I ended up skimming through the video. The title is a bit misleading. I’m always wary of people saying X is a scam when X is just a function of capitalism. Dental insurance has saved people I know thousands of dollars, even when compared to out of pocket or payment plans. Mine is a family plan and less than $20/mo/person (<240 a year per person) and covers two cleanings a year with no copay. That in itself is worth the price in my area as most places are >100 for out of pocket cleanings. It also covers X-rays and a bunch of other work I thankfully do not currently need, but my family has in the past taken advantage of without issue. Prices may be artificially inflated due to insurance companies or buyouts, but those are the prices regardless. The video is from an actual dentist apparently and goes into issues with insurance companies and at the end mentions some things places are doing to hopefully reign in greed, but the main issue is just that insurance companies are capitalistic. I would still recommend dental insurance if you’re able to afford it unless you have a location in your area where you know the out of pocket costs and have done the math.

I’m not acting any way about him. I haven’t called for his resignation or even an apology. I originally pointed out that having stayed in contact is not a valid defense against abuse. When you reiterated a concern regarding a similarity to the situation with Al Franken, I pointed out the ways in which this differed. You can disagree if you feel as though a CNN article that states text evidence was obtained has an equivalent journalistic value to a right wing radio station running with a story their host brought, but I was just pointing out how this situation differs.

It seemed to me like you felt you had to rush to his defense because of a letter in which he stated there was ongoing contact between them. I think wanting to see how things shake out is fine, but quoting his defense and comparing it to the Al Franken situation makes it seem like you think it’s a lie. That’s ok if that’s your perception and you’d like to share that, but it didn’t come across as “wait and see” it came across as a defense. Just my 2 cents on the matter.

Al Frankens main accuser was a republican trying to add to her star power and the story was first published by her republican radio station that openly admitted to not fact checking. The reporters here DID dig. It’s in the article. They saw texts, spoke to people who were told of the events at the time, and have medical records. This guy is being accused by people who used to work for him and are openly on the left. I understand wanting to wait for more information to come out or more to be corroborated, but it feels dismissive to compare this to the Al Franken situation regardless. This is being published by a reputable outlet and they seem to have a lot of people willing to back up these accounts with contemporaneous evidence.

To use the defensive letter saying “well you asked for a letter of recommendation” as evidence that this is at all like the Al Franken thing seems like a misunderstanding of who accused these people and of what.

People (not me), seemed to really like Thank Goodness You’re Here. Undertale is a popular one. Date Everything seemed funny from what I saw of it, and if playing with friends things like peak, baby steps, or getting over it. Lots of different genres there, but steam also has a tag for comedy games. Even if you don’t end up buying it on steam, you can always check that out in case you don’t get enough options via comments.

If you are aiming to work in politics, having a reference from someone in his position is likely going to get you further than a different reference would. Not only are they expected to leave but they also cannot even get a reference? I didn’t read the article because I cannot go through another one at the moment, but based on the excerpt, how is that a problem? To leave a job like that, especially abruptly and not have a reference from it would look very strange.

Gotcha, thank you. I was not sure if you just forgot to add the link or something. Appreciate you replying with some.

No please. Do not reward this kind of posting. People are just going to flood the fediverse with this kind of engagement farming. If they want to get eyes on their content they are welcome to post it in the relevant communities, ideally with a disclaimer that they made it.

Reddit was filled with posts like: “no one cares about my neurodivergent differently abled nieces art project 🥺👉👈”

Let’s not encourage that here.

Is there supposed to be an article link? I’m unable to see it if so.

They’re literally kidnapping people. Not even in the “hyperbolic” way. They have no authority to detain these people and are doing it anyway. That’s the definition. I hope for a real reckoning, though I fear they will never actually be held accountable.

Exactly this. There was a pretty infamous outage in 2024 and a couple smaller ones in 2023. I don’t think I know a single working adult that hasn’t had at least one payroll delay for some stupid reasoning. I helped someone troubleshoot an issue that caused all of peoples second paychecks to be delayed. During onboarding they’d tell people to expect a delay in their 2nd paycheck and people just never complained for years. Banking is such a fragile part of infrastructure. It’s strange to imagine someone quitting the second the paycheck didn’t hit their account. I’m anti capitalist as hell and companies are not your family etc etc, but at least make a phone call or something first.

