It’s true that Trump had a simple majority of votes, but you can win the electoral college and lose the popular vote; this is typically what happens for Republican victories. Kamala lost MI, PA, and WI by 3% or less. If those had flipped, she would have had her 270. You are right that third party votes wouldn’t have been enough though. The bigger problem was reduced turnout from people not voting at all.

The fact that Republicans also managed to do so well in Congress to me suggests that the problem for Democrats wasn’t really just their choice for presidential candidate. Voters really care about immigration and inflation right now, and those tend to be stronger for Republicans.

This is actually a very good comparison, thank you.

You are still participating by choosing to be a bystander to injustice. Abstaining when you can support something less bad only says to others that you do not care how bad it gets.

It is rich to criticize the Democrats for claiming moral superiority while doing nothing, as a justification for not voting for the candidate who would at least try to put a leash on what Israel is doing to Gaza.

If you want what’s best for a suffering people, you should vote for the candidate not trying to give their oppressors a blank check. All of America is responsible for what the president we chose does next.

It’s important to remember the Holocaust happened largely because people didn’t do enough to stop it. “First they came for the Communists…” and all that. The Nazis were a fairly minor party for years, but they were able to consolidate power because their opposition wouldn’t rally against them. Coalition requires compromise.

I am not happy with the Democrats either, but they were the better option. And abstaining from a decision between bad and worse doesn’t help anyone. By allowing Trump to take power again when we might have stopped it, we are all responsible for what comes next.

Honestly, there is a reasonable chance he gets assassinated this term. No one is out of reach from the sword of Damocles.

Trump is projected to win the popular vote too, the first time a Republican presidential candidate has since 2004. There are more of the other guys showing up at least.

I felt the same way (spoilers for whoever hasn’t read it). The protagonist just kept encountering significant people where it seems like there’s going to be a struggle to overcome, leading to character development and newfound maturity, but no. He just moves on to another scene instead and they’re not seen again. It was just annoying.

The teacher that feels he’s not living up to his potential? The private school friends that he hangs out with but often finds frustrating? The childhood friend who he shares unexplored romantic tension with? The nuns whose meals he pays for despite having dwindling funds? The prostitute he just wants to have a conversation with? Her pimp, who attacks him? The potentially rapist family friend? For pretty much all of them a relevant conflict is initiated just for him to leave it unresolved, probably after labeling them a phony.

The only exception is his sister, who he sees like two or three times. And then the final conflict at the end is like: “Hey sorry for taking your birthday money so I could keep wandering around these past couple of days instead of talking to our rich parents.” “That’s ok, I forgive you. You’re my brother and I love you. But I worry about you sometimes.” “Yeah anyway, I’m bitter about the world so I kinda want to disappear into the wilderness.” “Please don’t do that.” “Ok I won’t.”

The TvTropes links are mostly right though? It matches the third variation of Earth All Along. The linked examples match what OP is describing except not being restricted to Fantasy.

First time I’ve seen someone else mention it. Definitely an underrated show with a lot of wild ideas.

I’m not saying it can’t be done, but getting a compromise from a debate is not a primary goal. For competitions, the goal is usually to demonstrate and practice debate skills and the topic and positions matter less. For more serious debates, it is meant to be a way to expose people to the strengths of your position’s arguments and expose the weaknesses of your opponent’s. It’s valuable as an opportunity to persuade an audience of people who haven’t been firmly entrenched in either position, or who may have only been exposed to one side’s arguments in earnest.

The framework does presume both viewpoints are valid, since both sides are expected to believe in their position, be rational, and be reasonably well-informed. An invalid perspective would not be argued by someone meeting these criteria. It does not presume equality as that would be preemptively judging the quality of the argument. Either the debate platform or the other debater would presumably not agree to a debate with someone who cannot be expected to meet these criteria.

I am not a lawyer, but consumer protections should generally kick in when an issue is actually evaluated in a court. If you are being charged for things you believe to be unfair, you would need to refuse to pay, then see them in action after the business escalates it. Often, a predatory business will give up when it knows it doesn’t have a case. But it’s pretty hard to work on behalf of a citizen if they ultimately are convinced that they do have an obligation to pay after all.

I agree with the other commenter on the first issue. If you have been paying the amount you were charged, and then hit with surprise retroactive charges, you would have a serious case in small claims. I expect a judge would favor you if it’s as described. $1000 for late fees is exorbitant, especially when the glitch was from their software and not rectified quickly. Unless you’re leaving out relevant details that explains the situation better.

For the second issue, needlessly cumbersome cancellation processes are considered dark patterns and may be illegal in some cases. These cases are being enforced more recently, even against large companies like Amazon. For your pest control case though, if you face pushback when cancelling it’s pretty simple to tell them you won’t be using their services and will refuse to pay. If you already paid, you may be able to issue a chargeback after explaining the situation to your bank. Seeing as how you would be being charged for services not done, I don’t see how the business could contest that after being informed of the cancellation. You would still be on the hook for a (reasonable) cancellation fee, as lost business from a cancelled reservation does represent real damages.

