fluid_pride
No bio...
User ID: 621
fluid_pride
1yr ago
In the past two years, every single time I or anyone in my family went to the doctor, we ended up with a bill months later, despite also paying something at checkout. It's ridiculous. If there is one Federal healthcare law I would support, it's "tell me exactly what this will cost upfront, just like my mechanic, and if you don't get the final bill correct as I'm paying during checkout, you can't bill me for the difference."
fluid_pride
1yr ago
I'm not sure that it's the socialist worldview that is so appealing as much as the fact that the people looking at alternatives are demonized as evil Nazis. Go look at imgur nowadays and you'll see the hivemind in action. 100% of non-progressive ideas are presented as evil with "the cruelty is the point" NPC comments updooting each other. Lefty tweets are presented as indisputable facts. To people in that bubble, it must look like only the progressive left is even trying to be compassionate and solve the problem and that everyone who isn't on the progressive left just loves oppressing black and brown bodies for fun and profit. Because of that, I'm not even sure that the people you're describing would even call their own thinking a "socialist worldview." From their perspective in the bubble, it's just the reality of caring people trying their best to fight against the forces of evil. Consider the recent tweets trying to use the barter system to defend "socialism". To the extent they would label their worldview "socialism", it's not related to the political system debated for a century and is instead just a mishmash of the hivemind on the current thing. It's not easy to break out of that mindset when everyone you know agrees with it.
fluid_pride
1yr ago
governments are very motivated to prevent tax evasion by any means possible, up to and including totalitarian monitoring of all money flows
Absolutely. That motivation is why any hope of a non-totalitarian end state requires strong pushback on this kind of thing. "Money laundering" is the "think of the children" of financial regulation. If one could report drug sales as "miscellaneous goods" there would be no reason to go through all of the hoops of washing the money. If all the government cared about was tax evasion, it would allow an amnesty category to report any income one didn't want to specify. Instead, the tax department has been roped into the criminal enforcement department and it makes for ridiculous regulations that shouldn't apply to 90% of the population.
fluid_pride
1yr ago
But that's the mechanism to get people to invest time and effort in these lawsuits. For individual cases, giving the lawyers a shot at a huge payoff is what enables them to fight big companies with lots of resources to spend on defense. And in class action cases, especially those where most of the class members end up with $20 gift cards or a year of credit monitoring, most of the money goes from the defendant to the people who did all of the work putting together the case.
fluid_pride
3mo ago
I was skeptical of this but it really was well worth the click.
fluid_pride
4mo ago
if lewds are permitted and lewds get clicks, then yeah you're gonna get camgirls
I think what you're really going to get is bots. Most of those bots will be female presenting because most of the dummies clicking botspam are thirsty simps. Some of the bots will be male presenting because some of the dummies clicking botspam are thirsty gay simps. From my experience in lonely hearts subreddit moderation, women are 100x less likely to fall for obvious spam accounts, even when they're lesbians. But every time we let a botspam post stay up longer than 2-3 hours, at least 5 male idiots will engage with it.
Bots can't (yet?) do "watch me play" videos, so SFW content creators are going to be easier to distinguish as real humans. NSFW stuff is so easily commoditized that bots can do it pretty well, especially if they also scrape real onlyfans accounts. Like all spam, the NSFW bot accounts only have to convert a handful of suckers to be profitable so if lewds are permitted, lewds will be overwhelmed with scammers. At this point, it's the equivalent of establishing a dedicated Viagra sellers group channel/board. That's going to be 99.9% spam instantly.
fluid_pride
4mo ago
I've seen a lot of takedowns of that obnoxious construction, but yours is the most clear and concise. Well done!
fluid_pride
4mo ago
I can agree with that.
fluid_pride
4mo ago
FIRE types are under no illusions about which situation they're in. But they're the minority. Ideally, we're observing the start of a widespread awakening.
fluid_pride
4mo ago
And don't forget that the Chinese (at the very least) are actively looking for ways to degrade Harvard's (and other Western universities) reputation. English, Japanese, Chinese, French, Swiss, South Korean, etc. universities aren't going to cry if Harvard gets knocked off its perch. There's a whole world out there waiting for a chance to step into the prestige circle.
