In the US the tax rate on the bottom 78% of earners taxes was less than 7%

England has a tax rate for the same income of 11.5%

The top 6% (Avg Adjusted Gross income 514,000) paid $840 Billion of the income taxes

The Bottom 49.1% (Earning less than 45k AGI) paid $97 Billion of taxes, but 27.4 Million Households filled for $66.7 Billion in EIC tax credits

If the taxes on the bottom 78 percent were increased 6% to a level similar to England the USA could have universal health care

The US Spends 3.4 Trillion on Healthcare.

Just 5% of Americans Account for 50% of U.S. Health Care Spending. So taking away the top 5% means the US spends about 5,500 per person. More than UK, but with a long term approach we can tackle that.

1. Saying no to covering all issues. See above. Total cost down to 1.8T

2. Accepting a tax increase

• Doubling the Medicare withholding will provide 500B
• Down to 1.3T

1. Reallocate state spending In 2015, state governments across the country spent a combined $605 billion on health care

• Down to 700 Billion

1. Increase taxes 6% across the board, like those of countries that provide healthcare. 600B in Funding

• Down to 100 Billion

1. 1/3 of expenses in 2017 was payable for hospital room rentals and 21% was to doctor's office billable hours

• Increase utilization to make hospitals & Doctors more efficient so cost can be cut
• 1% reduction in billable hours and room rates Down 100B
• Adjust pricing based on cost savings
• Repeat

If the US had higher taxes for gas we could have a better Infastructure. Using rough math we in 2017 underfunded the highway dept about $21.5 billion

• 40 Cents per Gallon vs 18.4 cents currently
• 33 Cents vs 17.5 cents for Highway maintenance at fully funded for at least the next 5 years
  * 1 Cent vs 0.9 cents Gas Safety and storage. Round it up to a full penny better saftey funds for better clean up
  * 4 cents a new Green energy tax for Green projects
• 2 Cent New Metro Projects tax

$5.5 Billion annual funding for projects, plus using funding not going to covering the underfunded highway dept means who doesn't want to announce a 10 year $250 Billion Green Deal Project. Get States to match it 40/60 and its a $600 Billion Project

$96 a person more and With this Major Cities can tackle major projects and Rural cities can apply for the Metro Funding. $1.5 Billion each state gets on average can be applied however but that's encouraging moving to a Green plan.

The U.S. combined gas tax rate (State + Federal) is According to data from the OECD, is the second lowest (Mexico is the only country without a gas tax).

The average gas tax rate among the 34 advanced economies is $2.62 per gallon. In fact, the U.S.’s gas tax a rate less than half of that of the next highest country, Canada, which has a rate of $1.25 per gallon.

We want to have the European advanced economy of our peers but we arent wanting to pay for it

With a lot of websites going down the shitter in an attempt to monetize (looking at you, Reddit), I'm wondering where some nice places are online. Nice whether in UI, the community, or really just in general. Below is a small list off the top of my head.

Tildes, because of high quality discussion.

Disroot. It's a slew of useful tools, available for free, while respecting privacy. Genuinely really useful, lots of utilities, good documentation, and a really nice community.

Wikipedia. It's Wikipedia, end of.

Mastodon. This one wholly depends on your instance, but on most(?) the people are nice, and the environment is a lot less argumentative.

Hacker News, high quality discussion over a fair few topics. Very active, too.

Inspired by this very fun twitter thread and the very fun metafilter comment thread that came from it, I want to hear people's responses here as well:

What is your weirdest eating/drinking habit you had as a kid?

I'll start: I liked to fix myself a bowl of unsweetened whipped cream with a ridiculous amount of nutmeg sprinkled on top, or a bowl of plain yogurt with broken open pills of acidophilus or other probiotic powder scattered over the top of it. This is a texture I still enjoy, a soft cream covered in a dry, unsweetened powder.

I am a constant lurker in the Apple subreddit but I always wondered if people defend the company so much because they really are rabid fans or are they shills?

Don't get me wrong, I know that some people there can be really critical of Apple but it is still surprising to me the attitude of some of its users.

I think we can all (generally!) agree that the right-wing is too easy of a target here, and most of us seem to be left-ish. So, waves, what's leftism currently doing wrong, or on track to start doing wrong?

Basically, I'm struggling to arrive to a conclusion on this matter on my own. And in these situations I like discussing the topic with other people so I can see other sides that I have not considered and can submit my arguments for review and see if my logic follows or is faulty.

I apologize in advance for the disorganized ramble format, it's just a very messy subject for me. I guess I could tidy it up better and present it like a mini essay, but it would be somewhat dishonest or misleading to pretend that I have a hold of this horse when I absolutely don't. So, I think the stream of consciousness is a more honest and appropriate –even if messy– approach.

With that said, here it goes:

The way I understand it, the main reason for supporting antinatalism is that there's always pain in life.

There are varying amounts of it, of course, but you have no way of knowing what kind of pain your child will be exposed to. Thus, you're sort of taking a gamble with someone's life. And that, antinatalists say, is immoral.

I used to deeply agree with that sentiment. Now I don't agree with it so much, but I still cannot debunk it. I feel emotionally and irrationally, that it isn't quite right. But, I cannot defend these feelings rationally.

I think, if you're serious about antinatalism, that you are against creating life. Since life always comes with the possibility of pain. And, you cannot just end all the life forms that can feel pain and call it a day; on the contrary: you'd also have to end all the forms of life that cannot feel pain too, since, even though they cannot feel pain, they can create other life forms that can feel pain.

I guess a point could be made to only apply the antinatalist values to humans. Since only we have concepts of morally right and wrong, and animals don't know what they're donig. But we do know what they're doing, and why would you try to prevent other humans from creating life that can suffer but leave other animals able to do it? It's all suffering for innocent creatures, is it not?

