This is how it works in my area. I pay about $12/mo in fees, the rest is handled by solar. They don’t pay me for excess solar, instead I get credit (in kWh, not dollars, thankfully) for it and any electricity I use at night or in the winter comes from that pool. Essentially, it makes the power company a big battery for me.

Musk has 850b. Even at 50%, he has more money than he can possibly spend. Even at 90% 85b leftover is unimaginable wealth.

I respectfully disagree. This is clearly hyperbole. You know, exaggerating for dramatic effect.

It seems safer on iPhone than Android. I’d still avoid it due to subpoenas.

Never, ever, cross the personal/work barrier. I have seen so much abuse when those lines cross.

The density of DVDs makes them less resilient than CDs, but CDs will also suffer the same fate. It’s going to be a very serious conservation problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

You joke, but the modern world has actually really fucked textile hobbies. One example is yarn for crochet/knitting. The major producers all moved their production to new countries in the past decade and, along with it, switched to shorter staple fiber (i.e. the individual fibers they make up the yarn are shorter).

Obviously, this makes goods made with these yarns worse, but there is also a growing, though rare, problem from people inhaling the fibers while knitting. It creates a lung disease similar to what someone who was exposed to asbestos experiences (though asbestos is much worse).

There are still ways to get artisanal yarns, maybe without plastic being one of the primary ingredients, but those are generally very expensive.

They literally sell sex toys at Target and other such stores these days. It’s not as edgy as it used to be. Spencer’s feels like that “hey fellow kids” meme at this point.

This is the exact sort of response I expected.

My point here is that there is a lot of class struggle that actively works to prevent individuals from voting. Putting the blame just on those people misses the mark and will not fix things.

Take one example. Some people get to make a choice. Take time off of work, stand in line for literal hours, and try to vote or feed their family today. Is the solution to blame the individual or to address how fucked up the system is that prevents them from voting?

Yes, there are idiots who could have voted, but didn’t. They deserve derision. But, if we don’t identify that voter suppression is real, if we place the responsibility on people entirely, we play directly into the hands of those who don’t want people voting.

I hate defending non-voters, but a large number of people are unable to vote or aren’t well informed enough to know what’s going on. In the former camp, there are lots of people who can’t get to the polls because voting day isn’t a holiday or because there aren’t enough polling locations in their area, or because they are sick, etc. etc. Most of the time politicians actively work to make it harder to vote.

Of course you can feel however you’d like about the latter camp, but being uninformed is also being encouraged. People are often undereducated. Some people just don’t consume news. I’d be willing to bet there are some people who didn’t know an election was going on and some who couldn’t name the president.

I feel like this map must be some sort of trolling for people that have any understanding of the United States. I could write a doctoral thesis for how badly this would disenfranchise people, screw over others economically, and involves taking over territory that isn’t even fully American.

Let’s just talk about your “territories” region. It is somehow supposed to compete on the world stage when it has less population than New York? Far less accessible resources? Peoples that may not even want to be part of the US given a choice?

The Western area is taking over tons of Native American land and have no water.

The middle area has the same population problems (except Texas) and the territories. Plus, they largely rely on Federal tax dollars and that would dry up.

The Eastern section would be dominated by the North East and people in the South would rather die than be lumped in with them.

I could go on?

All of this for what? Some sort of global representation? Each state already represents itself globally. For smaller regions of representation? Well, these are still huge (and uneven) regions that ignore population.

The major issue is that land doesn’t vote. Take away the electoral college and first pass the post voting and, suddenly, America works much better.

The problem with this is you are screwing over liberal bastions (e.g. Chicago) in conservative zones. Or what about somewhere like New Mexico? We’d be grouped with Arizona and Texas? New Mexico is liberal and that’d kill us. The arrangement also gives even more power to sparsely populated sections of the country vs highly populated sections. It is almost like you are suggesting gerrymandering at a regional level.

Keep in mind that we already have regional representation - state governments. They don’t work great because of the lack of attention they get vs presidental elections. The here part is that states need to have power, but there are things they are insane to declare as “states rights” issues. How do we divide them up? I don’t know. We even have “majority agree” as you suggested via constitutional amendments.