Canada has aboot 40 million people, the UK has about 70 million, Australia has 30 million, and New Zealand (5 million) is basically a rounding error. Since the US has over 300 million people, other English speakers tend to migrate to primarily US platforms.

What I find most interesting about these statistics is the difference in population density between the UK and the USA. Although the US is ~40 times larger, it only contains 7x more people.

While you’re correct, the cumulative effect of lower class and middle class Americans on 3rd world peoples dwarfs that of the upper class. It takes a lot of time and resources to maintain the lifestyle of a single person working 40 hours at McDonald’s.

His consumer products were made in 3rd world factories polluting their local environments and the coffee he’s drinking was bought for less than a dollar a kilogram from a farmer destroying a priceless rainforest. When this impact is multiplied by three-hundred million, the effects are as dramatic as they are unsustainable.

…I try not to think about it. It’s a conflict between guilt and gratitude.

It has nothing to do with your privacy. The comment I’m responding to has to do with driving while tired. In my community, not driving while tired isn’t an option. I’d need to spend $70 per day to ride five miles with Uber. “Personalized pricing.”

If I can’t sleep well at night, explaining it to my boss and skipping work is not an option. I’ll gladly document my occasional sleeplessness and apply for disability, but I have my doubts on whether this will be effective. If you can find me a place to live that doesn’t require work or money, I am open to safer alternatives.

From a global perspective, lower class Americans fit the criteria for being rich. The true conflict is between 1st world countries and the global poor.

I have some pretty contrarian opinions, at least in the context of Lemmy. I used the pet example because I have a cat. I love my cat, but whether or not the people who make my products love cats doesn’t concern me. They’d need to be in a position to actively harm my cat to justify a boycott.

This doesn’t bother me. The gays have won equal rights. Their push for acceptance and parity with straight people has been wildly successful. It’s like if I found out the CEO of a company I love financially supported anti-pet lobbying groups…good luck taking away people’s cats and dogs.

The only rights gay people might have not won involves adoption, but I feel like thats anti-man more than anything else. Society doesn’t feel comfortable giving a person a child unless there is a woman involved.

I might be in the local minority, but I feel as though there are going to be major job shortages due to AI obsolescence. Since it will be a global phenomenon, this trend will lead to an influx in illegal immigration. Two new citizens will turn into ten new citizens in a few decades, and the quality of our universal basic income will be inversely proportional to the number of unskilled laborers.

… with all this being said, I don’t understand why the people on the internet are against immigration enforcement. The majority-both Republicans and Democrats-oppose having an open border. I don’t understand why this is perceived as a Bipartisan issue.

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Personally, I don’t think anyone should get anything back for unnecessary luxury items like video games. Food and health products? Maybe. Video games? No way. If you’re willing to pay $90 for a video game designed for five year olds, you can afford to take the hit.

I think it’s presumptuous to assume that the increase in prices that just happened to be identical to the tarrifs had anything to do with the tarrifs.

I agree that it’s not fair to compare Michael Jackson to Epstein. Although both engaged in illegal activities, a 16 year old at least has the ability to say, “No, I will not give you a handjob for $200.” The seven and eight year olds Michael abused didn’t have the ability to walk away.

It’s similar to murder charges. Although a highschooler is legally a child, they are still culpable enough for their actions to be tried as an adult. The children Michael targeted would not. The worse part of this situation is that parents voluntarily gave him their children. They should have been tried and investigated.

…I’m pretty sure reading about psychology or neurology would be more relevant than reading about communism. Communism might be interesting in a historical context, but it’s not science.

I’m pretty sure the reason tech employees hate it so much is because it’s an existential threat to their profession. If it wasn’t, they wouldn’t spend so much time talking about it.

If their purpose is to extract resources from 3rd world countries and distribute it to 1st world countries, then they are actually great at what they do.

You’re on the right track, but radiation poisoning is a more likely explanation. It causes severe vomiting and diarrhea. If there ever was a nuclear apocalypse, a lot of people would die in the bathroom.

When my school was hit by a natural disaster, I had the opportunity to switch from a premier Catholic school to a premier public school for two semesters.

…let me tell you, the biggest disservice that you received was a systematic lowering of academic standards. The difference was night and day. There is no way that that curriculum was preparing students for college.

Since there is a limited window in which brain plasticity is at its peak, catching up at university isn’t an option. Public school students are at a permanent disadvantage; it’s an equal opportunity problem.

It’s not necessarily a waste of tax payer money for a country as small as Switzerland. Switzerland is about twice as large as New Jersey, the 4th smallest US state. It makes sense for them to provide high bandwidth to everyone since their banks and data centers are in the same physical area as their living districts.

On the bright side, we have apartments full of advanced electronics and consumer products. Back then they had houses with thin walls, a library, and a record player. In order to have a bearable existence, I don’t need as much space as they did.

From their perspective, I’m living in some sort of sci-fi fantasy reality. A millionaire would have traded his mansion to have what I take for granted. They’d empty their bank accounts for an Xbox and an iPhone.

I’m not necessarily against this. Right now, social media companies can knowingly target children with sophisticated conditioning techniques that can and will steer their cognitive development. Although they know for a fact that they are manipulating children, they hide behind plausible deniability.

I don’t like age verification, but I don’t see an alternative. Between the robots and the advanced manipulation techniques, something has to give.