Yeah I agree with all of that. Part of what was in my mind is that I would perceive a man laughing as very different than a woman laughing. I assume that all women live under potential sexual threat from men at all times, and laughing at an advance is a way to defuse it without getting confrontational. “Haha surely you jest” is actually a deflection, even if it isn’t a head on confrontation. I’m a man and I don’t fear direct confrontations, but I understand women don’t have the same privilege as I do in this regard.

I’d be fascinated to know how someone that’s never had any hearing will adapt to suddenly having it - neurologically. it sounds like that could be a pretty chaotic or overwhelming experience for the brain.

People also laugh when they are uncomfortable and don’t know what else to do. Obviously we’d rather see objections than nervous tittering, but I wouldn’t always take laughter as active complicity / celebration.

Christ I’m so disgusted with people scapegoating her with all of their worst-faith notions about political protest and activism. First of all she’s the most benign target of all time to go attack maliciously. Secondly, in their zeal to shit on her, people shit on the entire idea of civil protest and standing up against government and corporations for what you believe in. Even Trump dipshits should have an ounce of respect for that, no matter who you are.

“And what did your king say at the end, when you put your sword though his back?”

“He said the same thing he’d been saying for hours. ‘Open the fuckin strait you crazy bastards!’”

I won’t say I disliked the whole episode but I found the Klingon’s behavior to be unrealistic and unbelievable. She had every reason to just kill them multiple times yet never did, and was motivated to make major decisions over “honor” when no other Klingon was there to know or care either way. The main character armor was just too strong.

Sometimes it’s interesting to ask why people didn’t like something. Yes we all have opinions and we don’t have to agree but sometimes others pick up on things I don’t and it’s interesting to hear why we don’t agree. Sometimes there’s a really big obvious thing in the community that you’re somehow just out of the loop on. So I can appreciate why someone might post this question.

You can get by on public fast chargers for the interim. 120V is also more viable than I expected. I was all ready to install a 240 line for a charger when we bought our EV but a year later we haven’t actually needed to yet. No long commute in our household, so 🤷‍♂️BTW we did exactly what you described: bought a very low-miles used Bolt on Carvana.

Take the plunge if you want to.

You have to imagine that there’s always someone who is right in the middle of the car purchasing process and perhaps on the fence about which way to go. A sudden change in circumstances can influence which way things fall. There may also be people who’ve been thinking about switching who suddenly feel convinced it’s the right choice and go take the plunge.

Basically people are out there primed to make a choice already and this just tips them one way.

I hope more people try it because hot damn, I love having an EV. We got a gently used Bolt last year and it’s exceeded my expectations in every way. It’s quick and QUIET inside and so far we haven’t had the need to go beyond a regular old wall socket 120V charger (we mostly just drive in-town). But wow I love driving it and never stopping to gas it or even change the oil. It’s such a simple and satisfying experience.

Can we yet call the discovery of fusion a “thing that happened to energy?” ;D

It’s getting there, I suppose!

Can midychlorians form a clot? Oh nevermind his count is zero.

The most valuable feedback I’ve ever gotten in my career has been the hardest to hear.

That’s not far from what we had with Bernie.

Then social media happened

Yeah, definitely part of the story. Another thing that happens to all user generated content sites is the following:

• they start small: some person starts a web forum or creates a cool web app
• it grows organically for a time, attracting like minds one at a time
• everything is awesome and the site’s growth picks up speed
• the site becomes harder to maintain. Software development, security, moderation, and server costs all start to get beyond what the site founders can handle as a hobby.
• they reach a size where server costs are beyond what anyone can afford as a hobby and at least one person needs to make the place their full time job
• ads are introduced because you can turn them on and get money - maybe they’re only shown to logged out users or something to control the inevitable blowback
• people will complain regardless but of course won’t donate a cent of their own to help
• ads on UGC don’t pay a lot so you need huge traffic to pay any actual salaries with them - this means SEO growth
• search engines now shower the site with traffic because it has a deep well of excellent content from its early days, and this is welcome because it drives the ad revenue
• costs also rise as traffic rises because the site’s software was never built for this scale and it needs professional attention and / or enterprise grade service. No one has the know-how for the most meaningful performance optimizations or an appropriate caching layer - though many half assed tinkerers will fiddle around thinking they know more than they do
• the shower of SEO inbound blows away any concept of organic growth, which is what made the place cool to begin with. Now you’ve got plain old anybodies joining and probably expecting instant gratification when they ask a question. Just as the operators are straining to grow the site to the next level, it rots out from under them.
• the site operators are under stress. They may have lapses where they disappear for a while
• someone starts an alternative site promising a return to the glory days of like minds gathering organically. At some point major downtime happens on the original site and drives migration to the alternative(s)
• back on the original site, the true blue mods from the old days burn out on all this and leave - probably one of them is the guy who started the alternative site. Dedicated mods with intimate and deep knowledge and judgment start to get replaced by volunteers hamfistedly applying rules-based systems and automation. That’s of course nowhere near as good and starts to erode the users experience
• heroic content creating users are now trapped between the unwashed hordes of the general public and shitty moderators, so they burn out too. The last-douchebag-standing effect takes hold, whereby the whole place is increasingly dominated by the few grittiest nutjob superusers who hold out / hang on the longest and begin acting like they own the place
• everyone wonders gee what happened to this place and they come up with highly specific explanations, but details really don’t matter - this entire progression is nigh universal and you might say inevitable from the start. The only communities that avoid this fate are the ones that have an extraordinarily easy path to monetization which they use very wisely, or the ones that close membership and dole out new accounts incredibly sparingly to handpicked individuals. But this exclusivity works against growth and feels “elitist” and the bills may still go unpaid as necrosis inevitably sets in without more robust growth. One day the site suddenly goes offline.

And if you own one from before, the only responsible thing to do is sell it on the used market to reduce demand for their new cars. You might not get the price you want but come on. You could afford a Tesla; I’m not crying for your pocketbook.

In addition to the many other fine comments here, I will add that when you think someone is so stupid there is often something missing. You may not understand what information they are acting on or you might be interpreting the context according to different values than theirs. As an observer, not understanding someone else’s choice can feel exactly like “damn what a stupid choice.” I try as much as I can to take these as opportunities to dig further and use my imagination to figure out what they must be thinking. Occasionally I come up with something.

This is the best answer.

I thought the point of the stuff was to avoid killing animals.

Show me any single thing anywhere that has ever reduced children on social media by 30%.

Maybe if you could, I’d give a shit what they said about the bill before it passed, or what you think. Since you can’t, I’ll call it, objectively, not rosily, the greatest success of all time in getting children off social media.

And I will still be downvoted here regardless because people hate age verification (with cause). But more than one thing can be true at the same time.