xhieron

joined 2 years ago
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[–] xhieron@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

That's a very large assumption. The simplest explanation is that we feel like we have free will because we do. Quantum mechanics suggests some major challenges to determinism, and the best arguments to restore it require a very unsatisfying amount of magical thinking.

[–] xhieron@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Me too.

I'll also vote if he's not.

Blue all the way down the ticket. Fuck the agitprop. Save the Republic.

[–] xhieron@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Nope. Affirmative defense burden of proof is on the accused. See, for example, ORC Section 2901.05.

Ohio's not my jurisdiction, but that's exactly how this works.

Source: Lawyer here.

[–] xhieron@lemmy.world 56 points 1 year ago (3 children)

This headline is a disaster. The court found that the exceptions--things you're allowed to do with your phone while driving--are affirmative defenses. That is, if the prosecutor already made a prima facie case that the defendant was breaking the device use law, then the burden shifts to the defendant to prove one of the exceptions applies.

It's a much better rule than one that would, implicitly or worse, give the cops carte blanche access to your phone.

[–] xhieron@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Freight rail is still alive in my area--and that means commuter rail could be. But like a lot of places, the public has been duped into voting against their own interests. I don't want to hijack the thread, but it's an issue that--if you care about it, you should be voting for Amtrak Joe. Public transportation needs to be part of the nation's climate agenda, and the Criminal Cheetoh wants to sacrifice us all on the altar of petrol.

[–] xhieron@lemmy.world -5 points 1 year ago (5 children)

The problem is that the infrastructure doesn't exist, and introducing it is cost-prohibitive for large parts of the US. I would love to be able to take a train from my small town to the nearest metro area 30 miles away and then take a tube to a block away from my destination--but that's just not going to happen in my lifetime, because the city can't afford to install a subway, and the auto lobby won the war against commuter rail before I was born.

Could it be better? Sure. Might it become better? Maybe, but probably not in my lifetime.

In the meantime, people are de facto dependent on cars. Destroying infrastructure necessary to support the reality of how people must, through no fault of their own, travel punishes the traveling public without addressing the actual problem.

If we're going to transition to better transit infrastructure, we first have to build the better infrastructure--and pay for it by ~~eliminating~~ unseating political opposition. Only then can we dismantle these kinds of monstrosities without disenfranchising the people who depend on them.

[–] xhieron@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

Good for them. At least somebody did.

[–] xhieron@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago

Hi, comrade! I love Joe Biden and I hate genocide, so there.

[–] xhieron@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago

Everywhere the GOP has a lock on state government, the looting inevitably follows. Vouchers literally siphon state taxes and pass them to the hands of rich conservatives and their churches who serve only rich, white, privileged children. By design, vouchers work to entrench the upper class; further impoverish poor and minority citizens; and increase wealth disparity, illiteracy, and crime.

[–] xhieron@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

We all called it. Didn't matter. Time to move to the next box.

[–] xhieron@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

Exactly! In many parts of the country Joe Biden and the federal government in general is the only thing standing between the people and Supply-side Jesus flavored fascist autocracy.

[–] xhieron@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago (6 children)

That kind of attitude lingers dangerously close to the everything-is-a-conspiracy-by-the-shadowy-cabal line of reasoning. Biden's a Catholic, but it's certainly not "obvious" that he's "intentionally letting the nation slip". You can scroll down barely a page on whitehouse.gov and watch the president commit to restoring the standard of Roe v Wade. It's under the statements in favor of Pride, committing to combating gun deaths, lowering housing costs, and protecting pensions. Joe Biden's executive orders have been the most progressive executive action since Roosevelt.

Here's something a lot of non-religious folks might not know: the evangelical right? They hate Catholics. The MAGAs hate them ideologically, but the ones running the show hate them because the Catholic Church is their competition when it comes to running private schools and otherwise lucrative community support institutions. Biden is absolutely not on their side, theologically or otherwise.

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