JDPoZ

JDPoZ , 5 days ago

Because both political parties have limited the power of said government to do so were replaced by the ruling capitalist class decades ago in an effort to neuter any and all attempts to even mildly curtail the nearly limitless power of unchecked capital.

FTFY

Many people like to pretend it's just the Republicans, but also nearly all of the Democratic party members (save for a few members of "the Squad" and a couple of independents like Bernie Sanders) are either members of that same ruling class (Nancy Pelosi for example - has a net worth of $120,000,000) or act on said ruling class's interests nearly exclusively (except on wedge issues that largely have no direct financial impact on capital like abortion rights, gun legislation, etc.).

This is what the non-sarcastic versions of "both sides" commenters mean when they say as such... Not that both parties are "completely equivalent in all policy regards," but that an overwhelming majority of the representatives of the U.S.'s 2 main political parties are effectively slightly different shades of the same branch grown by the oligarchs who basically get to run our country.

JDPoZ , 12 days ago

Always more attempts to grab the tiniest sliver from an almost non-existent Venn Diagram crossover. Never reaching for the literal fifty or so million apathetic voters who would otherwise support Biden but feel like he's not ever going to be doing enough to motivate them to show up.

JDPoZ , 17 days ago

Dumb take. Never mistake that an area with shitty leaders is exclusively filled with the shitheads who elected them.

This is how you get victim blaming and the misguided idea that just because terrible people have been put in charge all of the good people have left.

I’m close to someone fighting the good fight. They are among those who do not support this and do everything they legally can to keep from letting it affect their students.

JDPoZ , 23 days ago

My heart :
"YES!!!!!"

My brain - which has seen what people like, for example, the Wal-Mart heiress who literally ran someone over that then died never spent a moment in jail... :
"No."

JDPoZ , 23 days ago

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b3f1663e-3876-47ad-87e6-151ef80c5fe9.gif

JDPoZ , 2 months ago

Puts are where it’s at anyway. Hard to predict good moves… easy to see dumb ones that will hurt shortly after they are made.

JDPoZ , 2 months ago

…You forgot “decide to 💥 you.”

JDPoZ , 2 months ago

No it’s not.

It’s a city run by multi-millionaire landowners who refuse to support big expensive tax-paid projects that would address the issue of homelessness such as :

A. allowing tall more densely populated housing to lower their property values and “ruin the view…”

…or…

B. high speed rail that could allow for Tokyo-like commuting from long distances to cheaper living areas for a working populace.

Anyone who would support left-leaning legislation has largely been priced out of living in SF for like a decade now.

Now, unless you have $5k to set aside for rent every month, you are living outside the city.

JDPoZ , 2 months ago

Some VPNs like Mullvad actually have an option in their app to block ads, gambling stuff, etc.

They don’t catch everything, but work pretty well.

JDPoZ , 3 months ago

Yeah - he’s definitely faking brain-melting mini-stroke moments like this. 🤣

JDPoZ , 4 months ago

With how terrible Adobe has been lately, I’m looking forward to fully dropping them in favor of GIMP altogether.

JDPoZ , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

Demagogues like Trump are nothing new… and are only able to gain ground when a population is angered by the inaction of others in power to ease their real material suffering.

Medical debt, unaffordable housing, price-gouging, a lack of upward mobility or the ability to afford retirement or having children… all these things make it easy for demagogues to offer scapegoats.

Really - to beat Trump, we just need a firebrand populist who will try to pass legislation that helps the average American and - when unable to pass specific such legislation that would alleviate real tangible problems faced by the overwhelming majority of Americans - would use the bully pulpit to loudly push for the change they support are unable to enact - letting their voters know where to direct their anger and power.

Only genuine populism can soundly beat fake blustering demagoguing populism, because fake populism is designed to only emulate real genuine populism rather than offer up actual solutions to problems faced.

People want universal healthcare, they don’t want wars, they want to be able to take care of themselves and their family, they want the corrupt punished and justice for the citizen harmed by the giant multinational corporation’s greed driven pollution, waste, or lack of safety.

