roboticide

I mean, they have electricity.

Amish aren't anti-technology across the board. They pick and choose, trying to prohibit what they feel weakens the community.

It's common for Amish to operate phones or computers for their businesses, they're just not allowed at home.

Are you talking about Tel Megiddo?

The only battle there in the last two millennia was in 1918AD. Not 70AD.

The people expecting or hoping for it in their lifetime should have read their Bibles better. I'm not religious anymore but I still remember one of the last things Jesus said was "You won't know when I'm coming back."

Just throw Matthew 24:36 at them.

They are faked, at least partially.

I was friends with a guy who was on an episode of a one season HGTV show called "Container Homes." He and his wife at the time actually wanted to buy or build a container home.

They had talked to a developer and were going to have one built. Got on the show somehow. After the show started filming, some off-screen drama happened with the developer, and an HOA or zoning board or something, and long story short they were denied the permits to build one. But the show wanted to keep going, so they used the construction of developer's office, which was also a container building, for footage, and when it was completed did a super quick, rather pathetic job of making it look like it was decorated as a house. Then filmed the "reveal," which at that point was just kind of rubbing salt in the wound. He looked so dead inside, it's hilarious.

A lot of the house hunter-type shows are allegedly shot with couples who are already closing on a house, and then HGTV just takes them out and films them just looking at other houses literally for show.

There are absolutely incentives - tax credits and rebates - for buying electric bikes in some areas. My state is offering $500 off any ebike purchase.

The auto industry is not being subsidized by consumer incentives. The auto industry is being subsidized by tax credits whenever they build a new facility, which is still arguably dumb. Consumer incentives are designed to get the average citizen to buy an EV over an ICE vehicle. The consumer is gonna buy a car anyway - someone in the market for a car isn't going to buy a bike, even an ebike, based off of price. They're buying a mode of transportation based off of lifestyle. Many simply can't commute to work via bike or public transportation, and if a credit gets them to buy an EV over an ICE vehicle, this is a net benefit.

The solution to public transportation is not to attempt to disincentivize or punish car drivers, then build mass transit. Gotta build the mass transit first. The financial incentives for people taking mass transit are the fact that the most expensive mass transit in the US costs ~$1,500/year. The cost of owning an operating the average car in the US is ~$10,700/year. Yes, build more mass transit to free us from being slaved to expensive automobiles! But until then, preventing incentives for greener vehicles that would be purchased by those who have no choice is just shooting yourself in the foot.

Which is why she's suing and will hopefully take them to the cleaners.

I wanna know if they all applied those sentiments to all pets.

There isn't a single domesticated animal that isn't "gross" and has to be cleaned up after constantly. Dogs will shit on the floor when you don't let them outside to shit in nature, but a cat doing what it's supposed to do will shit in a box you have to empty regularly and shreds your furniture for fun. At least dogs only lick their balls, cats have the flexibility to straight up lick their assholes.

Agreed. One could generously give the OP the benefit of the doubt that the intent of the post is a complaint about the system, but it's fundamentally flawed as it's still an attack on the "victim" of said system.

Who are they, to tell people what to eat or what size house to live in? As long as people have the choice of food they want or home they want, that's all that matters. Work needs to be done to make those choices equitable, but even in an equitable system there would still be tradeoffs. I just bought a house a few years ago, it's in town, modest size (1800sq ft), and I have a 15 minute commute. I love it. My friends bought a house last year - huge, 3500 sq ft. Brand new, bit mcmansion-y, but it's a nice house, and they love it. We paid about the same price, because their house is in the middle of nowhere. If we bought a house near them, I'd have a 1+ hour commute one way each day, and I'd hate it. I like my hobbies, but I don't need that much space, lol.

And if someone is happy buying a tiny house, good for them. If someone doesn't need the space - doesn't have kids, has undemanding hobbies, isn't throwing a lot of parties, why would they need a bigger house? It's just more to maintain. This post is basically saying anyone who doesn't consume - buying bigger houses and a meat and eggs breakfast - is a victim, which is just stupid. And it'd be great if tiny homes weren't one of the easiest ways out of the current rental nightmare, but some people would still choose tiny homes even if every house cost the same and renting didn't exist.

