Political Discussion

Joe Mac said:
Both are awful companies. Fuck them. What comes in after can’t be worse.
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Last time I had to use one (I accidentally locked my keys in my car while at the record store, and had to have em take me across town to get my spare set) I knew it was gonna be a round trip so when I got in the car I asked the guy what he would charge off the books for the ride back and he was super happy to oblige. It save me $10 buck and he made $10 more than he would have if we went through the app.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
Last time I had to use one (I accidentally locked my keys in my car while at the record store, and had to have em take me across town to get my spare set) I knew it was gonna be a round trip so when I got in the car I asked the guy what he would charge off the books for the ride back and he was super happy to oblige. It save me $10 buck and he made $10 more than he would have if we went through the app.
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The whole way they work is just so shady. The put so many restrictions on the drivers that any court in a competent jurisdiction would find them to be employees but the exploitative bastards push hard to classify them as “self-employed” availing of a platform in an attempt to shirk so many responsibilities that arise from the employee employer relationship. I’d go as far as saying if it can be avoided never use them if you believe in the concept of workers rights and fair pay.
 
I knew my holding companies health benefits sucked and were below the national average, but is the same true for my 401k?

They have a maximum match of 4%. And you have to pay in 4% to get 4%. In additional, you get 1% match your first year, 2% match your second year and so until you hit the 4%.

In a discussion about 401k's I was following, I'm reading about people who have a 8% match after 3 years, and they only need to contribute 2.5% to get that 8%. That blows my mind that there are companies that generous out there.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
I don't disagree there is a huge amount of personal data on social media, but I do think this is a different issue. I think privacy laws need to be put into place to protect said data and allow you to opt out. That largely does not exist for any platform. Opting out largely means not being able to use said platform.

This is where I love the Apple Ecosystem. With iOS I can opt out of allowing apps to trackme. I also use the Cloudflare VPN to anonymize my data both on iOS and my Mac.

Sadly, Facebook and what not are bringing on Antitrust cases against Apple over this in both the EU, UK and US. Not being able to collect revenue on data Apple is preventing them from obtaining they say should be illegal and is a form of "gatekeeping". And this is gaining traction in government's crackdown of big tech.

I don't like where the crackdowns are going. I would love to see crackdowns on protecting consumers data. Not crackdowns that protect corporations rights to obtain and sell our data.

If Apple can't be the gatekeeper of our personal data, then who can be? It certainly won't be Facebook and alike corporations. And I have zero trust in governments to act as that gatekeeper. They will always be years behind in updating laws to protect consumer privacy. And would they have consumer privacy interest first?

Also, you would be surprised by how many apps try to access your clipboard, screenshot your device or screen record your device in the background. Why do they need to do that?
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I agree with your points on the need for more regulation of social media and internet companies in general when it comes to data privacy and use. However, TikTok is a different situation because it is a Chinese company. Forget for the moment that the audience and reach of the platform makes it an ideal mechanism for spreading propaganda and misinformation. The main reason to ban TikTok/force a sale is that the Chinese do not allow any US media companies to operate freely in China.

Rupert Murdoch had to become a US citizen in order to own Fox and WSJ. That didn’t work out so well, but at least he is subject to US laws.
 
I've watched the full episode now, and it does a great job of explaining how we got here, what the problems are and how it's not just 1 problem, but a combination of of different factors.

The part that I loved the most was John Oliver made a point of saying the student loan debt crisis isn't a "personal responsibility" problem, but a "bad policy problem".

I have had a conversation with baby boomers in the the past about my student loan debt and how I got here. How the policies, system and expectations all drive you into this debut that you can't get out from another. And know what their response was? That I was providing every excuse possible to blame someone else rather than myself. It comes down to nothing other than personal responsibility and that I made bad financial decisions and borrowed more money than I could afford to pay back without a plan in place to pay it back when I was 18. And that attitude / response was downright infurrating.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
I knew my holding companies health benefits sucked and were below the national average, but is the same true for my 401k?

They have a maximum match of 4%. And you have to pay in 4% to get 4%. In additional, you get 1% match your first year, 2% match your second year and so until you hit the 4%.

In a discussion about 401k's I was following, I'm reading about people who have a 8% match after 3 years, and they only need to contribute 2.5% to get that 8%. That blows my mind that there are companies that generous out there.
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Our company doesn't match. Most people tell me that's rare, but I'm not surprised, my company is weird.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
I've watched the full episode now, and it does a great job of explaining how we got here, what the problems are and how it's not just 1 problem, but a combination of of different factors.

The part that I loved the most was John Oliver made a point of saying the student loan debt crisis isn't a "personal responsibility" problem, but a "bad policy problem".

I have had a conversation with baby boomers in the the past about my student loan debt and how I got here. How the policies, system and expectations all drive you into this debut that you can't get out from another. And know what their response was? That I was providing every excuse possible to blame someone else rather than myself. It comes down to nothing other than personal responsibility and that I made bad financial decisions and borrowed more money than I could afford to pay back without a plan in place to pay it back when I was 18. And that attitude / response was downright infurrating.
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Most of us were 16/17 when we picked a college and signed up for financial assistance; it should be considered a parental failure.
 
Bull Shannon said:
Most of us were 16/17 when we picked a college and signed up for financial assistance; it should be considered a parental failure.
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It was even a worse experience for me.

Never once did the cost of going to school was discussed. I had no involvement with applying for financial aid / student loans, my father did it all for me without talking to me or going over the options or what he signed up for. I was just told "you are all set".
 
RenegadeMonster said:
It was even a worse experience for me.

