True but learning is hard work.

And fuck, I hated homework.

Ironically, doing research is the best way to be right. What people want is to feel right without having to think very hard. Feelings don’t really require energy in the same way that thinking does.

Yes, that too.

+1 to everything you said

I can’t speak to other markets but in California, the housing bubble is in part supported by investment from around the world. Chinese and Russian nouveau rich are buying homes in CA because it’s a safe place to keep their money relative to their other options. They might even just leave them empty and watch them appreciate. It’s disgusting, when people are struggling like hell just to live.

Perhaps the state could regulate this and ban international purchases or empty homes but I highly doubt it since the horse has left the barn decades ago and this would deeply impact many rich people, and those people have influence. It would also tank the home values of many average Americans, which would be deeply unpopular as many of those folks are banking on taking that value with them to Mexico or Ecuador to retire on. So this regulation would be bad for the rich and unpopular at large. It would help the young and the poor, the two chronically underrepresented groups.

So unless we can change the entire world order, I don’t see this wholly going away. Can we make it better? I think so. We need more supply, and it needs to be high density and low cost. Those are not insurmountable. But right now, private developers and the government don’t have what it takes to do anything.

I know someone who works for a low income housing non profit and they manage 8 big apartment buildings that their non profit built or bought and they operate them as homes for low income people. They are funded by philanthropists large and small as well as some public money.

If we could find a way to direct more money to such things, we could make a real impact. Perhaps a wealth tax that goes directly to such housing.

But even then, it’s like MediCal - it will only help those in abject poverty. It wont help my cousin who is making $125k and still can’t afford to buy a home. Middle class will never get help, basically, and this is why you see them moving elsewhere.

One time I got into a who-gets-the-parking-spot competition with another vehicle. I was faster and I got it. The other vehicle was a monster truck bigger than this one. As I got out and walked away I heard it’s h loud horn blare and a voice shouted “hey!” It was the guy in the monster truck. I walked over to him. He remained inside, rolled down the window. He was smallll. Like probably not quite 5 feet tall small. And in a little squeaky voice he said “aw man! I was gonna get that parking space, bro!” I just said “you mean that one where my car is?” and walked away.

I’ve seen this both ways in the past but something cool is happening right now.

First I saw white and gold when this scrolled up into my feed.

Now that I’m in the thread (in a client that has Dark Mode), if I spend a few seconds reading comments and then scroll UP to the picture, it looks blue & black for a second and then that FADES into white and gold.

How blue and black can fade into white and gold I can’t explain but it’s happening right in front of my eyes.

But plan a trip for next year because they’re going to need the tourism money to recover.

Sure. Young people make great activists. If only activism were counted. Old people quietly vote, consistently, many of them just dropping off an envelope at church or whatever. No big noise. No social media posts. And those votes are what gets counted.

Sometimes I think this is driven by basic stuff like the fact that young people move more often. I moved every year from age 18 to 25. That means my registration was usually behind, I didn’t always get my ballot in the mail, and I didn’t know where my polling place was necessarily. I’m old now and have been in the same residence for 10 years. My polling place is 2 doors down. I never miss a ballot. It’s really just that simple.

Damn. I hope the end of my days isn’t marked by such rancor.

The voters themselves are decrepit. Young people say voting won’t change things and bring their own prophecy true.

I said it for Mitch McConnell and I’ll say it for Feinstein too. People of advanced age whose mental faculties are becoming unreliable should not be in positions of great power. Step down, ma’am.

I’m from Oakland, fool, so you can kiss my ass. And you mean “inner city” which is a conservative dog whistle like “ghetto.” At least spell your racist jargon correctly if you’re going to open your mouth in public.

Who the hell said black people never harm each other, anyway? Not me. It doesn’t change the reality of systemic racism. In fact when you put people in harsh circumstances they tend to hurt each other more.

He can’t afford a whole bag.

In the US especially we also have to ask specifically, how well has America treated black people? The worst offenders I have seen on the morning bus have been black, but IMO they’re only treating the bus about as badly as they have been treated themselves. Which of those is the real outrage? The bus? No.

It’s true. I’ve seen a lot of these things on public transit and every single time, one look at the person tells you they are not okay, not by a longshot. It’s mildly infuriating that we leave people homeless and in such a condition in the first place. The fact that they shit on the bus is really just a symptom of that underlying wrong.

I’d love to see the “twit” lined up outside the front door / gate / electric fence of Musk’s residence.

This is one of the things I don’t like about the whole Twitter format. There’s no moderator layer. Every lemmy community must be created by a moderator and that mod can be held accountable.

There isn’t even a concept of communities on Twitter / Mastodon. Hashtags? Nobody owns monitoring them, and they can be freely improvised at will. It really is just the instance and its zillion users with nothing in between. Imagine a lemmy instance admin being responsible for all the moderation… would never work.

I find this bot especially enjoying because its “better” link format doesn’t work for me - is not highlighted or clickable. And it posts this so-called correction on links that DO work for me just fine.

A Buddhist temple.