Sounds like a man that is running from his demons

taxes the government steals from us

No it’s not the government that is stealing from us its the Uber wealthy that use our tax money (that should be going to the greater good of the citizens of the country) for their own gain.

Give it time and there will be the option of Gigantic Corp paying for your teeth if you grow their logo on them.

When you don’t have a solid social safety net, 30+ years of indoctrination of “individualism good, family and friend support bad”, a medical system that is built for profit and generations of both subtle and obvious propaganda that the more money you have the better of a person you are, I can understand why people protect their small stack of chips.

well, it’s been a quick and painful way to educate the American population on specific economic theories and topics

shifting to the right instead of listening to the massive calls for more progressive policies

My thought is that the center-right Democrats that hold power in the federal government saw what happened to the center-right Republicans when MAGA took over, the centrist lost power to the more right leaning politicians. If the centrist Democrats do the same they will lose power as well. So their strategy has been to ignore and undermine the more left leaning policies and candidates so they can stay in power longer.

What are the realistic potential outcomes of everything going on?

Not sure. I don’t think anyone really is.

Part of the reason that there are not big protest yet is that many many people that do disagree with the administration have/had been looking towards the Democratic party to fight back. But that isn’t happening which is adding to the shock and awe of things. Truly Americans don’t really know what to do and without a large organizing presence to help drive a big push back there really isn’t anything being done.

I do hope that someone steps up soon and starts to organize a push back. Haven’t seen it yet.

There are a lot of European keyboard warriors that don’t seem to know much about America (other than social media) that keep trying to call out Americans for not “protesting right.”

It shows that they have no clue about the size of the country or the fact that the shock and awe that started this administration knocked everyone on their heels and only now are we starting to mobilize.

You know if you just use a sharpie to draw the line going up instead of down there isn’t a problem anymore.

Really you are ahead of the curve which is great!

Yes I do.

If app A has an icon that when touched does a specific thing, and app B has the exact same icon that does the exact same thing there is nothing new to learn. The learning curve is flat.

If you are arguing about the ethical and legal aspect of one app using the exact same UI as another that is a different conversation and a good one to have.

well the the learning curve for new users is flat and adoption of the app will be more acceptable to more people.

I think it’s a smart idea - they can always make changes to the UI in time as the platform gets more people.

Nothing kills the joy of a hobby faster than trying to make a living out of it.

It’s one of the symptoms of the SYSTEM when a kid shows talent and/or strong interest in a thing, it could be most anything, the adults that this child looks to for guidance push them to make this interest and/or talent into a career. And as soon as that suggestion takes root in that child’s head then it just time before the hobby/talent is abandoned with regret and sadness.

This may not be universal but it’s not rare either - as you know first hand.

Hope one day you can, if you want, get back to what drew you towards playing music in the first place and I hope you find joy in it for nothing more than that.

I’m still pissed we as citizenry didn’t stand up and demand what we deserve

This will only happen if there is someone that the progressive democrats can get behind. Someone like Bernie but younger and more angry. Someone that will call out the bullshit and do it in a way that will get the attention of the big media corporations. I hate to say it but a progressive trump, but smarter (which shouldn’t be difficult) and genuinely out to better the lives of the American citizens. And I genuinely hope that this unicorn exists.

so we learned

It sounds like you were like most people in the western world - uneducated on nutrition, cooking and basic life skills. This isn’t a jab at you this is just the world that we live in. Most people don’t have a good understanding of these things so the go with what is easy, fast and feels inexpensive. This drives obesity.

It’s great that you took the initiative to learn home economics and it sounds like it has helped you and your family. Many others have not gotten to the “so we learned” stage yet for whatever reason.

I have some friends that got married and decided to merge their two last names and create a brand new last name. I thought it was a cool idea

Kroger is the largest grocery store chain in the U.S. by revenue and owns a number of different brands, including Ralphs, Fred Meyer, Pick’n Save, Food 4 Less, and Dillions, among a host of others

Kroger told Gizmodo… “customers are shopping more with Kroger now than ever because we are fighting inflation and providing great value.”

… or maybe customers don’t have much of a choice ?

These scams are effective because of a thing called Amygdala hijack which

“is an emotional response that is immediate, overwhelming, and out of measure with the actual stimulus because it has triggered a much more significant emotional threat.”

You can get any human to do dumb things if you can by-pass their logical brain and have them work off the lizard brain.

I can see a future where the Internet is completely run by bots and AI to the point where no human actually uses the Internet anymore.

It’s like an island that gets overrun with rats - there are just too many to deal with so you leave.