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Yay - glad you stopped by @Phoenix_person! I've been in the private workplace since high school. I've weathered maybe almost a dozen economic downturns, and experienced all sorts of workplace stress from the uncertainty. Yes, on more than one occasion, I've had to update a resume for review by the people I was employed by, with the obvious ominous overtones that if they didn't like what they saw, I might be fired. Medium and large companies. I've been laid off twice. Once with zero warning, once after watching 3 months of downsizing finally get to me. You've shared publicly that you're a disabled vet involved in community organizing, but have you ever been employed by someone other than the government? It's not a gotcha question, it's just that I've known many people who have never worked in the private sector, and they tend to be utterly clueless about the realities of working in happy capitalist America. Where the indignities of having to apply for your own job, getting laid off, experiencing stress and uncertainty about the next paycheck, unfairness brought about by ignorant or uncaring bosses, cutthroat meritocracy coupled with nefarious co-workers, are all part of the experience. From my conservative point of view, it's a tragic inexcusable injustice that government employees have historically been protected from such realities at the taxpayer's expense. In my opinion, a reckoning like this is about 50 years overdue. Imagine taking issue with someone experiencing confusion and a lack of clarity from management as downsizing is happening. Heh. Welcome to the real world my friend. The video starts at 12:47 when Musk starts taking questions on the topic, and he answers the questions through roughly 14:22 in which he describes the intent of the email request and the reasoning behind it. Anyway, glad you dropped by. Are you proud of your governor for replacing words like mother with "inseminated person"? https://www.wisconsinrightnow.com/gov-tony-evers-wants-to-change-mother-to-inseminated-person-in-state-law/

Mathematicians

https://people.com/david-johansen-dead-new-york-dolls-singer-dies-at-75-11679388 We knew this one was coming too. The lead singer of one of my the most influential bands of all time has passed away from stage 4 cancer. I’ve posted this song 10,000 times before here, but one more time.

There's a common belief on the far Left, which I share, that capitalism is collapsing on itself. We live in a system that is propped up on the assumption that anyone can work their way up and become wealthy. While there's truth to that, it's tainted by the fact that ~99% of the world's population will never achieve that regardless of how many bootstraps we pull up (those of us who have bootstraps, that is). Wealth disparity is getting out of control, and it's unsustainable. If the religious want continued population growth, and the sense I've always gotten from this forum is that you do, then eventually the scales will need to be balanced. There's no reason to believe that we can't feed the hungry, heal the sick, and house the homeless to a far greater extent than we currently are. I haven't heard many arguments against it that don't boil down to "Billionaires have an inherent right to hoard wealth, and taxing them out of billionaire status is tyranny". It's dumbfounding how often I hear these talking points from people who are WAY closer to being in poverty than they are to being wealthy. And it's not hard to see where those talking points come from. The reason why science and theology are forever at odds with each other is because one believes that absolute truths exist and the other does not. Science knows it doesn't have all the answers and is okay with that. And yes, science gets things wrong all the time. That's why it's constantly being vetted and challenged. It's a feature, not a bug, and it's always been that way. It's hard to "trust" something that's absolute, because trust isn't necessary in that hypothetical instance. There's a saying in some atheist circles: only Sith and religious fundamentalists deal in absolutes.

I get aggravated in how we (mostly politicians) use the word science. The following are a few of my favorite quotes about science: “We don’t know. We got nothing folks. Well, we got something. It’s tough... It’s tough.” - Paul M. Sutter atrophysicist commenting about the theory of early Universe inflation and why it stopped. “Science doesn’t tell us why. It tells us why we were wrong.” - Stuart Firestein (Neuroscientist) “Science isn’t about being right.” - Grant Tremblay Astrophysicist After reportedly reviewing a paper with ideas that were so flawed or nonsensical and barely met the basic criteria of scientific discourse he commented, ‘This isn’t right, It’s not even wrong…’ - Wolfgang Pauli Theoretical Physicist Science tests a null hypothesis. We make shaky theories and then use these theories to make predictions. We shouldn’t. When I hear a politician say we are following the science, I cringe.

He’s been in many fine movies, but he’ll always be Lex Luthor to me.