Fake populists only offer fake scapegoats and vague gestures. A real populist loudly and accurately points to the root of these issues.

You want to beat Trump? Then we need Biden to have been this his whole time in office… and to be this now.

The fact that the White House is focusing now more on pushing for anti-deepfake porn measures - only because billionaire Taylor Swift has been wronged by it - rather than making it so Americans can avoid losing their homes, jobs, or medical coverage - is ammo for lying demagogues to then disingenuously blame such problems on trans-kids and illegal immigrant workers.

JDPoZ , 4 months ago

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-26/white-house-urges-action-after-alarming-taylor-swift-deepfakes

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/01/27/white-house-responds-to-graphic-fake-images-of-taylor-swift/72378571007/

https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-ai-generated-explicit-photos-white-house-sag-aftra-release-statements-1235590855/

JDPoZ , 5 months ago

Feels like I’m probably gonna get dogged on for this as some will just call it self-promotion, but I’ve been making “content” for a long long long time - I think my oldest personal completely original YouTube video is like 14 yrs old… and I used to just make it for the fun of it.

The problem came when my own stuff started getting bogus takedowns and copyright claims and other people sticking ads into my work or claiming that because 2 seconds of my 20-minute long video essay has a clip from a popular movie, I should get no revenue for the other 19 minutes and 58 seconds of detailed analysis… or that - because I chose to use the cartoon theme music from the 1980s animated show for the background music for a 2+ week project on a highly detailed transforming 3D model animation, I should get zero credit or possible revenue from it…

My choice was either to delete my shit to spite them and move it somewhere else or just give up…

Sometimes I said fuck them and deleted it. Other times I moved it somewhere else. Other times I shifted what I spent time on.

Now though, I honestly try to put stuff up not ONLY for the fun of it, but to try and make some sort of tiny bit of money.

My job contract with a company I had been with for 10+ years ended at the end of last year… and I got a new 6-month contract position at a different company… but it pays way less.

Being able to make content “just for the fun of it” is nice and easier when you’re young and still on your parents’ dime, but that’s kind of a luxury to some of us older folks who are now just also looking to secure some sort of income in an increasingly shitty world where there are no safety nets, and no job seems safe from elimination.

The worst part is that - over the years as Google and other companies have increased the requirements for being able to have any sort of monetization whatsoever, I went from making a couple hundred bucks a year to not even qualifying anymore to be a YouTube partner.

Now with 1,100+ subscribers and over 1.1 million views on all the stuff on my channel (some of which is honestly garbage or just the best versions of otherwise maybe lost media I do NOT own and so am NOT complaining about a lack of making revenue on), I still have yet to make enough from any of the stuff that IS my original work over that 14+ years to even have it be significant to show up as required on my taxes.

JDPoZ , 5 months ago

Awesome analysis… but I’m not gonna read all that nor is your average voter Biden is speaking to.

I’m not a financial expert and the problem with legislation like this is obtuse and still not designed to actually prevent the overall problem, but to make it stinging less.

Things like this are what I call “one time mail in rebate partial discount” legislation - because it’s not only impossible to distill into anything simple for voters to understand, but it only marginally affects the problem rather than solving it…

Like - because the US doesn’t have high-speed trains, instead of building any… now we’re going to let Amtrak instead just build 200 miles of more 35 mile an hour driving garbage trains between 2 major cities in one state that already supports Biden and pretend that “we’re solving transportation in the US.”

The real answer should be something much simpler like “we eliminated overdrafting” - Meaning banks cannot overdraft you anymore or charge you for it.

How about instead of the bank monetizing people fucking up when they’ve run out of money we instead just make it so banks are required to not overdraft people thereby not charging you money for taking out what is effectively a micro-loan with a relatively enormous moment-of-transaction interest charge?

I don’t think it’s a bad thing Biden did something, but pretending that these things are “huge wins” you can slap on a bumper sticker like the passing of Social Security or the civil rights act or whatever is fucking delusional.