“Why don’t men approach women anymore? 🥺”

Sorry about your car! I hate that.

In an age where people are prone to feeling isolated & alone, for various reasons…this, unfortunately, is filling the void(s) in their life. I agree, it’s not healthy or best.

No, I basically get the same read as OP. Idk I like to think I’m rational enough & don’t take things too far, but I like my car. I like my tools, people just get attached to things we like.

Give it an almost human, almost friend type interaction & yes I’m not surprised at all some people, particularly power users, are developing parasocial attachments or addiction to this non-human tool. I don’t call my friends. I text. ¯\(°_o)/¯

…this. Let’s have a talk about basic security and prevention, because it’s important.

First of all, I wanted to factor in prices, but according to this webpage, the replacement social security cards should be free. However. I wouldn’t know from personal experience, and cannot verify.

By a combination of a small miracle, some neglect, and then some careful choices to safeguard it…I still have my original SS card. I would recommend getting a little passport case or something, and some metal plates or hard plastic cards to keep the SS card from bends/creases. Then you can place it in a blaze barrier document bag like this one. No, you don’t need this exact one, all I did was type in ‘blaze barrier document bag’ into Amazon because that’s the branding on mine. I just looked at it. $20 bag, goes a long way keeping that card safe & unmolested.

Those bags aren’t entirely fireproof & it’s only one layer; they’ve done extreme tests & the contents can (possibly) become slightly torched. That’s where you can buy a shitty 90s fireproof lockbox for next to nothing secondhand, I know I’ve got at least 2 & I think one was $5 & the other $10. Arguably more effective than the bag, my friend’s house burned down but he had a shitty 90s fireproof lockbox & it kept his personal documents & pictures of his deceased mother fully intact. We’re not looking to confound master thieves with a safe, we’re just looking to safeguard SS cards and/or pics of dead moms. 👍 FB Marketplace, I found ones for $10-15 in IL, KY, MO. Everybody has these shitty 90s fireproof lockboxes. No excuse. Put the document(s) in the bag, and the bag in the shitty 90s fireproof lockbox. Double protection.

Also noteworthy: fireproof concrete lined filing cabinets (I recommend FireKing), sometimes you can find them cheap used because they’re a heavy nuisance item. If you have a basement, put the fireproof/resistant stuff in your basement or ground floor. It’s more stable there & should survive.

Then for those interested in the eccentric & the extreme, dive down the rabbithole known as Starlite fireproof coatings. While we may never know the exact formulation of this wonder material as it was presented, it turns out Maurice Ward merely rediscovered the lost art of intumescent materials that release layers of carbon char when exposed to heat. You can buy intumescent paint like this one & it’ll essentially fireproof any material you paint!

So in conclusion, yes, you can buy fire resistant filing cabinets. Even “fireproof” ones. And safes, and lockboxes, and document bags, and even intumescent paint. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Not all of us live in cities, nor would we ever want to. I do not have access to public transportation to take me to & from one of my jobs.

If you are able, yes, kind of amazing perks & I’d use it. It would certainly save me more than a little money in car insurance, maintenance, fuel, potential for accidents, etc. But it is not a feasible option, specifically for me.

Always have been. 🧑‍🚀🔫🧑‍🚀

Okay…now that the left is finding every reason to hate on Tesla, allow me to help: this is, and always has been, a massive fucking myth. It never was more energy efficient than a regular ICE vehicle.

Mainly because of its construction. Mining the cobalt, etc for the batteries is very energy intensive. Then there’s the tires. AFAIK, you can’t just throw any old tires on a Tesla vehicle. You have to buy their special tires with all these sensors in them. I think there are knockoffs, but still. You also have to change the tires more frequently than traditional ICE vehicles, because they wear out faster, because the Teslas are heavier. A car weighs as much as an SUV or truck (3,582 lbs - 4,065 lbs), the Model X Plaid weighs 5390 lbs, and the Cybertruck weighs 6000-7000 lbs.

The damage doesn’t stop with the vehicle itself; we must also consider the impact of heavier vehicles on the roads. It will also cause the roads to wear out faster than normal.

