn’t approve of homosexuality, but also weren’t yelling “god hates f*gs” at people for being gay. They believed in a 7-day creation, but didn’t lose their minds and thirst for blood at the sight of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.

The worst racists I’d met believed in white supremacy, but weren’t cruising around looking for POC to lynch (with the exception of cops, that is). They hated Hispanic people, but mostly kept it to themselves.

Maybe I was just really sheltered, but while it seems like our level of tolerance has grown, the extremes have gotten worse. Like, the graph of tolerance is still going up, but the data point distribution is getting worse.

Edit: to put it another way, my experience growing up in Texas’ suburbs was that people were “tolerant” in a “I don’t like you but I won’t bother you so long as you don’t bother me” kinda way. Not ideal, but not terrible either. Now though, it’s more “I don’t like you and that bothers me, so I’m gonna bother you”.

Please give each other the controls to mute one another. Also give the buttons a cooldown. I wanna see those fucks smashing the hell out of their buttons.

e;

The alternative explanation is that the employers have investments in corporate real estate and don’t want their investments to lose value. Personally, I think that the the people at the top probably have investments in corporate real estate, while middle managers are the way you describe.

I don’t think the people at the top usually care what the employees are doing so long as they’re making money, and being in the office means they’re keeping corporate real estate prices afloat. As such, being in office makes money for the executives, even if that money isn’t made directly through the company.

Middle managers on the other hand, likely don’t have any significant corporate real estate investments, nor are they as likely get significant bonuses for company productivity. As such, it makes more sense for their motive to be more about control than it is money.

That said, I do know some executives do indeed see employees the way you’ve described them; an infamous example comes to mind about the Australian real estate executive talking about how they needed to bring workers to heel and crash the economy to remind workers that they work for the company and not the other way around. I’m just not sure that many executives actually think about their workers in that much depth. I think if they did then we’d see a stark contrast of very ethical companies and highly abusive companies instead of the mix of workplace cultures we have now; because some ceos would come to the conclusion that a happy worker is a good worker, while others would become complete control freaks.

I wonder if this was a case of someone seeing a “big name” but being clueless about his history and thinking, “I recognize his name, must mean he’s popular.” Then they hired him without vetting because he had a recognizable name and they believed he was therefore popular and “cool”. I mean, I know who Rob Schneider is because I’ve heard his name get thrown around a lot, but I had no idea he was a bigoted piece of shit because I’ve never (knowingly) watched any of his movies, nor do I keep up with celebrity gossip.

That said, it’s really stupid to hire people without vetting them in this day and age because people have become so insane and brainless that you have no clue what they might say when they get up on stage; but 10 years ago I could see you being able to get away with not vetting celebrities. As such, the person/people who approved him might have been +10 years out of touch and/or lazy.

Yeah, that’s not happening lol. Politics aside, public transportation is too shit for that and you’ll just get run over if you try to bike anywhere that doesn’t have a bike path/lane.

Oh my god, wallet chains are going to make a comeback, but for phones this time.

I’m really hoping valve does a public steamdeck OS release. I’d like to replace windows on my PC with Linux and have windows as a backup, but the Linux distro I’m the most familiar with is the steam deck’s distro, and that’s not available outside of steam decks yet.

Imo expecting someone who’s done drugs to quit and never do it again, is one of the dumbest, most bone-headed things anyone has ever come up with. Like, shit man, drugs are awesome. Yeah, they can seriously fuck you up if you get addicted, and some drugs are extremely addictive. However, expecting someone to toss all those crazy experiences, the good and the bad, into the trash and never, ever even be tempted to pick up drugs again is… stupid. It assumes that drugs only create bad experiences, but that obviously isn’t true because even the most non-physically-addictive drugs can become addictive with the right environmental factors. So obviously people aren’t doing drugs just because they’re addictive, they’re doing them because they’re fun, or because they give you an escape. As such, imo, it’s better to teach people how to use drugs in moderation than to try and attempt total abstinence. Unless their body is so fucked up from drug use that they literally can’t do drugs without risking death, you should be teaching them how to use them in moderation; like as a reward for getting a promotion. That sorta thing.

They’re already making lists. Between apps like these and the kinda surveillance the US totally doesn’t do on US citizens, you’re probably already on a conservative’s hit list.

Yeah, generally it’s whatever they enjoy the most. Some people have multiple favorites, others only have one. Some people have context-sensitive favorites (e.g. “my favorite color is purple, except I also like cyan on dark backgrounds, turquoise on accent tiles, and if it’s on a British sports car, British racing green”), others just have all-time favorites. That said, I do find it kinda weird when someone only has a single favorite thing, but humans are strange I guess.

Tbh I’m always amazed by how trans care is so… whacky.

Like, the US is becoming more and more hostile towards trans people (especially trans women), and US healthcare means gender affirming care can be very expensive (especially surgery-related stuff). On the other hand, adults in the US can typically start HRT within a week of seeing a doctor because the US allows for informed consent; you see a doctor, request hrt, they inform you of the risks and effects, and if you consent, you can begin HRT. Then, if you have the money or really good insurance, you could be “”“finished”“” transitioning (be on hrt and have gender-affirming surguries done) within a year or two. You probably still won’t pass because I’ve been told it can take years for HRT to fully feminize/masculinize you, but at that point the only thing left is waiting for your body to do its thing.

Then you have Canada and European countries, where, based on what I’ve seen, they tend to be more accepting of trans people and trans care tends to be covered by the government (or so I’ve heard). However, they have all kinds of waiting periods, from being forced to wait several years to ensure you’re “truly trans”, waiting again to see if your surgery is approved, waiting again for an opening, waiting again because the doctor decided to take the week of your surgery off to go on vacation, etc.

Then you have Australia and New Zealand where you’re forced to wait and there’s no guarantee the government will cover the medical costs of transitioning.

Why is this so hard?

Why can’t people get their shit together so it doesn’t take a decade or more for someone to finish transitioning?

Considering the symptoms and side effects of gender dysphoria, it’s unlikely someone suffering from gender dysphoria will be functioning at maximum efficiency. As such, while it might appear more expensive on paper, it seems like the impact of prioritizing gender affirming care (similar to how I assume people with cancer and disabilities are prioritized) would be cheaper long-term. The faster you get them care, the sooner they can start working at their maximum potential; and the sooner they start working at their maximum potential, the larger the benefit they can provide to society.

According to the New Zealand not-for-profit Gender Minorities Aotearoa, the wait time for bottom surgery in the public health system is 10 to 12 years.

Holy shit, that’s a long wait time.

What the fuck?

The way Native Americans have been treated in the US is absolutely disgusting. I do wonder if there’s a compromise that could be reached, like no open pit mines and ore has to be refined off-site (which would hopefully reduce the mine footprint and pollution caused by it); however, in the event that a compromise is impossible, I hope the tribe wins and is able to stop the destruction of their holy site.