Mnemnosyne

This is also why I can't respond 'good' to how I am. If I am 'good' then it means I'm better than average or median. But if I say I am good too often, it becomes the average.

If you post a link to an article, you are endorsing that article as something worth reading. You are stating that you believe this is worth people's time and attention.

If someone disagrees with that, it is reasonable to tell you that in fact they do not believe it to be worth people's time and attention and they do not think you should be endorsing it as if it were.

So you know, maybe it's not just the article that someone is taking issue with, but the person spreading it and encouraging people to read it.

There is no guarantee that they will get paid. For that to happen, congress will have to pass a spending bill that not only authorized future spending but also explicitly gives back pay for the time they were working without paying after the shutdown.

So far this has always happened, but I do remember some noises about not doing it around the last shutdown.

So especially after those comments last time, there is no certainty that if you come in to work for the government during a shutdown you will be paid.

There's a reason the country lost credit rating, and it's because people are slightly less confident that it will actually pay its debts, including simple payroll.

For me, given my age and all...five million.

Which kind of rich do you mean? The 'this person is truly wealthy but it's not unreasonable' or 'this person is unacceptably rich and should have their money taken away if not worse'?

The former can be somewhere around....$10,000,000 or so. Lower the older the person is really (cause I consider rich versus remaining expected lifespan), so maybe even as low as $6,000,000 for someone who's currently 40.

The latter where it's simply unacceptable for people to have that much I'd start the cutoff around $400,000,000 or so.

And slight sidenote on the unacceptable levels: Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos both are so unacceptably wealthy that they could make one person a day wealthy by my $10,000,000 standard...every day...for 100 years...before running out (and that's assuming they stopped accruing money at the beginning of this)...and still be unacceptably wealthy to a crazy degree.

Oh and all my numbers are assuming no additional income and definitely no interest or investment (but also assuming the money remains the same value it has today).

I can't imagine coming in to work if I'm not being paid on time. Indeed, if there's even a whiff of maybe I won't get paid, I'm not coming in unless I'm paid in advance.

Every government worker that is told they're not getting paid should do that. Money in my account now, before I come in to work.

Primaries are only rigged in that yes, the rules and the entire framework is built to benefit those currently in power, but that is less rigged than the general is against a third party, which is to say, totally, absolutely, and unassailably rigged. Proclaiming it impossible because it's rigged is silly when you're advocating for instead competing in one that is far, far more rigged and has far more structure to prevent any upsets.

We have never actually won a primary and had them ignore it. They use their structural advantages as much as they can, but if we push hard enough to overcome those advantages, they don't just nullify the election and go with their candidate. We do get people like Ocasio-Cortez in there from time to time, when people actually show up to the primaries enough to flip it to the more progressive candidate. If we got enough candidates like her in, not just in congress but state houses and such too, we'd actually start getting places.

Now the bribes and money on the corporate side, nothing we can do about that - we have to overcome it so that we can get officials in place that will do something about it.

Now lemme put it this way. I live in bumfuck Ohio where there's no chance of a progressive candidate being elected. But I still vote in every primary. People who live in places where there is more of a chance of doing something need to be as diligent as I am, if not more, damnit.

No, a third party is non viable. But the right move would have been exactly what the crazy right wingers have done with the Republicans. Get organized and primary the fuck out of the people blocking things.

The "tea party" gave us the blueprint, but we've been too dumb and lazy to follow it. When they didn't give us the public option with Obamacare, every primary since then should have been about cleaning house of the corporatist, establishment Democrats and replacing them with real progressives. But since we're too lazy and dumb to vote in primaries in mass numbers, their establishment people keep sailing to victory.

That guy failed. It makes a big difference when they actually get killed.

Yes. Yes it is, it has been for years and years. They figured out that if they get us to believe violence is inherently bad and should never be resorted to, then they can safely ignore us. It starts early too, with that complete crock of shit about ignoring bullies making them go away.

Violence should never be the first solution, but the threat of it needs to be there if the first attempt fails, and resorting to violence should happen as soon as it becomes apparent that nonviolent methods are not being regarded in good faith.

I used to think that way. Indeed, one of my favorite quotes is from D&D, where an Arcanaloth, a being who is literally the physical manifestation of neutral evil, says "My friend, do you truly believe we consider ourselves evil? No, we seek only good. It's just that our definitions don't quite match."

But more and more in the real world I have come to believe these people know that what they are doing is wrong...and they don't care.

I might have been on epic's side if they had delivered a storefront/launcher at least as good as Steam, then found they still weren't able to compete and only then decided to try the exclusivity crap.

They did not. They have a launcher/store that is far worse than Steam or even GOG (which is an accomplishment; GOG's isn't all that good and yet they manage to be worse by a large margin), and they didn't even attempt to provide a better product/service. Instead they just started throwing money in order to secure exclusivity.

It shows all they want is to muscle into the market, not provide anything better for people.