The extra votes in PA beyond the magical single winning vote are meaningless too by that logic. And there are paths to victory for both candidates that don’t involve PA, so you don’t really know who got to cast the special winning vote until afterwards. The “swing states” only exist because of states like CA that vote more predictably. The EC is dogshit because of the disproportionate voting power and because the winner takes all at the state level (usually), not because of some post hoc analysis.

Pennsylvania is a large state, a vote there is barely worth more than a vote in California.

https://medium.com/practical-coding/whats-my-vote-worth-3ca2585b5d51

My point isn’t to defend the guy, it’s to put some context around the fact that half the Senate is even worse, so this is a disproportionate amount of villification. Let’s say he had an R next to his name, we then have a R majority leader and the whole Senate grinds to a halt. Then will you magically give him a pass because now being an asswipe is fully expected of him? That’s the kid gloves treatment you’re giving to the other 50 GOP senators that are the actual problem.

He’s not the Senate Majority Leader and doesn’t control what comes to a vote. I just don’t see the point of vilifying a centrist when there are 50 other lunatics that vote against progress 100% of the time. Manchin voted for all the judges, infra, chips, IRA, all the budget stuff, etc. Lets focus on the real problem - way too many GOP senators.

Manchin is a moderate that voted with Biden 88% of the time. You’ll be happy he’s not running for reelection and will be replaced with a worse R, so yay I guess? He’s the best you’ll get from WV anytime soon.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-congress-votes/joe-manchin/

Exactly. What I don’t understand is how everyone knows this, but somehow the stock is still high. Somehow Elon is singlehandedly keeping the stock up while doing literally nothing to help the company, make it make sense.

Well lucky for us they have the R2/R3(X) in the pipeline. Can’t come soon enough though, 2026 for the R2 seems like a lifetime away.

Pedantry warning - we use the plural for decimal quantities less than 1 too. E.g. the tank only made it 0.8 meters before collapsing into a pile of low grade steel.

Their intention is to protest how we are ignoring climate change, you know, the civilization ending catastrophe. There are road delays all the time, for construction, crashes, event traffic, weather, floods, electricity outages, etc. Do you get this upset for every one of those events?

I’d argue “share the road” includes uses such as protests, marches, bike races, whatever. It’s a public good, you don’t have the final say on “approved” uses. Traffic in my town is insane on game day, do I get to jail the sports teams organizers for the disruption for 5 years? Someone probably shat their pants due to the delay, where is their justice?! Boggles the mind that a trivial delay causes this much outrage. Car brain is a hell of a thing.

Why is the road so sacred? Aren’t there multiple roads all going to the same places?

That’s what the Trump diapers are for.

I’m the opposite, I think a proper show with professional fireworks is super fun but clowns setting off tiny loud POS fireworks randomly over the course of several hours are just annoying. They don’t have the boom boom, they don’t make much light, and people just set them off in residential areas near kids/dogs.

No, not really. People aren’t seeds, we have agency. A seed does not. You can believe that laziness doesn’t exist but that doesn’t make you correct. You’re just playing semantics with language. Laziness exists just as much as sadness or aggression or rage or fulfillment, these are all valid abstract nouns and concepts that we’ve ascribed meaning as part of language.

I don’t understand how you can compare people to something as simple as a seed yet still have a whole conversation about interests. Do you not see how these aren’t compatible ideas? Do we have free will or not?

You kept using the words “personal interests” though. When you extend those interests to broader society, that’s no longer personal by definition. You’re just describing voting for what you believe will create the society you want to live in, but you framed it in a misleading way as if personal greed will get us there.

On a philosophical level, you’ve separated these qualities from their application. Can we agree that when a situation calls for empathy but someone employs violence, that this is bad?

I understand sociapathy. What I don’t understand is why you or anyone else sympathizes with it. Your own handle has “socialist” in it yet you’re swooning over some libertarian drivel from a person that doesn’t think laziness even exists. Spoiler - it does.

What sort of Gordon Gecko / Kissinger, sociopathic nonsense is this? The problem is not enough empathy, not too much. People should prioritize what’s good for society because what’s good for society is also good for the individual. Things like universal healthcare, environmental protections, collective bargaining. I’m a straight white healthy dude, I guess I should just ignore LGBT, women, minorities, sick people, disabled people, education (I already am learned so fuck them kids) maybe a little genocide as long as it’s not against me personally. Might as well pull the ladder up because I don’t need it anymore, it’s in me personal interest!

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.

You should get some more diverse opinions then. Read it again through the lens of a confederate trying to preserve slavery. Or a straight person that doesn’t understand LGBT issues. Or someone that’s fortunate enough to not need healthcare (right now). Or someone that doesn’t see the effects of climate change on their doorstep. Or someone that hasn’t lost a family member to gun or vehicle violence. This isn’t wisdom, it’s sociopathy.

You’re still making the mistake of treating dems like some single monolith. It’s a coalition of just about everything that isn’t MAGA at this point, covering all sorts of ideals, yours being just one small part. The answer is still “get a majority of reps that aren’t asswipes” and then we’ll get legislation we want.

As to DC statehood, it would have gone through if not for Manchin because the Senate “majority” at the time hinged on his support. We need to win these seats with bigger majorities, period, and then they’ll pass better bills. The overwhelming majorty of Dems support DC statehood, saying “they won’t do it” is not a great take when they literally didn’t have the votes.

Sure, assuming you don’t think the American rescue plan, bipartisan infrastructure act, CHIPS, IRA, and the first massive tranche of funding for Ukraine are useful. I don’t think you realize how short 2 years is for the legislature and how narrow the dem margin was. They achieved significantly more useful legislation than I thought possible. Unfortunately they didn’t codify Roe, overhaul SCOTUS, or harden our institutions against fascism, so maybe you’re right. Who knows what they could do with a larger majority and control of the House/Senate for 2 more years though - it would be fun to find out, if we could avoid getting all worked up blaming different people we mostly agree with and vote big against fascism.

What kind of ice are you riding on? Snow, even packed snow it usually ok, but turning/braking on ice is a disaster without studded tires. Source - I’ve crashed on ice several times despite being a very competent rider in all conditions for 3 decades.