Make it a real ham sandwich instead of a proverbial one, and you’ve got a deal.

Most recent social security trustees report says the trust fund will run out in 2035. What happens in 2035? Benefits are still funded at 83% in perpetuity. By the way, last year it was going to run out in 2033, and the year before that it was going to run out in 2031. And also by the way, the trust fund was specifically set up because they knew the baby boomers were going to stress the system, so it’s supposed to get depleted as the boomers use it.

Everything is working mostly as intended, and yet there’s all this anxiety around Social Security. Why? Because Republicans want you to think Social Security is fucked all on its own so that you don’t question it when they ratfuck it. That and they want to constantly frame the conversation as such so that the conversation doesn’t turn to “how do we make social security more robust and generous?” or some other radical socialist nonsense.

It was the naval ensign of Massachusetts up to 1971, and I guess still is, just with the words removed. As a proud Swamp Yankee, I say to anyone using it to support a fascist coup attempt, and especially anyone from New Jersey - fuck right off.

Hah, I kinda glossed over that one. Not sure what the downvote is about, it’s a joke. JS and PHP are the two I’m most familiar with and they’re scripting languages, not “proper” programming languages. That doesn’t make them any less serious. Anyway, React, being a library for a scripting language, is two steps removed.

Scripting languages are for popular kids and jocks.

I’m not going to tell you all the things you mentioned are impossible. I’ve read your other comments too. I’ve seen homeless women crying in the street, people with obvious mental or physical problems begging. Homelessness - visible homelessness - is terribly common. As far as crime goes, I don’t know, maybe people target tourists? My rental car visibly full of luggage was broken into in San Jose once, and they stole a bunch of electronics. Learned my lesson on that one. Apart from that I’ve wandered around some rough areas on occasion and in 36 years I’ve never been victimized in person.

Anyway, one last point: according to official stats, the rate of homelessness in Australia is nearly 3x that in the US, although I imagine that Australia probably counts homelessness differently, so it’s hard to compare, but 3x seems like a big difference for simple differences in methodology to account for. That said, I’m sure Australia has better services, so it may not be as visible to the average person, and less of a struggle for those experiencing homelessness. Hard for me to believe things are all that much better in the land of Murdoch, though.

To be fair, Gary, Indiana isn’t most people’s first choice to visit…

https://youtu.be/SLaltfyTEno?si=cZO2NIjd0eqCKJez

Check out Affinity Photo. Doesn’t do everything Photoshop does, but it’s a hell of a lot cheaper and lighter.

Also 8% of US agricultural output by dollar value. Let’s not forget that we need conservatives as much as they need us.

A very cool vision, but people would still have to live and grow food somewhere, and generate absurd amounts of energy. Assuming we can do vertical hydroponics and cold fusion, the centers of human civilization could be massive, but isolated and surrounded by unspoiled nature.

The question, then, is what stops people from multiplying endlessly and covering the planet in fusion-fueled mega-structures?