Unless it’s crashed or burned in protest or whatever, IIRC, a Tesla vehicle can redeem itself from its massive environmental cost to produce & such. But only after many hundreds of thousands of miles on the road, and by the time that occurs, you’ll need to replace the battery. “Tesla batteries can last between 300,000 to 500,000 miles, which translates to about 1,500 battery charge cycles.” Kiss another $13K - $20K goodbye to swap out that battery for a new one.

So with its far simpler & straightforward construction out of readily available material, coupled with a sprawling existing infrastructure…the ICE car is more eco-friendly and cheaper to operate! And the hybrid vehicles are better than both full-electric & ICE, best of both worlds.

Can’t say I relate specifically to that, but I can relate to staying up later because you enjoy what you’re doing. Everybody else shuts the hell up & you can focus in on…whatever you want to do. I also think my desire to stay up later stems from wanting control over my day & my time, so while I absolutely should sleep, part of me is like, “NO! Sleep is a waste of time. I want to do this instead!”

That’s basically why I do it. I don’t edge. Maybe if you indulged a little more in physical labors, you can wear your body out & really get some good sleep. Idk it’s literally exhausting, but that’s when I sleep the best. When I burn myself up all day long, spending myself on labors.

I have no idea personally, I’m just telling you what I observe. And from what I’ve observed, it’s not this stupidly simple operation that anyone can do & it’s “basically a money printing machine”, as others on here are telling you.

If it doesn’t make dollars, it doesn’t make sense. As a general rule. That solar farm has gone under & sold ownership twice in idk 7-8 years.

I am pro-solar panel, and I was anti-wind turbine because the old fiberglass blade turbines filled with oil were dumb. But as I understand that technology, too, is improving & idk we’ll have to see how the new ones perform. Seems to me doing these things on a more commercial scale where you’re selling it to the grid can get a little fucky. There are reasons why it’s slowly taking off. There are reasons why people build, then sell, then the buyers sell. It’s probably a tricky endeavor with its own challenges.

YMMV. We’ve got a local solar farm & the operation has gone belly-up, changed hands twice. It’s got to be on its third investor/owner. Also depends on the quality of your build & your local weather; that solar field isn’t even fully operational yet. Got hit by a massive hail storm maybe almost 2 years ago, it had to have smashed a couple hundred solar panels.

If you’re interested in it, I’d be very careful. Insure everything. Ask everybody, people in the industry if possible.

Anti-China-Goods rant aside, I would also contest your claim they’re coming up on the US. Growing up I was told this, and halfway believed it, but the evidence for a prosperous China just isn’t there & the evidence against them is growing every day. Despite their numerous attempts to hide negative press. While still technically a formidable foe with power based on sheer numbers & basic technologies alone, China is a struggling world power riddled with problems, like a body with cancer. Effectively making them a paper tiger.

First & foremost, know this: China’s worst enemy has, and always will be, China. The CCP rules with an iron fist, then there are unintended consequences. The one child policy (and people’s preference to have their one child be a boy) created a terrible gender imbalance & consequences we see playing out today. As of 2021 & reacting to slowing birthrates and an aging population, the CCP now allows families to have up to 3 children. More on that in a bit…

Look into the Four Evils campaign, a movement that led to famine, the starvation of an estimated 20-30M people. It’s a fascinating little read & a perfect example of going to extremes, and unintended consequences.

Some of China’s GDP & “growth”, kind of like the US, is fake. They’ve built entire cities nobody lives in, empty malls with no stores. It looks good on paper, all that construction & work being done. But how good is that work? And what’s it all for, sitting empty, rusting/rotting/crumbling away into nothing? They, too, have a real estate bubble ready to burst.

