wavefunction

I feel Machiavellian theory is more that some times terrible acts are needed to bring about "good" or necessary or worthy outcomes and should be accomplished towards those ends, but that the terribleness of the actions is in no way cleansed or justified by a worthy outcome. You might murder someone to protect a bunch of other people but you're still a murderer. 'Heavy hangs the head that wears the crown.'

Or pick up a trade instead of a second degree. I think it might be easier to structure time for your artistic passions with a trade day job than a white-collar day job but I might be biased by on-call duty.

I am just about to sell my father's $320,000 house so I can pay for his nursing home care. He sadly did not have the foresight to acquire long-term disability insurance or put his assets into a trust so we'll be paying out of pocket until his money runs out and he goes on Medicaid, which will still only cover 60% of his care.

$320,000 / $8000+ a month (not including rising costs) means he has 3.25 years of care coverage paying out of pocket which I don't consider many years.

You may certainly hold the sentiment yourself but that offers no insight into whether it is valid. I have to wonder for example, do you research the claims of every mainstream news article and if so what have you found? How accurate are they after you've researched their claims? What's the accuracy rate on mainstream news articles? How does that compare to the accuracy rate of "non-mainstream news articles?" I know if I had such a strongly held belief as this that I would want to investigate if my belief was correct or not and if not, change my belief.

something something ph levels at the acidic/basic extremis

They'd only be enabled by others whether that be robots or mercenaries/servants. Monetary wealth is a human construct given form by belief. They're still subject to the physical laws of reality.

If you look for my other comment in the page you will find that I believe there are opportunities to socialize during the holidays for everyone. I was just replying to the question about it being a religious holiday.

Christmas is both a religious and secular holiday. Jesus would have been born at some point of the year other than December according to the Bible, and Christmas (like Easter) was originally a pagan celebration that was likely co-opted intentionally.

Is there a Big Brothers/Big Sisters program in the UK? Or perhaps an opportunity to help serve meals to the elderly or homeless or impoverished? I tend to volunteer on holidays if I'm not headed to a family gathering. Meals on Wheels is a great program in the US and it involves a lot more than just dropping off food.

Perhaps I was offering my opinion and not some sort of eternal truth.

I don't find this particular case all that illustrative. These folks were palling around with known foreign intelligence assets from a country whose government is definitely a hostile aggressor. I'd be more sympathetic to some low-level drug dealer scooped up through parallel-reconstruction. Still, even scum like Carter Page deserve their rights and protections.

Presumably the factory's reputation would suffer, their manufacturing dries up and folds. Any consequences from a one-off sale by a third party are borne by the official source and Amazon. Which is the confusing part for me: why does Amazon not care about their reputation hit from enabling fraudulent third parties?

When I recycle electronics they charge me some fiat currency up-front so you'd be right that I expect the service I've paid for.

About to recycle some electronics from my employer who thought it would be acceptable to dump this stuff on the local Goodwill who can't afford to pay to recycle things they can't re-sell.

Driving through rural Texas I've even seen a Tata dealership.

I think you're underlining OP's point? WeWork is head-quartered in NYC but does some biz around the world and is called SV. Hollywood is the location of many of the headquarters of movie studios, though they do work around the world.

I dunno I went to high-school with a guy that went on to win a Pulitzer for covering the aftermath of the War on Terror, focusing on when the troops involved came home and the effects on them and their families and communities.

One guy in my home town came back a serial killer and started murdering women. Others formed gangs or killed themselves or harmed their families. There is real journalism out there still.

I think killing yourself for insurance fraud is definitely near murder. But that's just me.

Anyone could see who the "winner" is though I believe?

That's about as criminal as murdering someone though. There's nothing for the police to stand beside, behind, in front of or crouch and whimper inside of in this case.

I'd rather imagine I'm an average person who may have said something on an internet forum that set a nutter off if I want to be disturbed.

Facebook is a danger to my country and my own civil rights and democracy. I don't care what happens to them.

There are Federal pensions involved. Try to get that at a Valley startup. Plus the opportunity to really change the world (for better or worse).

By default but if you have enough leverage you can get all sorts of allowances from an employer. I always have any clause struck about the employer owning anything I produce outside of work for example. (I don't necessarily consider this to be an example of significant leverage just common-sense.)

And facebook is not a traditional corporate structure so holding facebook/Zuck accountable can only be accomplished via legislation.

Speak for yourself. This reads like an enumeration of the traits of a stereotypical arrogant 'programmer' from the 90s.

(Got my start in the 90s but didn't stay there)

As is always pointed out here wealth and income are two different things. Catholic dioceses are independent financial entities but even the nation-level parts of the Catholic church are fabulously wealthy with real-estate and art work and other assets of significant value.

The Catholic Church of Germany is worth an estimated $25,000,000,000. The Catholic Church of Australia is estimated to be worth around $20,000,000,000. Opus Dei which is a weird Catholic-supremacist group is worth $2,000,000,000 alone. The wealth of the Vatican is unknown and likely far far higher.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_organizatio...

They should distribute all those fantastic works of art and scholarship they've got locked up. Sell them to public institutions that will preserve them and show them to the general public.

I guess that's a bridge too far. It's more important to steal from the poor...

We were supposed to take "History of Technology" which I guess is supposed to be the corollary to "Business Math" classes or whatever. I really enjoy the humanities so I took all the real electives I could.

Jeez I can take my two dogs to a full on dog ranch for a week for less than that. They get to play all day with dogs and run around on an old farm... dog ranch = dog kennel

US support for Brexit seems to generally follow party lines in the US. Almost all Americans I know (I am American) thinks it's a terrible idea promoted by conmen. The few who do support Brexit have some other beliefs I find very questionable.