TehPers

By extremist, I was referring to the absurdity of the statement. Either it's the end of the world, or the article authors are conspirators. Surely it can't be something simple that isn't on one end of a spectrum. This is what leads to radicalization.

Do you think that government intrusion into media, or the existence of online influence campaigns, are "extremist" conspiracies rather than proven realities?

They are both. An extremism can be real. A conspiracy can be proven true, and in your example it is.

There is no evidence, nor reason to believe, the authors of the article in question are conspirators. There is no reason to believe the contents of the article are intended to be anything more than informational, even if with the inherent bias all authors posess. To perceive it as such would be a sign of extreme radicalization or, as you put it, an "online influence campaign" which would be conveniently set before a midterm election in the US.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting the commenter actually is part of some campaign. I wouldn't know. I do believe its contents are extreme though.

Australians must prove they are over 18 before they can access adult content such as porn, R-rated video games and sexually explicit AI chatbots under new laws.

Oh no! Not R-rated video games! Protect the children!

Research by her agency found that one in three children aged 10-17 had seen sexual images or videos online.

It also found that more than 70% of children had been exposed to online content showing high-impact violence, self-harm and suicide material, and information on disordered eating.

Did that same research find that those children were negatively affected by the online content?

You'd also think they would catch the first sentence talking about them living their new life in Australian. One would think to name a country there, not its adjective form, nor the name used to refer to a citizen of the country.

Are you sure? Those seem like the only two options to me. Clearly the purpose of the article is to convince people to feed their children to the rich.

Seriously, I've seen an increase in these weirdly extremist comments recently. One would have to wonder if they are the ones serving another's interests.

Was there ever an attempt to save it without cheating?

No trenchcoat, unfortunately.

And I'm convinced his addiction to chocolate is a chemical one at this point.

Milka is definitely far from the best chocolate in Europe or even the US. The reason I even brought it up isn't because it's some kind of gold standard, but just because it at least tastes like chocolate, which puts it above most other grocery store chocolate in the US.

Imported Lindt still tastes good by the way, but you'd have to import it. I have a friend who actually does import ~10Kg at a time, but he eats far more chocolate than I do.

US-based grocery store chocolate is a lost cause.

These "chocolates", at least in the US, taste like ass. That's not really new, sadly.

It's hard to find good chocolate in the US. Locally made chocolate is good, but expensive. Importing chocolate in bulk can be more affordable, but it's hard to justify buying 10Kg chocolate.

I've found a few local candy stores that sell imported chocolate. The most common I've seen is Milka. If you haven't given that a taste yet, it's all over Europe, and tastes just as good in the US.

Washington's approach to taxes are interesting.

There's the wildly controversial long-term care tax, which might be the only income tax in the state. It's a relatively small tax (less than 1%), but the benefit is if you continuously live in-state for 10 years and pay the tax, you can get a year of long-term care. Except there are a few issues: the payout and requirements are worse than LTC insurance, the tax was optional for those who were here during the opt-out period and had LTC insurance, and everyone who made any significant amount of income (enough that the tax was more expensive than private insurance) opted out during that period. It's essentially taxing only the people who couldn't afford LTC insurance, though it at least might give them LTC coverage I guess.

Then, there's a capital gains tax. If you have more than ~$250k in capital gains in a year, you pay 7% tax on the excess. The amount goes up to nearly 10% on capital gains exceeding $1m I believe.

Finally, you have a new "luxury motor tax" that began this year. For vehicles that exceed a sale price of $100k, you pay an 8% tax on the amount that exceeds it in addition to regular sales tax.

The state has been making attempts to implement new taxes over time seemingly with the goal of taxing those with the means to pay them rather than those without it, at least when it comes to the capital gains and luxury motor tax. As controversial as the LTC tax is, it's a relatively tiny tax, and does directly benefit long term residents of the state at least.

I am always in favor of these kinds of taxes. The tax in question, as currently written, only affects people with an annual adjusted gross income exceeding $1m, which is a number I can't even imagine making in a year. These kinds of taxes do not tax the average person, and this tax doesn't even tax people with the top 5% of income.

I would find it incredibly hard to believe any significant part of the state would oppose such a tax. Those who claim to are, as far as I can tell, either bots, live in an echo chamber, or are against their own self interest. Or they're incredibly wealthy, in which case I don't care what they think.

why is she taking care of me like this?

Because you haven't eaten in four days. Most people are not so apathetic towards others they know to let them starve to death.

As for your relationship with your ex, it's best if you try to figure that out sooner rather than later. Relationships between people, platonic or romantic, work best with good communication. If you don't know what she's thinking or how she feels, and you're in regular contact with her, then maybe just ask. Just be sure that it comes across as genuine and not creepy.

In fact, why not start by asking her why she would order food for you?

Is there a point to this? Back to the Future isn't 2001: A Space Odyssey. It doesn't have to predict everything.

Cars crash enough already for reasons spanning from shit driving to shit manufacturing. I don't see the value in making them even more guaranteed to be lethal on failure, especially when innocent pedestrians and people's roofs are downrange from these things.

"Social" isn't part of the title. Meta is the company that acquired the site.

I also fail to see the ROI for buying a social media site for AI. There's no advertising revenue to be made. At best you're just charging a subscription fee.