Fake accomplishments & claims abound. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. They claim nuclear fusion. They claim they can turn deserts into lush, healthy forests. They claim amazing technologies & weapons, no you can’t see them, but trust me bro our scientists have totally verified it multiple times. So legit. 🙄🙄🙄

Much like the US & UK, but on crack – they’re using all this technology to enshittify the lives of their residents. To press that boot of authoritarian rule more firmly onto their necks, controlling every aspect of their lives, cracking down on dissent, etc. Social credit scores like a Black Mirror episode (specifically S3E1, “Nosedive”, a good watch!). The crazy COVID crackdowns, which led to…

The disenchantment of the youths, millennials & Gen Z. Granted this has been festering for years before covid, but all the weird social shit around covid led to the Tang Ping movement in China, informally known as “Let It Rot”. An overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated youth slaving away for the CCP, facing an aging population to care for, has decided to just let it all rot. Juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Why try to date, why marry, why have any children at all, let alone 3? What’s the point of it all, to help the CCP? The assholes…running & ruining their lives? Nah. Let it rot. Very fascinating stuff, Google it.

So between their copy-paste or outright fake “innovations”, their fake real estate & holdings, their poisoned food, their poor, impoverished populations, their aging population, their despondent & depressed youth, etc…I don’t think things are looking so hot for China. The more you learn, the more the narrative unravels. It’s pretty sad that they have so many people & don’t dominate the world, but again, it’s mostly China’s fault. Even their own citizens resent China, with damn good reason. Ultimately, their actions (and inaction) will not allow China to succeed.

Nah it’s not about the quality, it’s about the Chinese Communist Party & some of the sketchy-ass companies they just allow to operate over there. When I was on Reddit I had a comment I could point to with some examples. But I care, deeply, about this issue & I think it’s important to not only highlight claims but bring the receipts to back it up. So please…enjoy.

Might add to this/refine later. There’s nothing racist about this, this is merely a fraction of many, many shady business scandals I can recall off the top of my head. Things that people did, and were allowed to be shipped out to the public, they do not care. I implore you to exercise caution when trying out new electronics of any kind from China (AKA virtually all electronics), and not to knowingly purchase & consume their food.

Chinese companies sold toxic drywall to the United States, which was installed in homes & offgassed fumes. If you ask me, you’ve got to be pretty stupid to buy Chinese drywall, why would you do that? To save $5? But I digress…

It is disturbingly common for Chinese footwear, especially footwear designed for babies/toddlers/children, to contain high levels of lead. This shipment contained Chinese footwear with 300 ppm lead; that is 3x the maximum lead exposure level acceptable by law. Lead exposure, poisoning is mainly through eating or breathing, however, kids put on or take off their shoes…hands go in mouth. Or hell some kids are putting their mouths on shoes. That’s lead exposure. And as everyone is quick to point out, these are small & growing bodies, not adults. So while “they’ll live”, there really is no safe level of lead exposure for children.

Moving on from freaky footwear, there’s the 2008 Chinese milk scandal. They were intentionally sneaking melamine into milk to fraudulently boost protein levels. Melamine, a plastic used in the production of whiteboards & countertops, doesn’t even mix into milk naturally. That took effort, dissolving with formaldehyde or another chemical before they could poison your milk. Drinking this milk resulted in kidney stone production, kidney failure, etc…thousands of hospitalizations & 6 dead babies. Thankfully, the CCP harshly came down on the baddies. 2 executions, three life imprisonments, two 15-year prison sentences, and the firing or forced resignation of seven local government officials and the Director of AQSIQ. The former chairwoman of China’s Sanlu dairy was sentenced to life in prison. Also, a Chinese company poisoned pets via melamine “enhanced” wheat gluten, used in wet pet food.

Nefarious fuckery aside, I just would not eat food imported from China, as there’s a good chance it is contaminated with heavy metals. More recently than that 2014 article, I’ve heard from multiple sources that Chinese garlic is fertilized with human sewage, then bleached when it’s time to sell it in the US. Now utilizing sewage as fertilizer in agriculture, as a concept…doesn’t scare me. But do I trust the standards of the people applying it? Yeah, again, hard pass. And the bleaching, probably not bad. Bleach is food safe when it dries. But do I trust them to do it, safely & effectively? No. It is ironic, I see people defending the practices when China does it, but those same practices are probably not allowed for US produce. Little hypocritical.