I guess we could also imagine a form of life without pain. For example, a future with very advanced technology and medicine, artificial meat, etc. But getting there would mean subjecting a lot of people to a lot of pain. And even in that future, the possibility of pain is still there, which is what makes creating life immoral. It's not just the certainty of pain, but also the possibility of it alone.

So, in the end, the way I see it, being antinatalist means being anti-life. Sure, you can just be an antinatalist to yourself and not impose your values on other people. But if you're consistent with the antinatalist argument, then if it's wrong for you to have kids because they can suffer, it's also wrong for other people and even for animals.

And this doesn't seem right to me. Because, I mean, it's life. And I think ridding the world of life woud be a very sad thing, would it not?

But, again, this is just feelings. If I think about it rationally, the world and the universe are completely indifferent to the existence of life. A world without life, what does it matter? Specially if there's no one there to see it. Nothing makes life inherently better than no life. Since ethics doesn't really exist in the physical world.

It's neither right nor wrong for life to exist. But bringing life into a world of pain does certainly feel wrong from a morality standpoint.

But why is it wrong? We didn't create life. We didn't create pain. The injustice of it all exists not because of us.

But, we do have the power to end that suffering. And if we have the power to end suffering, shouldn't we end suffering? Isn't that what the moral values taught to us say (except for religious communities, I guess)?

You could always say, “well, it's not my fault that life is unfair, and it's not my responsibility to tackle that issue” or “the joy compensates for the pain”. Which might be valid points, but they don't take away the selfishness of having kids, do they? You're just ignoring the issue.

On the other hand, however, there are a lot of people who were born (which is an unfair act), but they aren't mad about it, they don't resent their parents, and they're happy and they wouldn't choose not to have been born. But does this make it okay? I think that it makes it not so bad, but at the end of the day it's still wrong, just “forgivable wrong” if that's even a thing.

Also, isn't it going too far? Applying morality to something so primitive, so abstract, so before morality, something that isn't even human?

But we also say murder, torture and rape are wrong, yet murder, torture and rape have been happening forever since they were first possible, for far longer than we humans have existed. So, how are they any different? If they can be wrong, so can life.

Furthermore, don't we have a right to follow our primitive instincts and reproduce? Allowing someone to “bring a life into a world of pain” is wrong, but so is taking away their right to fulfill their “naturally unjust” life.

I guess, if I was forced to give a conclusion, it would be something along the lines of: Creating life is wrong and selfish, yes. But it's okay because most people don't mind it and it's not really our fault that it exists nor our responsibility to end it. So, tough luck and YOLO?

I'm not too happy about that conclusion but it's the best I can come up with.

And as a corollary: to diminish the unfairness of birth, we should facilitate euthanasia and accept self-check-outs as a fair decision.

So, what do you think?

Is antinatalism right? Is my antinatalism right? Is it wrong? Is mine wrong? Why?

Is creating life fair? Is it not? Is it not but still okay? Why?

A common topic I've seen so far on Tildes is what exactly differentiates it from other online communities. This doesn't just encompass vision and meta-rules, but also the current state of the forum, and it's userbase. I wanted to propose a possible metric for gauging the quality of a forum, and would love to hear feedback on it. The metric is as follows: when all the content on the platform is no longer realistically consumable by any given member of the community.

I feel like Tildes is still currently at this state, but is somewhat quickly getting to the point where it's unrealistic for any one user to absorb all the content on the site. Once this tipping point arrives, the community has to change. The choice will be between whether one should start consuming all the content on specific sub-forums, like ~talk or ~comp, and ignoring the discussions and other subforums one cares less about, or accept that one will only ever see what is popular overall within the site.

I feel like this falls into 3 main categories: Community, growth, and that "magic" feeling of nascent internet communities.

I think it's important to define what I mean by "information" or "content". Information is meant in the more information theoretic context - it's a more abstract representation of content. It's context specific information that can be manifested as an image, a post, a comment, or even a set of rules. Information is, broadly, what makes up the discussion. If anyone has read Information: A history, a theory, a flood, I mean information in the same way it is defined and used in that book.

1. Community:

When every user is able to see what every other use posts, everyone involved has a singular point of view into the content of that community. It's never sharded or split - the information is distributed evenly, and everyone has close to 100% of it. Everyone might not agree or interpret content in the same way, but the very fact that everyone is seeing the same content, and the information is presented identically, makes it so that there is a very dense set of common ground. It's nearly impossible to "miss" big events - these being singular, really well written comment chains, unique posts, or thought provoking ideas. The sense of community is there because no one is excluded due to sheer amount of information - if someone puts in the effort to see everything, and it's still possible to see everything, they're almost automatically a part of that community.

Once a forum becomes so large that any one person can no longer realistically consume all the content it starts straying towards the lowest common denominator. These are posts that share common ground with everyone, which unfortunately means that you lose that unique community. Most people one site will no longer have seen every single post. You no longer run into posts or comments that are as thought provoking, simply because there is so much content only that which appeals to everyone will make it to the top.

2. Growth:

This ties in closely with what I mentioned above - the growth is what spurs those changes. Once you no longer have that feeling of community, you interact with it differently. You no longer can rely on the same people seeing your content, and the content itself starts decreasing in quality. This isn't due to "dumb" people joining - it's due to the sheer amount of "Information" being generated. The idea of Eternal September is tangential to this - you're not just losing out on community due to a lot of new users, it's also a loss of community due to sheer amount of information.

3. Magic internet moments:

I don't have a good definition of this but I think most people will know what I mean. Every popular online community has these moments - they're the random acts of pizza, randomly encountering someone else from the same site in real life, crazy coincidences, etc. These are often what kick start the crazy growth in the previous post - they're just really cool events that happen because of the internet, and specifically happen on that site. The new reddit book We are the nerds goes over a ton of these in the early days of reddit, and how they propelled it to what it is today.

