Short answer: Many people support those governments critically or uncritically for various reasons.

Long answer:

Russia: Some people who oppose US hegemony support Russia as probably the most effective anti-US actor globally - I mean look at what they’ve managed (in part) to do to the US government over the last 10 years or so. They may also be sympathetic to Russian anti-NATO sentiment. People who support China may also critically support Russia since they are a strategic ally of China. Some people just full-throatedly support Russia uncritically - I don’t know why they’re quite so enthusiastic, but most others who have pro-Russian sentiment are still critical of Russia, but support them as a major power capable of attacking US hegemony.

China: China is the most successful communist country to have ever existed. Many left-leaning people may support China to varying degrees because they are an Actually Existing Socialist country and because their model of Communism with Chinese Characteristics seems to work quite well for them. Due to the West (broadly) attacking Socialist governments in the name of Liberalism & becoming increasingly more fascistic, China could be an important bulwark against fascism. Many people support China uncritically - they genuinely like the Chinese system of government and want their governments to be more like China’s. Other people critically support China - they believe China’s government is problematic in some way(s), but support it anyway as a bastion of socialism and a significant challenger to US economic & political hegemony.

As for support for the governments as opposed to the people: We kind of have to talk about these things at the country level, since governments are the (imperfect) embodiments of political ideologies and collectively act on behalf of the people within their borders, and “the people” aren’t monolithic. We often treat countries as avatars of political ideologies which is inaccurate but is an abstraction that unfortunately often leads to an oversimplification of the ideologies behind & effects of those governments’ actions while allowing us to create a comprehensible narrative.

Beast titan with alopecia lookin mf

Yep doesn’t work anymore. There’s probably some series of buttons you can push to put it into settings mode, but I imagine it’s different by model.

If you can’t mute it with software, then the only remaining way is via hardware. Carry some packing tape in your car and slap it over the speaker - wipe fingerprints off just in case.

True that. Our tax dollars could be spent much more effectively if our government was more focused on the wellfare of its people.

You get other benefits though. Like the few social safety nets we actually have, public school funding, social security (unless it runs out/gets cut), fire departments, regulatory agencies that keep your food, water, and drugs safe. Etc. It costs a lot of money to have a society. Even if you don’t directly benefit from them, they still make society less shit.

That said, it’d cost a lot less if we didn’t spend so much of it murdering children.

Oh I’m just… a … regular type dude >!.. with a big-ass dick!<

It’s illegal unless there’s a bonafide occupational qualification that your disability prevents you from performing. Like you couldn’t apply for a job as a furniture mover if you’re a quadriplegic and cry discrimination when they don’t select you. And the employer can ask things like “this job requires that you lift heavy objects of up to 600lbs with the assistance of another person and a back brace. Do you have any medical or other reason you could not perform these duties?”.

Now if that weren’t a real occupational qualification, that’d be discriminatory. Like if they said you had to be a man for that moving job - there’s no reason you have to be a man, you just have to be able to move 600lb things.

Learn what you need to do to follow recipes, and then you’ll learn the rest over time. Cook things you like to eat.

Don’t get a bunch of junk for your kitchen. You only need basic things and can buy them as you go.

• Knives - you only need a chef’s knife (8" or 10") for most kitchen tasks and a paring knife for small things. Optional: bread knife (i just use a chef’s knife), filet knife, boning knife, cleaver.

• Pots and Pans - get all stainless steel and/or cast iron/enameled cast iron. Don’t buy aluminum or nonstick. Frying pan. Saucepan. Big pot and/or Dutch oven (can use as a soup pot on the stove or in the oven for other things, enameled recommended). Baking sheet (and a silicone matt for nonstick).

• Other: peeler, box grater, garlic press (way easier than mincing garlic), citrus juicer, steamer insert for a pot, measuring cups and spoons, cutting board (plastic is OK - bamboo is another good budget option, one for meat and one for plants recommended)

• Know what it means to steam, boil, simmer, sautee, bake.

• Keep your knives sharp.

• Learn the basic cuts (dice = .5 - 2cm cubes, mince = very tiny little pieces, julienne/batonnet/chiffonade - strips of stuff of various sizes).

• The key to cutting anything is to break it down into manageable, regular pieces that you can easily turn into cubes or rectangles.

Since you have difficulty tasting:

• Don’t over-salt. You can always add more, but you can’t remove it.

• Acidity and fat are important to make food taste good. Vinegar is often a hack to make food taste better.

• Adding MSG to your food is also a great way to make it taste better.

• Learn what herbs and spices belong in different kinds of food. Some can go in a lot of different cuisines and dishes - like salt, pepper, garlic, onion, parsley, and chives. But others have more niche uses, and some combinations are very typical of specific cuisines. Buy individual spices, not spice mixes. Dry spices are stronger than fresh spices, so if substituting dried for fresh, you will use less than you would use if they were fresh.

The head chef of Alethea (3 star michelin restaurant) totally lost his sense of taste for years and still ran one of the best restaurants in the world.