Devastating that Apple did this and still manages to have the worst AI out there. Was really hoping it was so far behind because it only used “ethical” or licensed data. I guess it’s bad just because. That’s extra embarrassing.

This person is just posting slop. I’m not sure if trolling/farming, but any interaction will just feed their weird delusions or bait. Just ignore would be my suggestion.

This person is using AI and posting slop. I’m not clicking on their stuff but their post history says they made a video about this stupidity previously, so I don’t know that I’d trust them.

Does your own hatred of minorities and the poor make you willing to risk joining forces with those who are likely to come after you next?

Yes

I also get emails from family encouraging me to “build a new AI”. I know that’s such a throwaway part of the article, but it’s insidious. Lay people have no idea that things like this are scams. They think people in tech are like their nice family members that just love the industry and want to use it to help people. They have no idea that most of these startups are equivalent to pump and dumps. Glad to see this company is getting sued. Incredible that NYT is running such obvious fluff piece advertisements.

Makes sense. All the Bernie bros were probably just lusting after a septuagenerian grandfather and that’s why he was so well liked.

What truly stupid things to support. In a world filled with celebrities getting/lying about cosmetic procedures many people can never afford, people generally being more aware of the halo effect, attractiveness being much more attainable for the wealthy, and most importantly, a large part of the voter base that was stolen from Dems being young men who have been lead to believe they are simply genetically disadvantaged and unable to have a good life because of it, we should select our elected officials based off looks. Amazing. Love this. This is the political take we deserve. Our country is over and it is now beyond satire.

In context it seems like the “play your games with friends” part of your comment is what they were getting at, and less about the forums and such. For me at least, that’s a big draw. I’ve hyped remote play together a lot, but it’s a huge reason I prefer steam. I can also share my library with several other people, so buying a game there is like buying it for a few of my friends too. I think that’s the stickiness he’s referring to.

But Steam also had friends lists, messaging, playtime stats, and those little popup notifications about what your buddies were playing. “What Steam did better than anybody else was to create a community,” Kuperman argued. “They established a stickiness to it, that people came back because it was Steam.”

I don’t necessarily support this, but I feel like this at least adds a barrier to a single person setting up hundreds of bot accounts easily. Similar to locking your doors, it just adds friction to those that would otherwise not put a lot of effort in. People can still break into your house/run a bot farm, but this makes it just that much more difficult. Again, I don’t really support doing this, and it’s definitely not being done for user’s benefit, but it will likely have some impact on botting.

I’ve said it before, and I’m happy to repeat it now, I really wish I lived in the country you’re talking about, where people cared more about other people than themselves, but we really don’t. We can probably cherry pick stats all day (lies, damn lies, statistics), but 54% of Biden->Someone not Harris voters said her Gaza policy made no difference. 10% said it’d make them less likely. That’s 64% of that uncaptured demographic that chose someone other than her for a completely unrelated reason. Other top 3 issues: 24% - The economy 12% - Medicare and Social Security 11% - Immigration and border security

Seems like those are people who want less of dem policies, not more of them. Also, the above is just voters who voted for not Kamala. There were plenty of people who stayed home because they simply didn’t like her (black/woman/maybe Israel policy) and didn’t care enough to vote for someone else.

To be clear, anyone blaming leftists is just whining. Kamala failed to do the thing she was supposed to (win) and they see that as other people’s fault and not hers. At the end of the day she either got the votes or she didn’t. If they think there’s nothing she could’ve said/done to get the leftist vote, then they don’t have to blame her. In reality, she could’ve EARNED those votes and she didn’t. Maybe it would’ve cost her other votes. I don’t know for sure, but either way it was her decision and she chose not to.

Source of poll from your article: https://www.imeupolicyproject.org/postelection-polling

Also, pretty sure the laugh thing is a meme. They used the sarcasm indicator, so I’m pretty sure they’re being glib.

When insulting POWs didn’t even cause a dip in his numbers I knew we were done for. If anything is more American than apple pie, it’s slobbering all over the troops, and the Rs didn’t even blink. What a sad reflection of our actual ideals as a nation.