I wanted to ask the current Tildes community what they thought about this, whether they had any major disagreements, and if anything can be done to remedy this./

This is something I've been grappling with for a while. For context I'm a long time mod on reddit, primarily of r/IAmA, r/damnthatsinteresting, and r/churning. I've helped grow and curate these communities over time, and each is drastically different. The most relevant here is probably r/churning, though.

It used to be that there was a core set of users that contributed all the content. They were known by name, everyone that visited knew who they were, and they built up the hobby to what it is today. All the things that I mentioned above started happening there - the content started skewing towards the trivial questions, new members weren't properly acclimated, and the sheer amount of information caused the mods at the time to implement fairly drastic rules to combat these issues. Once you could no longer realistically consume all the content the community aspect sort of fell apart, and it became more akin to a Q&A subreddit, with new users asking the same questions.

Do you believe there is something unique/special about those "early" users, and what changes have you noticed historically once that "content" tipping point arrives?

Oof Grandma... Get your head out of your ass woman.(This is in Jest, Grandma knows and thought it was funny. ya'll chill)* Where are you getting your news lately because I just sent you an article from our national news organization and you just told me you can't believe it... Why?

We live and love in the beautiful free country of Canada and despite any individual political leader, we can find comfort in the fact that we have many elected officials that listen to their constituents and ultimately intend to better the lives for our nation. Canada is a mighty developed country and she has designated important bodies to help protect us from the wolves that prey on the weak. We have the CBC a nationally funded non profit organization that has authorship and integrity to the journalists they hire and a long history of helping the truth and redacting and outright dismissing disinformation (now more commonly called fake news). In this article I've sent you, it has sources directly involved in the measles outbreak, including doctors who are licensed through a board that verifies their integrity and ethics and authority in medicine. Also sourced is the CDC; another body that was appointed by Canada herself to keep her citizens healthy and safe, these are not groups of scientists with a vested interest to lie to anyone as that would jeopardize the safety to our entire nature... Yet these highly educated and well funded scientists are refuting your hypothesis grandma.

I think in order to understand what is happening here we need to both step back and ground ourselves in a neutral territory towards a scholarly pursuit and work towards the advancement of our society. To do this we need to frame our perspective to that of a scholar to which I think you and I both agree we are proud to call ourselves anyway. Me, a university student and you an independent researcher: truth be told, as a student of an organization like Ryerson, I have access to a wider breadth of knowledge in our online resources and databases of peer reviewed articles that I can search through with ease, but our goal will be the same and can be achieved only if you think critically with everything you read - you seem well versed in this regard so kudos let's proceed.

As a critical thinker and scholar we are nothing without our authority which is provided through our knowledge-base in factual information. I don't need to be an expert in biology, medicine, or even journalism to be able to have confidence in reading the news article I sent you; but as a scholar I have the ability to verify the authority to the people making the claims in the article. Every person involved in a professionally investigated article are sourced and cited and provide proof to their authority. It's why the CBC discloses their journalists and is also why they'll happily fire them if they fuck up - their integrity is on the line - same with every scientist working for the CDC. Canada does not have a vested interest in the perpetuation of fake news and disinformation, this isn't fucking Russia! (or the U.S. for that matter - Fox news is GOP run television FYI).

This is critical thinking and needs to be understood before you assume authority to the Facebook posts you read. Think of the platform you are getting your news from - Facebook: an American company with a vested interest in advertising to its users. They are NOT a news agency and have zero regulation in verifying the authority of authorship. Anyone can write any shit they like, and the more clicks they get, the more money Facebook makes. In-fact they will happily sell any message you like so long as you're willing to pay for it. I can post just about anything under the guise of "free speech" so long as it does not contain "hate speech" (technically a crime in Canada) and then pay Facebook a couple hundreds of dollars to get that post higher up on my friend's walls. It's how their platform works and regardless of whether a post has been promoted by Facebook themselves or not they are in the business of clicks. In this age of terrorism and fear mongering, the posts, articles, links, and videos that induce the most controversy and fear will gain the most clicks - this is human nature! Facebook doesn't care, they got their money as they are now one of the largest messaging services in the world, second only to WeChat which is a government controlled chinese messaging app linked to their social credit system meant to repress their citizens... hmm...

As Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan famously said in his thesis Understanding Media, “For any medium has the power of imposing its own assumption on the unwary… But the greatest aid to this end is simply in knowing that the spell can occur immediately upon contact, as in the first bars of a melody.” unfortunately the advent of social media has only perpetuated the scaling of the media, the importance of the messages, and the shallow knowledge-base of its users to apply the unwary en masse.

To quote a larger bit of McLuhan to drive this point home:

“The American stake in literacy as a technology or uniformity applied to every level of education, government, industry, and social life is totally threatened by the electric technology. The threat of Stalin or Hitler was external. The electric technology is within the gates, and we are numb, deaf, blind, and mute about its encounter with the Gutenberg technology, on and through which the American way of life was formed. It is, however, no time to suggest strategies when the threat has not even been acknowledged to exist. I am in the position of Louis Pasteur telling doctors that their greatest enemy was quite invisible, and quite unrecognized by them.” (McLuhan was a man before his time., this was written in 1954) “For the “content” of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. The effect of the medium is made strong and intense just because it is given another medium as “content.” The content of a movie is a novel or a play or an opera.
The effect of the movie form is not related to its program content. The “content” of writing or print is speech, but the reader is almost entirely unaware either of print or of speech.”

Do not kid yourself, social media is no different than any other media. The content of the message is NOT the message. Who is posting the dribble and fake news and WHY? understand the author and their authority and you will begin to think critically again. You wouldn't pick up a history book without knowing who authored it would you? Facts are facts, and fake-news is disinformation by another name.

