How much of this is the contractors being sexists and how much is it them being used to, far too often, having to manage the fragile ego of a male partner who thinks that "as the man of the house I'm suppose to know these things"?

Not just American.

Have you seen the news of the Italian 4 year old girl who died from diphtheiria, a disease for which there has long been a vaccine (mandatory in Italy, even) and which hadn't been seen in that country for more than 3 decades due to vaccination, but her parents thought that vaccine gave autism to that kid's cousin so didn't got her vaccinated.

Curiously, the mentioned vaccinated cousin also got infected and survived.

A young child literally died because her parents were gullible braindead morons who (doubtless via Social Media) got fed the same shit that's fed to American braindead morons and actually believed that even though it originates from a country which is a postcard for Idiocracy.

Well, guess they did indeed made sure their child won't ever have autism ...

(All this shit makes me so fucking furious!)

Is it really a bad thing that a company that decides to be political, will for political reasons cut themselves out from around 50% of the market?

I only wish more Fascists torpedoed themselves like that.

Gender stereotyping is a vicious cycle (multiple cycles even) and definitelly goes through both genders.

Mind you, in my experience it does have some cultural component to how far it goes, but even in the most gender-egalitarian country I lived in (The Netherlands) there were still plenty such expectations and, for example, before the remote working era the percentage of couples there with a huisman (the male version of housewife) was only 18%.

Non-profit Copyright Infringement (a.k.a. Piracy) is a Moral Duty, IMHO.

Except that's selective bullshit.

We don't really know if the other candidate who also very openly proclaimed her "unwavering support" for Israel would cause Israel to act differently in any way form or shape - you're just assuming a "rosy outcome" had things been different based on at best wishful thinking, possibly even just tribalist loyalty (you think your tribe's leader is better and thus assume she would do things better, even in the face of her very openly supporting Israel just as much as the other candidate which indicates that on this subject such thing cannot be assumed).

Further, parties will put forwards on subsequent elections different candidates if the ones they put forward in previous elections got trashed by voters. This means that refusing to vote actually influences which choices will be available in the next cycle of this Ultimatum Game. I have actually seen this happen in Europe (and in fact in America too: the Republicans changed from conservatives to populist Fascists exactly by following the electorate which turns out to have quite a high percentage or Racists)

Turns out a lot of people when it comes to politics can't (or maybe refuse) to logically analyze things beyond the superficial 1st order effects.

Ah, a demand for vassalage.

Makes sense.

From were I stand (in Europe), it looks more like Hard Right (hardcore Neoliberals) and Fascists.

Mind you, here in Europe it's also shifted in that direction, just not as much as the US (except in the UK and Germany)

Whilst I'm not sure about contractors specifically, at least in my technical area "Software Development" having the expertise/insight in the social domain (which is not part of the expertise required for the job) to do things like that is more the exception than the rule.

But, yeah, totally agree that the wise, well-rounded and (IMHO) competent professional would at the very least do a bit of subtle "social discovery" to try and figure out who is the best person the interface with.

I suspect it's only those who have weak or no principles who don't understand how other people might have principles in some domain which are so strong and so morally defining that they simply can't bring themselves to vote for anybody breaking those principles.

It's one thing to logically disagree with the lack of pragmatism of somebody not being able to vote for somebody supporting child mass murder abroad even to stop somebody who, whilst also supporting child mass murder abroad also supported a few more bad things.

It's a whole different thing to blame somebody for not voting for anybody supporting child mass murder.

Unlike what some seem to think, voting for somebody who supports child mass murder abroad because they're not as bad on things which affect you more closely (i.e. national policy) as the other candidate who also supports child mass murder abroad, isn't a Moral High Ground from were to talk down to people who on moral grounds refuse to vote for anybody who would support child mass murder.

(Also and this being Politics, it seems to me that the competent candidate who trully means to represent their voters would move towards what voters want - especially on subjects that many voters would see as symptomatic of the candidate's general character, such as child mass murder support - rather than expect voters to move towards the candidate's views)

In case you didn't notice it during the Hilary Clinton vs Bernie Sanders primaries, the DNC has mechanisms like super-voters that allow them to override the will of voters.

If I remember it correctly they even went to Court to make the case (which they won) that the Democratic Party doesn't need to actually be Democratic in their candidate selection process.

Depends what you favor in convenience vs privacy & being free to do whatever the fuck you want with hardware you supposedly bought.

Also the common version of Android is an American OS controlled by a company that falls under the Cloud Act jurisdiction, amongst others, so not really trustworthy (even if you're American, much less European).

Does this phone even have an easilly unlockable bootloader?!

German device design, Taiwanese components, German assembly and controlling software layer made by an American Tech giant whose CEO has given support to Donald Trump, is sorta EU made but is not EU controlled, IMHO.

I think that this day and age and given what we all see happen, we should be pushing for at least designed for openness in a made-in-EU a device which is supposedly always with you, loaded with personal info and highly weaved into one's life.

You're not even making a good logical case when you're pitching pragmatism over principles.

For starters your claims of "caused more Palestinian pain and suffering" are based on what exact, concrete evidence that had the other child mass murder supporter who openly stated their "unwavering support" for Israel, the Israelis would have behaved differently? You don't know, you can't possibly know (because that's the path not taken), hence you're bullshitting.

Second point - even in the undemocratic electoral system in the US, elections aren't a fucking Trolley Problem and can't treated as one:

• There isn't any pure choice in the hands of a single person of "go one way or go the other"
• Voters don't actually know for sure what happens if they "pull the lever" or "don't pull the level".
• It isn't even a single instance where the decision is made and it's done. Specifically the part were parties pitch presidential candidates is closer to a cyclical Ultimatum game - the parties put forwards their choice of candidate offering certain policies, voters approve in which case get those policies (kinda, it's imperfect) and that party wins or they reject in which case they don't get them and the party loses. The cyclical thing is what's important here: it means that results in one election influence which candidate the party will put forward in the next election. This is the part which "curiously" those making the case for "choosing the lesser-evil" NEVER, EVER mention. Even in voting systems where it's always the same two who win, parties will put forward better candidates if they're heavily punished in elections - I know this because I've seen in happen here in Europe.

