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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: June 20th, 2024

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  • You may be misunderstanding the difference between assets and liquidity. These days, owning a home, a car, and paying into a retirement fund for a few years can easily put someone close to having $500,000 in assets. But those aren’t liquid, i.e. they do not translate into having $500,000 in a bank account. Most people that have that much in assets will also have a lot of debt; take into account the mortgage on their house, student loans, car loans, and credit cards, the average person with $500,000 in assets actually has a negative net worth.

    Compare AOC to someone like Nancy Pelosi, who has an estimated net worth over $240,000,000, with most of it bound in stocks and bonds that could quickly translate into liquidity. That is what being rich is. That is the kind of person that is out of touch with poor people.


  • Can you explain why you think she is out of touch with poor people? I’m genuinely curious, because you may know something about her that I don’t, and if she’s as secretly two-faced as Sinema and Manchin, or has done something to actively denigrate or undermine the working class, I want to be informed.

    I understand that most poor people feel overlooked, ignored, and exploited by the rich, and that’s because that is exactly what they do–but their greatest trick is to make us think that it’s not their fault that we are poor. Please look again to the last sentence of my reply: Holding someone in contempt merely because they are richer than you is exactly what the billionaires want you to do, because it distracts and redirects anger away from them, and makes the working class fight amongst themselves.


  • It seems like you may be conflating having ~$500k net worth with being rich, which may not have been your intent, but it seemed that way based on context. I think what the other responder is getting at is that AOC is not rich. She may have a house, a car, and some retirement saved up. All of those are assets, but they do not translate into the kind of liquidity that many other American politicians have.

    She was working class before she entered into politics, and some would argue that she still is based on her work and advocacy. I don’t want to sound like I’m accusing your of anything, or putting words in your mouth, because that’s not my intent; I just want to point out a common belief held by a lot of Americans. Lumping someone in with the rich and then holding them in contempt merely because that person is richer than you is exactly the kind of us-versus-them mentality the ruling class wants us to have.



  • It’s wonderful how misunderstood a lot of the ‘evil’ metal bands are. Bands like Cradle of Filth and Cattle Decapitation have ostensibly repulsive artwork and song titles/lyrics, but the themes and meaning behind the songs meander between tongue-in-cheek fun to philosophical pondering to outright castigation of humanity’s treatment of the natural world. Judging a book by its cover and all that stuff…

    Then again, there’s Behemoth, who literally describe summoning demons and other pagan and satanic rites in their songs. But good grief, the music is so good.



  • Copper cables are easier to reuse or sell as scrap due to the intrinsic value of the metal value and simple structure. Fiber optic cables are harder to reuse because they require precise handling, expensive connectors, and special training and equipment to splice together properly. Unless thieves steal pre-terminated fiber and handle it with extreme care or take entire spools with a buyer ready, fiber is essentially worthless to them since it can’t be melted down and reused like copper.




  • I get the Tesla hate, I’m also not a fan of Musk and his antics, but can you share a source that says Tesla are inherently worse in crashes than other vehicles? The NHTSA gives overall 5-star safety ratings to Teslas, the highest score possible; the leader of the NHTSA is notoriously anti-Tesla (because of Musk’s antics), and is on record saying that she wants to reign him and the company in (and rightfully so).

    From this article: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/18/business/why-do-people-keep-crashing-teslas/index.html

    The Highway Loss Data Institute, a US-based organization funded by the insurance industry, has not found higher crash rates for Tesla vehicles or other EVs more broadly based on overall insurance claims. Teslas do tend to have higher claim costs, though, according to the HLDI.

    The article goes on to say that research indicates that the likely cause of a higher rate of EV crashes is drivers 1) not being accustomed to the differences between EV and ICE vehicle handling, and 2) EVs overall having more speed and power than ICE vehicles.

    there is a long-established connection between horsepower and the frequency and amount of insurance claims. Fast cars hit things more often and they hit them harder, leading to more – and more severe – crashes. Added to this, EVs lack the usual engine sounds that go along with rapid acceleration and high speeds, so it’s conceivable drivers are less aware of how fast they’re going.

    I’m interested in learning more about how EV crashes seem to be worse.