Now to return to our CBC article about measles and your claim that there is a connection to the MMR vaccine which has the potential to cause autism (despite how fucking stupid this shit is, I'll entertain your hypothesis for a moment).

1. Where are your critical sources and statistics to prove any semblance to propose such an outlandish hypothesis? Because I can't seem to find any real ones in my databases here and every time I've asked you for your proof you've failed to provide any.

2. If the vaccine were to cause autism you accept that there is a chance this vaccine may put a child at harms risk. The reality is you are saying you'd rather risk your child potentially getting a deadly disease and potentially becoming maimed and permanently injured through contact with the disease and worse contaminating others and spreading the harmful pathogens to others just out of fear of potentially could get autism... again, supported without any fact or evidence? Janet's post from Antivax-moms facebook group is non an authority of fact and no medical body has rightfully confirmed a case of autism to the MMR vaccine... so where is our proof again? Big-vaccine is out to give autism to our children?

3. By not immunizing your children you are immorally upholding your child's life over that of your nations and against those you interact with on a day to day basis. You are no longer in a small town - we are a massive country with very loose borders so we can invite friends and family to visit. But when we don't protect our basecamp, the wolves will get in. That goes for fake news just as much as it goes for measles. We already have guards on duty to protect our children, our sick, our immune deficient elders and infants from harmful diseases. These treatments work and you and I are the proof in the pudding. Where is this form of tribalism coming from where you would rather "protect" from autism but not measles, mumps, and rubella? These are the wolves we must fight, and we can't let our guard down just because a post of Facebook has a few thousand clicks.

We are in the age of disinformation and globalization, whether we like it or not there are a select few who are controlling the messages we perpetuate online. Unfortunately it's the confusion and lack of authority to the messages that has guided us towards a harmful future that is now killing children all over the world.
https://medium.com/the-method/anti-vaccination-is-killing-children-in-europe-658415c54a04

stop spreading misinformation and think critically. You are better than that... you are a scholar!

I love you, and I hope you take this to heart.

EDIT*
Seeing that the post was more appropriately moved to ~talk I'm hoping I can start a bit more of a dialogue that has unraveled from talking with the rest of my family. I told my internal family about my conversation with Grandma which we've all had by now, we bring fact, she still isn't sure there isn't a bigger picture that she isn't seeing. She's been fed too many stories to really believe the true ones. How are we meant to respond to this? My dad kinda pissed me off, he said it's like pushing on rope and said it wasn't even worth the effort - especially since someone like my Grandmother doesn't intend to have anymore children and all her family members are well ingrained in the Ontario health system... despite his position, we get issues where families are believing information and causing significant harm to our society... what do?

My bad argument style aside, has anyone else felt like they've been pushing on rope lately?

Lots of new people coming in today, and there will be lots in the next couple of days... the last Introductions post was months ago, we're overdue for another one. Drop in, say hi, tell us whatever you like about yourself, even if it's just how your day is going. On Tildes, ~talk is the casual space, so don't feel pressured to be clever or anything. :P

Past introduction threads for everyone to catch up: -1- . -2- . -3- . -4- . -5-

Also in case anyone missed it, there's an intro to tildes post to help bring you up to speed on this place.

As the title says! I recently got a fretless bass and it's super hard to intonate correctly since I'm used to the frets doing it for me. It's such a weird sound but it isn't bad. I'm learning a few songs on it already and it's funny to me that even if I switch to my fretted bass, that I still try to maintain proper intonation

I came across a site about Chinese tech and video gaming and found it very Buzzfeed-y with its headlines and writing. It made me wonder what are the websites that curate a standard of thoughtful articles, essays, discussion, etc. and aren't part of the American internet scene.

I don't care what language it's in, what it's about, what country specifically it's centered on, if it's community-centric or not. If you have a suggestion, let's hear it.

Edit: An example I have is The Blizzard. It's really a subscription-model digital magazine (about soccer) but you can read various articles online.

This will probably be controversial, but I disagree with the current password policy. Checking against a list of known broken passwords sounds like a good idea, but that list is only ever going to get bigger. The human factor has to be taken into account. People are going to reuse passwords. So whenever their reused password gets hacked from a less secure site, it's going to add to that list.

Ideally, a password would be unique. Ideally, users should maybe ever use a password manager that generates garbage as a password that no one could hack. An ideal world is different from reality. Specific requirements are going to lead to people needing to write things down. In the past, that was on paper, like Wargames. Now, it's going to lead to people pasting their username and login into text documents for easy reference. That's probably what i'm going to have to do. Was my previous method of reusing passwords safe? No. Will my new method of remembering passwords be safe? Probably not either.

I'm not entirely sure what all the account security is about, either. For my bank, sure, a complex password. I have a lot to lose there. For an account on a glorified message board? There's better ways to establish legitimacy. 4chan, of all places, dealt with this (nod to 2chan), by having users enter a password after their username that got encoded and displayed as part of their username to verify that they were, in fact, the same user.

So the topic for discussion would be, what's the endgame here? Where is the line drawn between usability and security? I may well be on the wrong side of this, but I think it's worth discussing.

Edit: I think there may be some good reasons, evidenced in this reply. I think it was a good discussion none the less, since it wasn't obvious to me and perhaps not to other people.

Edit 2: I'm going to hop off, but I think there's been some good discussion about the matter. As I said in the original post "I may well be on the wrong side of this". I may well be, but I hope I have addressed people well in the comments. Some of my comments may be "worst case" or "devil's advocate" though. I understand the reason for security, as evidenced above, but i'm unsure about the means.

In today’s age, we have a wealth of knowledge available on the fly, and a wealth of misinformation too. Every day I see someone on the internet either mis-informed or ill-informed, even with google and research at their fingertips. What is something you wish the general public would actually take the time to learn about beyond a very surface level interpretation?
Many issues can’t be solved based on just surface level knowlege.

