I wonder when we’re gonna get the Reichstag fire

How does it breathe?

This may be misremembering, but I thought I once heard of some people in Taiwan (a small, but vocal, number) liked Trump because of his “China Bad” rhetoric.

It’s not quite as spicy from my side of the world (Australia), but I really do not like the idea of our closest military ally being controlled by a fascist.

Just seems like risky business, ya know?

I will be shocked if the cost of living comes down at a notable rate when compared to other developed countries.

Conservatives have never been better at managing the economy, yet people believe they are, for some reason ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I completely seriously, put forth that it’s the soul-crushing, rampant late-stage capitalism, with poor worker protections, much more than the lack of political freedom, is what is driving the low birth rates. (Now, obviously different story during one child policy).

I just think people are way to quick to overlook the economics, which is currently happening almost everywhere (the stupid house prices, real wages not keeping up with price inflation, the wealth gap between the richest and poorest of a nation getting larger, etc)

If China became a mutli-party representative democracy overnight, you can bet your ass no one is going to be having any more children than they are right now.

If you were to ask the average Chinese person if they support their government, the answer would be yes, despite what some people outside China would like to believe. (On average, of course there are still a notable number who aren’t happy at all with the government).

I can’t believe this is actually real, or the most professional looking joke I’ve seen in a while: https://theowo.london/

Nearly every medication changes your cognition—even OTC antihistamines.

I don’t know what it’s like in your country, but in mine depending on the level of impact it will say on the packet, and is illegal to drive while under the influence of any medication that impacts your ability to drive safely or operate heavy machinery.

I didn’t intend to imply it is the case for everyone

People should make the decisions that are best for them—know thyself.

One last time, I don’t endorse this style of living for everyone, but it works for me

Nah, this is not okay.

I do not accept this as a reasonable way to determine what we allow as societies in terms of vehicular safety. Someone’s freedom to decide for themselves what they consider to be safe, stops at everyone else’s freedom to not be run over. I very much assert what’s safe should be determined with science and enforced with regulation/laws. Not by everyone personally deciding for themselves.

You might be surprised at the sheer number of people who operate vehicles while stoned safely.

Dosing aside (I’m not making claims on what level is safe). We have a very important saying in my industry: just because a safety event hasn’t happened yet, isn’t evidence that a practice is acceptably safe. (Paraphrased). This is literally what habitual drunk drivers who aren’t that drunk when they drive tell themselves “it’s fine”, because they haven’t had a crash and are very careful. Sure, but they’re increasing the likelihood of a crash nonetheless.

There may well be people out there who have driven high without incident, my response would be 1. Let’s quantify that first before allowing it, and 2. They do this without incident, so far.

I’m sure you’re very careful, and don’t drive too high. You may never have a serious accident. But on a societal level, that’s just not an acceptable way to determine what is acceptably safe. Who are you to say that you aren’t increasing the likelihood of harm to someone else?

Wanna decide everything for yourself? Go live in the middle of nowhere, away from everyone else, where your decisions won’t impact others.

Don’t drive high unless you can back up your claims with more than “trust me bro”.

I think it’s generally a culture thing

Precisely, and we live in a multicultural world. No one has to eat dog, just not make moral judgements about other cultures who do. I’m my opinion.

Fair enough, this was just a convenient place to get on my soap box lol

Nah, I have personally read plenty of online outrage, and heard in person, numerous times people making moral judgements about eating dogs.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s practical, or good eating. Nor am I making comment on North Korea. Just take issue with people having a go over the morality of eating dogs.

Amen to that

Are there sufficient studies out there showing fewer accidents while under the influence of weed? Or negligible effect?

Else, I’m gonna have to press X to doubt, and really would rather wait on further studies before letting you think your self-reported performance is convincing.

Weed affects your cognition, I hope we can agree on this. How adversely for driving, according to dose, that I don’t know. Though I don’t think anyone should accept people telling you “nah, it’s fine, trust me bro. I only got into an accident when I was sober!”

Cars are deadly, and you ought to be sober while operating heavy machinery.

Stop doing it until studies are done (and, they will, given how widespread it’s use is legally now), but heck, pressing all sorts of X to doubt on this turning out to be true. It affects your attention. And cars are deadly, so.

You are morally obligated to err on the side of caution here.

