i’ve never had my SS card stolen because it stays at home inside of the random shit drawer

i’ve also never had my SSN stolen. maybe i’m just lucky but I don’t recall a time I ever inputted my SSN online besides the last 4 digits for some ID verification

GRANTED I agree that the 10 cards rule is silly. I think it was written for a different time. and realistically, you could lose your SSN card every 6 years from 18 years old ↦ 78 years old and you’ll only be denied at 78.

by then hopefully we’ve modernized the system a bit. maybe that’s too optimistic

I think the question already contains a sort of ideological trap: it assumes that a specific company can be uniquely evil, as if morality were some trait that varies between company to company.

I’m sure everyone’s heard this before:

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

It’s not just a slogan. It gives us insight into the very structure of capitalism. That doesn’t mean every individual act is equally bad, but the system demands a sort of baseline complicity.

CEOs and executives are legally required to maximize shareholder profits. Not just encouraged— legally obligated. So when Coca-Cola, for example, hires paramilitary death squads to kill labor leaders in Colombia, it’s not because it is uniquely monstrous. Replace Coca-Cola with Pepsi, or Nestle, or Amazon, or Raytheon… whatever. The logic of the system would produce the same result. If I gave the same chess position to 30 different Grandmasters… if there is a best move they will all see it and choose that best move.

Think of an ant colony. An ant colony doesn’t decide to be cruel; it expands, consumes, protects its territory, destroys threats. Is it evil when some colony wipes out another for resources? A colony committing what we could term ant genocide? No it’s not. The colony is simply acting in its nature. Much like a slime mold would expand in a radius looking for food in a petri dish.

Large corporations are like ant colonies. Complex emergent behavior resulting from a large number of individual units acting by a set of rules. The intelligence or perspective of the individual does not actually matter for the organism as a whole. As long as the individual units follow a set of rules it creates a sort of “hive-mind” pseudo-intelligence that acts in its own interests and has an almost Darwinist natural selection process.

So this is all to say that I reject the question. I don’t believe in uniquely evil companies. The horror is precisely that they’re all, in a sense, innocent. They act not out of hatred or sadism or cruelty, but because the system itself has carved out the pathways where the ball inevitably rolls down the hill following the path of least resistance.

Chick-fil-A is actually pretty good near me. I get them once a month or once every other month or so.

In terms of fast food, I’d definitely say there’s in the top 20% in terms of food quality.

“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian/

Peter Thiel is the financier behind JD Vance and one of the co-founders of PayPal- later on with Elon Musk. They’re part of the same group of people, along with various other Silicon Valley tech executives, who subscribe to what has been called the “Dark Enlightenment” philosophy

JD Vance, for example, has openly expressed his support for Nick Land and cited him as a major influence.

Both Yarvin and Land believe that gradual, incremental reforms to democracy will not save Western society; instead, a “hard reset” or “reboot” is necessary. To that end, Yarvin has coined the acronym “RAGE” – Retire All Government Employees – as a crucial step toward that goal.

Does that sound familiar?

Yarvin advocates for an entirely new system of government – what he calls “neocameralism.” He advocates for a centrally managed economy led by a monarch – modeled after a corporate CEO – who wouldn’t need to adhere to plodding liberal-democratic procedures. Yarvin has written approvingly of the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping for his pragmatic and market-oriented authoritarianism.

They’re essentially trying to reshape the government to function more like a corporation. Something akin to the Chinese or Singapore method of governance. Democracy is not compatible. What’s interesting is that this isn’t happening in secret. They’re out in the open about it.

I’m guessing you refuse to see what’s in front of your nose out of fear, which is why you keep saying everyone else is afraid. Me personally, I’m not afraid at all. I’d say I’m more morbidly curious to see how it all ends up. I’m fairly privileged and I’ll be fine no matter what. As long as you shut up and do your job most people will be fine. Just don’t be an immigrant or openly anti-Israel