My biggest answer is politics in general, because it controls our world yet it feels like 70%+ of people don’t know what they are talking about beyond layman knowlege, and we’ve seen what happens when tons of people set themselves on a belief and even argue for it when they don’t know what they don’t know.

I don’t know anything about politics but even I can see that people are talking out of straight emotion most of the time.

So, i ask you nice tildes’ers Tilderds Tilderotatoes, what’s something you wish to inform us about that most people don’t read into very much? Can be political or otherwise.

It’s a broad question I know, but that leaves room for a lot of discussion.
Thanks for reading

Wasn't sure where to post this.

I needed a break, I am a reddit Mod and was hoping to become super active here as well. But, it was taking a bigger impact on my mental health than I knew.

I stopped posting here, on reddit and instagram (really the only platforms I use) and it really helped with my stress levels and even sleep patterns. I read waaaay more books and felt far more focused then I have been in years.

I dont know if there are any CGP Grey fans here but I am a big fan of his and was inspired by his choice to do the same.

http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/cyclops

Coming back into things I am thinking I will limit myself and try and work on pacing my internet usage.

Anyway, kind of a random post, but I wanted to share it with someone and I thought our community here would apreciate it (Reddit probably wouldn't).

I've had part of this discussion today with a work colleague: under our country's laws a judge (there's no jury) may take into consideration the condition and general being of a victim of a crime when judging the perpetrator. For example an conviction of assault and battery may be higher of the victim was disabled/had a fragile constitution compared to a more "normative" able-bodied person.

My colleague maintained that this was unfair if there is no way the perpetrator realizes the victim's fragility, as it means unequal punishment for equal actions. Specifically he takes issue with the Eggshell Skull rule. In effect his argument seemed to be that what should be judged is the action and intent of the crime itself.

I maintained that is was fair because the judgement should be proportional to the effect caused on the world.

What do other users think?

First let me say that I long considered myself an independent until I realized I always voted Democrat a number of years ago because I find they best represent my interests, so that's my POV coming into this. I consider myself generally liberal on most issues with a few exceptions (gun rights, against college for all, etc)

Some observations:

• There was much there to please Republicans regarding the economy, etc
• There was much there that I'm not sure will play well with Trump's base: economic programs for women in other countries (Ivanka's influence?), criminal justice reform, lots of praise and visuals of black Americans including several guests, seeming to waffle a bit on the "wall" - I think he reduced it to fencing, did I get that right?, he stated several times he was in favor of legal immigration (something his actions have indicated otherwise and his base seems to be against)
• We're going to make peace with the Taliban - that was a jaw-dropping moment for me and I could tell from the reaction of the Rs in the crowd that it didn't play well with them
• Democratic women wearing white - smart political move and I didn't catch they did it during his first speech
• Pelosi was great to watch. Calm as a cucumber. She had several little subversive moments where instead of immediately sitting down after clapping she shuffled some papers or pretended to read something, sending a clear message of what she thought of POTUS' remarks
• Trump's anti-immigration push still isn't focusing on any facts...sigh.
• Russia investigation was only mentioned once or twice so he didn't succumb to temptation there
• I thought this was by far his best and most presidential speech
• The Rs at work were not impressed so I thought that was interesting

Regarding Stacy Abrams' response:

• I was totally disappointed
• She completely lacked energy and I had a hard time following along because of it
• Kennedy was 100x better in his response (even with the excessive lip balm)
• I don't have much else to say...it was bland

What did you think?

EDIT: Forgot he announced we're back in a nuclear arms race with Russia and China. And what was up with bringing in all of the Holocaust survivors and WWII vets? Was that a blatant appeal to the oldest members of his base or simply to recall the last "good" war the US fought?

emotionally abusive ex-girlfriend tried to reach out.

blocked her number.

started looking for therapists.

i started following through FreeCodeCamp (more tech talk (MERN) at the bottom - i gots questions)

i started flossing two weeks ago.

i've been consistent this past week with learning japanese

and right now i got one of my comfy outfits on, chilling at the house, and i just made a french press with some beans from a roaster i used to always buy from back when i lived downtown.

i'm feelin' alright today. it's gonna be a few more months until i get where i want, but for now, i'm good.

how bout you - how you doin?

(if you stuck around for the tech stuff - here's that)

1. what's a good book to follow up EloquentJS? i'm reading through that now, and i really want to get a good feel for the language itself. i know how to get something built, but i don't know how my tools work - and that's an issue for me.

2. on a similar note - what are the best books on React? i've got a 2017 copy of Fullstack React, but someone told me that's outdated by this point, and i can't exactly afford the 2018 copy right now. anything else i should keep an eye out/save up for?

3. and lastly, best reading on CSS3? i know (again) a good enough amount of Bootstrap to be able to get something up and running, but i want to get better at vanillaCSS, css animations, and making sure that my site is responsive and supported across across all browsers.

If reality is a simulation, then why is evil allowed to exist, or why did our creators let evil exist?

I know that the point of having a simulation is so that we can learn about life, but why is it more likely to be in a simulation with 'real' characteristics rather than one where everything is utter happiness? Why didn't our creators make infinitely more simulations where people are just happy all the time?

Of course this brings us to the question of whether you can know happiness without pain. If reality is a simulation, couldn't it be possible to make people happiness with only the memory of pain (or just knowledge of pain) without actual pain? I would think so.

What do you think?

Nothing but a rant and personal outlet here, so if you don't want to read that sort of stuff move along.

To preface this, I haven't gone to uni, gotten an certs, or anything of that sort. I worked my way up the ladder and moved up positions slowly. My experience was/is my crutch. I DO NOT have any intention of going to, or getting any sort of schooling for anything computer related now. I am moving out of the IT industry.

I started with computers at a young age like many people in my profession do. I loved everything about them. Their versatility, the ins and outs of them, hardware, software... It all fascinated me. So I thought, hey why not work with computers because I love them? That's when I got a job at the good ol' yellow tag store selling them!