The existence of publishers for scientific literature is completely unnecessary in the modern era. They exist only to make profits to continue their existence. They don’t actually provide value anymore when research institutions can just conduct peer review and then let researchers self-publish.

They create negative value (a bottleneck) by limiting who can access research for just… aggregating and hosting articles.

Basically it is a “technical analysis” thing. Which basically means divination based on “shapes stonk line make”.

Death cross scary shape when stonk line cross other line

Was travelling with some friends in Istanbul. They were pretty inexperienced abroad, so I figured out public transit there, told them what tickets to buy, and we all walked to the ticket machine. There was a big line/crowd, and a guy up front was taking cash and giving people tickets, which he got by scanning a card at the machine. I went first hoping to show my friends what to do - bought my ticket for like €5 or so and ignored the scammer. They all gave the scammer guy like €20 for him to scan his pass and buy them a €5 ticket. Their reasons were “he seemed official” and “I knew it was a scam, but I figured it was just easier to go along with it”.

I did fall for a taxi scam in Peru though and ended up staying at a hotel run by some mafia types. They were cool, though, so it turned out OK - just cost me a little extra money for an interesting story.

This won’t stop the cops from hacking into your phone with celebrite, but android has a feature called lockdown mode that will disable facial recognition, fingerprints, and voice ID until your phone is unlocked via PIN. I need to unlock my phone quickly throughout the day, so I use fingerprint - but I use lockdown if I get pulled over or am going through security, etc. It isn’t perfect, but it’s better (for me) than having to enter a long PIN every time I need to unlock my phone.

Once you enable it in settings, you can take your phone to the power off/restart menu and enable lockdown.

Using Tasker, you could probably disable quick unlock when outside of your house, etc.

Yeah it doesn’t matter - don’t listen to drama fiends. .ml is fine. Lots of people decry it as being a tankie instance. The whole point of federation is you aren’t limited to the content on your instance - just by which instances yours is federated with.

If people or your instance bother you, make another account. Otherwise, just ignore the haters

Voting is an important tool to help contain fascism in liberal democracies while building serious social movements. (Socialist - but hopefully this isn’t actually unpopular with most socialists).

That Southern US usage dates back to at least the US civil war in the 1860s.

But yankee was used to refer to at least some people in what is now the US as early as the 1660s.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee

Another point here, Amazon has really thin profit margins on their core business (not counting AWS, etc. Just the online shopping). If it weren’t absolutely gargantuan, it would fail. It’s only profitable because of the logistical efficiency it has achieved, exploitation (of workers, cheap goods from China, etc.), and absolutely massive economies of scale. Similar to Walmart.

Recommended reading: People’s Republic of Walmart. All for nationalizing - would be better for everyone.

Just adding to this a bit for context. Demi isn’t a sexual orientation like gay, straight, bi, etc. But it is a label for how people experience attraction within their sexual orientation. So OP if you are demi you definitely are in the minority, but you are certainly not weird. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demisexuality

Things won’t get to that point, most likely. Things can get really bad and still recover. If it’s an apocalyptic scenario, better invest in a stock of bullets and a bunker.

Finance-wise, have an emergency fund and well-diversified portfolio. This is not financial advice, and I’m not a professional, but this is what I’d do with retirement funds and personal stock accounts:

Emergency fund: if you already have this handled, then look at your investments. If you dont have an emergency fund, do everything you can to save up at least 3-6months of living expenses - ideally in a high-yield savings account to protect your money from inflation.

US stocks: Don’t be over-exposed to US stocks, especially riskier ones. Historically, bonds and foreign stocks have been recommended to balance your portfolio, but many people have ignored that in recent years due to the dominance of US large-cap stocks, especially the tech sector. Ensure you’re diversified in accordance with your risk tolerance/retirement time-horizon.

Non-US Stocks: It would be good to have a non-US ETF or index fund with developing and emerging markets. It may not perform as well, but can potentially hedge against US market volatility. The counterpoint here is that US stocks are globally interconnected enough that getting non-US stocks would overexpose you to that part of the market. Caveat emptor, do research.

Bonds: bond ETFs/funds, I-bonds (inflation protected securities, you can buy $10k per year), and automated bond ladders can give you steady returns. Remember buying bonds directly is fairly illiquid - your money will be stuck in the bond for the duration of the bond’s term.

Cash: Inflation isn’t crazy right now. Probably wouldn’t be bad to have more cash than normal sitting in high-yield accounts (earning around 4% APY right now) since the market is likely to dip. Maybe consider liquidating some investments that are riskier than you’d like. I wouldn’t really advocate trying to time the market, but also it doesn’t seem like a bad time to be a little heavier on cash imo.

Check out Boglehead 3 fund portfolios and their variations. Imo it is time to be safe and boring. If you have a long time until retirement, don’t panic - ride it out and consider rebalancing your portfolio to the standard, oft-recommended asset mixes. If your retirement timeline is short, make sure that you aren’t over-exposed to risky investments like stocks.

It’s an expression. It means “related, but not so closely that they can’t fuck”. Welcome to Dixieland, pardner