Rivalarrival @ Rivalarrival @lemmy.today

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2 yr. ago

The helicopters and personal assistants and private jets and staffed mansions aren't the problem. With all of those, money is moving from the rich person to pilots, crew, maintenance staff, laborers, builders. Workers are making a living, earning paychecks from all these expenditures. Their lavish lifestyles are not the problem.

The problem is their stock portfolios. They aren't converting their wealth into worker paychecks. They are leveraging their wealth to take more and more wealth from workers throughout the economy.

You say that. And yet, certain people need to be reminded of this simple fact.

Public roadways are for travel.

Again: Democracy is government by the consent of the governed. The system you described made no effort to ensure constituent consent. You described a populist system, not a Democratic one.

There are many good ways to popularly elect a singular representative. The one you described is one of the better ones, but it is still two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner. It is still populist: the sheep does not consent to a "government" that can put it on a menu.

A democratic system would be one in which the government lacks the power to put the sheep on that ballot: the minority has no cause to protest.

There are no good ways to democratically elect a singular representative. As soon as you allow that representative sufficient power that the minority protest, the appointment of that representative over the minority may be populist, but it is not democratic.

most of the electorate

You just defined "populism".

I am not sure where you are getting that "theoretical" bit. It's not theory.

In theory, you can purchase a gun with no training whatsoever. In practice, you'll have a tough time avoiding the bare minimum safe handling instruction the seller is going to give you. Upon receiving that instruction, you can't really say you have had "no training" whatsoever.

Looking at it another way: I don't personally know anyone over the age of 6 who has never received any sort of training on safe gun handling. In Theory, such people exist and can suddenly decide to buy a gun on a whim with zero research or experience. In practice, not so much.

If that's not the mathematical ideal of democracy,

That is the mathematical ideal of populism.

Democracy is "government by consent of the governed"; There is no good way of democratically electing a singular individual. Which is why the presidency should be little more than a figurehead, with very little actual authority.

There's going to be an election, or we're going to learn the meaning of "All enemies, foreign and domestic".

Scott/Mark. Or Mark/Scott.

Walz / Kelly, Kelly / Walz, Kelly / Kelly, or Kelly / AOC.

Try it.

No, seriously, try it.

Go in, tell them you're a first-time gun buyer, and try to walk out without receiving basic safety training, referrals and/or invites to ranges and practical training.

It is theoretically possible to buy a gun with absolutely no experience or training. But, you would have to go in to the process with some sort of malicious intent, even if that intent is just to cast FUD on the purchasing process.

Just to put this into perspective: There are 13 ships comparable to US "Aircraft Carriers" on the planet. The US operates 11 of them. France has one. China is building one.

There are an additional 38 ships on the planet designed to carry aircraft, but with less than half the capacity of actual carriers. The world calls them carriers; the US calls them "Amphibious Assault Ships" and operates 9.

If we remove all 11 US "Aircraft Carriers", its 9 Amphibious Assault Ships still carry more than twice as many aircaft as the entire Chinese Navy.

The real advantage of CATOBAR carriers is the ability to deploy heavily loaded, long-range strike aircraft and large support aircraft, like the Hawkeye, Growler, buddy tankers, etc.

STOBAR and STOVL carriers are reliant on land-based support aircraft.

That'll be the most popular 3D print file in a couple years.

Statistically, he is likely to be president for the rest of his life.

They aren't the only one,

They are the only one. It is a travesty that they haven't been subject to a government recall.

In my 2018 model 3 regularly has new riders open the emergency handle by sheer guess instead of the actual button.

Gotcha. Incompetent with both ergonomics and emergency egress.

Teslas are the only vehicle that require the occupants to open hidden compartments to access emergency door latches during a fire. So long as that "feature" exists, it should be presumed the cause of every occupant death in a fire until conclusively proven otherwise.

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steam cools back to water

That one. The most common methods of condensing that steam rely on large bodies of water acting as heat sinks. Water in those large reservoirs is lost to evaporation, which is exacerbated by the additional heat.

The water in that reservoir must be reserved for the nuclear plant; a drought that drains the reservoir will knock the plant offline.

Air-cooled condensers are possible, but at significantly reduced efficiency, especially in already hot environments.

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Did you know you can just buy shoe polish? You don't have to find a boot to lick it off.