At first it was great, I got to talk to people on what they were doing with it, try to work within their budget while getting the best computer for their needs, and just got to see what all sorts of people do with their devices. But then the sales numbers started to become a thing. "Hey you aren't hitting your goals." "You need to push financing." "SELL DAMAGE WARRANTY." I fucking hated it. So I changed departments to Geek Squad once I realized that I wasn't a salesmen. I couldn't bring myself to get someone to spend something I didn't believe in. No problem. Started doing more tech support stuff and actually working with computers, instead of selling them and knowing hardware. Except that quickly turned into "SELL SELL SELL!!"

Started looking around for a new job after sales started to become a thing for that position, and ended up finding a job at a local PC store. I was elated. I was a computer technician. I shouldn't have to worry about sales anymore. I work with customers on preexisting devices and get them running well! Although... The passion for computers started to die. I wasn't as excited for new hardware coming out. I didn't want, or care for, the newest thing. AND ON TOP OF THAT I STILL HAD SALES EXPECTATIONS. WTF. I was a tech, not a sales person! How was I suppose to sell half of what the sales guys there do when I'm working on machines all day?? On top of that if I handed something off to a sales rep to call and talk to them, it was always a struggle with them to get them to share the sale with me. Fuck this I'm out.

That's when I got lucky. That's when I found my first actual IT job. I started on the phones at a place, and not even a week in they said they had a desktop support position available. I pushed for 4 weeks to get that job. I hounded the IT manager, director, and the admin there... And eventually, I got it! I was learning so much. So many systems to learn. WTF is AD??? IDK, but imma find out. No need to explain mr boss man, I got my secret weapon... GOOGLE. I learned quickly google was my friend in IT. TBH this job was mostly keep the little shit out of the boss mans hair so he could focus on getting the big shit done. I loved all the little shit. It was all so new and exciting to learn. I had to learn systems that NO ONE at the company knew because someone previously installed that system and no one knew how it worked. I wrote up documentation on it, how to pull info, what to put where for new employees, etc. etc. That was until the layoffs started happening. I started getting worried. Would I be next?? No, I was doing a great job! To top it off, my boss went from a backlog of 50+ items down to 12 in 6 months! They can't get rid of me! ...How young and naive I was. TBF I was the ONLY employee they gave any notice to. A full month. Everyone else came into work, and was let go in 5 min or less. So cool, they definitely appreciated me. Not only that, I was only like 19 at the time. To me it showed me they respected me, and that I was a good worker.

After that passion was a 0. How could a company I worked so hard for do this to me?? I gave up countless hours (to a 19YO that aint much I can tell you that), and I documented everything, I was a good employee... But alas it was the end. I had to find something quick... I'll call up my old manager at the PC store. THAT WAS A MISTAKE. After only being there a week I fell into a depressive hole that I don't think I've quite gotten out of to this day. I was only there a few weeks, but goddamn... I hated every second of it.

Next job was fucking amazing, and I took it for granted. I was lazy. I did what I was suppose to, but I wasn't proactive like before. I didn't care. I thought, "just give yourself some time. you just need to get out of this rut." But I never did. It sucked. Not the work, that was fucking easy. But life sucked. "But you just got married man? How can you be sad??" (outta left field i know, but my relationship status during any of this is a WHOLE different story) I CAN BE SAD BECAUSE I FUCKING HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT LIFE, I thought to myself. I wasn't happy. I should have gotten out then. It should have been the end of my IT career... But my ex-wife and I made a stupid financial decision and I needed the money that came with how hard I had already worked to get the pay I was. I had to stay in to be able to afford the bills. I loved everyone at that job. It was honestly the best. But... Cuts were made. 20ish% of all staffing was cut... Including my position. Not only that, my ex and I talked and we were separating. Wow, I can't even last a year in marriage. FUCK.

That's when shit took a turn for the worse. I dug myself deeper, and deeper, and deeper. Separated, and now talking of divorce... I need time. 3 months. I'll find a job after 3 months. During that time I dated for the sake of not being home. I took nightly drive up the canyon... fast. In retrospect, I think I was hoping to fly off the cliff every night I drove. I wasn't in a good state of mind. But I got good at driving up that canyon fast! It turned into a hobby (although now I am not into cars for various reasons).

But 3 months was up! Wow that was fast. But I feel good. Found a job. Service desk. Cool. Let's go. First day. FUCK. I don't want to be here. I went from desktop support making 40k a year, to service desk making 30k a year. I can barely pay shit rn. I need something better. I need more. I need more. I need MORE. Desktop support position opened there sweet. Apply. Nope the fucking retard got it who had been there for 3 years, even though I already know more than him, AND I get asked by the sysadms for help n the regular because I know the systems they use. But nah, he's been here longer. Fuck this, I'm finding something else.

So I did. Here I am at my current job. As a system administrator. Good money. Like 50k a year. Full paid benefits. I got here with 0 schooling, or certs, just my experience like I was told I would be able to. Sitting pretty... But... I still hate it... WHY? I LIKE COMPUTERS? I LIKED LEARNING THIS SHIT BEFORE?! WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?? WHY CAN'T I BE HAPPY?

...Oh... Wait... Do I really like computers? No. Not really. Do I want to do this ever rapidly changing career forever? NO. Fuck this. But... I have bills. Okay. Budget time. So now I am still here. I have an end date. Once I get my debts paid I will be out of the IT industry. I am moving states. I will be able to afford to live on much less, and go to school for ANYTHING else. I'm thinking I just want to do something simple for a little like night custodial work, or a security guard. I don't want to have to worry much about the next big thing always around the corner. It's too much stress. It's just not a career for me. Maybe it's not for you. Maybe you should walk away from it to if your not happy.

