Barter was very rare in pre market economies. People weren’t trading potatoes for furniture.

You would barter with people you never expected to see again. People you lived with you would owe them one.

One point. Never recorded a CD from the radio.

The encyclopedia belonged to my grandparents, but I lived there and used it.

Those three states would more than double the population of Canada and overwhelm their political system. I wouldn’t do that if I were them.

Some of us are. No idea how many. We are separated into news bubbles.

First of all, screw the Democrats they are not left wing. They are center right shitlibs, with a few milqtoast standouts like Bernie and AOC.

Second. You correctly look at democrats and see they are just Republicans lite, but your mistake is in thinking that going further left leads to greater power to the state to curtail speech, thought, and action. The left wants liberation. Economic and social. The power of government to celurtail speech is not liberation, it’s oppression.

Is it worse than the first term?

Yes. Trump didn’t think he would win the first time. He had no plan for what do do if he won, so he leaned hard on institutional knowledge of party stalwarts and military people, along with a few trusted insiders from his campaign, but they didn’t know how Washington worked.

This time hard core ideologues from the Heritage foundation were ready. They are tired of democracy and limits on the power of wealth so they are dismantling it with project 2025.

Why are legal people being kicked out?

Trump has only a few actual policies he cares about and one is to stop brown people from imigrating to live in America. This is also a test case of his own power. Because if he can disappear green card holders without due process he can also get rid of citizens that are a threat to his power.

He is getting ready for a night of long knives and a krystalnaght.

When is it time to consider leaving?

Depends. If you are an anti Israel green card holder with a history of organizing college campus protests you should probably pack your bags and make your way to the nearest airport.

If you are a citizen or permanent resident you have to make a judgement about what you are giving up, where you can go, and how likely we are to go full 3rd Reich.

I will say that if we declare war on Canada or Mexico, you should probably make your way to the other one unless you want to stay and fight it out.

Yeah all 50 states is crazy. New York and Cali have enough people to get a protest going at the drop of a pin.

Texas has Austin, you get protests there. East coast cities, Chicago, you can get protests.

But there are dozens of states that just don’t have that kind of energy or population density, but they do now.

There have been dozens.

If you want to abrogate your responsibility as a citizen that’s your choice.

I will not be an unthinking cog in a deeply flawed legal system.

Not all. Pre industrial humans where I live ate a lot of slow roasted cactus. After 2 days buried with hot stones the cactus hearts were caramelized. I’ve tasted it prepared in the traditional manner and it’s just syrup in a leaf. Delicious, and I have no doubt it was great energy for people that had to walk miles every day.

Anyone that lived past 30 had their teeth rot right out of their head, according to the archiological record.

If I am on a jury, part of my job is to consider the justice of the law.

Milei’s performance really does depend on your metric.

If all you care about is inflation and regulations, then he’s doing all right. Somewhere between fantastic and “eh, he’s getting there” depending on how you squint.

If you care about how many people are in poverty, or struggling to eat, he has been a disaster.

Conservatives don’t care about suffering. The suffering is natural. Life is hard. Lots of people are losers. Trying to stop the suffering just moves the pain from people who deserve to suffer (the poor) to people who don’t deserve it. (The rich)

Yes. I do prefer to watch films not in English in their original language.

The only exception would be very fast dialogue or multiple people speaking at once. But I can read at the speed of most movie speech.

Military power and wealth have an irrisisatable pull. China can still make deals and do diplomacy. Even North Korea can cut deals with Russia. Russia and Iran work together. One nations pariah state is anothers opportunity.

The rest of the world will hedge their bets, but if the US negotiators start talking sense again after the trump admin they will attend the meetings and make agreements hoping for the best. International law people live and breathe the hypocrisy of tyrants and democrats alike.

The optimism of the 1990s is dead, but that was a lie even then. The US reputation as the “leader of the free world” is dead. It was a self appointed title anyway.

The world will keep spinning and deals will still be made by non idiots.

If the predictions in this thread of a hot civil war in the US prove true, then deals will be made with whatever comes out of that.

I hope not, but I am not optimistic about the next few years/decades

20 years of progress?

12 years is optimistic. Every Republican has been a mistake going back to Nixon, but the US is a fundamentally conservative country, we want corruption in the highest halls of power, and our voters will keep coming back to it.

Thank you for the clarification.

They don’t realize that… Yet.

“electric vehicles factories were built” “the government had nothing to do with it.”

These people deserve trump, Amazon, and poverty if they can’t see the connection between the inflation reduction act and electric vehicle factories.

That’s the only good thing about democracy. You generally get the government you deserve.

Americans are pissed as all hell. Michael Moore said in 2016 “the American people will throw Donald Trump into Washington like a Molotov Cocktail.”

We do not agree who is at fault. 40% the voters think it’s brown people and queer people and about 30% of them think it’s the wealthy.

I can’t deny there are dirty jobs that nobody would do on a lark or as a hobby or even a calling.

A busted sewer is a community emergency. You can ask the infirm, the pregnant, the elderly “what are you willing to do to support our efforts to fix the sewer?” And the answer might be cook some large meals, care for the children, or take someone’s regular job for a week

Yes, everyone will be side eyeing young, strong, men (and maybe women) to take the lead on fixing the sewer. There might be promises to make it up to them later. A fifty year old with carpentry experience might offer to expand a house install new cabinets if they will help with the sewer. I do think there are things that others can do to support a major effort like that.