I watched the first generation that got personal unrestricted mobile phones for themselves. Somehow I thought it was a good idea at the time. It fucked them up mentally, and then Covid-19 came and doubled the effect.

Now I think that a parent who gets their under 12 year old kid a smart phone should be treated roughly in the same way as if the parent gave the kid cocaine.

Ooh, ok. That makes quite a lot of sense. Especially if one uses the miles/km number to show battery state, people are gonna get screwed by the cold. I changed that thing to percentages pretty soon after I got the car.

I honestly don’t understand why people are buying EVs if they don’t have the option of home charging.

Yeah, that doesn't make much sense.

I was initially confused but after remembering how Americans cannot science and 0F =~ -18C this made a bit more sense.

My Tesla worked fine through several days of -35C though, but the battery efficiency was a bit shit. I think I spent something like 6-8% just to get the cabin warm, but starting the car or driving generally speaking was never a problem.

Personally, I want war more than I want to be subjugated by Russia. This is currently a very realistic threat for me, probably surpassing almost every other non-medical threat.

but would be amazing if it did

Why exactly?

Perhaps jail... or I mean if we're brainstorming... perhaps capture him and remove all his nails with pliers.

Idk if you understand this but the richest companies in America having record profits doesn’t mean the economy is doing well.

It's sad that people upvote you so much because I believe it can lead you to thinking you're on to something.

I'm the opposite of a Trump supporter, but

1. economic decisions have long latencies
2. the improving curve of US economics started during Trump years and merely continued during Biden years
3. economic decisions are largely made outside of the Executive Branch

No, just morbidly funny.

IDF is fighting against an entity who denies the existence of Israel. Hamas could take the first step towards peace and accept Israel.

What do you think Israel should do to Gaza in the current situation where the ruling party of Gaza does not recognize the legitimacy of Israel's existence? I mean Israel has been doing what it has been doing in Gaza for a pretty damned good reason, and if Hamas (the ruling party of Gaza) would unlodge their heads from their behinds, things could actually improve.

If I order your whole block to evacuate their homes because I want to blow up a meth lab 3 doors down from you, I am engaging in collective punishment. It’s literally what words mean.

What you describe is an active attempt to protect innocent lives from a violent operation. It's the opposite of punishment.

I don't claim to know, but clearly it has worked a couple of times in recent history. WW2 ended with Germany, Italy and Japan being totally defeated and conquered by Allied forces. And they mostly left in just a few years. I'm guessing what it takes is that the population needs to understand they lost.

They want to control everything

Probably, or at least security.

and kick out all the Palestinians.

That remains to be seen, I guess.

obvious

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Additionally no Israel leader has explained what happens after they destroy Hamas.

Not quite true (but this is a pretty fresh statement, so your view is understandable):

https://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/4798646-netanyahu-israel-has-destroyed-two-thirds-hamas-regiments

“In any future arrangement ... Israel needs security control all territory west of the Jordan,” Netanyahu said. “This collides with the idea of sovereignty. What can you do?”

If Netanyahu gets to keep his head (politically), it looks like Gaza strip will be controlled by Israel and Palestine will not exist. It's not at all necessary that he will, though -- he's currently very unpopular in Israel. Then again, if he gets to claim victory, that might change.

I wish it was possible for Hamas to be unpopular in Palestine. How great would that be.

By having literally any awareness of reality?

You wouldn't believe the sort of things I've heard being justified by starting a claim with "if you don't see this you must be an idiot". But it's still not proof or even evidence of any kind.

Ok, so ... Biden's economic policies are worse than Trump's were?

Or perhaps a tiny thing called war in Europe and worst pandemic in a century is having some teeny tiny effects in world economy. But when you detect a fire inside your house, it's often smarter to use a fire extinguisher to douse it, not gasoline.

And that's not how any of this works at all. Zero-sum game this is not.

"women and menstruating people"

Might be interesting to see the reaction of a gazan doctor when somebody says this phrase to him.

The IDF is obviously and openly conducting collective punishment on all of Gaza ostensibly as a means of fighting terrorists.

How do you claim to "obviously" know that?

That's a pretty big if. How could they do such a thing without local support?

Sure. How do you prove that what IDF is doing is collective punishment instead of warfare against terrorists?

Are you saying that IDF has defeated them already? Or that Hamas never existed at all? What are you suggesting here exactly?

Their Q4 2023 results will be called in on 24th this month, so we'll see soon. They were still making profit in Q3, even if dwindling.

Quality, price, availability.

Volkswagen EVs are pretty crap though. Teslas are way above them even if VW is catching up. There's a reason why they fired a lot of C-level people and other execs in the software side last year.

Are they though?

I can feel the disgust of the car being related to Elon Musk, but at least the newer Teslas are actually great cars. Not sure where this idea of poor quality comes from. My previous car was a Toyota and I don't really miss it at all.

When I was making my choice of an EV, Polestars were too expensive and the Hyundais were too synthwave and gray. Volkswagens were shit. Tesla was practically the only choice.

I do hope there will be more serious competition the next time I have to choose. But I'm hoping I won't have to make that choice in at least 5 years.

What do you mean by this? CEOs are fired from companies all the time.

Yet Hamas is still fighting the war they started.

I wonder. The western tanks didn't apparently do much, and fighter jets aren't exactly easier to operate.

I'm unfamiliar with the details of economics decisions in the US. How much does the president get to decide those things versus the House and Senate?

I think they idolize 1950s mainly for sociopolitical reasons. The 1800s are more like the government-minimalist ideal.

Not to mention that the economy is also typically better when a Democrat is the president.

This might be explained by the latency that large economic decisions have. As a practical example, the leftist government in Finland increased expenditure by quite a lot in Finland during 2019-2023 (mostly due to Covid-19 and Russia, but also beyond that) leading to a much increased governmental deficit. As a result, the economy is doing poorly now, and since the Finns chose a rightist austerity government in 2023, it looks as if the economy was doing well under a leftist government, and poorly under a rightist government -- even though the consequences for the current situation can clearly be derived from the previous government and there's no way the current government has had enough time contribute to the situation.

Huh?

But seriously, I don't think Hamas and Israel are comparable entities.

Why do an election when the electoral college decides who the winner is?

The voters decide what the electoral college chooses, though. I suppose it has been a sort of buffer against the dumbfuck citizens making dumbfuck choices. Donald Trump's presidency of course has shown that if any such buffer ever existed, it sure doesn't now.