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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • This article is an abuse of the source data. “Working class” here is closer to manual laborer and excludes teachers, farm workers, military, emergency services, nurses, law enforcement, and others. The data is also fairly noisy, with typos and 2% of values being empty affecting the calculation.

    To conclude that anyone not “working class” by this definition is “upper-class” is absurd. I guess for some it is hard to imagine the lofty former assistant manager at Burger King (D-AR) understanding the struggles of the common man.

    There are certainly interesting discussions to be had about the disruptive influence of wealth on elections and about balancing representation with competence – and folks are having that discussion – but this article contributes less than nothing to those conversations.


  • Oh man, don’t stop

    You got it! Here’s some other consumer protections the administration has introduced recently:

    • Direct filing with the IRS
    • Price limits on asthma inhalers and insulin for seniors
    • Requiring ISPs to provide consistent up-front information and pricing
    • Restrictions on college junk fees and disallowing witholding of transcripts

    Hungry for more? Check this out:

    White House Statement on Junk Fees

    That’s from October, so some of it overlaps, but among other stuff there’s still a “Click to Cancel” rule working its way through the FTC.

    Sadly Biden has been spending a bunch of time on lame crap like climate change, human rights, health care, infrastructure, election integrity, etc., so it might take a bit longer for him to single-handedly usher in consumer utopia.


  • This seems entirely opposite to my observation. I’d say Biden and his administration are unusually focused on unfair or annoying business practices. In just the past two weeks the Biden administration:

    • Set clear rules requiring cash refunds for flight delays
    • Banned non-compete clauses
    • Set new rules on “junk fees” for credit cards
    • Increased the minimum salary for overtime exemption
    • Expanded fiduciary duty to retirement “advisors”
    • Announced a lawsuit against Live Nation (TicketMaster)
    • Re-instated net neutrality





  • I agree that saying gerrymandering affects everyone is sort of off-topic and distracts from discussing the precise impact being discussed, but it’s really not equivalent to “All Lives Matter”.


    • “Black Lives Matter” => Stop police murdering black people
    • “All Lives Matter” => La la la, I can’t hear you

    • “Gerrymandering Denies Incarcerated People Fair Democratic Representation” => We should stop gerrymandering for the sake of prisoners
    • “Gerrymandering denies everyone fair democratic representation.” => We should stop gerrymandering for the sake of everyone

    The dinner example assumes only one person didn’t get dinner. If instead everyone went without dinner, wouldn’t it make sense to point out they weren’t the only one affected?




  • If there isn’t a clear “yes, let’s do it at this time” it’s always a no.

    This is also worth understanding in case someone asks you out. If they invite you to some undesirable activity (e.g. a sport you are not interested in) with just the two of you, then declining will be taken as a more general lack of romantic interest. (Disclaimer: asking you to an activity alone is not 100% sign of romantic interest).

    This will often be followed by a significant change in behavior towards you (e.g. less joking / flirting). This is not them being angry or trying to get back at you. They are trying to respect your lack of romantic interest, and possibly handling their own emotions of rejection, disappointment, and such. If you do lack romantic interest, this is mostly unavoidable; people will always be sad when the person they like doesn’t like them back.

    If you do have romantic interest, then try to suggest alternative activities and be extremely blunt that you do want to date them. Make sure you have a concrete day you will do something together, even if you don’t figure out exactly what it is. If you can’t even settle on a day, set a date on when you’ll talk next about a date.