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Technology & Information / Re: The Flat Earth Society official IRC chat

« on: November 07, 2024, 06:28:48 PM »

RIP mibbit and kiwi

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: US Presidential Election 2024

« on: October 11, 2024, 12:23:33 PM »

Where do these polls happen? I've always wanted to be Polled.

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)

« on: December 26, 2023, 02:22:48 PM »

oh hey, it's vongeo

*this video is unavailable*

cool

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Now Playing

« on: December 15, 2023, 01:30:13 AM »

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)

« on: December 11, 2023, 06:49:51 PM »

oh hey, it's vongeo

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Now Playing

« on: December 06, 2023, 05:28:48 PM »

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Now Playing

« on: October 09, 2023, 04:21:49 PM »

Me and my new bb bass =



But I'm looking at you too Hysteria 👀

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Now Playing

« on: September 21, 2023, 05:26:03 PM »

masked men>>>

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Now Playing

« on: September 11, 2023, 04:46:23 PM »

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Now Playing

« on: August 31, 2023, 03:29:32 PM »

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Now Playing

« on: August 23, 2023, 05:40:57 PM »

This song has been stuck in my head a lot lately and I blame tiktok.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Biden is using American taxpayer money to pay off my loans

« on: July 06, 2023, 02:00:05 PM »

If anything, we are too haphazard about demanding young adults go up to their eyeballs in debt to get a degree that they have a very good chance of not even using for their career. The meme of college being necessary to make more money or have a better life is simply not true. Higher education is not a trade school, we have for too long conflated "got my degree" with "skill certification for better job".

It's not impossible to get a good job without some kind of degree but it will be a struggle to find something unless you're lucky. But I agree, we shouldn't be demanding it. The practice of weeding out applicants by requiring they have some kind of bachelor's degree even though it's not at all relevant to the job should stop.

I personally believe that just paying off debts, no matter what kind of debt, is treating the symptoms and not the disease. It's a form of kicking the can down the road. It's useful as part of a wider solution, but I have as of yet seen zero politicians propose debt forgiveness as part of a wider solution.

Yee

If we're going to go the proper route, I'd propose that community colleges and state schools operate like public schools except you, the student, must pay for any books and supplies.  Otherwise the schools and staff are tax payer paid.

Still might incurr debt, but it'll be much lower.

Yes, I like this.

So the principle of having to pay something for that doesn't seem wrong to me. It's just the level of it. Saddling kids with that level of debt before they've really got going as an adult and then them coming out into a housing market where certainly in the cities it's basically impossible to get a foothold on the housing ladder. It doesn't feel right to me.

This exactly.

I never argued for higher education to be free. Biden's forgiveness plan only would have given back 10k so even he wasn't going to cover the full debts. But a system where most jobs want you to have some kind of degree even if it isn't relevant, then not paying well, and saddling kids with over 100k of debt with interest is fucking predatory and gross as shit.

The forgiveness plan shouldn't be all we're looking at. These issues need to be resolved at the root. But rich people were bailed out during covid and I never saw anyone throw a hissy fit and try to stop that from happening. But if it's for regular struggling people? Fuck them kids I guess.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Biden is using American taxpayer money to pay off my loans

« on: July 05, 2023, 09:58:12 PM »

These people signed the loans as adults and must face the consequences of their decisions. If you are going to spend $120K on anything you had better have a good plan on getting the money back, and should have done the research to see what was possible on the return on investment for what you want to do.

It is also possible to make poor business decisions and acquire a lot of business debt. When your business fails the fault falls with you and no one else. You should have done a better job with research, product development, and advertising that is suitable for the current market. These students made the equivalent of a bad business decision and in many cases signed loans that can't be cleared with bankruptcy.

It's one thing if a freak accident caused you to acquire hospital debt that was not your fault, but this was all their fault from the start. You should be responsible for your poor decisions.

You're right, buddy. Expensive degrees required for low paying jobs is the fault of the students. America is working great, we're definitely not taking advantage of the masses to line pockets. 👍

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Biden is using American taxpayer money to pay off my loans

« on: July 05, 2023, 07:24:38 PM »

Further, I would like to make the point that no one is required to get a degree, which is why coincidentally, most people on the planet don't have one.

But more than half of Americans do have one. No one is required to get one but then they end up working low income jobs and you get people like Bishop who might say they don't deserve to have a liveable wage if they didn't want to get a "real job."

We're making that comparison because about 40% of Americans have mortgage debt. About 20% have student loan debt. Does it not make more sense to subsidize Americans trying to pay for homes than for education, if your argument is based on affordability?

But it's not just affordability. I would argue that it's more necessary to get a college degree in this country then it is to buy a home as without a college degree you will likely not earn enough to ever be able to afford a home anyway.

Also, more than half of American households have two incomes so generally the burden is shared at least. And there is definitely a difference between starting your adult life in debt and choosing to go into debt because you decided you can buy a home later in your adult life.

