Spyke

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Is sales tax justified for what you get in return or too high?

Not the question you should be asking. You should be asking: is the total tax burden justified for what you get?

I'm in Oregon and have no sales tax, but my income and property taxes are higher and my total tax burden is a little above the mean. I think I get a decent State to live in, good roads, fairly functional social net, environment protections, mediocre schools. I think the tax burden is mostly justified...

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Reddit fades from ChatGPT citations

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Same here. I occasionally follow a link to normal reddit it and it lets me see the tread for about ten seconds then tosses up a login popup. Looks like they are locking down the whole site.

At least the bots are pretending to be intelligent. A lot of idiots on reddit that are really degrading the site.

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Flock CEO calls for ‘compromise’ as surveillance company faces growing backlash | TechCrunch

It's not a matter of privacy or safety. It's a matter of how does this technology benefit me? So far, that's none at all. I live in a place of low crime, so it's ability to keep me safer is minor if at all. Police abuse it and the upper classes seem safe from it. I do not see any benefit in it's current form. Lock it down behind court orders without general police/organizational access and maybe? But I'll still vote against it...

world

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Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada is ‘at war’ with US over trade, urges Canadians to resist

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Why? The forces behind MAGA and Trump have been part of most democracies their entire history. They percolate up every one in a while then disappear into the background noise until next time. McCarthyism looked like the end of the world as well just to disappear just as fast as it came about. Cults of personality rarely outlast the death or disgrace of the founder.

world

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Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada is ‘at war’ with US over trade, urges Canadians to resist

I think Canada, Iran and most of the rest of the world have figured out that Trump is six months away from being the lamest of ducks and two and a half years of being out of office entirely. Wait for the storm of insanity to pass and deal with the aftermath then.

The next President of the USA will definitely have to go on a serious suck butt tour to heal the damage this administration is causing...

games

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Behold, "the whole story of Steam's economy in one picture": the top 1% of games earn 84.5% of estimated revenue, and most games barely make anything

A lot of games on Steam hold zero interest to me. AI is just the newest form of slop. Beyond that what I see is a hell of a lot more games are being released in the last 4 years. That means more competition but also many have not been around long enough to build up over time revenue. To a certain extent you are comparing life time revenue to launch revenue. On AAA that probably doesn't matter as much but on the lesser hyped indy games I think it would be an important distinction.

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Sublime is overrated

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Weird take. I'm not a fan of third wave but two tone and old Jamaican kick ass. More like you can't understand how someone would not like pizza with triple cheese and some cheese shavings on top as third wave was way to cheesy...

games

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Least favorite game sequel in a series?

It's probably be viewed as heresy, but GTA Vice City is by far my least favorite. Miami is just a flat boring city to drive in. You know it's bad when the high points are bridges and parking garages. Vice City's only redeeming feature was the flying car cheat. Got a few hours of enjoyment with police chases with that on...

And yes, I'm mildly concerned about VI...

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“Voters are sick of the 2-party system. A new poll shows they’re open to big changes”

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But still, it's nowhere in the constitution beyond Right to peaceably assemble and the right to petition the government. The way I look at it, you would still have the two parties as a necessity. Otherwise no candidate gets 50% of the vote, and congress decides who becomes president. That is not going to change without a constitutional amendment. All the 3rd parties would be more like influencers to the main two. When looking at a primary, one might be a progressive party member/democrat or a green/democrat and who they chose to vote for could be influenced by the 3rd party endorsements. We don't have to have a parliamentary like party system as we do not have that organizational structure.