I actually really like everything I’ve seen out of Talarico. Hopefully he can give Christians an off ramp from Christian Nationalism, MAGA and the Republican party.

Video from one of his sermons

Hope he can turn Texas blue

That’s like saying the simple solution to global warming is for people to not burn fossil fuels. It ignores the conditions that led to this becoming a problem in the first place; and it ignores the power of entrenched industry to protect their own interest.

What we need is political reform. so that the bodies that are supposed regulate industry and serve the public are empowered to make the necessary reforms. Lina Kahn was doing just that (before Trump got elected again in 2024)

I’m not trying to diminish the importance and role of personal accountability and individual action, but as a solution to affect meaningful change it falls well short.

Mine is connected to a smart outlet that is only ever powered on when we are away from the house, and it’s connected locally to my home assistant setup.

The USA isn’t the whole world, but even if it somehow were, there are conservatives who refused to vote for Trump (not enough but they do exist).

Not all conservatives are MAGA.

What do you mean trust? I prefer Anthropic/Claude for most things.

Plus when it is broke it still works a couple times per day.

Simpsons did it.

Mmmmm… incapacitating

It’s frankly criminal that tips are a mandatory component of food service in Canada/US.

You’re expected to tip a base amount regardless of service quality – as that’s how the pay/hours are structured.(If you don’t tip then you’re effectively stealing from the worker)

The assholes who don’t tip (or under tip) get basically no punishment and are financially rewarded for their shitty behaviour.

All while some servers/bartenders get laughably overpaid. (At least from my perspective as someone who worked many 12 hour shifts as a line cook way back when).

(None of this is to say that tampering with someone’s food is ever okay)

The reporter/publisher also doesn’t get anything

Huh… FF is my main browser and I’ve never had an issue. Could it be an extension issue?

I was with you up until aliexpress.

There’s definitely junk on there, but if you look for high purchase volume plus good ratings you’ll get plenty of high quality stuff (minus the middle-man markup).

I never considered the second point. Holy hell US lawmakers are captured by special interests

If done well, a government opperated digital ID could be very beneficial for society. Having a way to securely sign into different platforms using a trustless authenticator (that only shares the information you approve of) with a third party could be great.

Imagine signing onto a news site and knowing that every comment is actually a real person from your community and not a bot or a targeted influence campaign pushing an agenda.

The website doesn’t have to know your name, the government doesn’t have to know your username or track your activity, all what’s shared is that you’re an adult citizen from a particular region.

My only problem is I don’t exactly trust that it would be setup in this sort of ideal way.

I still think it’s worth pointing out that the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire is about a billion dollars.

Yeah I have a friend from the UK who voted for Brexit. He regrets it now and I’m like: “WHAT DID YOU THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?!”