I think that the variety of leftists here, ranging all the way from people who don’t hate voting for Democrats to literal Stalinists, is one of the peculiarities of Lemmy that I find interesting. With that said, actually engaging with any of the ones more like the latter than the former is, as you’ve experienced, unrewarding.

I’m not a bee, you’re not a bee, so it sounds like a them problem.

(On the internet, nobody knows you’re a bee.)

I think that is the most based I have ever seen a machine be. Soon AI will be more based than any human.

You’re doing exactly what he is asking you not to.

I’m spiteful enough that I would have returned my new laptop (despite needing it for a trip in a couple of days) if I hadn’t been able to bypass the account requirement by disabling the wifi.

What still pissed me off is that it would restart itself after downloading updates if it was left idle, and there was no straightforward option to turn that off. (I think I managed to break that “feature” but who knows how long that will work.) Turning my computer off is never acceptable unless I initiate it. It’s about as obviously wrong as walking into my house uninvited or borrowing my stuff without asking me.

Having $2,000 is better than having $2, but in practice I’m usually skeptical that plans to achieve an outcome like that will work out rather than failing and leaving both of us with $1. The manner in which the outcome would be achieved also matters - some of the plans seem to me like proposals to just steal the money and I object to that on moral rather than economic principles.

(I don’t mean to imply that people I disagree with think that stealing is OK, but rather that they and I don’t agree on the definition of stealing.)

I’m not one of those few completely uncompromising libertarians who don’t want public roads - I actually think the government should be doing all the things you list, and I pay my taxes. I do prefer individualistic ways of doing things, but I’m pragmatic and there are many problems for which the collectivist solution is the only practical solution. When I say I’m fiscally conservative, I mean that I think society should be more libertarian than it is now, not that it should be absolutely libertarian.

I’m someone who actually calls myself socially liberal but fiscally conservative, and that’s because my primary concern (in the terms of moral foundations theory) is the liberty/oppression axis. In other words, I think leaving people alone is a good thing, and while it’s not the only good thing and it needs to be balanced against other concerns, we should still be doing it more than we are now.

Two caveats:

1. I’m socially liberal because a free society requires tolerating even the people you hate. This is hard, and even many people who consider themselves tolerant because they simply don’t hate a particular group aren’t (and often don’t want to be) tolerant in this sense.

2. I’m economically conservative because the freedom to act without government interference even in an economic context has great inherent worth (but I’ll repeat here that I don’t value it to the exclusion of all else) but also because the free market usually does a better job than central planning at making everyone prosperous. I don’t care much about wealth inequality - a world in which I have two dollars and you have two million dollars is a better place than a world in which we both have just one dollar.

Edit: in practice I always end up voting for moderate Democrats at the national level, both because I think social issues are generally more important than economic issues and because neither party usually does what I would want regarding economic issues. However, I have more options at the state and local level.

Except it’s not just some guy vandalizing a car, or else you wouldn’t be making memes about it.

It’s a programming joke. The field contains an arbitrary value.

Just fill your living room with radioactive waste and they’ll come put this sign up for free.

Even if I wasn’t bald, I’d pick my early 20’s. Adults generally don’t get better looking as they age.

Today, I noticed that a restaurant I manage had its OpenTable booking integration replaced with Google Assistant.

Replaced in what context? My understanding is that OpenTable still works just fine but Google is, on its end, no longer automatically referring its own users to OpenTable. I wouldn’t call that “hijacking” unless the restaurant had a prior agreement with Google.

No Available Reservations

That’s not the error message. Google says that you can’t get a reservation through Google Assistant not that there are no reservations available.

19, because I started going bald very early. I’m about 40 now.

Whole home water filters is what you want.

My well water had arsenic in it and I installed a filter only on the cold water line to the kitchen sink. I only drank that water and unfiltered water was fine for everything else. Something like that could be much cheaper for OP.

Well, the question was probably disingenuous. There may not be any stupid questions but there are questions intended to start arguments about politics.

Maybe it varies by industry. I’m a software developer and even as an employee, I’m expected (but not formally required) to learn about advances in the relevant technologies, programming languages, etc. on my own time. If I didn’t and I was fired because my skills weren’t what the company needed anymore then I would get unemployment benefits, but I don’t see how either wage theft or improper dismissal could occur unless the company did something really weird.

not how most places function

That hasn’t been my experience. Even places that pay for employees to get certified expect those employees to study on their own time unless they’re sent to formal training.

If I wanted to be constrained by flesh and bone then I’d be looking at 3D porn.

No need to be sorry for me - I think my story is of the “learning what really matters” sort and my family is much more important to me than where I live is.