Alex

Quirk of a polarized political system thanks to FPTP-voting. Sooner or later even the lamest, most basic stuff suddenly turns political and "controversial" while billionaires laugh all the way to the bank. It's by design and what happens when groups of individuals are allowed to hoard obscene wealth and use it to rule the masses.

In short the rich folk have the country over a barrel due to FPTP-voting and a lack of campaign financing subsidies. This scheme was designed by ancient wealthy romans for the benefit of ancient wealthy romans and it's not a coincidence this form of democracy is the one America seeks to deliver upon the rest of the world.

Literally it's called "the great experiment" because it's failed before and will fail again if not allowed to evolve and advance into a form with better representation and where wealth doesn't dictate everything happening.

The greatest driver of violence, crime and corruption is wealth-inequality, it's no coincidence unions and such worse are branded as communism and criminal behavior by the plutocrats running the country, unite and demand change!

When runaway capitalism is the norm and all the shareholders care about is that bottomline, then they will lean into the dystopia and be blatant about it when nobody is stopping them laughing all the way to the bank.

"I'll know it when I see it" - actual definition of hardcore porn according to US law.

Technofeudalism

While you have a point you might consider what little free time young people have is largely spent on social media full of dark patterns and negative feedback loops and/or gaming stuffed with gambling. One does not detract from the other problems you outline. "Phone bad" holds true as long as these big corporations insist on regulating themselves when all they do is feed people propaganda to keep anything from changing.

What the Fossil Fuel Industry Doesn't Want You To Know | Al Gore | TED https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgZC6da4mco

Oil barrons merely see global warming as yet another catastrophe to take advantage of for power and profit, they will have their companies pump oil til there's not a single drop left to pump anywhere, using every excuse they can find to keep pumping and polluting while evading taxes and regulation as much as possible. They are evil scum and belong in jail for their lies and behavior.

They fund their political campaigns via taxes and put limits on spending and campaign seasons, just buy european-made instead if you're a fan.

Isn't this why you have the VP running mates? You vote for them just as much.

When he started he used to be good at fact-checking wild claims even while entertaining them/humoring his guests. He's definitely gotten more loose with it over the years in the pursuit of getting ever more exciting guests on his show. It's nothing more than basic entertainment now that asks a lot of the audience to do their own checking lest they risk being sucked into rogans crazy world of super wealth from merely running a podcast.

It's hard to convince people to bother and to care or participate when a bunch of rich aristocrats run the circus, everything from the news to the courts have been corrupted to the point where money and power have practically become synonymous words and now democracy is on the line - so if they want things to change now's the last chance to make a difference.

We are paying the consequences of our stupidity.

FPTP-voting was designed by ancient wealthy romans in order for them to maintain rule regardless of voter-outcomes, this system is inherently flawed in favor of the rich as it makes it easy for them to manipulate. Donate enough to both sides and it's all business as usual no matter the opinion of the populace. In too many places it's a trait of leaving democracy as a mere experiment and bonkers to continue without reform in modern times.

Shit legislation with lack of price-negotiation through collective bargaining, is the main issue, costs land at the individual enduser in the end. They could've likely gotten half the money and save the twins but instead they'll get none with that pricetag calculated from putting a number to the value of a human life - that makes most insurers pull out the fineprint and drop coverage overnight..

skeleton incumbents

quit packing congress with them then and demand age limits

Fairness Doctrine reinstated and enforced on anything claiming to act as news would definitely go a long way towards fixing the political hellscape fascist billionaires have created in their endless greed. Their strategy works off of fear and nationalism, you won't be able to replicate it on the Left and still retain an audience of freethinkers, the propaganda is designed to wear people down and make them dumber than when they initially tuned in. Only authoritarians seek to erode the meaning of words for their own gain like the Right does on Fox, the best longterm strategy the Left has is education and voter-participation. - Things the Right undercut and underfund every chance they get.

A lot of the problems boil down to FPTP-voting and the current way political campaigns are financed. They result in this polarized deadwater where money and power practically become synonymous words wielded to keep anything from changing via journalism and the courts on this matter. It's exactly as intended by the old roman aristocrats that designed it over 2 millenia ago to maintain influence regardless of voter outcomes.

