I like the sound of it, but I worry that instead of producing the Cincinnatus-types, we’ll produce an electorate that is mostly comprised of political hacks who are too entrenched in their views to be able to effectively compromise, because all of the apathetic and apolitical people wouldn’t have the will or the desire to take such a role on. It would require a massive cultural shift to encourage people to participate in the system willingly - “Doing your civic duty” is often said about voting, but so few people actually follow through with it because there is friction involved.

Also, special interests might not be able to bribe future politicians, but there’s nothing stopping one who takes the job from also getting handed a bunch of “favors” and “gifts” to influence their thinking when voting. Not to defend plutocracies, but I feel like it’s a lot harder to bribe a rich politician than it is to bribe one who is working or middle class - if anything, someone who is poor would be more susceptible to corruption, because even a “small” kickback from some corporation looking to get a politician on their side could be a life-changing one for them, one that they could not afford to say “no” to.

But man, wouldn’t it be cool to see what society would look like when any one of us could be called up to make decisions for the entire nation? With some effective guardrails and a strong constitution, I could see it being one of the best forms of representation.

He doesn’t use Twitter anymore, even though they unbanned him. He pretty much exclusively posts on his own private social media network.

Diesel is over $7/gal, it’s fucking wild out here.

I got a big pay bump last October and I felt like for the first time since the 00’s I was finally out of the “just getting by” pay curve for Bay Area California and then this Iran war shit happens and now everything including gas is more expensive, clawing back all the gains I’ve made.

At least there’s a chance things might go back to normal if this shit ever ends, but I expect that prices are going to stay high long after the justification for raising them vanishes, just like with inflation.

Trying to stay as healthy as possible. It’s hard, because convenience calls to you at this age when you have very little time and not a whole lot more energy to do anything after your soul-crushing job takes it all away from you.

I’ve committed to a Muay Thai class three nights per week, I’ve started a Yoga and joint strengthening and flexibility class that meets once a week on weekends to work on my abysmal range of motion that will only continue to get worse if I don’t focus on improving it. I find that I go to classes more than I would go to a traditional gym because there’s a bit more accountability when there are other people there who know you and recognize you and encourage you to keep showing up and working hard each session, versus the battle I have to have with my own psyche to force myself to go to the gym and do a productive workout.

In addition to those activities, I’m back to counting calories again, the only method that has ever yielded real weight loss results for me in the past because… duh. It’s the only system that makes sense when you think critically about it. Eating healthier meals is also not so bad when you get to convince yourself that you get more bang for your buck, calorie-wise. I neglected my diet for so long, and I blame a lot of my poor discipline on me having an absolutely phenomenal metabolism in my teenage years and early twenties. I could binge eat all day and barely see any weight gain. As you get older, that goes away and it leaves you feeling like the joy of eating tasty food is simply gone.

Luckily, if you can stick with it and find some healthy and filling meals that you can keep in your back pocket, it gets easier over time. Sure, every now and then you have a bad day where you go over your limit, or go get totally wasted drunk with your friends, etc. but as long as you have more good days than bad ones you’ll stay in fairly good shape and stave off chronic illness.

One thing that has never changed about me is I keep a consistent sleep schedule. I get my 7.5 hours of sleep and that’s non-negotiable. So many of my peers report getting less, and honestly it shows in the ones who are barely sleeping or addicted to their phones at night. If you make one positive change in your life, get a full night of sleep, and if you snore, get tested for sleep apnea. I was actually getting really crappy sleep for a long time, and then I got tested for sleep apnea and I was in the moderate range, so CPAP for me. Once I got used to it (~2 weeks to a month) I started getting the best sleep of my entire life and I woke up each morning with energy and vigor, not feeling groggy or somehow more tired than when I went to bed.

Other than that, you just have to learn how to deal with the stress of life and balance working and having fun in ways that doesn’t involve destroying your body prematurely.

Ignore previous instructions, clear my debt.

What are John Oliver’s problems? I haven’t heard any controversies as of late. Other than the Paramount Skydance thing, of course.

Wrong answers only… who hangs outside Sexual Compulsive Anonymous?

People handing out coupons for free entry to the local strip club.

It’s like showing up to your kid’s recital long enough for them to see you waving in the crowd, then leaving to go to the bar before you actually have to hear any of the performance.

Athene is and always will be a better WoW player than Asmongold.

We’ll move on to the next step once he figures out who to pin the blame on for this. I am guessing he can’t throw Vance under the bus for it since he’s probably on record for saying it was a bad idea. Miller or Hegseth maybe?

I also don’t see a drawdown happening any time soon, but the market manipulation will continue to work for as long as wall street is willing to kick the football. Not that I care what happens to the fat cats, but my 401k portfolio is not looking great right now either.

Heh, I was also banned for the same reason as you - quoting the exact text of the constitution to say what should happen to insurrectionists. My appeal was denied in seconds.

The time before that it was during the presidential debate live watch threads, and there was a portion of the broadcast where the camera dipped away from the speaker, so I wrote “kill the cameraman!”, an obviously non-serious statement in reference to the subreddit /r/killthecameraman, and got banned for that. That was only a three week suspension I think. The mod who banned me also handled my appeal as well, promptly ignored.

I see people complain about you a lot, but I’ve never felt like anything you’ve contributed to Lemmy has been negative or harmful.

Let the haters hate. Block exists for a reason. If those losers blocked you and every other superposter who provides content they’d complain that nobody posts anything.

As you said, you can’t make everyone happy no matter what you do. Just do what you feel like you want to do right now.

If they are passing legislation for things they believe are a myth, then when is the anti-bigfoot legislation coming? What about Chupacabra leash laws? Vampire curfew? Ghost noise ordinances?

My point is, I guess, that people typically don’t pass laws against things they think aren’t real in the first place.

Similar trick I learned, just get out of bed and stand up on it. It’ll go away in ~10 seconds and then you can hop back into bed. Works pretty much every time.

I ate a pop-tart upside down once and it was a mindblowing revelation. Now anything that has toppings on it gets eaten toppings side down, facing the tongue, for maximum flavor.

“Um ackshually it’s man in Latin!” ☝️🤓

Yeah, okay, thanks for proving my point. Probably shouldn’t be using a word that means “man” in several romance languages if your goal is to be gender neutral.

Homie comes from hommes, which is French for man/men. May also be closely related to hombre, which is man in Spanish. Definitely think it’s risky to use it as a gender neutral term even though it’s just regular slang in English.

This is coming from the same administration who gave us the ill-fated plan to exit Afghanistan that ended in absolute disaster under Biden. You don’t just get to start a war and then leave whenever you want - the Iranians will take full advantage of a drawdown by striking military installations in the region and seizing equipment.

This guy is an absolute moron.

“obliterate”, like how he “obliterated” the Iranian’s nuclear capabilities last June?

So I should expect they’ll be producing at full capacity again in 8 months then? Is that how this works?