Nearly 20 years ago, I was in a computer programming class surrounded by clunky towers and desktops.

Suddenly, a loud popping, then one of the machines starts belching smoke like a budget fog machine. The kid using it is calmly moved to another station while the prof investigates.

Fifteen minutes later - pop. Smoke again.

Turns out the kid was jamming a paperclip into the power supply like he was playing Operation: Arson Edition.

That was his last day.

On the bright side, computers are a lot cheaper now - and kids are still dumb. So, maybe progress?

Only the bots have rights

Even if there were a lineup of these ready to go at the airport, I’d still wait 10 minutes and pay $20 more for literally anything else.

Sorry, I was being a bit cheeky. I hear your points and they are valid.

Only if their base actually cares (and on the aggregate over time).

While true, there is economy to the least awful option - by virtue of the USA making itself less reliable, they’ve increased China’s standing automatically, especially in the soft-power vacuum the US has left behind.

China is right to calculate this, even if they aren’t really anyone’s ally.

End the war before even taking office. Kept moving the bar, then eventually just pivoted and pretended there was no bar.

And make it everyone else’s fault somehow.

Essentially want to be the only option - buy a Tesla and fill both the trunk and frunk with gasoline or get wrecked.

Nevermind they’re pumping and dumping the entire stock market now, turning all the safeguards off, and extracting wealth at a rate that makes Congress look like child’s play.

Alternative headline: Musk pretends to be critical of policies he’s endorsed and supportive of countries he actively interferes in the elections of

It’s not really a party problem specifically - they’re more of a symptom. In reality, the FPTP winner-takes-all (with questionable SCOTUS and congression checks and balances), high risk, expensive break down then rebuild then break down then rebuild full pendulum swing incentivizes these mechanisms that result in no one winning, and a generation of setbacks every time you take a step forward.

In fairness, Trump is trying to “fix” this - you just may not agree that an authoritarian corporatocracy with him as Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic is the right solution (and, frankly, most wouldn’t).