• 0 Posts
  • 14 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 23rd, 2023

help-circle
  • What is a "pointless pursuit"? History and any marginalized population by the list. So apparently when the government makes a plan for how to invigorate an area, they don't need to know anything about it's culture and history? We don't need people who understand things like that. Every citizen is the same obviously any thing the government demands is correct and will work out for all populations.

    Also why does the state even fund PhDs? PhDs don't enter industry and spin that economy baby, so that worthless. Doctors and lawyers can just take out more loans. It's fine. Looking at that why fund programs for most master's degrees? What companies require one anyway?

    I'm being flippang here because even as a STEM major, I've gotten so much mileage out of the "useless" part of my degree. Being exposed to those "pointless pursuits" allowed me to build things that people actually needed and avoid the pitfalls before we exposed people to them.

    When I was in school, I wondered why the state was forcing me to take these stupid humanities classes at an engineering university at that, but I see it now. Mine was a school where humanities students had to learn to code a bit, and engineers had to learn do media analysis and probably take more history than they wanted, but getting out into the world, I've found that the engineers who got that exposure are just better because they know there is a whole class of problem involving people and they know when it's time to ask for help or when it's time to do research.


  • Has the state been funding schools though? Because state funding has been falling across the board and if the state has an interest in being lean then they should focus on out of prop salaries of administration and sports spending. After all what interest does the state have in sports? By this line of reasons colleges should have to fund that themselves.

    This is of course setting aside that humanities does help society and is in the vested interest of the state. I'm saying this as someone who was a STEM major. Giving context to the world and giving people a greater understanding is useful for every major. It allows them to understand their world and make better decisions from their station in life.

    To take the stance that the state has an interest in funding "useful" degrees then no one should be allowed to do anything outside their education, which is aburd. People with different points of view and knowledge enhance professions, not destroy them. That's what happens when a profession only has one allowable perspective to deal with infinite possibilities of the world.


  • I was with them until they banned more than 1 guests at a time. Are you a couple needed somewhere quick to stay before going to an airport or something? Go die in a fire. New York only wants solo couch surfers. People who want a friend along. A single person with a child. A family in a money crunch, anyone really can just pound sand.

    That is a super bizarre and IMO indefensible position. If someone wants to host more than one person in their home for a short span why is does they city even care?

    I'm also worried about how this could be abused. What if you legitimately take someone (or even two someones) in for a week, kick them out and then they report you for being "an unregistered short term rental". This is going to be a shitshow.

    Edit: alright I misread this morning. It's 2. Still bullshit. Why have a limit at all with the other stuff. My same complaints apply now with one more person. It's not like 3 people groups (aka 2 parents an a single child or one parent and 2 children, etc) are uncommon.

    IMO hotels just don't fill the niche of needing a cheap single night or needing to have a bunch of people for a long time. Traveling with my family got so much better when airBNB became a thing.



  • That’s kind of my point? That some workplaces are toxic or you otherwise need to abandon your job because of external reasons. Maybe it’s just because I’m older (mid-30s), but I don’t know a single person who hasn’t run into a fuck this job moment for whatever reason. Either because it was deteriorating their mental health, or they prioritized their personal life. My life fell into a coma and I literally got on a plane thr moment I knew. I told my boss I wouldn’t be in and he could fire me or not, I don’t care. My brother had no one in that moment. I was lucky my bosses allowed me to keep my job while I acted as his advocate to get him care until the rest of my family could get there, but what if I wasn’t allowed because of some BS notice contract? Which at will I can just quit fuck it. With no at-will there would definitely be some punishment. This scenario may not overcome the good of getting ride of at will, but I think people should consider it. Consider what it would be like to trapped in a place you hate with a hostile work environment.



  • The question I have about people who are against at will is the flip side, which is being locked into a hellish job for some set period. I have had jobs that deteriorated my mental health. With at will I can just walk out the door whenever I want. Not so if both employer and employee are bound by some cool down counter clause.

    Even without abuse there is opportunity cost to staying at your company. I’ve seen family members on the spot quit to care for people they cared about, but not people anyone would consider close enough to be covered by anything like FMLA, like your best friend’s child. I quit jobs that interfered with my college education.

    It sucks to be let go, but I don’t think people consider if it might make more suffering yo be forced to stay. I can’t see a situation where companies have to give notice, but employees don’t. Sure I guess employees can sabotage their workplaces to be sent home with pay, but what a fantastic way to catch a charge and screw yourself over forever.

    It’s food for thought.



  • To me, the biggest wins is that interest cannot overcome your payment. So many people have loans that are more than they started with. Holding steady isn’t great, but it’s still a massive step forward. The forgiveness rules do mean that effectively some people have to pay until death. There’s no upper limit for forgiveness. More loans means longer payments. I was hoping for a cap help cool the cost of college because lenders would think twice with the interest cap and a known end of life.




  • I’m pretty sure zoning laws are outside of the Fed reach. They can carrot and stick via funding requirements, but mediated expansion has shown that states can be very petty if they don’t want to comply. I wouldn’t want the feds to set the tempo for zoning anyway. They just can’t be aware of every area’s needs. It’s not a one size fits all situation. I’ve seen housing go up fast and the result is just a shitshow because the infrastructure doesn’t keep up with the growth. I’ve seen dead cities where nothing wad built and only the people who got there first could afford a place to live, so effectively you had to leave town for everything because no retail workers could afford to live nearby. There’s a middle ground between the two and no way will the feds know how to rate limit how housing gets built anywhere. Housing to me is a local election problem because people don’t vote in local elections and then when the problem gets too bad, only nimbys cam live and vote there. Those places always collapse eventually (unless the population is very well off, see: SF), but when people get a chance to move back in they gotta remember to vote for local people who align their values.


  • I looked at that source and most of thr US’s dings seem to he security. But note that the source says that basically no one gets arrested or killed by the government for being a journalist. Thus, I’m gonna say that it’s mostly our crazy populous, which with the climate after Trunp makes sense.

    The original point that the US has strong protections (by the government) for the the press stands. We just can’t do anything aboutnpur citizens.


  • In a lot of areas voting isn’t easy. It’s something you have to work to do. Why stand in the freezing November air worried you’re gonna be late for work and lose your job if you’re not excited? Why do it in the morning? Because maybe you’re me in your 20s and don’t have a car and you can actually make it to when the polls open in the morning but not the evening with how the schedules run.

    Why go up to the election office and force them to take your mail in ballet after it was rejected twice because your signature “didn’t match” if you’re not excited?

    Why finagle a time in your day when you can stand in the cold for an hour without your baby if you’re not excited?

    Why stand until you want to literally because the line was way longer than you thought it was and you didn’t bring a chair this time if you’re not excited?

    All this happened to me over the course of me voting in my adult life. This doesn’t count how voting locations constantly move on me for reasons unknown. It’s not that the voting location moved. For some reason I was just assigned a different location. The times where I’ve been given the run around about where I should vote. The times where I tried to vote, but whoops all the machines are broken and I decided that I didn’t want to wait for a repair which could take hours.

    Voting is hard. It can be a breezy affair, but I’ve never experienced that in presidential elections or midterms, only really in special state elections or pure local elections. The system is definitely rigged against you and you have to ask yourself if it’s worth fighting. Is denying my kid’s time with me worth this? Is enduring this strain on my body worth this? Is the mental energy when I’m tired from work worth this? I get what you’d say no even if I always say yes