Appreciate the info!

Beautiful stuff, y’all. Keep hope alive!

Considering how under-funded and understaffed the IRS has been/is, they do a pretty amazing job with what they have to work with. Simplifying or redoing our tax codes again is a huge task that will take time. There does need to be some sort of progress though! We’ll see what type of government we’ll have shortly.

Idk… Iceland is doing pretty well with some large greenhouses. I was pretty amazed at the variety and quality of their fruits and veggies. That island has to deal with some serious issues but seem to be handling them quite well overall!

I’ve found multiple friendly employees at vape shops in both Arkansas and Oklahoma, especially in the college cities of course. But that might be a productive avenue that’s worth trying out.

Best of luck from an ally not too far away!

As a former recreational user of many substances(not LSD though), I understand your hesitancy. I had many great experiences on shrooms so I tend to recommend that before LSD. I just think it’s not as intense and has a lower probability of negative interactions or experiences, but that’s just based on what I’ve seen/heard/read. There are knock off versions of shrooms in vape shops but I have no idea what they are like.

I hear you. And I agree, I would love more independently edited press out there. PBS and NPR seem under attack regularly by the right, but they do a pretty good job of being unbiased overall.

I could see the point being to spread the information on what is happening so that (hopefully) we could elect more people who would do something about it. There are some elections coming up where, theoretically, the power could shift. There’s also lobbying our congresspeople, which can have an effect if enough people do it. The power of incumbency, uninformed voters, etc… make this a shitty situation, to be sure. I’m still trying to have hope that enough people pushing for change can find success. If not, I’ll just be cynical at the bleak prospects of life.

I say all that to say, we should fight however we can, but definitely keep pushing forward!

Is it really those 6 billionaires opinions in every one of the stories their media presents every day? Seems like a stretch. I could see them imprinting their biases and blocking stories that they don’t want out, but colluding to control the narrative gives them too much credit I think. I’m lucky enough to have some decent independent journalism in my area, but I would love if there was more!

While I can concede your point that it’s feasible and possibly even more practical to open from the stem, I gotta say that since switching to the other end years ago(because I saw a similar thread on reddit), it’s been super easy and I’ve had zero issues. The stem just has a higher rate of fucking up, but it’s not like either end will fully decimate the banana. Peeling properly after it’s opened is an easy fix either way.

IIRC, the reason sodium batteries would be better is we have abundant stocks of sodium, whereas the raw materials for most other batteries are limited and require more destructive mining. John Oliver just covered some of this on his show last Sunday. If that tech can be improved, hopefully there won’t be any deep sea mining for more raw materials!

Do you mean philistines?? And wtf are “sea people”? I’m thoroughly confused by all of your comments, as they make no sense.

You can sail the high seas for Fallout. It’s worth it!

Maron is still going strong, thankfully. I like Seinfeld’s Netflix show, but haven’t seen any stand up of his for years… I could see it being rough.

Ooph, legit reddit vibes with that exchange, as I hadn’t seen BTB referenced on lemmy yet. I need to check out that episode too! Appreciate it

On your last question, while changing reps to at-large would certainly help with gerrymandering, that would make it more difficult for reps to have solid relationships with their constituents. It benefits both the constituents who don’t have to travel as far(although phone calls and emails would still theoretically work) to connect with their rep, but also allows the rep to tour their area more frequently and be able to handle specific, local issues more effectively. There are tradeoffs with everything though, so it might work better overall. It’s just so hard to change the status quo, which goes for most things that people have listed here.

Great list overall but I’m wondering what you mean by reasonable behaviors in regards to having kids or not? I understand the notion of encouraging and discouraging behaviors by legislation, but that can be difficult to negotiate/implement.

Sign me up, too. This looks and sounds fantastic!

Right? I gotta upvote for how thorough this post was, and it was interesting on top of that!

In addition to the veto power mentioned above, there’s also the power to issue executive orders and to nominate judges, including supreme justices. Those are fairly significant. There’s also the influence they have over foreign policy.