I just bought a big ass TV, and I've just started buying discs for movies I truly want to own for a few reasons.

1. You own it, period.

2. Even if you trust Amazon, do you trust your ISP to stream 4K reliably on demand? I don't. Fuck Comcast.

3. A physical collection just kind of looks nice, especially if you fork out for Steelbooks and only buy your favorites. Steelbooks on eBay are like ~$30.

Few reasons:

1. The system is far from perfect. It's not as good as say, the NHS or Canada's health system. And while it's "free" healthcare that is better than the non-existent free healthcare that doesn't exist for other Americans, it's underfunded and understaffed, especially following 20 years of war which obviously saw a huge strain put on the VA system.

2. It's only healthcare. Veterans with untreated psychiatric problems also often struggle with homelessness and stable employment. If they're transient, it can be difficult to insure they, say, make a key appointment to get a diagnosis or prescription.

3. Many people who are largely on their own with psychological issues, including but not limited to veterans, simply do not stick with a treatment regimen. There aren't a lot of mechanisms in place to force someone to take a prescribed drug, even if it helps, and don't like how it makes them feel. This obviously can feed back into #2.

4. Selection bias. It seems like "so many" because our military is huge. 1.9 million US troops were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 20 years. Of those let's say 5% saw actual combat (hard to say how many, but all estimates I have seen say certainly not more than 10%), which is 95,000. If most of those end up with PTSD, that's more soldiers than most of the coalition forces sent over, combined. If around half do (and around 35,000 US troops were injured, so this tracks), that's more than France's entire contribution to the invasion and occupation. The vast majority of the remaining 1.8 million who went over and weren't in combat are typically fine. Sure, some will also have psychological issues, but these are people who might have anyway even if they weren't in the military.

Not to shill for the US military, but, uh... source on NJ paying anything comparable?

I don't know if you've looked for a job in the US lately, but the prospects for a 19 year old with just a diploma, and not pursuing a college degree or a skilled trade, are pretty dismal.

You're looking at something ~$30k for a Starbucks barista or a McDonald's burger flipper, or maybe ~$36k if there's an automotive plant nearby. Both are hourly, so gotta hope they actually give you decent hours if you go the fast food route. If you go the autoworker route, hope you enjoy 8+ hours of repetitive, non-stop, physical labor. You're then spending at least a third of your ~$20k - $25k take home on rent and another third on food.

Compare that to $36k, with no significant costs for room and board. You're paying federal taxes but the deductions for active military are huge and most states waive income tax for soldiers. Your take home is better, your expenses are less, your fit, healthy, and your healthcare is covered for life, and if you leave after your contract is up you get to enjoy the government paying for college.

Like 99% percent of military personnel never see combat, and especially now that we're done with Afghanistan and Iraq it's even safer.

The military's problem is that anyone smart enough to do that math and weigh those choices is probably smart enough to do something else, but for millions of people it's a better choice than slaving away at McDick's as cost of living and college tuition continues to rise.

Many, if not most "regular military" jobs in Western armed forces don't involve front line combat and getting shot at or shooting at people. Less than 10%.

Now obviously, you look at Ukraine and think "Well that's a lot bigger than 10%," and it probably is. But any country with a large air force, navy, and sizeable ground forces are gonna have thousands of people trained to load weapons onto planes, manage ship engines, cook, drive supply trucks, load cargo planes, cook, manage payroll, manage procurement of equipment, fly drones, cook, run propaganda and recruitment, operate medical facilities... the list goes on.

I had an ex whose brother was going to med school to be a surgeon for the Navy. Her father, who was an Army pilot, thought it was great because he knew his son was just gonna be (relatively) safe on a carrier or hospital ship somewhere, not getting shot at, and just saving lives.