I’ve never used photoshop. Not one of my skills. That was why I hoped I could just ask an AI to generate the image.

Yep. Rough economic times seem to cause the incumbent pres to lose. People seem to think the president controls the economy.

I hear Japan is practically giving houses away…

The polls say the economy was the reason, not foreign policy.

Removed by mod

Yeah, I’ve played on and off for years. Never did trains. But I think I am finally going to check them out.

Satisfactory Forbidden jungle The castles of burgundy: the card game

Sure. Could happen. Imagine trump wins somehow. Then imagine he orders the military to help the Russians or even just orders some people round up like he promises. His disdain for our military is clear. Some generals will follow because he is the president. But others will refuse. And Trump is dumb enough to order his generals to arrest the other generals. Boom, civil war. Or if trump loses… his followers will look for someone else to follow. If someone actually competent shows up, similar path, just 4 years later.

I think that a lot of people ascribe a lot of depth to how the stoke market works that is really just a farce. When it comes down to it, the stock market is a corporate popularity contest. The concept of stock was a way for someone to get a peice of the action without having to actually know or do anything. And it acted as a way for the wealthy to annoint people as worthy. Nowadays , due to growth in the number of people involved, popularity is really all that matters. People will claim it is about revenue and such, but it really is about will other people buy the stock for more.

Missing the “oh shit need to fix this other thing but I am in the middle of a big change,” flow. I use git stash, but I wish I could include files that haven’t been added and I wish it could be tied to the branch

I agree it will help. But all the advertising will still probably dominate who wins the most votes. The people paying will just not buy advertising for the politicians who don’t tow the party line.

Bossy militias… we call those cops here in the US. As for Iraq, I think of the people I have met from there and that area. All good people. As for the government… I don’t know of a single government that I think positively of. Once you get enough people in one organization, it attracts the worst kind of people to join.

I totally agree. But also the media has the same interest in dividing the people. They get more viewers that way. But how does ending FPTP, which I assume is first past the post voting, going to solve that. I have heard some say it would help move caddies to the center some. But I am not convinced it would move them much in most states.

They will have lots of funds from all the savings on ads.
Anyway, I am starting to think random people secestered or something. Maybe it is only a couple of months at a time. They vote on some legislation, then work on new legislation for the next group to vote on.

Lol, reddit making laws. I mean at least the names of the laws would be interesting. Lawy McLawFace

I think spending on political campaigns is just one way to provide support to a politician. And I don’t think it is the strongest. A promise of a well paying job after thier term is up would sway a lot of randos. Or even cheaper, parties and “speaking” engagements that are really fancy vacations would probably do the trick even while they are in office.

I hear what you are saying, but that isn’t campaign finance reform. Redefining what is protected speech seems like a prerequisite to campaign finance reform. And that does sound like a good idea. It certainly would help. But can it be leveraged to deal with the media which makes money polarizing the issues? If you don’t fix that too I am not sure the problem will really be solved.

Not sure the US can limit private advertising unless the Supreme Court changes it’s interpretation of the 1st ammendment (free speech). I am guessing that in the UK and Australia that free speech doesn’t cover advertising. Maybe that is the lynchpin.

Well polarization can be used to measure how much the nuances affect things. Like the border bill that Biden tried to put up. The nuances were ignored in favor of what was good for the party. Bills that would be passable 20 years ago as bipartisan thanks to those nuances can’t pass now because the parties have driven more people to ignore the nuances and just vote for one party or the other no matter the platform. And thus anyone who crosses the line fears they won’t get reelected. And yes, money drives it as well. But not only directly. The media makes money portraying politicians as extremists to. So they help drive it as well. I don’t think the money can really be controlled, so I think we need a different way to pass legislation that can somehow negate it’s effect. I just don’t know what that is.

Yeah, it’s a hard nut to Crack. Maybe it is just impossible to get the money out of the process.