What's the point of this post? Honestly mostly a rant. But I also want to let people around my age (24 now) know that walking away from a career IS AN OPTION. "But I need the money I make now because of debts!" Dude, did you not read this? I know. I've been working on paying shit off because of my ex and time I took off from work. I'm in the hole. I get it. Budget and get an end date. That helped me out immensely. Knowing there is an end... Just I'm already excited. Then get out of that career if you aren't happy. DO NOT SACRIFICE YOUR MENTAL HEALTH FOR YOUR CAREER. People in the US have this work work work mentality and I just hate it. I just want to live my life. I don't care about traveling or anything, I just want to be able to live.

The concept sounds a bit lazy or unintelligent, but for me personally, I struggle with so much anxiety and other mental health problems that I have to filter out political posts, on here, reddit, and elsewhere, or else the weight affects me so badly that I'm put in a bad mood/mindset very easily. If anyone else feels the same way, I ask you this: Does anyone else feel similarly, and if so, how do you defend against the tidal wave of awful things happening seemingly daily?

My face is slightly asymmetrical, and one side of my lip points up, so it looks like I am smirking at people. At least, this is my theory as to why people feel uncomfortable around me without getting to know me first. But maybe it's something else entirely, or a combination. How can I make myself more approachable / likable? My work is in a field where I need to communicate with others often.

The idea of faking smiles and acting overly friendly pains me, but if it's the only way I'll do it.

I've been in a tough stretch recently and was reflecting on how much my dog means to me. I know I'm not the only one with an amazing animal companion, so I would love to hear from all of you about the animals in your lives.

Who are they? What's their story? How do they enrich your life? What's your favorite thing about them?

I thought it'd be fun to have a casual conversation about what we like to drink. If that's not appropriate for some reason please let me know.

I've switched from beer and whiskey to Tangeray and (diet) tonic and really feel less hangover when I drink (for whatever reason). What is your current go to on a Friday night?

So I was at a concert this evening and when it was over and people were leaving the concert hall, I went up to a guy and said that I thought the tattoo he had on his neck of the band's logo was really cool and showed dedication. He simply nodded and said thanks, and then his mother (or girlfriend, I have no idea) poked my shoulder and showed me an identical one. It was in sort of between her breasts, but also underneath them. So she had to pull down her top and show a not insignificant amount of cleavage to show it to me. All I could say was "wow, very nice" with a stupid smile on my face. She just laughed and walked away, and it made my night!

Was a pretty good concert too by the way. Behemoth are an amazing band! :)

In lieu of the recent Gillette ad, and seeing as the conversation around it has stirred the pot quite a bit, I wanted to propose a conversation where we start from the very beginning:

Without yet talking about subsets, variants, or interpretations of masculinity/femininity (toxic or otherwise). How do you define it for yourself: what makes you masculine or feminine, or what parts of you would you describe as such, do you feel that those things go as universal descriptors or are they specific to your case?

There may also be some deeper questions in here about where you think you gained this conception (your family? your immediate circle of contacts? Role models?) or who you think best embodies your ideal definition of your gender.

Everything I said was heavily downvoted, even though I was making valid points and 90% of the replies were mockery or useless dribble. The few people that attempted to engage in discussion with me were either just has heavily downvoted as me (even though their views were opposing mine) or were unable to do it in a logical or civil manor. It wasn't even a really controversial topic, my opinion is just something that is in contrast of the greater "hivemind".

I know we are not where I think most of us would like to be just yet, but I had not been back on Reddit for a while and I feel like I made a good decision by distancing myself from the Reddit community. I really enjoy the community we are building here.

Anyway, I kinda just felt like I needed to post this. I know it's not really high quality content (and I honestly had no clue where to post it), but I wanted you guys to know I appreciate all of you.

❤

I was thinking about the intersection of internet privacy and politics. You could even say I was having a bit of a mini-crisis. I like to think of myself as being pretty liberal, but I wondering how that fits into privacy. I was a little upset when I learned that Obama called Edward Snowden unpatriotic. I was kind of thinking that what he did was patriotic. Wasn't the NSA monitoring US citizens without warrants. That's morally wrong right? I think I would be pretty fine with the government monitoring someone if they had a warrant given to them by a non-secret court. I'm wondering if anyone here can give me some insight on this or if anyone else feels/has felt this way.

It's usually a question with a two word answer, but I'm sure there's more that could be said - that you wouldn't normally say because you don't want to waffle on.

Either way, I'm elated and excited. I revised a few hours for a test instead of watching a TV show, and my result went from shit to actually pretty bloody great. I'm really happy about it, but I'm not going to revise until GCSE's because it's made me absolutely knackered.

I'm pretty excited because I've got work experience next week. I haven't the foggiest about what it'll be like (fearing a very, very boring week), but I'm looking forward to it. It'll probably be a bit awkward without my friends around, but I'll get used to it.

So, onto you. How are you?

I'm stuck in a rut.

What do you do to get out? How do you rediscover something that inspires you? Or something that you can be passionate about?

I've got a handful of "projects" on the go at all times - writing some music, getting better at the sport I play, learn a new language for work, do some "proper" research. But they all sort of sit there looking tedious on my whiteboard. I'm just not passionate about any of them really (except maybe the sport, but I'm approaching 40 so it's not like I'm on the verge of setting the world on fire with it!).

What do you do to rediscover your inspiration? What has worked for you?

I'm not a religious person. I'm agnostic and look at religion and spiritualism from very far, as a curiosity in the humanities.

That said, one thing I believe is more likely than not is the infinite parallel universe theory. The theory that there's an unending amount of parallel universes which contain a lot of the possible states of the universe at all times.

Now i don't believe they necessarily have to contain every state. An infinite set of numbers does not have to contain every number, after all.

However as I'm sitting in a hospital bed after the second worst near death experience in my life, I'm reminded of that theory.