So your entire "logic" is flawed - a voter know for sure upfront if their vote will make a difference, they don't know for sure what will happen if their chosen candidate wins AND them refusing to vote can actually have an impact, not in the current election but in subsequent elections, because it can influence parties to put forward more appealing candidates with more appealing policies.

I mean, it's bad enough that you think pragmatism should beat any and all principles, but even your pragmatic argument is deceitful because it's incomplete and anchored on unproven statements that you treat as certainties (what in mathematics is called an axiom).

If you're going to pitch for pragmatism over principles at least make a logical case which is solid rather than parroting deceitful logically-sounding but not in fact logically sound political propaganda with it's cherry picked elements and foundations made of unproven things stated as absolute truths.

Well, from this outsider's point of view, it seems to me that Trump is a symptom of Americas' malaise and I'm not all that sure that even his fuckups will change the trend in America of becoming ever more sick.

It looks to me that the ONLY possibly path of improvement is if these recently elected social democrats manage somehow to navigate the obstacle course set-up by the DNC, and do so propelled only by the support of voters and campaign support from common people whilst avoiding falling to the temptation of selling themselves or "compromising" for political progression.

Looking back at the Hilary vs Bernie Primary, the DNC has a ton of anti-democratic tools (such as super-voters) to make it far harder for social democrats to get elected to important positions as Democrats than it is for "traditional" Democrats.

Certainly to me so far the path for any of the handful of social democrats rising in the Democrat Party, to end up as POTUS, seems to be either non-existent or a near-impossible obstacle course (with the actual DNC being the ones making it that hard followed by the billionaire-owned Press, with the actual competence of Republicans as politicians a far 3rd)

I get the impression that the people who pay them thought they themselves would be alright either way, which is why the establishment Democrats for all their talk about how crucial it was to defeat Trump, repeatedly made politically choices of the far-right kind (supporting the Genocide in Gaza, cozying up with the Cheney family) that antagonized many of their natural voters.

Mind you, Trump is so spectacularly incompetent that even with all the very explicit things he's doing to help the wealthiest (most notably in terms of taxes) he might very well still hurt their interests more than he helps, them by turning America's greatest trade partners against anything American (most notably Canada and the EU).

"Android"

Enough said.

They're all pro-good and anti-bad in their own words.

Personally as soon as somebody reduces anything to "good ones" vs "bad ones" I'm immediatelly suspicious that they're either activelly trying to swindle everybody else or they're usefully idiots parroting the shit put out by those activelly trying to swindle everybody else - almost nothing involving humans can be reduced to 2 and only 2 sides, which aren't even ranges but actual absolutes.

Jargon and labels are part of the way people are controlled - simplify complex concepts down to repeatable simple words and now you can both control the meaning of such soft definintion terms (notice how the meaning of "terrorist" has been moved over time to become "against those in power") plus constant repetition breeds familiarity, thus the very same cognitive paths that transform brand-familiarity into "comfort with brand" and hence favoring it over less familiar brand, are exercised to get people to accept provided political "explanations" & "solutions" using those slogans.

That said, in my experience if you try and explain complex things to people with enough complexity and completeness for them to understand the subtleties of the subject, they switch off half way (like, I bet, plenty of people reading this post that didn't pass the first half of the first paragraph), so you have to somehow find at least simple metaphors, so not quite down reducing it to slogans but not all that far.

Don't take this badly, but in my experience, formal Education doesn't teach people Skepticism (the real deal, not the Denialism that morons have whilst thinking they're being "skeptics"). It also doesn't at all train people to be self-aware and spot when it's an emotion (fear, wanting to belong, even hope) making them want to believe something rather than cold hard logic.

My formal Education is in Science and Engineering, and whilst education in those areas does push you more towards a more analytical kind of thinking and an as objective as possible measuring of things, most higher education out there is in soft "sciences" at best, or even just the kind of domains were the main required expertise is in convincing people, so the very opposite of being as Objective and Logical as possible.

From my observations even some people with higher education in a Sciences or Engineering domain are gullible cattle when it comes to politics, mainly because they don't engage it with logic and the way of thinking they use in their professional life, but rather with tribalism (which is emotional) or just straight raw emotion (like anger or fear) and thus are stupidly simple to control and pretty much self-convince that whatever the propagandists want them to believe is true even when the most basic analysis of it immediatelly shows inconsistencies.

TL;DR Whilst better and more Education somewhat improves people's resilience to propaganda, even the highest levels of Education in highly objective and analytical domains won't make people immune to this shit, since people are controlled via emotional subconscious cognitive pathways, not logic, and even highly intellectual people who WANT to believe something will find some kind of seemingly "logic" explanation to conclude that which they want to believe is indeed so.

Personally I think that the highest blame is on those who are supposed to regulate it.

Even big-sized market actors like automakers aren't going to adjust their profit-seeking to avoid systemic issues like "arms race on the road" unless they're forced to: it is well known and more than proven in Economics that Negative Externalities like this (and like the most obvious example of a Negative Externality: Polution) are invariably created by market actors if it makes them more profit, unless they are actually forced otherwise by an external entity with more power than them.

If the Economic system is Capitalism, then don't be surprised when the capitalists optimize their actions for personal upsides, and as bigger car mean more profits automakers will carry only pushing them unless they're they're forced otherwise.