They poisoned our youth & poor with cheap THC vape juice carts, using Vitamin E acetate as a binder. It works well as a binder, but when introduced into the lungs, the sticky oil coats the lungs & interferes with the function of the alveoli, resulting in a fascinating condition I can only call…“dry drowning”. You’re not in the water, you breathe in the air, but your lungs can’t process the air for oxygen & you die. Having vaping friends, I specifically recall China being blamed for the practice of Vitamin E binder oils. They did it because it was cheaper to produce. Most of the people that died were poor or high school kids, trying to get product for cheap.

Moving away from food & into hard consumer goods, can’t forget about the hoverboards. Just Google “Charging hoverboard burns house down” & you’ll get a lot of stories, even a few deaths.

Anything with a battery, really, is a risk. We know this. But depending on the manufacturer, subsequent testing, and I would also argue charging methods…we can reduce the risk as much as possible, or the manufacturer can increase our risks by cutting corners to save money.

TL;DR – China Is Asshole

Mine is pretty obvious.

I will check them out later! I’ve been wanting a robot vacuum for a while now but I also am wary of Chinese bullshit.

I want a really good one that doesn’t connect to the internet in any way. 👍🏻 Even if that kills some of its smart features.

All hail…the Jesussy

😏

I agree with Botanicals. Whether you truly have an impact or not…I guess we’re arguing semantics…but simply vote with your wallet. 🙂 There is little excuse when options abound! If someone engages in behavior you really don’t like, boycott their ass. Don’t buy their product or service. If they didn’t make money, they’d quit their shit or go bankrupt. “No raindrop is responsible for the flood.”

Look at the Bud Light boycott. Granted, enough of the people doing the boycott were uninformed consumers that bought something else owned by ABInBev, and still gave the same company their money. But others went all the way. The campaign itself was still effective, as Bud Light sales TANKED. Product went BAD. The company lost LOTS OF MONEY. They lost prominent shelf space that they will probably never get back, but who knows, never is a big word.

You have power, little raindrop. You do.

People actually have done that, and by a decent but not landslide majority (upper 60s%, IIRC), the original inhabitants of North America like the catch-all term: ‘American Indian’. Halfway alluding to the other guy’s reply, they actually do like to call attention to the ignorance that was put upon them upon first meeting. It’s hardly their blunder to be embarrassed by, and that moniker has become part of their history. Has it not?

If you want to be truly proper, you’d have to get down to the nitty-gritty & list every single tribe ever. By name. And that doesn’t work very well on a form when you’re making people check & sort themselves into boxes.

…which brings me to the final, and most ironic point of it all. People insisting on using Native American & African American often fail to realize those titles were put upon those people by the goddamn United States Government. Yes, the same one that enslaved the blacks. The same one that drove the American Indians from their lands, hunted them for sport, and rounded them up into camps. After the mistreatment, the USG said, “Hmm, what should we call these people? Oh, I know. ‘Native Americans’ & ‘African-Americans’.” Now it’s been baked into the cake for so long nobody even stops to question it, they insist upon it. Even if it’s technically inaccurate in niche cases (like Jamaican Americans), or insensitive (being labeled by your conquerors).

…idk. Call me a romantic bumpkin, but I work with black men & women who haven’t stepped a single foot in Africa. They eat cheeseburgers like I do, we drink from the same water fountains & use the same toilets, we shake hands. There’s nothing African about them besides their genetics; they are Americans just like I am an American. They happen to be black. Idk too many American Indians around here, only some with very diluted, distant heritage.

Progress is progress, and it’s good to be skeptical (I literally just posted a comment saying “I’m skeptical”!), but progress is good. 🙂 What other alternatives are there?

If it doesn’t make dollars, it doesn’t make sense. That’s why the electric car movement is having a hard time really taking off rn; it is hard to justify & all the tech, all our builds, aren’t exactly super economical yet. And they’re not built for tough conditions, heavy towing, long commutes, and easily workable & recyclable components.

…but things are, indeed, getting better. If you look at it from a macro view. Lithium recycling can be done even a decade ago, but IIRC it was relatively small scale & the lithium could be refreshed “most of the way”, not fully. The right things will catch on when their time is right & its viability is realized.

Man’s greatest strength is our shared knowledge, technology, science, and innovation. I encourage you to make good decisions in your personal life and be positive. 🙂

Now the reactor is le tired