Stop driving high, please.

Yikes. Hecking big yikes.

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Apologies, I only took issue with downplaying being high and driving. Don’t get high and drive is all I’m saying here, and think your original comment seemed like you were saying it’s fine.

I’m totally with you on the elderly, you ought to need to renew you licence with a test when you get older. Because yeah, cars are deadly a f.

Invading aside (which is wrong and makes sense to be mad about), may I ask why would you be mad about people eating dogs?

(Presuming here you think eating dogs is a moral wrong, beyond animals in general).

I just don’t think it’s cool to judge other cultures on what they eat.

I think no one should be judged for what they eat. I don’t eat meat, and think in general it’s nicer not to do so, for environmental and empathetic reasons, and if pressed would encourage others (not unsocilited). I dislike vegetarians/vegans who go out and tell meat eaters they’re doing something morally abhorrent, and judging them.

But equally, I dislike meat eaters telling dog eaters that what they’re doing is somehow worse

It isn’t, and I’m sick of western society pretending like it is. Just feels icky

Here’s a unpopular opinion: invading your neighbours being wrong aside, I feel like eating dog meat isn’t morally any worse than eating a pigs or cows. (Assuming they’re not someone’s pet).

I’m vegetarian, and feel it’s unhelpful and judgy to get mad at people for eating meat, I just think people give countries where dogs are eaten way too much crap. To the point I even think it’s subtly racist to judge other cultures for eating dog meat (again, I think we certainly should judge Russia and North Korea for invading).

Dogs are cute, but heck cows are too, so like don’t get riled up about people eating one, if you happy eating the other.

Ummm, if it can fuck with your perceptions when you’re high enough you shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a chunk of metal going a speed. Not enough data is no justification, even if it’s “not as bad”. I have, and I’m sure others also, personal experiences of being high as fuck and barely being able to experience the passage of time in a coherent way, feeling like your forgetting what happened 30 seconds earlier.

Field sobriety shenanigans aside, I really hope we’re not pretending like driving high is okay. Cars can kill, and you had better not be under the influence of anything that is a detriment to you driving safely.

Please, please, tell me you meant to write: “Drunk driving is a legitimate concern. High driving, despite the vilifying by police, simply doesn’t have even a modest fraction of the stats to back it up. And anecdotally is not remotely the same as alcohol. But you still shouldn’t drive under the influence of that either. Police should be required to administer scientifically accurate tests and acceptable blood contents be determined. Not field sobriety tests based on nothing.”

Because else, yikes.

Yeah :( Big sad, both for you as a citizen of the US (I presume), and for me, as someone under the thumb of the US’s sphere of influence.

Stay safe out there next week. I’m presume it’s gonna get wild.

Y’all need to unify your federal election into an actual federal election. Not 50 separate ones.

It would be a lot harder to pick and choose battleground states for lawsuits if you 1. Change the voting system yes, but also and importantly 2. Have consistent rules and voting infrastructure across the whole country.

Having to understand 50 separate election rules makes it way easier to sow doubt.

I am aware there are also some federal laws on voting, but still.

We’re seeing in real-time why maintaining a coherent, unified, transparent voting system and communicating how and why it’s secure against tampering is so important. It needs to be difficult to sow doubt in the election, and you can only achieve this through simple to understand and explain methods.

Because if the average person can be convinced it’s not secure and legitimate, then it doesn’t matter what the reality is.

This is why I’m so sick of people pointing out the defamation lawsuits from the voting machine companies as some kind of win for the democratic process.

Voting machines have been just one of the many ways the Republicans have sown doubt over the results. Stop using voting machines, obviously (in my opinion. There’s also 2 great videos from Tom Scott on the topic)

Important things to get right:

• functioning, reliable postal system. (Trump did a great job on undermining this)
• unified electoral communication so that every place has the same election, not bloody 50 separate ones with wildly different practices. (Well shit, constitution needs to be amended)
• a simple voting recording method anyone can understand. (Voting machines are bad, simply because they’re too much of a security risk and black box that can have doubt sown very easily)
• consistent invigilation
• courts that aren’t stacked (good luck with this one, though)

And obvious move away from FPTP, but everyone is already calling for that.

Armchair citizen under the American empire, giving you my 2¢.