MrVilliam

Because people continue to accept that price by agreeing to pay it. The price of a product is dictated by what people are willing to pay for it. If the price is so low that the seller isn't happy with it, they don't sell it and stop making it.

In other words, if you think Nintendo prices are bullshit price gouging, then vote with your wallet. With enough votes, the prices come down or the company goes under. You don't have that luxury of choice when it comes to groceries or shelter, but you absolutely do when it comes to luxury entertainment expenses. Make them earn your money.

1. They're loud, but not necessarily many.

2. They are passionate, and therefore will turn out to vote.

3. American voter turnout is generally pretty low. The best year in over 100 years was 2020 with still only about 2/3 of eligible voters showing up to vote.

These things combined make it seem impossible for Democrats or progressive independents to win almost anywhere. All it takes is candidates impressive enough to break through to the people who aren't showing up to vote. Milquetoast weiners aren't exciting enough for this, and neither is the strategy of trying to court the right.

Piggybacking this comment because similar:

Chop up some veggies (I like zucchini, yellow squash, onions, and maybe carrots), toss them in olive oil, salt, some seasoning, and an acid like lemon juice or wine (or a little balsamic vinegar if you want that vibe), then throw it into a lubed pan and into a preheated oven until roasted to your liking (probably like 15-20 minutes at 400°F).

I like this method because it's largely passive, so this can happen while you deal with some other part of your meal. Sauce, meat, rice, whatever. Plus it's pretty hard to fuck up unless you forget to use a timer lol.

As somebody who lives near Winchester, VA, I know how you feel lol. They're overly upset and direct their anger at people who don't look like them because the fountain they drink knowledge from is a firehose of disinformation. I don't know why they choose to be so angry and hateful all the time.

I don't live in The Netherlands, so I don't pretend to have any sort of first-hand knowledge of what it's like there, but this resource says that children under 13 can't work unless they're sentenced to community service due to an offense, or working as a performance like as an actor in a commercial or a play. It also looked like there's no minimum wage for workers under 15?

But I don't doubt that Dutch workers have much higher labor standards. Current minimum wage for 21 and older there looks to be nearly double American federal minimum wage (€14.06 vs $7.25). I live in Virginia, which has a much higher minimum wage than the federal one, currently $12.41. The Northern counties and around Richmond are ludicrously expensive, however, so it's not like people could reasonably get by on that in those areas. You won't find a half decent house in those areas for under $500k, and actual nice houses start at like $750-900k. If you somehow got a 0% mortgage and somehow had zero expenses outside of paying off that $500k house, it would still take 20 years of working full time at that minimum wage job to pay that. More realistic mortgage rates and expenses would make that take closer to 70 years.

Average life expectancy in the US is 77.5 years.

Yeah lol, I was gonna say how many underpaid tipped workers do you think know about that requirement, and of those few how many do you think actually confront their boss about it, and of those handful how many do you think get that money they're owed without retaliation.

I know not what many of those numbers are, but I'd be absolutely floored if that last number weren't zero. Especially in 2025 and beyond.

Well, LLMs can't drag corporate media through long, expensive, public, legal battles over slander/libel and defamation.

Yet.

I'm concerned that it wouldn't back up the parade at all. Reboots and remakes of 80s shit has been the trend for a long time, so it's not far-fetched to think we might see a new, American "Tank Man" scenario. It's not what I want to see, but I didn't want to see people getting disappeared away to concentration camps either. But fucking here we are.

Lafayette Square Massacre. Rated NC17. Coming this Summer.

To quote a genius billionaire regarding a time of immense hardship due to receiving abrupt bad news,

"CHAINSAW! YaAaAgHhH!"

I'm sure that somebody's heart goes out to him. He seems to have quite a bit of the Nat-C party standing behind him.

$2.13/hour. In 2025. Fucking insane.

My job is 12 hour shifts plus an hour commute each way. This is a big part of why we haven't already gotten a dog. Well that, and also until a few months ago we were in a pretty small apartment. My wife is home more than me, so we're considering it, but I want to try to time it so that I'm off and there more early on for adjustment period and training.

Humans don't deserve dogs. I want to be the kind of human who can almost disprove that fact.

So are you a writer for Black Mirror or a time traveler or...?