Totally fair

Where, if you don’t mind me asking?

Support from local and state governments does make a difference though. While federal agencies can still enforce these laws, local/state agencies could look the other way. Cannabis is still federally illegal, but some states have basically said “no thanks, we’re good as long as you stick to our rules on it.”

It comes down to how much state governments want to go to bat for their constituencies and how much the federal government wants to press the issue. All else being equal, I’d rather be in a state that stands up for my rights than one that doesn’t.

Especially Israel

Why? They rolled Iran’s proxies, and (if western media is to be believed) Iran itself has been shown to be a paper tiger. Their big ballistic missile attack was neutered, and the big air strike on their soil was reported to be very devastating to air defenses and missile construction.

So we have a situation of Schrodinger’s Iran. They are simultaneously super dangerous, and to quote Kamala Harris “Iran is greatest U.S. adversary.” Or they are no match for Israel’s superior technology and intelligence agencies.

This is why I’ve argued that technology, in terms of actual benefit for people, peaked many years ago. I won’t try to pinpoint a date, but we have past peak technology from this perspective.

After that peak, advancements in technology have mostly just served as means to control the population or extract more from us (see enshittification) and have not been of benefit to the average person.

Technology allows for actual hard power to be concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer. I don’t mean like a dictator with an army behind them, but a dictator and small group with enough tech to control everything. You are right, and it’s extremely concerning.

If there’s one thing that the American government has made very clear over the last year, it’s that no lives matter.

The amount of bias, propaganda, and straight-up misinformation from western media regarding this “conflict” (more like massacre) is truly outrageous.

I don’t have any inherent support either side, and there’s too much history along with bias, propaganda, and outright misinformation to make a determination of who the “good guys” are, if anyone.

However, in such cases I will support the underdog on the principle that you don’t really want one side to have too much power over the other. That’s how we end up with things like ethnic cleansing and genocide. If Palestine (and Lebanon) had powerful militaries, you wouldn’t be seeing the mass devastation and huge loss of civilian lives. I’d prefer to see the sides more balanced so that they can keep each other in check.

Another angle to consider is that I consider the state of Israel to be actively harmful to Americans on the basis of:

• using our tax dollars to commit mass murder against civilians, including a staggering death toll for children

• infiltrating our government, interfering with our elections, and having an undue level of influence on American policy

• corollary to the preceding point: they support getting Trump back into the White House

• training American law enforcement, who then use their oppressive tactics on Americans

• similarly, technology they develop for surveillance and other means of control being used on Americans

• directly attacking our First Amendment rights

Bottom line is I’d say everyone sucks, but in different ways. But I am anti-Israel on the basis of them being way out of control (and without anyone to keep them in check) and due to the threat they pose to the American public.

Housing price increases are actively harmful to those who want to upgrade, since it increases the incremental cost of upgrading.

Yes this thinking really underestimates the cost of driving and devalues your time.

And as you mentioned, long commutes are uniquely unhealthy.

It’s more along the lines of “buying is generally better than renting, but there are about 100 different factors to consider.”

There is a trade-off between efficiency and durability on incandescent light bulbs. They did sell bulbs that lasted longer, but those had lower lumen/watt.

For generic bulbs, the cost of electricity was significantly greater than the cost of the bulb. It was cheaper to replace bulbs more frequently than to waste electricity.

There should have been only one.

Seems to apply to urinals too. There’s a whole open row, don’t pick the one next to me.

Underrated benefit of Lemmy is that it isn’t infested with bots the way its larger counterpart is. Reddit has really turned to garbage.

Lower quantity of content here, but more authentic

I think the war against climate change is already lost. But the ride down will be worse with Trump at the wheel.

If it were anything other than money, it would be considered a hoarding problem in need of treatment.

I’ll mention 2: Station Nightclub fire footage and a video of pigs being buried alive in response to a disease outbreak.

Lathes are no joke. There’s one that really stuck with me, I think at a Russian factory. “Dismemberment” does not accurately reflect what happened.

Due to the way office buildings are configured, they’d need to be converted to some sort of communal living (think college dorms). It seems feasible in theory, but it would have a very limited audience and would be a difficult living situation for most people.

Converting to individual units would require extensive retrofits and renovations.