But it’s happening. We’re witnessing a coup right in front of our eyes. They are purging the federal government and Trump has started to ignore court orders- dipping his toes in the water. There’s a lot more to this if you’re interested. There’s many articles out there and you can even read stuff by Vance, Thiel, Yarvin, Land, etc. They’re not shy

then please wise one- assuage my fear by showing me how the purge isn’t a purge. release me from this trembling terror by convincing me that the administration is not actually breaking federal law. save me from this horror and show me the light

what does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment really mean? explain to me please how these ideologically aligned billionaires (who happen to control the white house) that say they want to end democracy aren’t actually planning on ending democracy

we’re watching an unprecedented purge in only a couple months of an administration. led by people who have openly admitted they want to destroy American democracy and institute a dictatorship.

me personally I think Trump already crossed the Rubicon. but in the very near future there will be an order by the Supreme Court for Trump to stop doing something. He won’t stop doing it. And then it will be abundantly clear to everyone we’re in a new stage of US history

Reddit may actually be doing a lot of people a big favor.

Today Trump’s DHS went out and arrested a Palestinian student at Columbia for participating at a protest a year prior. Our federal agents are becoming like the KGB- hunting down political dissidents.

I believe that is just a start. I think people would be wise to be careful about the things they post online. If you do post content you believe the administration may not like, I suggest making an anonymous account with an email not linked to your personal name.

I have a hunch that people will be arrested in the near future for posting things online.

Gays had to hide from a secret police in the 80s? Hippies in the 60s? There was discrimination (and still is for gays) but I don’t think it’s anywhere similar to how pervasive and powerful the ideological grip was in the USSR

I’d say a more apt analogy would be blacks and our police state. They actually get imprisoned at rates that are in the same ballpark as the Soviet gulags.

Another more modern analogy would perhaps be illegals in US over the last decade or two.

Me personally, I find it fascinating how people survive under brutal regimes. It’s very hard for a government, no matter how repressive, to truly kill ideas.

The country I was born in went through a military dictatorship for some decades. During this dictatorship, people would be disappeared and you would not know what happened to them.

They were building a highway in modern times some years back and they accidentally dug up a mass grave with hundreds of bodies.

Even during this dictatorship, though, people would make music and art and express themselves. But they would have to do it within the constraints of the system. Your message had to be coded and metaphorical and vague for rhe censors to let it pass.

The culture not only survived through the repression, it ultimately incorporated it and became (in my opinion) mode profound in ways that is hard to explain.

To be cliche- “life finds a way”

Example- “the gulag archipelago” by aleksandr solzhenitsyn

And really a lot of Russian literature from 1800s-1900s. Some of the most beautiful art created in some of the most repressive and brutal environments you can imagine

I think a lot of people should pay attention and get ready to live like the Slavs did under the Soviets. We might be heading towards a similar period in the US, I think.

There’s a story from Soviet Russia.

A bunch of politicians are in the Kremlin and Stalin is giving a speech outlining some new policy. One politician stands up and angrily yells out- “Stalin! This is wrong! I cannot support this measure”. Everyone gasps and looks at him.

Quickly, another politician stands up and replies “Comrade! Don’t you know? You cannot say that Stalin is incorrect! We do not do that here.”

Stalin ignores these outbursts, tells everyone to settle down and continues the speech.

Of course, this being Stalinist Russia, the man who disagreed with Stalin gets quietly sent to the gulag for a couple of years to learn his lesson.

The second man, however, gets sent to the gulag for 20 years and doesn’t come out until he is an old man.

What’s the moral of the story? Implicit censorship is so much more powerful than explicit censorship. This is reddit goal. Create an air where people self-regulate their speech. The key is not to say it out loud. It needs to be vague and amorphous and ambiguous.

this is the wildest statement i’ve seen all month

the breadth and depth of the experiences that life has to offer is unfathomable. do not be so brazen to assume you have experienced even a tiny drop of vast ocean of what humans have actually lived through

From suicide in the trenches to the raising of a child; from gazing upon Earth from space to hunting a predator with a spear; from meditating in silence for weeks to leading a entire nation through a crisis; from winning a chess tournament to starting a business—and losing it all in a bankruptcy—existence is infinite, or may as well be.

think of it this way

there are 52 cards in a deck. that means every single deck has a specific order, right? what are the chances of you getting one specific order of cards if you shuffle? Well, how many different combinations are there? 52! ( ! means both factorial and emphasis here)

That’s 52 × 51 x 50 … all the way to × 2 × 1

That’s 8x10⁶⁷

That’s 8 with 67 zeros. Here

80000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

For reference… the number of seconds since the Big Bang is estimated to be about 4×10¹⁷

Now think of your life and human life in general. Think of all the variables. Hell, there are 7 days in a week. 52 weeks in a year. Coincidentally the same as a deck of cards.

