Show me the millions of dollars from oil companies to the Harris Walz campaign which are public record. Actually provide your evidence, don’t just conjure it with words.

EDIT

Here, I’ll do your work for you since you dont seem ready to substantiate your comments.

The Harris campaign has taken 661 thousand dollars from oil interests. There’s actually a house candidate who took more, even though she’s running a presidential campaign!

And 9 of the other top 10 recipients and honestly almost the whole list of recipients are her Republican enemies. It’s clear they are funding her opponents.

So how much loyalty did they buy for their $600k? (Not “millions” of dollars as you mis-called it). I doubt very much at all.

Harris took in $47 million in donations in the 24 hours after the debate. If anything this is chump change from the oil industry to just maybe say hey don’t obliterate us. She doesn’t work for them.

No, you are wrong, her position is about swing state voters.

The fact of the matter is that the parties are arguing over a small slice of swayable or “undecided” voters in a small slice of states that are in play ie: “swing states” and each party is honestly focusing on a subset of swing states they think they can win.

The result is that their messages look really odd at times and don’t always line up with what the majority of their party want. Because the majority of their party are safe votes. They’re going after the wingnuts in the middle and on the margins, few as they are, dumb as they are.

This is a far more obvious explanation than “she’s in the pocket of Big Oil.” A lot of Pennsylvanians work for Big Oil. So there is more going on right in the light of day than the clandestine bribery which by your own admission you have no evidence for. Occam’s razor, here.

The “mass” is small and more importantly, located in safely blue states anyway. I’m extremely liberal and I accept that these presidential elections are never going to be about me. I still vote in them because I’m not a moron. But I put more of my energy into the Democratic primary, always trying to tug the D party left. And I focus on state county and city ballots where these ideas are much more in play.

That’s the adult move here. The teenager move is to vote 3rd party or not at all because the political world hasn’t rolled a red carpet out to your doorstep.

To play devils advocate on their behalf: why chase the people who are on the extreme end of your side of the spectrum? Most of those people probably live in safe blue states, and they’re never going to flip and vote R in any case. There aren’t enough far left liberals to truly worry about as most people are somewhere in the middle. For every far left radical the Democrats please, they disaffect three moderate Democrats, who then maybe don’t vote.

Yes it looks weird when they try to cater to the odd and very narrow slice of undecided / persuadable voters, but that’s exactly what they should be doing. And there is more to lose than gain by chasing extreme left voters.

Signed, an extreme left voter.

deleted by creator

What would you say Capitalism is doing with AI?

OP, when you say AI is really really fucking things up, what do you have in mind? Setting aside the ludicrous things people say about AI, do you see it directly fucking something up? I’m just curious what is on your mind when you say that.

Gaming now is more amazing that ever in part because we have access to classic games too. If someone thinks gaming was amazing 10 years ago, cool. We still have those games! I’m playing a really old game right now myself and loving it.

I think OP confuses this whole bubble bursting thing. When a phenomenon passes out of its early explosive growth phase and settles into more of a steady state, that’s not the “bubble bursting” that’s maturity.

Tech as a whole is now a more mature industry. Companies are expected to make money, not revolutionize the world. OP would have us believe this means that tech is over. How does the saying go? It’s not the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning.

No he’s made of shit. Shit does stick to him, it just doesn’t matter.

🤷‍♂️I was here for that too and it was wonderful - I still have a folder packed with wonderful things from that era. But I see that as a totally different thing. I know YT has a ton of trash on like Mr Beast etc. But it also has Veritassium! I use YT to learn so many practical things. I’ve learned gardening, woodworking, plumbing, all kinds of repair and on and on from YT. I also support some creators directly when I feel the urge. And I subscribe to Nebula. I have a full Plex and *arr setup with a massive library collected over years. I still use the shit out of YT! 🤷‍♂️ And I’m on my phone almost all the time so whatever desktop computer programs people run in Docker containers or browser extension spaghetti setups they have to get around this or that… that’s great for them. I’d rather pay $12 than fuck with all that and be tied to my gaming tower. 🤷‍♂️ I don’t consider it having my data stolen if a provider takes notes about how I use their product 🤷‍♂️

Those guys just don’t want to see the US go the way of Europe where scorched-earth capitalism has been tamed and extreme wealth is taxed extremely. They are wealthy beyond avarice and STILL don’t feel they are free because they come up against regulations and institutions.

They capitalize on the rural Trumpism because it is the path most likely to lead to unchecked capitalism. Remember, the US isn’t like Europe - yet. And It will take a lot of work to get it there. All those rich guys need is a government that will do nothing. So not only is tax-cut Trump their friend objectively, he creates chaos. And chaos prevents action. Rancorous divisiveness means a logjammed national agenda. Which is all they want: no action. Look the other way while they rape the world.

Fun piece. I don’t know about best explanation ever.

It starts out talking about how movies idealize simple honest people from the heartlands (Star Wars, The Hunger Games, Braveheart) but then says:

the whole goddamn world revolves around them. Every TV show is about LA or New York, maybe with some Chicago or Baltimore thrown in. When they did make a show about us, we were jokes

So which is it? Does pop culture feed rural America’s sense that it is “Real America” or does it make them hillbillies?

As if explaining politics through TV and movies isn’t reductive enough, it can’t seem to keep its own story straight for ten paragraphs in row.

His debate performance was stunning because he spent 75% of his time talking about how we are being invaded by an enormous wave of criminals and insane asylum escapees who are violently claiming buildings and territory. I was like excuse me? Do I need to go check my yard for invaders? I didn’t realize we were being overrun. And yes I live in a state that borders Mexico.

I’ve been a subscriber for years. Even though it’s expensive there’s no question that my high level of usage justifies it. I get more per dollar than from Prime Video or Netflix, and that’s for sure.

I’m glad YT still has a zero ad tier. Prime now shoves ads inline during shows even though I’m a paying subscriber. Hulu always has. Netflix will at some point.

On top of that we’re asking a random assortment of Americans to compare where they live with the places they visit on vacation. Watch your wallet in Europe, people are saying. Duh, yeah, when you are a tourist in a tourist area. That’s universal, folks.

By the same token, people shouldn’t over-generalize about the US either. It’s a big place with massive differences from place to place.

I like the usually-better public transit systems. You have an advantage over us in that many of your biggest cities were established long before cars even came about, so they are not planned out as car-cities first and foremost. I’m in California where the automobile was a reality by the time most everything was being built. And in those days, people were excited by cars and the liberty they brought. Cars are much more fun when there aren’t too many of them and you have the open landscape before you. So the region I live in was planned as a love letter to cars and now we are living with all the downsides of that model being overloaded.

Obviously the whole picture is more complex than this - European cities have been rebuilt and replanned, sometimes after WW2 mass destruction. But still I think the effect of having an earlier establishment does make a difference in this way.

“But…” LOL

Let’s not act like executives are the only morons in this world. Plenty of rank and file are leaning on AI as well.

Sometimes I am preparing a high stakes communication for work and struggling for brevity. I will ask AI for help reducing my word count and I find it is helpful as an impartial editor. I take its 25% reduction, sigh, accept most of what it sacrificed, fix a word or two, and am done. It’s helpful.