And if you say again that you can choose to not get a degree, you are technically correct but I'd refer you back to my first point: No one is required to get one but then they end up working low income jobs and you get people like Bishop who might say they don't deserve to have a liveable wage if they didn't want to get a "real job." So damned if you do and damned if you don't.

If we're worried about people paying off their debts, it should be a broad "pay off your debts" program based on the person's situation at the time. Slinging out free money for specific kinds of debt is not a solution.

Sounds like a good idea to me. Also, why are we "slinging out free money"? You had to qualify for Biden's student loan forgiveness program: You must earn less than $125,000 a year for individuals, or $250,000 for married couples and/or head of households.

Young adults who are debt free contribute more to the economy and would probably be more likely to start a family. But yeah, I'm also all for a general debt forgiveness program. It'd be more of a bandaid then solving any issue but as you pointed out, no one here is qualified or capable of fixing the situation. Shit just sucks.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Biden is using American taxpayer money to pay off my loans

« on: July 05, 2023, 04:59:25 PM »

It was always possible for young people to get an expensive degree in Paleolithic History or whatever passion topic they want to study and then subsequently find that they have a tough time getting a job with it.

I don't see why free handouts are required. Those graduates should just accept that they didn't pursue the degree to make money and did it solely for personal interest. If the goal was to make money, then they already knew what they needed to study, and will simply have to start again. Of course, it probably would have been a lot easier if they had pursued a money-making career first and their passion degree second once they had a good income stream coming in, but life is full of learning lessons.

All of this is a bullshit empty argument and I know you know it. Maybe one day we can grow beyond the stupid af Republican talking points.

Every job should pay a liveable wage. If it can't afford to do so then it shouldn't be a job. No one here is demanding free handouts (reminder that the student loan forgiveness plan would not have covered the full debt of going to a 4 year university), just reasonably priced education since degrees are almost always required for any entry level position.

Many people can't even afford to buy houses anymore so maybe let's stop making that comparison because I can't see how that helps the argument.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Biden is using American taxpayer money to pay off my loans

« on: July 05, 2023, 03:49:50 PM »

As far as I understand it, there has never been a single point in history in which a price cap on something worked out in anyone's favor.

Ok well you can try to have an imagination and maybe agree that things need to be regulated more. Or just say you think things are going great now and we should continue on without trying to improve anything.

Also, "Economists do know, however, that price controls can be theoretically beneficial when imposed appropriately on a monopolist or monopsonist, and they do tend to work better in imperfectly competitive markets."
https://www.stlouisfed.org/en/publications/regional-economist/2022/mar/why-price-controls-should-stay-history-books#authorbox

A price cap on insulin, for example, was extremely necessary btw and the government finally realized that.

If universities don't fall into that category then fine. Let's just all continue to spend ~120,000 for a degree or whatever it is now. Young adults definitely deserve to enter into the work force with that level of debt in order to get a job that pays maybe $20 an hour.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Biden is using American taxpayer money to pay off my loans

« on: July 05, 2023, 03:00:49 PM »

I'd argue that the government's attempts to "fix" college costs with low interest student loans are actually what drove the costs so ludicrously high in the first place. The ability of students to take out massive loans when they have little concept of the value of money is causing universities to get away with overspending. It's much the same reason that the stimulus money given to individuals and businesses drove inflation sky-high. If you give out what amounts to free money to 18 year olds, then businesses will exist to take it.

Yep, I agree.

Paradoxically, I believe that if student loans were either more expensive or more difficult to acquire, you'd see college costs coming down.

Or we just regulate shit more. Force price caps. Same goes for hospitals that want to charge you $60 for one ibuprofen pill. People will overcharge for as long as they can get away with it.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Biden is using American taxpayer money to pay off my loans

« on: July 05, 2023, 12:50:46 PM »

Oh no, it turns out Biden isn't using American taxpayer money to pay off my loans after all. I'll have to pay them back myself, oh the humanity! Responsibility for my own actions? Gross. I perish the thought.

Slapping a bunch of 18 year olds with huge debt because college is ludicrously expensive is rather gross. I would rather our taxes go to making us better than other places. But I think a more important goal is to make college/universities not so stupidly expensive and then implement debt programs.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Aliens!

« on: June 27, 2023, 06:30:18 PM »

hey look, Rushy
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4067865-congress-doubles-down-on-explosive-claims-of-illegal-ufo-retrieval-programs/

And then the reddit post talking about it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/14kbyls/congress_doubles_down_on_explosive_claims_of/

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Aliens!

« on: June 25, 2023, 03:40:50 PM »

If we had any real data, the Russians would already have it. (Solarwinds)

I've never seen anything say they have all of the pentagon's data but I guess I wouldn't know.

Also, so? I'm sure Russia has their own UAP data as well. Not sure how that's relevant to discrediting our own whistleblowers.