The California cases were interesting, because at first I was almost inclined to agree with the prosecution, it seemed like blatant negligence. That being said, these people were clearly unwell, punishing them for the horrors brought forth by their poor decisions seems gratuitous. I think it would easily be a slippery slope without the sweeping ban that has been put in place on that.

Punishments also do not prevent or deter these things from happening in the first place, IMO. Investing in things like education and making healthcare and treatment accessible do.

I mean, even from a fiscally conservative standpoint, on paper it is substantially cheaper to rehabilitate people than it is to house them in a jail or prison. Tax payer funded slave labor sounds pretty good in comparison when you’re not paying taxes I guess.

No. Unless you had a ton of money in the account and you were already very close to retirement it just wouldn’t make sense. There are a lot of penalties when you pull an account early. I made a hardship withdrawal back in 2023 to make the down payment on my first home and that made sense for me, but even that type of thing isn’t right for everyone.

Your 401k will rebound eventually, retirement investment requires you to play the long game. If things get bad enough that your 401k is wiped out entirely then it really won’t matter whether or not you pulled the money out because it would likely be worthless in that situation.

It may be wise to change your elections so that the investments are less aggressive/volatile if you have that option, but otherwise try not to think about the total dollar amount as the economy shits the bed. It’s not like a bank account where the dollars equal dollars directly, the value of the investments can change quickly.

That ship may have already sailed before this administration took over, but my hope was that society could restructure itself in a way that would still sustain human life. At this point we may even be on an extinction track if nothing changes. The world is chaotic enough at 1.5C. I shutter to imagine a world at 4C.

The article was not paywalled, also I think the term we like to use for this phenomenon is “brain drain.”

The climate research community has been gutted by what’s happening with the US government. NOAA and NWS collected some of the most important and valuable data in the world for this and now that’s pretty much over. It will take decades to undo what has been done in only a few months and I’m being hopeful.

Money aside, as a society we should probably be putting more investment into keeping older, but fuel efficient cars on the road. The carbon footprint from manufacturing the car is already there and the with the fuel mileage/emissions/ longevity on something like a used Camry, a Tesla probably wouldn’t even last long enough to pass the break even point.

Buying a new EV makes sense for someone who’s driving a gas guzzling clunker, but most people driving those vehicles probably couldn’t afford an EV anyway.

This will probably fuck up the used car market so it’s stupid regardless, but we don’t have to keep buying new shit especially if it doesn’t make sense from an environmental standpoint as well as a financial one.

Driving into protesters is essentially legal in Florida per the Riot Bill if I recall. They made caveats to it like they have to be obstructing the road, as if that makes it much better. https://flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2021/1/?Tab=BillHistory

As horrible as this is, the hypocrisy is what pisses me off the most. Absolutely rubbing salt into the fact that these people are political targets

The call is coming from inside the house, they don’t need to spy anymore

There’s not even a good excuse for this lmao

Get this clickbait nonsense off of here

This is the type of shit we need right now. You give an inch and they will take a mile, don’t let them.

We’re already absolutely fucked here in the US, no need to waste any effort with further meddling at this point. The cure for this, globally, is that everyone needs to log off and touch grass. Obviously it’s much more nuanced than that, but I hope that makes sense. I deleted most of my social media and it has only had a positive impact on my well being.