It’s bad because he used his power to personally enrich himself instead of acting in the nation’s best interest. Computer chip manufacturing market is one of the only comparative advantages that the United States has. A comparative advantage means that you can do something better than other nations, so you can get a better trade. For a simple example, Spain’s climate allows it to grow sweeter grapes than England’s, so Spain is able to produce higher quality wine. Because the wine is better in Spain, they can charge more money for it than the English can. Therefore, Spain has a comparative advantage in wine, and England is better off making something else and using the money to buy Spain’s wine. China doesn’t know how to make chips as good as the ones we make, yet, so we have a comparative advantage in computer chips. They’re trying though, and when they develop the technology they will seriously undercut the American chip market, if not cut us out altogether. It will seriously damage our economy, which is already struggling in most sectors.

I only got 3 hours of sleep, I have a sore throat, and I have to do an opening statement that I haven’t finished. ;_; today not fun

So imagine white families. How often do you think they see ICE if we dont even see ICE.

Daily. On the news. The last time I had a family lunch with my dad’s side, my dad shared a “fun fact” that so many people have been cleared out that some towns are seeing drops in rent, to which my grandmother responded “That’s great, they should do that here in our neighborhood.” They know. When I say they are literally cheering at the gas chambers, I’m not being a fanatic. Fascist Germany happened in real life. Regular people were sincerely brainwashed into believing complete evil was good for them, and I have seen the Republicans do it to my family and my supervisors. The regular ass people who loved me and helped me be the best person I can be, who spent my entire childhood teaching me not to be a nazi, became god damn nazis.

You need to understand that in the United States, we literally have a secret police kidnap people off the streets, and then immediately remove them out of state and delete their records so that they cannot be tracked, to facilities that don’t provide adequate living standards to the extent that people die in them. They are literally “cheering at the gas chambers.” I understand fascism hasn’t reached this point in Canada yet, but you should still recognize that it’s a harmful ideology.

Lemmy as a whole is really weird. There are some communities that just ignore seriously problematic user behavior and some with mods that engage in tyrannical viewpoint suppression. You just need to pick ones with reasonable groups of people that go there. It’s the same as reddit, but with fewer weird outsiders fucking things up and no obnoxious admins.

No, the holidays I celebrate have some kind of emotional meaning to me. Thanksgiving makes me feel grateful and satisfied, Christmas makes me feel cheerful and connected to others, when I celebrated July 4th it was pride. Without the religious meaning, Easter makes me feel nothing. If anything, it’s awkward and pointless.

Nothing is original, and nonetheless we use words to identify them.

Christmas is a religious holiday that developed secular appeal. Easter is only a religious holiday. It is in fact the most important important religious holiday. My grandmother only made stuffed cabbages on special occasions: weddings, Christmas, and Easter. That’s it. It’s a big holiday that only matters to people who literally believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead that day. I don’t celebrate Easter anymore.

I currently don’t have a pet. However, I do have a resident baby spider named Miles. I decided to keep him, because despite being the smaller than the tip of my finger, he built a very impressive web over 12" long.

I think it’s a cultural thing to associate certain colors with certain holidays/times of the year. For me, November is grey. It’s when the weather turns and the trees lose their leaves, so everything around is dark.

My boyfriend’s family is large. There are 12-15 cousins that are just millennials, and even more in the gen-x generation. Meaning, they can do a full team sports game outside, they can have 10+ player board games, there are ones boyfriend likes more and hangs around more and ones boyfriend avoids. The conversations do tend to be a lot of reminiscing about being kids. They joke, they laugh. I will say, his family is exceptionally well behaved. My family could never do this. My family swears, fights, gets overly drunk and overly political. Not his. They’re kind.

If I could go back to my early 20s, I would go to travel destinations and bar tend. Alaska, Hawai’i, Bali, etc. I missed out on a lot that I had no idea existed. Today I wish I had the time to tutor prisoners how to read. I think that could be fun.

You can practice the conversation of what you should’ve said in the mirror.

no, it’s a biological problem. it’s been like this since high school, and my mother is the same way.

I have too much executive dysfunction to work from home. I need to be in the office, bored out of my mind, in an uncomfortable chair, to force myself to want to work.

Honestly you just outgrow that. It’s developmentally appropriate for teens/young adults to become obsessed with their looks. Then, you continue to develop yourself intellectually, engage in interests, and manage your mental health, and you move past that. Eventually you become brave enough to find a relationship and begin navigating life with another person. You learn that the way you treat others influences how they think of you way more than your looks. I’d suggest a dating book and also feeling good: the new mood therapy, because it’ll help you identify when you’re thinking irrationally.

Sex generally does that. We use our phones a bit, but for the most part the two of us are the only two people on the planet.

Yes, it’s called demography. The point of calculating predictions is so we can react to them now. For example, in the 1960s, we predicted population growth would outpace our ability to produce enough food, and massive amounts of people would starve to death. In response, societies invested millions of dollars into agricultural development to be able to grow food more efficiently. By responding to the issue, we avoided having it. The claim wasn’t “wrong”, it did what it was supposed to do.

I don’t mind it on social media, but just to obtain basic info, ie. on google or .gov websites, it’s totally obnoxious.

Yes, that’s called “growing up.” You have to teach yourself. It’s a frustrating process, because you don’t understand how to select recipes that suit your needs. 1/2 the recipes I found online usually resulted in a fail, because I couldn’t tell the difference between a good recipe and a bad one. I love the first cookbook I bought now, but at the time, what was I going to do with buckwheat blinis or tea-poached pears in chocolate sauce? I needed a basic pancake and chocolate cookies recipe. That book was basically useless for the first 5 years I owned it.

If I could go back, I would start with:

budgetbytes.com

noracooks.com

“I can cook vegan” by Isa Chandler

Chef John on youtube https://www.youtube.com/@foodwishes

Cooking is a skill. You learn it one meal at a time. What you want to start with is building a repertoire of simple, 15 minute meals that you love and that you can crank out with your eyes closed. Once you have like 3-5 of those, then you have a separation between “I need to eat” and “I want to learn to cook.” That separation is what lets you not feel frustrated and focus on your skills.