There is a certain sort of person who emotionally needs more attention than they regularly get, and they learn to get their fix by doing irritating things like this.

Whining that you don't have the latest shiny, or you don't want to do things that way, or otherwise asking for special accommodations constantly is a common expression of this.

Some people are also just pricks with the obsessive need to always be right, even in situations where they're hiring someone to educate them. At superficial exposure, it can be hard to tell the difference, but with a little more time it becomes clear which is which.

It was only a matter of time.

So my partner (who irrationally worries about such things) will consent to buying one.

That's it.

The reasons don't need to be good. The arguments don't matter at all. 600 mile range is what some people expect/require from their vehicle.

Kansas is a welfare state. Like other welfare recipients, it is prudent to require it to meet certain criteria.

If Kansas wants to keep its population stupid and poor, it can do so on its own dime.

But the life-ruining consequences of being divorced are quite outrageous

Not everyone is cut out for the marriage.

You're clearly not ready for it, and that's OK. Just move on with your life and maybe you'll get there someday.

I work for a startup made-good, bought by a very large company you have heard of if you live in the US.

The switched us to Office/Outlook about a year ago.

Shit still doesn't work.

My only use of word is to format docs for the business types after I write them, so I don't really care about it. I mean, it is shitty, but whatever, I'm a Unix guy, I'm used to shitty UI.

What does bug me is Outlook. I get invites to meetings after they happen, mail gets randomly delayed for no apparent reason while I get other mail. And the UI does matter more there - they calendar will randomly refresh back to "today" when I'm trying to look at future things. The whole application randomly decides something is wrong and stops working until a restart.

And then there's the freakish "web" vs executable split.

Lots of Excel features don't work on the web, and apparently I use all of them. So after I share something and have to edit it again, I have to use this eunuch version that constantly tells me I'm doing it wrong.

Not too long from now I'll get the locked-down laptop from them, and not have any option to not use them. But that's fine, I expect to be laid off not long after that.

Regarding college kids discovering multiculturalism as more of a threat to free speech than Trump and Musk is... amazing.

You expect that nonsense from outright Nazis, Musk bros and Talebangicals.

This country had a good run, but it does appear to be time to leave.

Any state-ordered blocking must link to the text of the specific legal order on the page returned when someone accesses a banned URL.

Unless this is done, the government has a cheap, easy, undetectable way to censor. Just slide in whatever URLs you want and everyone has to assume it is part of one of the many blocking orders.

There is no right to privacy.

There is no right to your image.

Government can TRY to make those rights, but the freedom of expression is superior to the idea that you can stop me from hand drawing your image when you're at the beach.

I use robots to play Candy Crush for me.

This will go well.

Does Superman have to do with Sharia?

If you want to find Taliban-style authoritarian moralism, you don't have the leave the country. Book bans, secret police, explicitly religious political messaging (Can't find the URL of the whitehouse propaganda video, I was thinking of, but you can find your own examples) , surveillance of political speech...

That's The American Way at the moment.

So, to sum up your argument, we've become weak, hedonistic, and uncaring about our own civilization.

"We" are no different than our great grandparents or their great grandparents. What has changed is the environment, and it would have effected them the same way.

What you call "weak", others people call "wealthy".

What you see "hedonism", others see agency and self-determination.

And the only people who ever spend time fretting about "our own civilization" are people who are unhappy with it and want it to change.

I'd also note you seem to have so internalized the "exponential growth forever" belief that you can't even see it. The earth's carrying capacity is not infinite, as we're learning a bit more every day. I'm absolutely not some Elifist or similar, but it is simply true, and those who profess to care deeply about "civilization" need to confront it if they want to be taken seriously.

And while abstractly there's no inherent political valence here, in this world these beliefs are mostly professed by authoritarian-natalists whose program is also wrapped around eugenics and really shitty racial beliefs as well as regressive beliefs about rights (especially those of women) and social control. I don't know if you're in that category or not, but that's a really ugly path to be treading.

Everyone knows that's disinformation to hide how deeply rooted in history opposition to vaccines really is.

This is statism, writ large.

You get paid for work you PERFORM, but not work you RECORD. Copyright is anti-individual rights and liberties.

I'll be glad when Ai truly replaces all of these artists.