At least the people currently voting in primaries suck. The solution is for more people who don’t suck to start voting in primaries

Obama was an upset candidate. Hillary was the DNC choice in 08.

Yeah, the establishment has their thumb on the scale, and that sucks. It means that it will take more primary voters to overwhelm their influence. Like I said, I’m not optimistic.

But it is still the most viable path to change at this time. Unless you have a better suggestion? (Or do you just want to complain?)

If you mean that democratic primary voters in subsequent states voted for Biden after Sanders had the early lead, yes.

If people start voting in primaries that can change.

Am I optimistic that it will? No. But the problem is that people who want to see change aren’t voting in primaries and then they complain that their choices suck.

I built one back when I lived in California during fire season, and then again during the pandemic. They do such a nice job making the air less gross.

I think that’s about what mine looked like after 3 or 4 weeks too…

*measurable if you have some damn good instruments.

It will put off about as much heat as a single incandescent light bulb

I was coming here to say that! It’s possibly apocryphal, but the way I heard it was that the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign did this when they did their main quad (I still remember them telling me this when I got a tour before applying there 30 years ago). And they didn’t just look for where the plants were dead, but they also looked for broadleaf weeds, which sustain trampling better than grasses (it’s a land grant university in the midwest. Of course there’s an agriculture angle).

Tell us you’re not paying attention to the rest of the world without telling us you’re not paying attention to the rest of the world.

I’m working on it too. I’m part way there. (47 year old telecommuting engineer and off grid homesteader hoping to retire to do farm stuff full time as soon as I can)

I’m not saying you’re wrong, because I don’t know enough details about their economy at that time, but people have been saying that about the US economy for decades and it hasn’t happened yet (not that I think it wouldn’t under Trump, because he’s really going nuts on it, but…).

Do you have anything you can point to that makes the case that the situation was so precarious that collapse was inevitable, or just that they were precarious (as the US has been since GWB at least)?

I’m not op, but I like speculative fiction. I was really into Ministry For The Future. I also liked Termination Shock.

What have you got?

I think it’s pretty rad that you offered to recommend books. You’re alright.

Primaries!

If more people voted in primaries we would have probably had president Sanders instead of Trump the first time around

“We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America like a 4-year-old loves his mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a 4-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad and helping your loved one grow.”

-Al Franken

As long as there is substance to the reasons for pride, yes…

Yeah, and the problem isn’t the trains, it’s the politics, and ultimately the voters.

The train would make things better, and we could build it, but the will to do so isn’t there.

Yeah, it’s not extinct yet, but free worksite coffee is endangered where it was thriving 3 decades ago

I think it might get a lot of people who don’t like what’s happening but accept it to cross over into not accepting it.

I’m not super hopeful that it would matter legislatively or judicially, but I might be the kick in the pants the population needs to go on a general strike, or take other actions.

I have my doubts that we did it twice. 2024 looks fishy. I’m glad it’s finally starting to get talked about

In the US most employers used to provide coffee and some kind of creamer free for employees.

About 25-30 years ago the capitalists realized their employees wouldn’t quit over not having free coffee, so they stopped providing free coffee.

Maybe you got the custom from them, but they have decivilized while y’all have maintained?