Scared into submission while getting squeezed out of every cent.

They've both been co-opted by the ones they sought out to fight in the first place: The super wealthy

Consumed by greed and success they don't know how to stop.

The revolution is whenever people quit doing whatever the tv tells them and start unionizing/growing their network of relations to demand change.

Campaign finance reform is necessary to tackle big business interests out for regulatory capture. Shift some of that subsidy into funding campaigns so the little guy stands a chance against them and their billionaire club.

How long does it take to roll some video akin to tiktok and snapchat into it? Weed out all the bots at the same time by demanding fotoID and root out all the dirtbags abusing the app at the same time. Texting and chatting is so last decade anyway just leave it as a remnant of its birdie roots.

If it fails Meta will likely have to be broken up, their monopoly on social media is outrageous these days.

Given the size of Barry I think it's safe to assume he detests it.

Maindrivers of fascism are the insane people fearmongering and stoking nationalism in a bid for more power and money. It's corruption and nonsense all the way down only made possible by poor education and voter participation. FPTP and lax campaign laws make it easy for the super wealthy to influence elections behind the scenes too. A lot of democracies are still run with systems designed by ancient wealthy romans for the benefit of ancient wealthy romans and are left unchanged. It's to the surprise of noone when billionaires act like emperors in modern times with inequality on the rise everywhere and with news indistinguishable from entertainment given how the fairness doctrine has been long abolished even if that was precisely why it existed in the first place.

You're not wrong but them being the executive class beholden to the investor class is a pretty big distinction from the rest of the working class that they oversee as a part of their work.

This is google we're talking about, there never was any privacy to begin with, and what you believed was there was always just an illusion. This was always their interpretation of the ideal and power of the internet with its "free sharing of ideas and knowledge" - they literally went with including personal data in that much like facebook and both have yet to be stopped or held accountable to start treating it as such.

Just let agelimits apply to judges as well and make judges appoint judges while you're at it to minimize the politicizing of the bench.

I mean they can try but I think most politicians / parties would consider such a move political suicide regardless if they manage to ram it through or not. In some countries retirement is a pretty vague thing altogether though so the quick and easy fix is to just quit voting the people you consider too old into congress.

Probably just a fool thinking free fusion energy was just around the corner

As long as politicians appoint the judges they'll be in their pocket to maintain their bright careers.

Indeed, it's only a matter of time before he's back on youtube going completely off the rails.

Success and fame to go with it will often have that effect when the fool don't think they deserve it themselves. They feel special as a result and get completely blinded and selfabsorbed by their own greed and ego, especially once the money rolls in.

Sad but harsh reality, it's not pretty but just how democracy functions under FPTP-voting with zero campaign finance subsidy available. If you can't pick up popularity in one of the two big parties you're shit out of options in the current system - designed by wealthy romans for the benefit of wealthy romans. If not allowed to evolve the great experiment is doomed at the whim of the super rich whenever enough lose their minds into fascism.

I wonder what all this has in common?

A bunch of super wealthy turds seek to dictate what constitutes democracy around the world, all while enriching themselves and clubbing people for resisting them, to them borders are just lines on a map and money the solution to everything.

What you describe is just another example of poor urban planning + untapped market of public transport.

They just repeat what their donors tell them to keep their campaigns funded. They want less regulations or nothing changed because change is scary.

They moved on from experimental democracy with FPTP to better forms of representation that isn't so easily manipulated by the rich.

Would you rather be dependent on foreign supply while waiting for renewable energy to be built? A lot of america still runs on oil and it's gonna take a long time for that change even with the green transition finally happening.

The rest of the investor class consider Musk a joke to actually run the companies he owns himself.

Probably right, it's unfortunate the people that ran her campaign were idiots and she listened to them.

It's like whoever is offering up these names and convincing them to use them is trying to tell consumers and workers something in the countries they work and operate. That a rental service is literally named Hertz is pretty on the nose even without all the movie culture references.