Absolutely, but for now the best thing we can do is show up and vote and call out these misleading polls for what they are. The larger the margins are, the harder it gets to try to cheat through the courts. Of course if there is a big blue wave, we'll hear that it itself is evidence that voter fraud happened, in which they will justify with these slanted polls.

I think the other silver lining is that when it comes down too it, Trump doesn't have a large enough base that is willing to stick thier own necks out in a misguided attempt to "save" democracy. Trump.didn't get the numbers he wanted on January 6th and he won't get them this time either.

Just because you don't know the rules doesn't mean they are unwritten.

https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/2024-Delegate-Selection-Rules.pdf

The claim was that billionaires shouldn't exist and that to get that amount of money requires exploitation. You are the one taking that to mean that they are automatically morally bankrupt. I have broken down my more nuanced take that you seem to mostly agree on, so I guess I'm not sure why you are continuing to push on this one point. No one has called for actually punishing billionaires for this in this specific comment chain; I know that opinion is all over elsewhere, but that's not relevant to what we have been discussing.

Personally speaking, I'm doing okay under the current system, I recognize where my labor is and has been exploited and am lucky enough myself to get by with what leverage I have. But I recognize that I'm just one bad accident from losing my livelihood and not being able to provide for me and my family. And if the wealth gap continues growing, then billionaires, or the owning capital class in general, should be worried about violence against them. And if that day comes, I for sure ain't sticking my neck out for some fucking billionaire.

At the end of the day, we can disagree on messaging, but I'll leave that to proper organizations to get the message right and try to support them when I see them to hopefully turn things around before it turns to violence. But we're not going to convince anyone here by just getting the perfect message for the masses.

You are right that we seem to be talking in circles, so I'm done here. Going to GI back to enjoying the rest of my weekend and I hope you have a good one.

I'm not calling to break out the guillotine. Just the acknowledgment that the system is flawed and support initiatives to minimize exploitation and pay their labor fairly where they can. At the very least stop using their capital to support initiatives that only support growing their own capital at the expense of others.

Because a billionaire isn't "just as guilty" in an exploitative system. They are more guilty because they benefit more and they have more power due to their capital. If you can't see that, then I guess we won't ever agree.

Do you have a job? If so, you should know how hard it is to earn money. The level of effort required to even get minimum wage is usually astounding. And maybe you went to school and learned to do more skilled jobs, so you don't have to work as hard as a minimum wage laborer. Maybe you can justify it as being smarter or more skilled and that's fine. But do you think someone that "earned" a billion dollars actually worked ten thousand times harder than someone who earns 100k. Or a thousand times harder than someone that earned a million dollars. Or are that much smarter or more skilled?

In your original example, you talk about how and individual could make a game that could get 300 million in sales while ignoring that vast amount of effort it realistically takes to do so. Way more effort than a single individual person can do. Getting to those kinds of sales would take the effort of many people, so if a single person benefits more than the others involved in that effort, then they did so by exploitation of their labor.

Every billionaire are where they are at by being at least somewhat lucky. In a lot of cases they are simply lucky enough to be born to the right family. Some have worked to get where they are, but its not just hard work or effort that got them there.

And I would argue that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and I would also argue that that is the case for just about any other societal system as well. After all, none of us can live without being a burden or hurting others at some point. That's life. Its also more or less the concept of "original sin" that Christians go on about. Its fine to acknowledge that and only by doing so can society at large takes steps to reduce systematic harm where we can.

That being said, billionaires, by having more capital, have more power and influence under capitalism, so it can be argued that they get a larger part of the blame for systematic issues, especially as many of them do utilize their power to maintain the status quo or push for more harmful systematic policies. And the ones that aren't actively pushing such policies are still benefiting from such policies. And they could donate their fortunes to charitable causes, but in my opinion that's not something that we should have to rely on them doing and does nothing to solve the systematic issues at play.

At the end of the day, it's its not as if its a black and white issue, but the statement that no one "earned" a billion dollars is largely true in the sense that if you work hard or put in the effort, you can make it. Even in Notch's case, if he didn't decide to sale to Microsoft, maybe he might still be a billionaire today, but would he have earned it himself? Its not like he was the only one working on the game even when he sold the company. I'm not sure what the compensation the others working at Mojang got, but if he continued to independently develop Minecraft, getting to 300 million sales requires significant development effort between porting the game to various platforms and ongoing content updates. If he ended up getting the majority of the payout, then he would have very likely did it at the disproportionately at the expense of other's effort.

A billion dollars is a lot of money. Like a lot of money. I don't necessary think its wrong to have the opinion that billionaires shouldn't exist. At least in the system we have today. Now, I'd say that its the system that's the problem, not necessary any individual billionaire, but if they get to wieild the power that comes with their fortune, then its fair to have more blame for it as well.

The only issue with doing it this way is that the UI to call the script isn't as nice as calling the notification service directly, but it isn't too bad to switch to yaml mode and populate the parameters once you get used to it.

Couldn't you place the copyright for the work in the public domain without doing the same to the trademark on it? If not then what about having the works licensed under creative commons licensing?

I don't buy the dilute the pool agreement. We live in a time of nearly endless media out there for people to consume and blockbusters are still coming put and making money.

I have a Lucky Line 71101 keyring that I got 5+ years ago. It flexes to unlock, which makes it very easy to add or remove things to it. Despite it being easy to unlock, it has never come undone without me intentionally doing so. And it still looks and acts the way it did when it was new.

I think there will always be ways to make anonymous calls regardless of regulations, especially since telephone systems are on the internet, so are vulnerable to hacking and exploits. But if police can be held responsible for the death and injury they cause, then maybe they will stop going in guns blazing and remove the incentive for swatting in the first place.

You can create a generic thermostat with a switch and temperature sensor. I do this for my 3D printer enclosure when I needed to keep it warm in my basement with a smart switch and a cheap plug in heater.

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/generic_thermostat/