Xenophobia and racism, mostly. And yes, it's a solution to the aging demographic crisis many countries face (at least in the medium-term).

I remember seeing a video of a presentation back in the Bush years by some neo-con group that advocated for immigration to Pentagon or DoD officials or something. The argument for immigration was mostly the same: we have an aging population, so we could integrate immigrants (who are statistically younger) to solve this issue. I didn't agree much with the broader idea of the presentation though. The broader idea was that there were still some parts of the world not a part of the global U.S.-led hegemony (mostly the middle-east and Africa), and we must spread democracy and capitalism to them. The argument was that globalism/capitalism ensures peace, and that both WWI and WWII happened because globalism was falling apart shortly before those wars. So, to ensure world peace, we need to globalize the entire earth and bring all countries into the the U.S.-led hegemony, even if that means starting wars to spread democracy, lol.

Poor countries, such as the countries people are immigrating from, have a more terrible environment and higher birth-rates.

Kamala isn't very likeable, and I saw a recent interview (about Biden's debate performance) where she acted pretty unhinged. She talked at Anderson Cooper like he was a child, had a wierd speech cadence, and smiled psychotically.

Only thing I know about her is she was a DA and prosecuted a lot of people for cannabis.

I'm actually not sure if she'd have a better chance at winning than Biden.

If, somehow, Biden wins, I'd bet she'd be president soon after. Rumors are Biden's sundowning, and isn't very coherent after 3pm. That's only going to get worse, forcing him to step-down (or one would hope).

Harris would probably be a status-quo (i.e. actual conservative) president. Not good, but not as bad as a fascist president.

I don't think Trump thought he would win, so he was unprepared, and he had some of the most incompetent people possible around him. He and the people around him will be prepared this time. A plan has already been drafted (Project 2025) by, presumably, intelligent people at right-wing think-tanks. Also, his rhetoric has changed, becoming similar to other historical and current dictators, and his "policies" have become more fascist (e.g. rounding up 11 million people in the U.S. for detention and forcible relocation).

Furthermore, while he was president, he did do some pretty dictator-like things. He had federal officers in unmarked vans abduct protestors with bags over their heads. He had the US Marshals assassinate Michael Reinoehl. He tried to get election results changed. And he tried a coup.

I think his, and his future administration's goal will be to establish a one-party-rule, similar to Russia's, with a more christofascist flavor. His and his family's personal goals will be to enrich themselves by selling-out the state, and the christofascist stuff just provides them with the coalition they need to do so.

Yeah, a lot of the regulations are written by the industries they're supposed to regulate.

I don't understand the Scrum one. Scrum is also agile with short development cycles, and prioritizes communication with the product owners and stakeholders.

I've never heard of lean development, but not a fan of "lean manufacturing," at least not the way it's commonly implemented in the U.S. (using primarily temp workers so they can ramp up and down their workforce as needed; and it also exacerbates supply-chain problems).

If they ever flip back to a Democrat majority, it's going to take decades to undo all the damage this court has done (and they'll still have the incentive to not undo stuff like this).

I believe this happened, and is still happening in regards to Texas ignoring the SC ruling about letting federal Border Patrol agents access to certain parts of the border.

Some of it has to do with CAFE standards using vehicle footprint to determine the target MPG. Some of it is because of better safety standards. Some of it is just because that's what a certain portion of the market wants, and the profit margins on the large vehicles are higher, so they spend more money marketing them (creating more demand).

I live in Germany, ... It also had a confederate flag in the back window.

WTF, I didn't even know that was a thing outside the U.S. Do they claim "it's our heritage not hate?"

That's not true. Kei trucks have comparably low load and towing capacity. They have the same bed dimensions of the most common pickup truck bed size. Most people with trucks don't hail around stone or heavy machinery though.

I've never liked their videos. They do a lot of juvenile stuff, like mocking impressions, which is kind of grating to me. They've also been doing a lot of sus stuff lately, such as crime fearmongering, making a big deal about the term "birthing-persons," and running for president. Makes me think there's some amount of grift their doing.

Just listing reasons why small towns are shitholes... or at least that particular small town. People there are at a high risk of drug addiction because of "shit-life syndrome," (which is arguably caused by the low wages of the factories).

If you just want it for emergency purposes or irrigation, rain water harvesting can be fairly cheap and easy. Even a proper cistern, with a pump, and plumbed into your house is probably cheaper than whole-house off-grid solar. Probably want good filters for PFAS though.

The town I grew up in is in the middle of a cancer cluster. The largest factory (where most people work) got caught illegally dumping chemicals in the ground. They were just made to pay a relatively small fine. The corporation was threatening to move the plant somewhere else if it became too expensive to operate there, and all lawsuits were dismissed.

That factory, and most other factories in the area primarily just hire "temp" workers that they keep as temps for years, never actually hire them full time, and pay them near minimum wage with no benefits. Many young people who do end up staying in that area become drug addicts and die in their 20s or 30s.

There's a lot of corruption in the local government and police as well. The police harass anybody they don't like, and they know pretty much who everybody is and what they drive. A few people in government got caught embezzling money. A sheriff tried to frame somebody for murder. Also, I think the people in the courts have some kind of deal with the juvenile detention center, because they give kids very long sentences for minor things (6 months for being 10 minutes late to school while on probation in my case).

Small towns, in my experience, are shitholes with corrupt and authoritarian local governments, and are exploited by corporations in ways similar to third-world countries.

I wonder what is the general use for the Mac Mini, MacBook Air, iMac, and MacBook Pro? People generally seem to do all the lightweight stuff like social media consumption on their phones; and desktops/laptops are used for the more heavy-weight stuff. The only reason I've ever used a Mac was for IOS development.

I was looking at notebooks at Walmart the other day, and I was amazed that they almost all had less or the same amount of RAM as my phone.

I think SSDs are also soldered to the mainboard on most apple products.

I think SPDIF is being phased out because it needs to use compression to do surround sound.

The Earth has carrying capacity limits. I think we're probably over that, temporarily, mostly because of fossil fuels. We turn fossil fuels into energy and food, degrading that environment and decreasing the Earth's carrying capacity at the same time. It's like we're playing a game of Jinga to push population higher at the expense of our foundation.

What happens when rich nations become poorer? The world's current predominant economic system cannot function without growth. What will the elites do to maintain the status quo? Perhaps push for banning abortion, contraceptives, and taking away women's rights and autonomy?