If you do something different every week, there are going to be 8000000000… different ways your year could turn out.

So, please do not fall victim to this type of irrational thought. I’m not sure if it’s arrogance, depression, or something else leading to that delusion, but it’s a wild statement—absolutely nuts

But is that not the same way with “how”?

How do objects fall to the ground? → the Earth exerts a gravitational force on them

How does Earth exert a gravitational force? → All objects with mass create a gravitational field that attracts other masses

How do objects create a gravitation field? → Mass warps spacetime and this curvature directs objects to follow paths towards the source of the mass

and so on, etc

The difference between “how” and “why” doesn’t seem very meaningful to me. For example- why does water boil? It boils because molecules gain enough energy through heat to transition states.

In that same sense, OP’s question

why there is something instead of nothing.?

There’s a non zero chance that we eventually understand the mechanisms behind the big bang and can explain how nothing turned into something. Therefore we will be able to explain the why, no?

Not fucked. Of course I have some cringy stuff on MySpace from when I was in my early teens. But generally speaking, over the last two decades or so I don’t post anything I wouldn’t be OK with everyone finding out about

People go to fast food places because while it isn’t good, you know what to expect. It’s going to be mediocre food for a relatively quick wait.

You just need to figure out your meal quickly without too much effort or thought? Fast food.

You could always go to a new restaurant but you don’t know if they will take forever to serve you, if the food will be good, etc. But everybody knows what to expect from fast food brands.

I’d probably prefer a laptop with a larger battery capacity than weight. Ultimately though what are you using it for? To check your email? Are you gonna be browsing youtube on your wifi hotspot? I’d probably not bring a laptop at all and instead prefer just the phone unless I’m planning on making pitstops at places with wall outlets and wifi.

Let’s say you want to find what will be an “old person’s name” in 2060. What you do is subtract 60 from 2060 => 2000. Then go to google and type in “most popular baby names year 2000”

pick the first 10 or so and those will be “old person’s name”

I think federal government probably sent a pretty please over to reddit HQ to censor this.

They’re afraid of it fomenting further dissent. It’s a delicate situation when the plebs are upset. A little bit is OK, in fact preferable. But too much can lead to a chain reaction that cannot be controlled.

it’s a curiosity thing. i think there’s a value to seeing it, although not regularly seeing it.

humans are capable of some horrifying brutality. we live in nice little perfect bubbles and we don’t even realize it.

for example, it’s very easy to catch yourself cheering for war in the name of idealism. but see a couple dozen war videos and you realize what it really means. i think your statement honestly holds true for any type of morbid type of content. for example Crime and Punishment- dissecting the psychology of a double homicide. you could say “why would you read 500 pages of dense literature about someone murdering two innocent people?”

it’s because that’s part of the human experience, for better or worse.

similar to interrogation videos on YouTube. Even poetry like Suicide in the Trenches

I knew a simple soldier boy

Who grinned at life in empty joy,

Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,

And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,

With crumps and lice and lack of rum,

He put a bullet through his brain.

No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye

Who cheer when soldier lads march by,

Sneak home and pray you’ll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go.

Let’s see. Biden was charged with and pleaded guilty to 3 felony counts. One count of tax evasion and two counts of filing false returns. And then 3 misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay taxes

Everyone’s favorite actor Wesley Snipes got charged and convicted of 3 misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay taxes. significantly less than Biden was charged with.

he got sentenced to 36 months and served 28 months

this guy: https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/former-baltimore-police-commissioner-darryl-de-sousa-sentenced-federal-prison-failing

baltimore police commissioner served 10 months along with community service and probation. he got 3 counts of willful failure to pay taxes

so what is the typical? it really depends. there’s a lot of nuance to it. but Biden is/was facing some serious serious charges. 3+ years of prison would probably be the minimum expected

the police commissioner tried to hide about $60k of taxes from the government

Biden tried to hide $1.4M

so yeah, I’d be really grateful to dad if I were him