They’re definitely not

Just patently untrue, but I’m no longer interested in this.

Someone did a study on various means of welfare support, and figured out that doing away with all other forms of poverty easement and replacing it with an equivalent amount of UBI would actually save taxpayers a significant amount of money. And further, it actually costs way more to try to identify and prosecute fraud than the system actually loses to said fraud.

I think the easiest way to accomplish UBI, without dealing with a lot of rigamarole and nonsense, would be to figure out what amount “basic” should mean—you suggested $2000/mo, but for some cities that would barely cover rent, so maybe let’s say $3000/mo—and then have anyone who wants any form of government financial assistance register with the UBI office, indicating the compensation they receive at their highest-earning job. The UBI office would then simply pay them the difference between $3000 and their monthly paycheck. UBI office automatically cross-references with the IRS every year, so you can’t hide income without getting audited.

I generally agree, but rather than making it a specific number, I think we should tie it to some multiple of the poverty line or the average income of the lowest 10% or something like that. That way, if the rich want to earn more, they have to make things materially better for the poorest people in society; and if they don’t do enough, the government takes that money to do it for them.

Wait…I know Depp was in that, but Burton and Carter didn’t have anything to do with it, did they?

Ok… you’ve stumped me on “Lone.” I think I get the rest, but…

Joke’s on you, the name of this category is “Music by Danny Elfman.”

Tim Burton (1) really only directs dark movies (tonally, not luminously), and (2) went through a phase where everything he did either involved the actress Helena Bonham Carter (including his marriage, for a while) or the actor Johnny Depp (to whom he was not married), or both.

The question for this Jeopardy answer could equally be any of five things:

• What is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? (the 2005 film, not to be confused with the 1971 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)

• What is Corpse Bride?

• What is Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street?

• What is Alice in Wonderland? (the 2010 live action one)

• What is Dark Shadows?

And if you add in his executive producer credits, you can toss in the Alice in Wonderland sequel, too.

First one: I better watch out, she’ll call a foul on me

Second one: I better watch out, she’s probably a felon on the run

Third one: I can’t watch out because I don’t know where she is

I’ve been ad-free for long enough at this point that I feel physically assaulted when I see one (at a friend’s house or whatever). It’s insane that we ever thought that was ok, and it’s become worse.

At this point, adblock is a survival measure. Piracy is self-defense. The first presidential candidate who campaigns on legalizing graffiti on billboards and mandating their eventual removal gets my vote. Burn it all.

Definitely a fair point. But for the most part, being in the country that collapses is going to be worse than being in a different country.

This is just me, and I’m no expert. But I kind of think that, if you’re legitimately worried about your country’s currency collapsing, you might want to consider leaving your country. Any sort of collapse that leads to hyperinflation or the large-scale elimination of financial infrastructure is probably going to be difficult if not impossible for the average person to survive, gold or no.

That said, precious metals are a niche enough market that I can’t imagine it not being rife with predatory sellers; companies that aren’t offering scams per se—you’ll probably pay them and receive what you pay for—but companies which are counting on people not knowing anything about the market and accepting a terrible price or poor quality goods.

Again, not an expert. But my end-of-the-world investment would be in shelf-stable food, easily-stored seeds (for planting), medicine, hand tools, high-quality camping gear, books, that sort of thing. If there is a collapse, those sorts of things will be immediately useful and also tradeable.

It’s been a fun journey. And he’s on the Fediverse! https://mas.to/@TechConnectify

(not tagging him directly because I feel like he probably gets that enough)

Alec has been on a multi-year quest to get an incandescent color profile from LED Christmas lights. I haven’t watched this episode, but he usually does a pretty good job of recapping at the start of every episode.

It’s always super entertaining, in my opinion.

EDIT: I watched it. It is indeed super entertaining! This time, the recap comes after his special Christmas light repacking tip, so it’s a couple of minutes in.

Walking into a meeting at Kohler and keeping a straight face after saying the words “toilet camera”–and then maintaining that straight face throughout the product’s discussion, greenlighting, development, manufacture, and sale–deserves an Oscar.

I already talked you through it in the linked comment, and honestly if you don’t get it I don’t think I can make it any simpler.

In any case, I’m not taking homework from you. I know how I arrived at this conclusion, and you’re free to believe me or not. Have a good night.

But how does including sources make that world? How does it move from point A to point B?

I addressed that very objection at the beginning of the conversation.

You haven’t thought of that at all. You’re applying reasoning to positions you hold, not reasoning to reach positions.

That’s particularly hilarious since the comment I’m talking about was from fifteen hours ago.

I’ve been thinking about media literacy for decades at this point. I’m not naive enough to be certain that this is some foolproof magic bullet, but I think it’ll help, and it’s definitely not going to hurt public discourse.

You’re contending that sharing sources online won’t accomplish anything because people are resistant to changing their opinions. Yes, that’s currently true; and while I see a benefit in the current world to sharing sources, why not also imagine a world in which it actually does change opinions? There’s no physiological or psychological law that makes opinion change impossible. People can change because people do change, so why don’t we do what we can to make that more common?

People behave like this now for a lot of complicated reasons. For one, changing opinions hurts us (physiologically), so our brain tries to prevent it; that’s something that can be eased with exposure. Also, rich people and foreign interests have a vested interest in keeping people susceptible to misinformation, and greater media literacy is really the only tactic that can combat it.

But more importantly, the world we live in now isn’t the only world we ever have to live in. It’s going to change one way or another; why not take steps to make it change into something more like what we want to live in?

No, I’m absolutely not saying that. I’m saying we should normalize having sources and not just blindly repeating a thing we heard.