Spyke

Replies

memes

Comment on

Probably the easiest boycott you could do, let's do it Lemmy!

Reply in thread

Yeah, it's genuinely a problem when you just want to not see entire instances based on the userbase they culminate. I wish blocking instances would actually block the users associated with it, but alas.

I've taken to blocking everyone @lemmy.ml on sight since every time I see them it's some vitriolic rant about how trans people are class traitors or some other weird shit I don't wanna see, but it is a bit of extra effort and annoyance each time a new one pops up.

Comment on

Exclusive: Recordings, emails show how Trump team flew fake elector ballots to DC in final push to overturn 2020 election

Reply in thread

I hear this a lot, but the longer these things take the more likely it is that the government will shift and simply decide "well, the cases haven't gone anywhere so at the beheadst of the Republican president we're shutting it down."

It's good to be thorough, but being so thorough that a conclusion to the charges isn't on the timescale of Trump's political career (or even life tbh) makes the whole process a waste of time and money. There needs to be more initiative being taken or the whole process may be moot.

Comment on

History

Reply in thread

...dude you're writing off a genocide against me with "some of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make" shit

You are actively advocating for people to be complicit in not preventing another genocide.

Comment on

Would you like to donate a dollar to...?

Reply in thread

On a personal level you can deduct it from your income, but only if it passes a certain threshold...but also, it doesn't really count as income before a certain threshold, so realistically, at that quantity, it doesn't matter.

It starts mattering when you start dealing with donation quantities nearing like, $10000, because then you start to run into the standard deduction (the assumed amount that "well everyone just donates this amount, we don't need to keep track of it all before then, we'll just hand that exemption to everyone"). I forget what the gift threshold is in a similar vein, but it's not as low as $100.

Edit: I went through all that and didn't really address the core of the question. If you get paid a large amount of money, say, $20,000 and then donate all of it, ignoring the standard deduction whackery as discussed above (as a corporation would effectively do), yes, your taxes will have you deduct all of the donation from your income (you will not have to count it as revenue, essentially) if the group is registered properly with the IRS. You do not reduce your tax burden further than you would have if you had not received the donation, you essentially get taxed as though you never got the money at all.

Comment on

Google cuts team of contractors who went on strike

Reply in thread

Google isn't their employer, it's the contracting company. The contract not being renewed is inherently a business decision between two busines entities, which is probably going to result in the contracting company laying off the workers but that can't be directly tied to Google because...Google didn't hire these people, they hired a company that happened to employ them.

Is it a loophole? Possibly, depending on the structure of the two businesses in question...but it's very unlikely to be suddenly declared illegal, it's been common practice in sectors for a while for basically that reason. Contractors get the shit end of the deal and that needs to be addressed directly instead of pretending they're already protected by laws.

Comment on

Yup

Reply in thread

It's clear that you care plenty about this stuff, I don't think all that was meant as a disparaging thing.

But you shouldn't paint gay rights movements as being a boondoggle inherently tied to liberal policy. It's (presumably unintentionally) insulting, and definitely paints the picture that you don't care, or that you'd rather side with someone that didn't give a shit about us.

Comment on

Yup

Reply in thread

What's the problem you seem to have with gay rights here? Going out of your way to label that one party is supporting "rainbow ribbons" seems a little iffy considering all the trans people that are about to get systemically targeted by the right-wing that won an election basically on a smear campaign against us.

Comment on

Yup

Reply in thread

Yes.

Being able to be open about your identity is very important to trans people. This is an important element of people's lives, insofar that even in the face of rejection by traditional society we tend to come out and just face the consequences of it - yes, that includes, for many, rejection by their families, housing and food insecurity, and many other things that are, in effect, downstream of the impacts of lack of acceptance. That's the very reason why it's so important to us. We make the conscious decision to seek acceptance knowing it is futile and in most cases results in these things. It's spitting in the face of trans rights movements to try to insinuate that they should simply pretend to be someone else if it means getting food or shelter.

For most of us, that was already an option that we threw out because the cost was too great. To see people argue on our behalf that we should simply take a backseat so we can eat? Fuck that, we'll figure it out ourselves if that's supposed to be the cost.