The legal system has many jobs to fulfill, but in the broadest sense it serves to construct, maintain, and administrate the contract between a government and its citizens.

In spite of recent events, I do believe that the American legal system is one of the best that has ever existed. That isn’t to say it is perfect or even nearly so. Our system has many flaws, and recent events have done a great job at highlighting those flaws. However, it is worth remembering the severity of previous systems which lacked basic pillars we now take for granted (like the presumption of innocence)

It is also worth remembering that our legal system has a lot to contend with: not just the scale of the American population but the vastness of American diversity. Never before and nowhere else have such massively diverse populations been able to construct a society where we are all empowered to disagree with each other. The contract which makes this possible may still fail do provide these things equitably and may now be strained beneath its own weight, but the simple fact that we are able to discuss these flaws and conceive reasonable avenues for improvement is evidence that our system is (imperfectly) working.

As an American, I just thought this was normal. Do other countries not armor-plate their strollers? How do your children survive outings in public? (/S)

Anything from the hu

I’m so tired of ragebait working.

If you were talking about someone else, you would probably say something along the lines of “everyone deserves to be loved” so when you start being down on yourself, just remember that though means one of two things:

Either you really are somehow the worst human being who ever lived and somehow the first who truly doesn’t deserve to be loved, or your brain is just being mean right now.

Yeah, sensory issues do be like that.

I could never stand raw tomatoes as a kid and, for the most part, I still hate them. Most sorts of cooked tomatoes are fine. I can tolerate the shitty fast food tomatoes that are just the solid bits and are nearly flavorless, but I still don’t like them.

Have you tried many different types of apples? I find that some have a gritty almost fuzzy texture that I can’t stand, but some other apples have a completely different texture.

So you are fiscally irresponsible and you are proud of it? Good to know…

Not exactly stealing from the rich but Bill Gates seems pretty hellbent on donating away his fortune before he dies.

My god! He’s done it!

Ordinary pajamas of “No, you!” That automagically protect you. Oh, some thought they would shoot you? Surprise! They get shot instead.

Most people’s opinions here seem to be oriented around their youth. When we are just old enough to engage with the world in small and controllable ways, but still too young to really grasp the worst parts or feel partly responsible for them, it’s easy to feel optimistic about the world and our place in it. That optimism is what we look back on and long for because, as we age further, we gradually realize how misguided that optimism really is.

I respect your opinion. I don’t feel the same.

Valid. I just lack general faith in the practice of voting with your wallet. My default assumption is that it takes an unreasonable amount of persistence and coordination, and that the majority of people either don’t know or don’t care about whatever issue is being considered.

Remember when apple started getting dinged for programming their batteries to fail artificially and making them unnecessarily hard to replace just to force more people to upgrade?

Mark my words. That trick is coming soon to a Tesla near you.

Renting forever sounds like a nightmare. They already took housing from me. I don’t want to keep losing things.

I’m the sort of person who enjoys doing things myself when it comes to my car. It isn’t just a tinkering hobby to me. My car is a huge source for feelings of safety and control. Theoretically, I could tear down and rebuild almost everything on my car with a socket wrench set. Obviously it’s more complicated than that and as other people have mentioned there are some modern combustion cars that are massively complicated just to stop people like myself from getting into them. EVs on the other hand are way easier to lock down because the whole power train is basically a black box connected to a battery and operated by an app. Sure the breaks and wheels are the same but nearly everything else is either black boxed (motor and controls) or gone completely (transmission and drive train)which makes the car as a whole less fixable / modable. This makes me feel less safe having to rely on one.

Yes, exactly! We are just going to see more of this as time passes and I hate it. Idk what I can to about it other than buy cars that do less of this. Not that my one purchase every other decade really matters.

The difference between wall-e and eve makes me think of cars. How old and even some modern combustion cars are built well and engineered to be highly modular and user serviceable. EVs are highly proprietary. They rely on closed systems that can’t practically be serviced without special equipment.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m NOT a fan of fossil fuels at all. I just don’t like how cars have been slowly morphing into proprietary unreliable cellphone-like commodities, or how the push towards EVs seems to be accelerating that trend.