fluid_pride
4mo ago
Israel is slaughtering thousands of Gazan civilians
This is bullshit. Sure, some civilians in Gaza are dying, but Israel is not intentionally killing them. They're dying because the Hamas faggots are standing next to women and children when they fire their rockets. They're dying because they support the terrorists stockpiling machine guns next to their kids' school supplies. Whatever the beef with Jews, it's Hamas and its supporters who are killing the people in Gaza.
fluid_pride
4mo ago
This is also the attitude of the conservative Texans I personally know. Homosexuality is tolerated, faggotry is not.
fluid_pride
4mo ago
The closest is probably the eastern euro countries where public homosexuality has legal restrictions
The closest in my opinion is Japan, in which public homosexuality is tolerated to the extent that it conforms to longstanding dramatic/performance norms (eg okage). Private homosexuality is permitted but not encouraged and generally considered shameful. The vibe as I understand it is "be gay if you have to, but keep it to yourself".
fluid_pride
4mo ago
Would that the pro-gay-marriage camp shared your disdain for state sanction. As it stands, forcing everyone else, including the state, to recognize gay "marriage" was an explicit goal. Partly, this was because state sanction included some obvious benefits, such as end-of-life care decisions, intestate succession, tax status, etc.
fluid_pride
4mo ago
I was just saying that presumably the intended outcome for the prosecution wouldn't be just to harass but to actually convict.
Right, but I think his point was that even if they'd prefer to convict (maximum punishment), they'll cheerfully settle for causing years of pain (guaranteed minimum punishment). Even if you (the defendant) win, you lose, and people will think twice about that kind of wrongthink in the future. The intended outcome is to suppress this kind of speech.
fluid_pride
4mo ago
And it really doesn't help when the client is notorious for both refusing to pay his lawyers and bad-mouthing them after they quit.
fluid_pride
5mo ago
Actually, I am in complete agreement with your comment. I do believe that there is a meaningful difference between Groups 1 and 2 and that it is reasonable to differentiate between the two. I will have to re-evaluate which term I meant was butt-derived because your reply is so sensible that I must have been thinking of something else. I will also add that people attracted to Phoebe Cates in Fast Times at Ridgemont High are also considered part of Group 1 because she was meant to be 17 yrs and 366 days old in that scene.
OK, after reviewing my previous post, I stand by my statement. GENERALLY, soft science academic activity is mostly butt-derived. In this case, you raise an excellent and valid counter-example. Still, if a Harvard PhD tells me it's raining, I'm going to look outside the window.
fluid_pride
7mo ago
Kids today are just going to learn that race and gender and identity categories are super important and you need to treat people differently according to their category and stereotypes
I just read an article where the UC system dropped 75% of faculty applicants for insufficient DEI commitment. Apparently it was a huge demerit to agree with the idea, "I try to treat everyone the same." It's not just kids today, it's being burned into institutions intentionally.
fluid_pride
9mo ago
This is the only legit funny take I've seen regarding ratepocolypse . All of the "twitter is dying" noise reads so performative to me.
fluid_pride
10mo ago
They don't need more young people causing trouble.
Neither do the countries these people are invading.
fluid_pride
10mo ago
I recall a story about a guy being deported for rape and the whole plane protesting until he was released (and went on to murder someone else). If the population is clamoring for more "enrichment" how is mass deportation even plausible?
fluid_pride
10mo ago
That's not a tax loophole, it's fraud. A loophole is a legal, non-fraudulent way to avoid taxes and is typically the result of the state trying to use the tax code to do social engineering.
fluid_pride
10mo ago
That's actually a pretty good analogy for how you're using it. Well done!
fluid_pride
10mo ago
Not to mention that one is supposed to verify that the cases haven't been subsequently overturned or controverted by new statute. We used to call it "Shepherdizing" and it happened more or less automatically with Lexis/Nexis and Westlaw research.
I remember that story, too, and I think it was in the post in which he talks about telling his patient to bring her hair drying with her on her morning commute. I want to say it was the post about whether you should reverse advice you hear?
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