As other people have mentioned conversation starters, interesting social props, and such, I have to circle back to your original post. You spoke down of printing it on your shirt. I say, don’t print “single and ready to mingle” on it. But something like, “Ask me anything”, you’d be surprised. I was an information resource for a big event and they had a half dozen people in shirts that just said Ask me with a big question mark on it. After the week was over I would sometimes wear the shirt and would have lots of people stop me because of it.

You would not welcome most of those people anyway.

Spoiler, assholes own everything. Good luck finding products that don’t make people you hate richer. Yeah you can find small niche products like beard wax from a local guy, but a car? Please tell me about a great car company.

This should have happened awhile ago. Lots of good people work at Tesla and I’d like to be able to buy an American made electric without worrying about vandalism or worse. Yeah there are a couple of other options but this should be one too.

Many other countries use them too, although the US does use a lot. It does concern me that China might be wanting to use this to accelerate war, seize Taiwan etc before there are alternate sources available.

Didn’t China halt all exports of rare earth minerals to the whole world?

The minerals aren’t actually rare, they’re just in low concentrations and difficult to extract. It’s just a matter of time before thet set up mining and precessing somewhere else. It won’t be in the US though. It’ll be somewhere with super cheap labor and no regulations or environmental protections. Which is why it was in China in the first place.

The majority of people in the US don’t have access to busing.

Additionally, Lemmy would be a hostile place if you happened to be a conservative-leaning Linux user. I know quite a few, but they aren’t on Reddit either.

Do you have a source for that? The Wikipedia page about it doesn’t mention it and mentions other sources, which I guess could be tied to the heritage foundation but even clicking through links I couldn’t find any connection.

I’m not saying there isn’t plenty to criticize about the concept and where they place particular individuals. That’s just the first time I’ve heard this claim, and I’m curious about it.

On the political compass subreddit they called them watermelons - green on the outside (libertarian left), red on the inside (authoritarian left). I realize they’re not really left at all, but the authoritarianism is baked in.

Thank you for the reply. But check your elevation where you live, if I had any money I’d bet that where you sleep is much higher than 100’ elevation :)

I enjoy coffee but I mostly quit caffeine a few years ago so I don’t need my coffee. I do enjoy a quality water-processed decaf a couple of times a week. I like strong and black, no sweetener.

I’ve owned a few motorcycles and technically I still do but it isn’t running and isn’t a priority this year. I have other things I’m investing in. You can ride anywhere if you learn to ride super defensively and wear quality gear head to foot.I want to come home to my family every time. It’s a ton of fun though and I like to go motocamping.

I like to hike mountains but I’m currently in the eastern US so I only make it to nice mountains about every other year. The Smokies have great challenging hikes but they’re no fourteeners. I know that number doesn’t make sense to metric people. I’ve hiked seven mountains over 14k feet, a few of them more than once. The tallest is Mount Whitney in California, the highest point in the contiguous 48 states. I’d like to travel to climb something taller. I’d like to also climb Mount Rainier even though it’s a little shorter, just for the winter mountaineering. I already own snow shoes, crampons, Ice axe etc. I’m getting older so it’s getting higher on my bucket list.

Do you drink coffee black?

What do you think of motorcycles?

What is the highest elevation you have hiked to?

Yeah, I get paid 1/10th of that and I could do a lot better - and I used to - but I work for a nonprofit I care about. Greed is a hell of a drug.

The author should have quit long ago. Many employees are complicit.

As someone who has done a bunch of phone repairs with the help of YouTube, assembly isn’t that hard. If they don’t want to assemble them here, it’s completely about profit margins. We should be taking steps to reduce that profit margin. Tax the rich and all that.

I’m actually semi prepared for this. My shit paying job is working for a non-profit that distributes food to people who need it, and honestly those who work there have the first access to the resources if they are in dire need. If all of that were to fall apart, and it could, my history is in working in food service and frankly I can get a food service job as well as anyone else. I’m super qualified. It might pay shit, but if anybody can do it I can and somebody will be doing that job as long as any jobs exist.

If the economy collapses completely and there are no jobs, I’m kind of prepared for that too. I’ve got a .22 rifle with a suppressor and a crap load of ammo that I can feed my family with for at least a couple of years feeding on squirrels and cats and dogs and fuck it humans if I have to. Not that I want to eat any of those things but damn it I’m going to survive. I’m not someone who advocates poaching or breaking laws, but when it comes to survival everything goes out the window. I know how to garden too. I have crazy amounts of filtration capability for water also, not to mention you can just boil it and as long as we’re not dealing with irradiated Fallout water, I’ll be fine. I could live the next year just in a quarter of the camping gear that I own, no matter what the weather. Birds make good eating too. If everyone’s money becomes completely valueless, I’m better off than most.

Most of Oregon hates Portland these days, and I grew up in Portland. But I don’t think secession would be up to a vote, it would be decided by violence like it always has been. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be successful, but I think Portland would still be burned to the ground.

Oh I can see it. I just don’t give a fuck.

As a guy with nothing, I really couldn’t give much less of a shit about retirement accounts and the ultra rich losing money. And I already make shit wages and live on almost nothing. The only thing that is going to really hurt is the continued hyperinflation.