I made no assumptions. If Bernie ran as an independent in 2016 he would have had a split vote with Hillary allowing Trump to win still. Most voters might not be loyal to a party, but enough of them are. Any third party will have to split their vote with one of the other two which will give the win to the party that doesn’t split. Its not naive, its how things work. I wish we could have a third party, which is why I support ranked-choice. We currently don’t have ranked-choice, so any third party will just hand the win to the worst party. I’m all for potential third parties to run in the primaries, but then they can’t be independents. Definitely no third parties in the general though.

There is no such thing as a viable third party in a two party system. Until our elections require 50 percent to win or have ranked-choice there will only ever be two parties. At best you could hope to replace one of the top two, but you would have to see a complete collapse in their support first. After seeing a significant portion still supporting the current admin, I don’t think complete collapse for either party will ever happen.

I haven’t hung out with anyone outside of a family gathering in years. I’m most comfortable at home alone. Thought I might eventually get lonely but so far hasnt happened.

My bad. “Please expand” to me sounds like you’re asking how they’ve gone too far in a possibly disbelieving manner similar to asking for a source.

… are you having trouble opening your eyes? You have to ask your eyelids politely?

This sounds very familiar. I don’t often try to talk politics around my family anymore, but they still feel free to regurgitate whatever nonsense conservative news has riled them up about around me. Its way to annoying to ignore, so I try to set the record straight when they do that. It doesnt matter though. I’ve completely laid out all the details on a topic, and they just stare at me. When I try to get a response its usually along the lines of “I don’t know about all that, but I’m not going to acknowledge that anything you said was right”. Its like they have to go check fox news before they know how to respond. They just assume I’m wrong about everything before I even start talking. Its rich coming from people who are constantly misinformed, and by their own admission don’t know much about any topic I’ve tried discussing. I’m on the verge of telling my dad “I want to think of you as a good person, but I’m running out of excuses for you”.

… or they’re just crazy people who chose to live in the tunnels and have an irrational hatred of hospitals. The biotics only traveled through time to stop them from changing the time line.

Political parties are inevitable with fptp elections. It will always come down to 2 candidates. Any 3rd candidate will only split the vote with whoever is most similar. People tend to naturally organize themselves into groups based on who they agree with most. I don’t know if its possible to get rid of political parties all together but having more than 2 would be an improvement. The only way to do that is to change our elections. Either ranked-choice voting or runoffs when no one gets more than half the votes could allow for people to vote 3rd party without throwing away their votes.

I’m not entirely sure what you’re saying here, but yes there are lots of oppressed people all over the world. There are lots of people fighting for a better world. I just meant to plead to the ones who are not. Authoritarians have power because a not insignificant amount of people support or at least tolerate them. I used to think that everyone could agree that anyone who wants to be a dictator should be held far away from positions of power, but now there are too many people that tolerate it when their leaders go too far.

That’s a little bit of a different issue. Not so much a dictator taking power from within but an invading neighbor. My appeal would be to the Israelis. Netanyahu should have been gone a long time ago. If I remember right he was under a lot of pressure before Oct 7.

Every country is a democracy in a sense. Its just a matter of the amount of effort needed for the people to make their voices heard. Under dictatorships, to make your voices heard, it usually requires a significant threat of violence. Its much more stable in the long term to just have elections. Not fighting for a better government is, in a sense, allowing that dictatorship to continue.

The fact that they are serious just shows how dumb they really are. We are not even close to that. The stress from that many transplants would probably reduce life expectancy. But let’s just imagine it works, you would still have to deal with brain degeneration and dementia. These are not serious people. Can we please stop allowing arrogant psychopaths to take top positions of power

Everything you just said describes the behavior of irresponsible kids. I not arguing that we should stop kids from doing all that. I agree that it is a part of growing up. I’m arguing that they should not be able to sign legal contracts, such as marriage, that will have a major impact on their lives without truly understanding it. That’s the best case scenario. There are much worse people who take advantage of such lax laws.

So I am. In my opinion people should wait even longer than that. I remember when I was 18. I was an idiot just starting to learn about how to live in the world, and I’d say a significant percentage of the people my age were more reckless than even me. Any big decision one has to make at that age is at best uninformed.

Sure. I slammed anyone who thinks kids are mature enough to marry. There’s plenty of states here in the US that fit the bill too.

Its not really a culture issue though. In the US we decided on 18 because that’s the age it is believed that people can make decisions for themselves. Personally I think it should probably be higher. In other countries that have a lower age of consent don’t do it because they think the kids are mature enough to make that decision. They do it because they view the kids as similar to slaves who have to do what they are told. If it is a culture thing, then should culture be enforced through threat of death i.e. honor killings? They just use culture as an excuse to be shitty.

I haven’t played rtc in 20 yrs, but I remember completing every park task except for dinky Park. I got really close one time, but was just short when the time ran out. Just a few months ago I randomly came across a video on how to beat it, and now I want to play it again but can’t find it.

And if its voluntary I would more likely categorize it as a hobby rather than work. I think we need a better definition for “work”. Work, to me, is an obligation. People work in order to feed and house themselves. So let’s says someone has $10mil. That is more than enough to easily live off the interest. I would say anyone at that level of wealth never actually works because they have the option to stop at any time, which in my mind makes it a hobby.

I’ve seen several articles about protests against tourists in Spain. I didn’t bother to read the articles, but I think it’s about housing prices being driven up because of air bnb. So maybe stay in a hotel if you go there?

I’d wait till he actually does something. His words are often nothing more than a distraction.