I think they both have their place, for the many reasons people have mentioned. But my neurodivertent self HATES whole conversations over text. I do not know what tone to read anything in. If there's no punctuation it's a thousand times worse. Texting is for quick stuff that's not time sensitive. Phone calls are for anything longer than three sentences or anything time or emotionally sensitive. Drives me nuts because the majority of my friends prefer texting for everything.

While that's true for the legislative branch, the executive is different, or at least it's supposed to be. The point is to get the president to represent all Americans, not just those in cities. I'm not agreeing with the idea, I'm just trying to answer so OP can get some insight into the argument.

Personally I think the EC was a bad idea but so was the 17th amendment. Of course, without the 17th amendment there would never be a dem majority in the Senate so you win some you lose some I guess.

This is the correct answer to OPs question. What's the real, human, and arguably logical defense of a system that ignores the popular vote in a "democracy".

The idea is that you have to weight the system to ensure leaders have to pay attention to everyone, not just focus on winning NYC and LA and maybe a couple other big cities, completely ignoring anyone who lives outside a densely populated area.

Source: raised by a conservative who believes this very thing. Not saying I agree personally but I definitely grew up hearing this idea.

I've used free tax USA for years. I don't pay for filing my fed, just my state. But my taxes tend to be pretty simple, so I guess ymmv

My dad was in the Navy (submariner) in the 80s and he loves that movie. He told me they didn't do the thing with the string like they do in the movie ... Instead they strung it up when they were at depth and took bets on when it would break on the way back up.

You couldn't pay me enough to be that far underwater.

I mean, anecdotally, I do know someone that bought a new build in mid 2008 for about 60k-ish less than what everyone else in the neighborhood bought for (earlier or later). The company building out the subdivision was pretty desperate and he had a solid stable job as a trucker. He managed to get all kinds of perks and stuff too.

I don't think that's a terrible idea for politicians. Let's see who bought them.

Oh yes, thank you for the clarification

Ummm... Billionaires are people? Imma need a source on that.

I find this is also a great way to decide if you even need it. I have a tab on my phone for stuff to buy. It collects so much crap I eventually deleted because the desire was fleeting.

I keep a paper list of large ticket items that I actually need so I can save up for them over time. I spend a lot of that time while saving shopping for the best option. I saved a lot while furnishing my house by buying secondhand because I had weeks and weeks to shop around.

Sometimes adding things to my online cart is enough of a thrill that I don't even think about the fact I didn't check out until the website sends me a coupon lol. Then I deleted it anyway because if I didn't go through with it then I don't really need it!

This is so so true. I cancelled prime ages ago so I don't get fast shipping at all, and I only get free shipping if I spend over $35. Even in the cases where I decide it's worth buying the thing on Amazon, I've got to wait to need more than $35 worth of stuff. Surprise surprise most of it just gets deleted out of the cart anyway.

That being said, I have only been able to find filters for my vacuum on Amazon (some no name brand I bought off there a few years ago) so they'll still get some money out of me, but most stuff I can just ignore now. Next vacuum will be a big brand name so I can avoid that, but it will be a while before there's a next vacuum, hopefully. Because in my mind it's more ethical to keep using the old one as long as it works even if some more $ goes to Amazon vs buying a whole new item I don't actually need yet.

The missing reason is that you should just buy less anyway and if you avoid Amazon it is slightly harder to just buy stuff.

That being said, if you need it cheap, quick, and you cannot source it locally, just buy it on Amazon. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. You are not guilty of a moral crime by using them when the need exists.

They go so far over budget because of lawsuits, usually. Vogtle was announced in like 2011 and didn't even get to break ground until 2017, then got caught up in even more lawsuits, if I recall correctly. And while conventional nuclear plants will probably always have huge upfront costs that take 30 years to offset, SMRs are darn close to a full reality and those will be a lot cheaper, and will get cheaper over time, like solar panels did.

There's a plant in Phoenix Arizona that uses city wastewater to cool the reactors, so they can hold up to hot dry climates just fine if designed to do so. (Fun side fact, the plant has to clean the rad waste out of the water before they use it - the rad waste from medical procedures that get into wastewater would be enough to exceed their allowance of acceptable release).

I'll give you the waste issue, but it's 100% a matter of politics. You're going to have to convince a state to take it on and none of them will. But on-site cask storage isn't the worst option. It's worked for a long time. There's also a lot of research going into other stuff we might be able to do with it. (In fact, waste isn't an issue in France because they already recycle it; the US doesn't because some of the recycled materials could be used to build bombs).

By footprint (in terms of land and waste) nuclear is the best option still. It's still the most stable output (save perhaps geothermal, but you can't do that everywhere) One day we might have batteries good enough to make that less of an issue but right now it's probably not a good idea to abandon nuclear.

(to be) polygoned- meaning to have your phone go off with an amber alert or an emergency alert. (The act of setting off the phones is called polygonning). Very niche to what I do, but I use it all the time.

Do you actually think they're shutting down USAID because they're going to redirect those funds to fixing American poverty or infrastructure?

Your take on soft power is as ignorant as Trump/Musk's. The game is being played no matter what. Russia and China are always playing. We just walked away from the table and any chips we have will quickly be stolen. As a rich, powerful county, we don't have the option not to play (and stay powerful anyway).

Depends on the state I imagine. But I just looked mine up and it's "in the last 10 years" and not "ever" so that's good.

In my job, I occasionally facilitate training for prisoner firefighters. Not only do they all love the job, they are also the best FD we train with. They read the material, study procedures, get it right when being observed. They get to stay at the firehouse instead of the prison itself, so both getting invited to do it and continuing to do it are huge for the inmates. They also love it. It burns my biscuit right up that they'll not be able to be a firefighter when they get out.

Oh yeah, that's where it started. My dad loved it and he'd put it on when I was younger and I'd start sawing logs.

This is true: I have seen the first half hour of every Dune... But I ALWAYS pass out around that point.