I remember that theory whenever I look at the world and think "huh, I could have died there". A slip in the shower, a small electric shock, a car coming too close. I didn't die, but in very slightly different circumstances I could have. When these things happen I think of my life, my friends, my mom. I especially think about the versions of them in the parallel universes I believe exist.

I make a lot of choices based on this. It's a type of fatalism: I'm not so much worried about death here, as I am afraid about the consequences of it in the universes it does happen.

In other words, I often get sad for the parallel universe versions of my mom. there's a lot of problems with this overall theory, but I can't quite shake it.

Fill in the blanks. No parameters from me: I'm leaving the prompt open-ended because I'm curious to see where people go with it.

Also, to prevent low-effort/single sentence posts in response, please explain why your suggestion is a suitable replacement.

I'm rather curious - for me, about a fiver. It's all I need to be able to smash an egg at someone - legally. It'd probably be pretty fun - probably not 'life changing', though.

~£40 is probably the least for something more 'life changing'. I could buy a Pi, storage, and a charger. Then I can set up a pi-hole, and never have to worry about ads. It'd also make browsing on my weak laptop that liittle bit better.

Just how? I fail to stick to the right side of the line between productively using internet, and losing time procrastinating and impulsively browsing and/or commenting in places like Reddit, HN, Tildes. The best I can do is to leave home to study outside, but becasue I don't work ATM, that's too costly. I sometimes even consider stopping using a computer. But I'm also a very technical, power user, so IDK if I can comfortably confine myself to use a phone (where I don't have this issue).

What is your way of dealing with this?

I know this is a relatively stereotypical new years post, but I'm interested in seeing what everyone here on Tildes wants to do to improve themselves for this coming year. Personally, I want to devote more time into language learning, which would include spending more time watching foreign TV, studying vocab, etc.

Since it's already the new year over here in Europe, and some us will probably be out of comission before long, I want to take the opportunity to wish all users a happy and healthy 2019. Here's to all of you, and to this wonderful website!

Have you quit social media? Why? Why not?
I have been thinking about it (specifically Facebook). I have not done so, because I fear that I'll lose contact with friends from my past (even though I have not messaged any of them, or seen their profile, in years).

In Russia, he's called Ded Moroz. Unlike Santa, he wears blue, doesn't ride a sleigh, nor does he abuse his workers, but uses magic to deliver the presents instead. He has a granddaughter named Snegurochka, who always comes with him to kids' celebrations. Just as the new year starts, he's ready to put the presents under the fur tree.

Spouse and I have a long history of not setting too much value on the consumption festival season, aside from the obligatory (and fun) over-eating and -drinking. We usually make charitable donations in each others' names, but we're still reasonably proficient at small tokens or surprising each other occasionally. Guy got me a DVD collection with all five seasons of Letterkenny, and we're gleefully watching it together. He (well, me too) received a wee tiny capsule espresso maker, and is both happy and jittery.

So how did you do this year? Was it fun, stressful, budget-busting, social, or otherwise a pleasurable/painful process? Do you feel like you made someone happier?

Today I got into a conversation with my coworkers about how cursive is all but dead with our students. We adults all grew up learning it and were often forced to use it even when we didn't want to, but it has been out of vogue in American schools for a while now, so most of our students legitimately don't know how to read or write it. Opinions as to whether or not this was a bad thing were split. Some people considered the skill unnecessary and were happy to see it go the way of the dinosaur. Life moves on, they said--and the skill was inessential anyway because students could simply print instead. Some even took things a step further and argued that print was also going to become outdated with the prevalence of computers and phones. Nevertheless, others argued that cursive was important and valuable for kids to learn, particularly if they wanted to be able to sign their names or read documents written in script (e.g. old letters from family members, historical documents, etc.)

The discussion then continued to analog clocks. Being able to read them is still technically in the curriculum standards for many states, but it's the kind of thing that often gets briefly touched on and then discarded. Because digital clocks are so prevalent now, many students never practice reading analog clocks outside of those specific lessons, and thus they never truly master it. While more of our students can read analog clocks than can write in cursive, it too seems to be headed down the path to extinction. Opinions about whether this was bad were much stronger, with nearly everyone agreeing that it's a worthwhile skill rather than something inessential.

The conversation made me curious to hear what everyone here thinks--not just about these but about dying skills in general. What are some skills that you believe will fall out of widespread use in the coming years? Is their departure a good/bad thing?

Let's fantasise Tilderinoes! You can just write what comes to your mind or answer any of the questions below to get your thoughts flowing.

• What bothers you in the current blogging platforms, like Blogger, Tumblr, or Wordpress?

• Is it “free” and with ads, commercial with no ads, or free and non-commercial and struggling? If it's commercial, how much does it cost?

• Does it have comments? How are they moderated? Who can comment? Are there PMs?

• Does it have tags? Categories? A tree structure?

• Does it provide file storage (images, audio, video)? How much?

• How extensible is your blog page? Can you control all of the CSS? Can you add scripting?

• Does it allow adult content? Political content? Hateful content? Who decides?

• Does the country of origin matter? Does it block content based on your country's laws (e.g. copyright, political stuff, etc.)?

• What are the privacy features? Does it require an email address? A card number (if commercial)?

I see a lot of prescriptivism on the Internet. But most of what I see is people who are pretty poor at it. I much prefer descriptivism, but before I write-off prescriptivism completely do you know of anyone who's good at it?

We are due for one anyway (11 years since the last one) yet I feel like the general sentiment is that the recent market drops are simply a temporary dip despite huge economic, political and geopolitical risks. What am I missing? Why isn't there more coverage about this? Am I looking in the wrong places?

My wife and I are flying home from our first vacation in a while. We got bumped to a later flight and the airline has compensated us each with $2,000 dollar travel vouchers. Where would you go given this opportunity?