I hear most people get free food and shelter for years afterwards.

Many Lemmy instances block VPN posting. You can view, but not vote or post. I have a secondary private VPN I use sometimes for that. But honestly the whole thing just sucks.

It most definitely is NOT. It’s a oligarchian theocracy at this point and deserves to crumble.

The US doesn’t have a parliamentary system. It is winner take all. There are no votes of no-confidence. There are no coalition governments. The winner of the electoral college which is NOT popular vote gets full control with no oversight.

If you vote for a party that does not win, you get zero representation, not partial or proportional representation.

So abstaining truly does mean you don’t care.

Nobody is disputing that.

The value of the tree ironically does go up a lot over time. But it’s still the value of the tree. The value of everything else is still a cost and that is EXACTLY THE POINT I MADE. The cost of the tree is insignificant compared to the house and you’re hotel bills.

Reading comprehension… It’s a glorious thing, and lost on Americans.

Murderous thugs in blue steal the most. More than any active crime or wage thefts. ACAB

Which is what I said. The cost of the bridge is a rounding error. The cost of the damages resulting from its collapse both on land and in the waterway is the real damage.

Reading comprehension in the states is very low.

Explain how the cost of your driveway does not appreciate over time.

The replacement cost goes up with what the current prices are. But a 8k driveway does not become a 200k driveway just because the house it’s going to is a mansion.

That bridge is a shitty old rusty bridge. It may be economically valuable, the waterway may be valuable, it may have large opportunity cost for the city. But it’s still a hunk of old steel.

The cost of the bridge, is the old steel.

The cost of the insurance layout is the old steel PLUS all the other factors.

You Americans are so stupid.

That’s not how rusty decaying infrastructure works.

The bridge is basically valueless compared to everything else about the ship and cargo plus the lawsuits from various contract breaches and other damages. Port shutdowns, environmental cleanup, insurance losses. $100m is a rounding error.

1000 upvotes for you. Someone with rational thinking that can see the hypocrisy.

US credit cards still don’t use a PIN. The rest of the world uses Chip&Pin or nfc contactless. The US uses magnetic strip very often, chip and no pin, and now contactless. The verification if asked, is not a PIN, it’s the billing zip code (5 digit postal code of the US). Usually just petrol pumps ask.

It’s also why I strongly advise any foreigner visiting Murica to learn the default zip for their card. If you use an international card (any non American card in America) it will still ask you for your zip code and if it fails, no petrol for you. And in the US you must pay BEFORE you pump so you could quite literally be stranded because of their archaic banking system.

Many European cards use 00000 or 12345. I’ve seen some Asian cards that use the last 5 digits of the card. Even if you have an American card if you aren’t the standard boring American household that never moves, it can be a pain. The card may have its billing address (and therefore zip) set to a place you’ve never been. But you have to remember it.

I love how you’re being downvoted because the cavemen Muricans can’t comprehend modern banking that doesn’t involve cheques.

Blows their mind when you talk about tapping to pay in the early 2000’s. No Apple didn’t invent it.

Unfortunately the majority of people are idiots who just do this in real life, parroting populous ideology without understanding anything more than the proper catchphrase du jour. And there are many employed professionals who are paid to read a script, or output mundane marketing content, or any “content”. And for that, LLMs are great.

It’s the elevator operator of technology as applied to creative writers. Instead of “hey intern, write the next article about 25 things these idiots need to buy and make sure 90% of them are from our sponsors” it goes to AI. The writer was never going to purchase a few different types of each product category, blindly test them and write a real article. They are just shilling crap they are paid to shill making it look “organic” because many humans are too stupid to not know it’s a giant paid for ad.

It’s politicized because everything China does is bad. But of you look at it objectively China is exporting infrastructure as a form of soft power. The US relies on fear and compliance for allies. China is trying a carrot and stick to make friends.

They are building railroads, bridges, farms, power plants, renewable energy, shipping docks, etc. It’s widely accepted in economics, US studies of economics, that infrastructure is key to business and GDP.

A modern example is India. India has low wages, good manufacturing, and good materials. But it couldn’t make anything on the global stage because getting it from the factory to the ship was too difficult at scale. Now there are dedicated rail networks, modern highways for trucks, huge new ports, and voila things are being made there.

China is enabling other countries to realize their potential by building infrastructure. Then they can export their goods or raw materials, build up their economy, and get out of poverty.

This isn’t free. It’s a loan. The goal is that in decades from now when you’ve succeeded, you repay the loan. If you don’t and default, you owe something to China. And that’s what the US is afraid of.

But keep in mind the US does similar things. Bomb a country to bear extinction, rebuild basic infrastructure and tremendous cost, and charge the new government for the work that has to be repaid. Ukraine is not getting all this ammo for free, the US is the Sugar Daddy. England from WW2 only just paid back its loan to the US!

So it is good to do some research on what it is. And be aware that almost all Western media immediately calls it bad because its China and it means they aren’t making the money.