It can construed as a side step around the protected classes. Which means it could open up the opportunity to be sued. Since there are so very many lawsuits on the books about this, there is a likelihood that there is a precedent that would hurt someone who tried to use this side stepping idea. So most (wise) employers would avoid doing this to avoid the risk. It isn’t black and white.

Ten swallows of water without taking a breath, as fast as you can.

I am a Christian and I don’t believe that. I could go on at length about how the Bible doesn’t support that idea.

Ironically, I have read that there was a study that found that the most gullible kids in elementary school grow up to be republican. I’m not kidding.

There is a lot to be said about economics and capitalism. I am in no way excusing the greed based nonsense we have rampantly running us all into the ground. But I do think that these actions will eventually burn themselves out. Take AI replacing workers. If that happens, there won’t be enough customers to buy AI products. So they will mostly go out of business and become a taboo. Instead there will likely be a balance.

The same is true of all the stuff you are mentioning. I think we are reaching a tipping point where these bad business practices and bad financial government practices are all coming to a head. Our economies are based so much on credit, and we are running out of credit to borrow worldwide. And, these corporate corruptions of government free democracy are all kind of back firing. I think in the next four years there will be an uprising of the population, much like what happened after the Hoover presidency, and I think that will result in some major law changes for the better. Not perfect, but better. I also think that we will see a LOT of these high profile compani s get broken up and go bankrupt. Take the insurance industry. It has become so toxic that they are getting close to being not worth it. They don’t pay out as much as they cost for most of us. So I think we will see alternatives start to pop up.

But then again, maybe I am just sticking my head in the sand because it feels safer to be ignorant.

For me, deciding that everyone around me is an incompetent imbecile has been quite freeing. I don’t care what anyone thinks of me. I am always pleasantly surprised when they do a good job. And I am extra vigilant, take responsibility for the safety of those around me at all times.

I have no idea. It may have even be n a false claim. But I do believe the government can pay claim to a patent if it wants to. Like, if you invented a new kind of bomb, like say you figured out how to make a device that could create a decent amount of antimatter in a second row two, specifically loaded into a warhead, I’m pretty sure the government would take that from you and all your research. And it would be illegal to publish the design.

But I’m no lawyer and am merely guessing.

I knew of someone who had a patent for a device that attached to a forklift to aid in large scale floor remodeling (scraped up old vinyl flooring). The US military used Eminent Domain to steal that patent and use it for military operations (still just remodeling old floors, not even for combat operations).

I don’t know any more specifics about it. (I have a feeling there were more details that would have made that more understandable). Just that they can take a patent if they feel they need to.

I think it is more accurate to fear the transition. Economically speaking, there will be turbulence. We have already seen some companies try to eliminate all their employees and replace them with AI. But we have already been here before. I work in railroading, and in the 80s they all got rid of huge portions of their employees by replacing them with computers. Those people found new jobs, and some of them fell on hard times, while some made out better. There are whole industries that were completely transformed due to technology changes in the past forty years. But it wasn’t the end of the world. It was just turbulent for some.

So for me, I’m not worried, but I am weary. I welcome AI as a new tool for humans to use. I just don’t welcome poor decision making from shareholders and shitty management.

Shark Vertex. I landed in the AZ2002 a couple of years ago and it has worked extremely well for our home. Same carpet percentage, and we have a dog. Poodle, which has hair instead of fur, but we still end up with a lot of hair from regular grooming.

Is this just an end run advertisement?

I got called to Minnesota to serve two years as an LDS missionary back in 2000. I absolutely loved the place. But my first day was I was stationed in Brainerd MN, and my apartment was on the edge of a frozen lake. I took a picture of it, and colored in the old brick BBQ to look like a wood chipper with feet sticking out of the top, and a large red stain across the ice, and sent it to my sister. That picture sat in her cubicle for years after that. I can’t think of that scene without thinking of it.

Trying to switch over. I use them both, but the threats to reddit freedom and it’s fast enshitification are the reasons I am currently using both.

Plus, the automod are out of control. I got a three day ban for quoting Clerks. (Try not to blow anyone on your way through the parking lot). I wasn’t even being mean, it was all for laughs and got a lot of upvotes before some automod refered me to a prude of a moderator.

Haha. Not what I meant but I guess it works too.

There was a sci-fi book a while back where all humans were gone, and all that was left was a thriving android civilization expanding across the solar system. The main character was built on the base of a sex bot, and had the ability to set the speed of her hair growth, and color. At one point she gets tied to some tracks (a city on Mercury that traveled around the planet) to be eliminated (she was a spy) and ends up getting away by forcing her hair to grow at a rate so fast it came out weak and easy to tear. Super weird book, but I thought of it when I read the comment I was responding to. And yes, on/off was part of it.

The Taxer-in-Cheif can be a moron at the same time that corporations rape our wallets without either of them excusing the other.

Prices are set by graphing a demand schedule and the supply. You graph how many sales you will get at each price point (sales go up as price goes down). Then you graph how many a company will produce at each price point (the more it costs, the less they will be willing to make/risk). The point where those two graphs intersect is the equilibrium. Which is the best price to charge. Taxes shift the cost, increase the price where they intersect.

Digital is weird. Iirc, the risk is more in pirating. The more copies that exist, or the easier they are to access, the more pirated content will be out there. Don’t forget to include shareholder profits in cost, and the cost of other parts of the business (like a beloved endeavor that doesn’t turn a profit, Costco hot dogs for example).

I’m not an economist and welcome any better explanations or corrections to this. It’s been a while since I took that class. But I love the topic.

Sneezing/snot production. Sure, it can feel amazing. But the sudden urgency to stop everything I’m doing and focus on my nose or risk a disgusting eruption of green mucus all over my face in a public setting is something I could do without.

Also, I’m waiting for someone with medical knowledge to come in here and mention Prions or something else silently devastating to the body.

Welcome to 22 hour work shifts, with twenty minute breaks.

Or just have the ability to control how fast it grows.

Prove to me you never raped your niece

Be careful with this one though.