We are a country with a litigious history and we have recognized considerable rights for consumers. Just because you feel powerless doesn’t mean you are.

Of course, and any job will expect some degree of training anyway. But there’s only so much that can be tested for before hiring someone. A degree is just a reference from the university that you meet their standards of mastery at whatever major at whatever level. Some jobs expect you to have one just like some expect you to have references from individuals, but others will have other tests for qualification which may even just be an interview conversation. Apprenticeships are pretty similar; each is an individual or group staking their reputation on vouching for your competency. Even a GED or high school diploma is a reference, just from an organization or a public institution.

It seems bizarre to me that the only user I have seen actually trying to provide constructive criticism for the bot so far in this thread is the one that already likes it. Especially when others instead advocate for things like the mods taking a political stance to endorse and using mod powers to reinforce it.

I like the bot. It’s valuable to have context for the organization pushing a story. I agree that others are reading too much from the orgs they like being labeled as biased. It’s assumed a news source will have some bias, and trying to avoid acknowledging that is dangerous. The takeaway is simply to be wary of any narrative being pushed (intentionally or not) by framing or omission, and get news from a variety of sources when possible. Instead, people tend to think identifying bias is advocating that the article should be disregarded, which is untrue.

To your suggestion, I do think adding more sources for reliability and bias judgements is a good idea. It would give more credibility if multiple respected independent organizations come to the same conclusion. More insight into their methodology in the comment itself could also be nice. The downside of adding these is that it would make the comment even longer when people have already complained about its size.

Other than that, I have seen people dislike using the American political center as a basis for alignment, but I have yet to see a good alternative. I expect a significant plurality of users are from the US, and US politics are globally relevant, so it seems to be a natural choice.

Nearly every critic I have seen so far just thinks it should be removed entirely because they find it annoying. I would say even if it isn’t considered useful for the majority of users, the amount of value it provides people who do use it justifies whatever minor annoyance it is to others. Anyone who gets really tired of collapsing the comment or scrolling past it can block it in seconds.

Thank you to the mod who created this thread. Even if it’s good to gather feedback, it’s obviously not easy to get bombarded with negative comments. I’m impressed with the patience you have shown in this thread.

There doesn’t seem to be a pattern for whatever name politicians become known by colloquially, except last name is most common. Hillary makes sense to distinguish her from Bill, but I remember people generally using her first and last. Kamala is usually Kamala, but you see Harris too. Trump is Trump, but you’ll see people use his first name at times (like r/TheDonald). Biden is still referred to as Joe occasionally. Bernie was much more common than Sanders. For supreme court justices, it’s usually last name or first and last. I’ve never seen anyone refer to AOC as just Alexandria. Obama is Obama, but I’ve seen Barack in really informal contexts. Nancy Pelosi is first and last. Elizabeth Warren is either first and last or just last.

Op discovers fiat currency.

This is a TF2 reference.

https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/ÜberCharge

I still can’t find anything about him being a pedophile. If you have something you can link about it I would genuinely like to know.

He was never given a reason for his permanent ban, but it is thought to be for for his view on trans athletes. He was temporarily banned earlier for saying “the rioting needs to fucking stop, and if that means like white redneck fucking militia dudes out there mowing down dipshit protesters that think that they can torch buildings at ten p.m., then at this point they have my fucking blessing…” in regards to a BLM protest, which was considered inciting violence. Not saying that’s a great statement but it’s pretty clear he’s talking about rioters specifically.

But neither of these thing make him a nazi. That label shouldn’t just be thrown around casually.

It’s interesting that he seems to get a lot of accusations of being far-right by the far-left and far-left by the far-right. I don’t know if there was some controversy I missed that inspired the pedophile comment, but calling him a borderline nazi is frankly ridiculous.

Here’s the introduction to his wikipedia page for anyone curious:

Steven Kenneth Bonnell II (born December 12, 1988), known online as Destiny, is an American live-streamer and political commentator. He was among the first people to stream video games online full-time and received attention as a pioneer of the industry.[4] Since 2016, he has garnered further attention for streaming political debates with other online personalities, in which he advocates for progressivism and liberal politics.[5][6] The New York Times has described Bonnell as a liberal,[2] while Bonnell has described himself as “a very big social democrat”.[6]

I think you’ll be hard pressed to find someone progressive enough for lemmy to like that will also be interesting to a Joe Rogan fan. I would recommend Destiny though. I wouldn’t say he’s like Joe Rogan, but he frequently does debates with commentators of all politcal positions including those with similar beliefs to Joe. He has an aggressive, confrontational style that would be your best bet at trying to demonstrate the weaknesses of the views Joe would advocate for.

If you’re not familiar with his views, Destiny could probably be described as a left-leaning liberal institutionalist moderate. His community can attract a variety of viewpoints and is relatively accepting of criticism for Destiny so your brother would have an easier time interacting with them than someone like Hasan.

It’s nice you are trying to look out for your brother like this. Good luck!