beliquititious

The decentralized nature of federated social media is the only advantage it has. But it's kind of a wash. The big social media platforms have resources and weight they can throw at resisting state level surveillance. The operator of the Mastodon instance you sign up for probably doesn't have a lawyer on retainer let alone the army of legal experts Facebook or X could throw at the problem. That said you can always change instances or use multiple ones to begin with.

I'm not in denial, I'm scared shitless and heartbroken. You're probably right. That's probably it for American democracy and any hope trans people have of finding safety and acceptance in American Society in our lifetimes. But it hasn't happened yet.

We've already survived a Trump presidency once, we'll do it again, life's just going to suck more than it already has. I can't tell you how to live your apocalypse, I intend to get back in shape, see what parts of my life can be further downsized, and focus on growing my social support network to include as many other women, people of color, and queer folks as I can befriend.

Maybe. It's hard to say how much of Trump's rhetoric and "agenda" is to rile up his supporters and how much are promises he intends to (and is able to) carry out.

There is another election in 2026 which is an opportunity to break up the Republican super majority and some state government control.

We can try to get more involved in the political process, but beyond that there is very little left to do. We are just going to have to wait and see if it's as bad as we've all feared.

It's more important now than ever that we take care of ourselves and each other. Together we stand, divided we fall.

And he chose that picture of himself?

I don't know about how "normal" that might be but you're feelings are valid. You also can't stop progress. People are hardwired to make crazy new stuff and we're really good at it.

But just because it exists doesn't mean you have to use it. You can live a rich, full life even living like the Amish or other in low tech environments. The Mininites (like the amish but with phones and cars and computers) only adopt technology that benefits them and thier community. They live more primitively than most of the global north mostly for religious reasons, but there is wisdom in focusing on gizmos, gadgets, and software that improve your life in some way and ignoring what doesn't.

I set my mom (62) up an old laptop running Ubuntu last year when her laptop was stolen out of my sister's car. She's adjusted fairly well to it. She needed a lot of hands on support at first and any time she uses her printer, but she has figured out how to do a lot of things on it on her own.

She makes papercraft activities in inkscape for a weekly storytime she hosts at a bookstore and has gotten very proficient, but still needs some hand holding when printing errors crop up.

I think a better title for this question might be "What issue do you feel strongly about but have weak arguments for and can only tolerate agreement with your position about?"

I think you may have missed the point of the article. I don't think it's reasonable to assume democrats don't want to do anything about immigration. Trump and Biden both have basically the same plan to address illegal immigration. Harris' plan is similar to both of theirs as well.

Illegal immigration is not nearly as serious as the average Republican might believe. They add strain to systems already working beyond their limits, but legal or illegal migrant workers aren't displacing citizens at work and aren't leading to the kinds of outcomes Mr. Trump would like his followers to believe. It does happen occasionally, but not enough to justify the alarming hate filled rhetoric.

The problem is that "poisoning the blood" is nakedly racist. The phrase has been used for over 100 years as a dog whistle for white nationalism. How can you have a rational discussion about addressing the real problems that enable illegal immigrants (American businesses hiring them) or the additional strain they put on already over worked and under funded public services if one side is ideologically set on the notion that migrants are evil?

I don't think it's reasonable to believe that democrats don't want to address the border. Safe, legal migration into the United States benefits everyone. If we streamlined the legal immigration process and cracked down hard on businesses and individuals hiring undocumented migrants, that would address the bulk of migrants illegally crossing our borders.

Perhaps we make it a felony with mandatory jail time (per infraction) to hire an undocumented worker or own a company that employs them. Or perhaps we remove the exemptions some types of businesses enjoy from paying minimum wage. One of the reasons businesses hire illegal immigrants in the first place is they are cheaper than American workers because you can pay them less than minimum wage.

Right now there are a lot of businesses that benefit from cheap migrant labor, if we can break that trend, some of those businesses will fold, for sure. But do we want to let failed businesses that can't stay open without breaking the laws of the United States to continue to operate?

Wikipedia says the sportage was a Mazda with kia branding back then. Which probably explains why I only ever had electrical problems that weren't from unrepaired damage.

A ten year old 1995 Kia Sportage. All sorts of electrical problems, the four wheel drive didn't work and I could never figure out why.

I will say the engine was surprisingly durable. I got it stuck in the mud and a friend of a friend tried to help get it unstuck by trying to drive it out, but only managed to get it stuck deeper and cracked the block. I had to add new coolant every day, but I drove that car gor another 6 months with a cracked block and only had to spend a few minutes trying to coax the engine to start when it was cold.

Pro tip: Never buy the first year of any car, even used.

Well yes, but also no. Meta fired those folks because they were using their lunch stipend provided by meta for things other than lunch. Petty, given how much they were paying the employees, but almost certainly a breach of contract on the employee's part.

Meta is probably trying to do layoffs without paying layoff costs or taking the stock hit layoffs can cause. Which is still capitalist AF by any measure, lol. For fans of watching what kind of shit the oligarchy is trying now, Meta is definitely one to keep an eye on. Mark Zuckerberg has been moving very conservative very quickly lately.