Would be neat if he got impeached regardless of putting in his resignation. I’d love it for him to have it in his permanent record, so to speak.

Irgendwas ohne die paranoide Ausweiskontrolle würde mir schon reichen.

Ja Genosse Kommissar, natürlich bereichert es meinen Tag einen amtlichen Ausweis vorzuzeigen. Vor allem an Tagen, wo wir schon 20-30min Verspätung haben. Finde ich total geil, das “Papers, please”. Aber die 300€ Transaktion im Ausland per Karte? Eh, passt schon.

Ich habe das Gefühl, die Leute sollen gerne vom Deutschlandticket weggemobbt werden.

That’s an interesting perspective I hadn’t thought of.

Honestly, I don’t think I’d want to see him as the presidential candidate next. He’s very young and after being president you are mostly spent as a politician. Look at Obama. He could have had a longer productive career if he hadn’t been president as early as he was. Talarico I’d hope to see for two or three full cycles as a Senator. If he’s then elected president he’d still be young, but more experienced.

I guess that’s one of the reasons why he didn’t want to concede losing.

Microsoft also has always been an aggressive company peddling second rate products (exceptions exist) aiming at domination and extraction. Unfortunately the judiciary never really held MS accountable. Many actually göod, productive and useful American companies were bulldozed by MS. I’m sure quite a few people would have liked to quit MS and have now been given additional reasons to go through the pain.

Vengeance seems to be a large motivating factor in the entire US penal system. If you completely ignored vengence and were looking for pragmatic solutions to problematic behaviour of your citizens which you wanted to rehabilitate to the extent possible, you’d be looking at the scandinavian approach.

Mind you, I’m not from scandinavia. We could learn a lot from those guys too.

I’m amazed at the American obsession with voting machines. A properly organised hand count has an amazingly low error rate. I distinctly remember an article about 20 years ago stating, that even the then newest scanning vote counting machines had an error rate higher than hand counting.

Yes “a human” makes mistakes. But multiple humans paying attention at the same time and also keeping each other honest do a tremendously good job.

And, as a bonus, the old school method has a tremendously low error rate.

I remember an article in a renowned computer mag about 20 years ago measuring error rates. The newest and greatest voting machine, at the time, still had way worse error rates than hand counting. Never mind everything that was around before. Maybe the most modern systems can achieve the same error rates as hand counting, dunno, haven’t been keeping up.

I was absolutely floored with how bad the error rates of lever operated mechanical machines used to be. How anyone accepted those anywhere near a democracy was beyond me.

Well, I believe there was a case in England where a woman was sentenced to death by hanging for killing her child. She was hanged and appeared dead, but when they cut her down after some time she came back to life. In her case it was considered she had endured her punishment and she was released. Public called her half hanged Mary(?). Not sure about her name anymore. But I’m sure long common law history is only employed when convenient.

I had that moment with the flash back in Captain Marvel. I believe it was a “20 years earlier” and the sound track changes to Garbage/Only happy when it rains… The sound track of my friend group in the last years of school. Damn did I feel old…

I don’t even think that’s the ultimate argument. Executions are final. There is nothing you can do when you find out someone wasn’t guilty after all. And that happens way too often.

Don’t forget what I think is the most important reason for elaborate “humane” execution methods. Those ordering or tasked with the executions don’t want to think of themselves as the “bad guys”. Historically what that means has varied strongly. But in our societies we have very little official appetite for being bad or cruel in a physical manner.

And then it’s a matter of required competency. It seems to require real skill to decapitate a person with a sword cleanly. Hanging cleanly is much less simple than it seems. Killing is fairly simple. Killing in a socially acceptable manner much less so.

But that something else I don’t understand. Even DIY executions really should, scientifically, be a solved problem. Potassiumiodide as a leathal agent is essentially a stock compound that should easily be sourceable, even be made by oneself. Sure, pharmaceutical grade will be more difficult, but the goal is to kill someone. Afaik it’s quite an unpleasant experience, so for the executioners to feel better it’s proceeded by some sedative and perhaps a muscle relaxant. Both of those should be available as some generic noname drug. And even if not, those have been around for decades and are a solved problem that could be made in-state. If you consider how much money is thrown at the military-industrial complex and even at law enforcement with rubbish like tanks and heavy weapons for “law enforcement” the money for in-state manufacture of the required drugs should be available. Maybe they can’t find enough chemists/pharmacists without a conscience? But even so I suspect the real reason is simply them wanting to be cheapskates.

And if they want it cheap, they should man up and use one of those in old non-industrial methods. But I guess that makes them too obviously the bad guys.

Tldr: being so incompetent almost has to be a conscious choice.

Erinnert mich an den Kurzfilm Slaughterbots. Sci-fi wird zunehmend (leider) Realität.

Ich finde vor allem lustig, wie die hoch-heilige Kuh “Marktwirtschaft” mal eben ausgehebelt wird, wenn sie nicht opportun ist. Aber sonst heißt es immer: können wir nicht halten, der Markt soll es richten.

Imo dürften Marken gar nicht übertragbar sein. Unternehmen oder Produktion gekauft? Herzlichen Glückwunsch, jetzt steht dein Name auf der Umpackung. Das ist ja, was eine Marke sein sollte: die Bezeichnung der Herstellerfirma. Und Tochtergesellschaften, Holdings und so ein Müll sollten egal sein. Namen des letztendlichen Eignersndrauf und gut.

Naja, wenn staatliche Strukturen aufgelöst werden, wird das Machtvakuum ja nicht bestehen bleiben. Thiel strebt keine Anarchie als solche an. Er will nur selbst in keiner Weise durch einen separat legitimierten Staat ausgebremst werden. Ich vermute es werden Konzerne die Lücken mit nicht demokratisch legitimierten Strukturen füllen. Thiel sprach doch auch von neo-feudalen Ideen. Ob er ein theoretisch reiner Faschist ist seinmal dahingestellt. Aber er will irgendwas mit einem starken Mann an der Spitze.

Check out the Powel Memorandum. From the 70s moneyed interests started to systematically shift power to the wealthy and large corporations. They created think tanks like the Heritage Foundation to give the project the veneer of scientific legitimation. Reagan was the first to accept a policy blue print from Heritage. Since then they have been working to stack the courts, form government policy and legislate a shift if money and power to the few. Trump is reaping the benefits of what has been prepared since Reagan. Trickle down economy was one of the greatest scams of all time.

That’s what is complicated with Heinlein. You can see it as him promoting fascism, as Verhoeven has.

But you also can read it as something promoting more healthy politics. Only people willing to put themselves on the line or at least endure some hardships were eligible to participate in politics. Johnny Rico’s parents didn’t want him to enlist as it was not necessary to have political rights if all you wanted was a good life.

If nothing else this policy would have not only prevented CPT Bonespurs from taking office but even that someone like him got a vote.

I do think though Heinlein was unrealistically idealistic with his book. And the movie took an even more pessimistic view than that.