Never once did the cost of going to school was discussed. I had no involvement with applying for financial aid / student loans, my father did it all for me without talking to me or going over the options or what he signed up for. I was just told "you are all set".
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It was the same in my household; growing up the concept of my college fund was bandied about, and the cost of my education was always leveraged against me as what I was living up to: I was to behave and excel in school because they were footing the bill. During my sophomore year I was very much rethinking my school choice, got accepted to transfer to NYU, and my folks put the kibosh on it because it would be "too expensive." Even though the costs were mine to assume they acted like it was their burden.

Come June '08 when I graduated and the first bills arrived, my parents forwarded them to me. No sympathy for entering the job market during a recession, just a suggestion to defer defer defer and crater my credit rating. When I brought up the past assumption that they were covering college, they played dumb and said I was being resentful, then expressed their own resentment for having to pay the few loans they did put out under their own names.

I wouldn't be surprised if many members of our cohort have similar stories about a similar assumption.
 
Under my parents divorce agreement, my father was supposed to be on the hook for my first year of college.

That never came to fruition, all the loans he took out were in my name, not his. He didn't put a dime towards my college education.

I also graduated in 2008. Rough time. My first job out of school only lasted 6 months because the business I was working for went under. I was working multiple part time minimum wage retail jobs after that and it was defer defer defer until I was out of deferment time. My loans ballooned because they were accruing interest the whole time.

Then, in 2015 when I was laid off I got screwed because I had no deferment / forbearance left. My private student loans had no income based repayment option like federal, and payments were still due. For my Federal loans I was able to have a 0 dollar minimum payment under the income based repayment plan until I landed a job again, but again, interest kept piling on.

I got so underwater I could never recover and ended up in forbearance in both because the minimum payments for both federal and private student loans was equal to a little over 3 car payments a month. Plus I had a car payment and rent was 40% of my salary. I defaulted.

In 2019 the department of education added nearly $10,000 in collections / legal fees to my account balance, in addition to interest. Because I was defaulted and not in a agreed upon repayment plan (because we couldn't agree on a repayment plan that I could actually afford with my rent and not to mention they don't take into account that my private student loans also exist).

I expect that crap to start again this year.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
I've watched the full episode now, and it does a great job of explaining how we got here, what the problems are and how it's not just 1 problem, but a combination of of different factors.

The part that I loved the most was John Oliver made a point of saying the student loan debt crisis isn't a "personal responsibility" problem, but a "bad policy problem".

I have had a conversation with baby boomers in the the past about my student loan debt and how I got here. How the policies, system and expectations all drive you into this debut that you can't get out from another. And know what their response was? That I was providing every excuse possible to blame someone else rather than myself. It comes down to nothing other than personal responsibility and that I made bad financial decisions and borrowed more money than I could afford to pay back without a plan in place to pay it back when I was 18. And that attitude / response was downright infurrating.
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It's a policy failure for sure. didn't watch the Oliver piece yet, but cutting back on funding education is a huge mistake. It coincides with the Civil Rights movement in the late 60s/70s. I won't go down that rabbit hole in this response, but suffice it to say countries that emphasized and funded education have seen tremendous gains over the last 50 years (for example China and India). Discouraging your citizens from getting smarter because of cost is just stupid.
 
The smear campaign against Jonathan Glazer since his (completely evenhanded) oscar speech has been appalling. Truly horrifying to me how people can watch The Zone of Interest, a movie about the dangers of ignoring atrocities in your backyard, and still refuse to make the correlation to Israel and Gaza. The movie's own producer, amazingly, has come out and says he "disagrees" with Glazer. The director of the film Son of Saul has come out and said he "should have kept silent." What the fuck kind of delusional take is that for an artist? Today, a letter was published with jewish celebrities (jennifer jason leigh, brett gelman, julianna margolise, etc) condeming him. Mind you, his words are that he "refutes his judaism and the holocaust being used to enact violence on innocent people." What is there to disagree with in that? And the Academy has yet to upload his speech to their official page. Zionism has rotted people's brains.

Naomi Klein (as usual) has the best take it: The Zone of Interest is about the danger of ignoring atrocities – including in Gaza | Naomi Klein

I have no doubt Glazer's speech, and work will stand the test of time, and this will looked back on as an embarrassing lack of media literacy. But the degree to which we're being told from all angles to ignore what we're seeing, hearing, and reading these days has me extremely frustrated and pissed.

Anyway, it's free palestine yesterday, free palestine today, and free palestine tomorrow.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
nypost.com

Police post photos of suspects with Lego heads to protect IDs under new California law

The Murrieta PD has been posting hilarious arrest and lineup photos with suspects’ faces replaced by Lego heads to comply with a woke state law protecting offenders’ rights.
nypost.com nypost.com
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The post throws "woke" around to describe the law (keep it classy, NYP!), but the police department continuing to share those booking shots with toy/cartoon faces strikes me as deliberately antagonistic and dehumanizing. Like...I think the PD would use the same word to describe the law.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
nypost.com

Police post photos of suspects with Lego heads to protect IDs under new California law

The Murrieta PD has been posting hilarious arrest and lineup photos with suspects’ faces replaced by Lego heads to comply with a woke state law protecting offenders’ rights.
nypost.com nypost.com
Click to expand...

Bull Shannon said:
The post throws "woke" around to describe the law (keep it classy, NYP!), but the police department continuing to share those booking shots with toy/cartoon faces strikes me as deliberately antagonistic and dehumanizing. Like...I think the PD would use the same word to describe the law.
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All Cats Are Beautiful
 
The US Justice Department filed a class action lawsuit against Apple today. Apple is the last big tech company to have yet have action taken against them after the 2020 antitrust hearings. Lawsuits were already filed against Meta (Facebook), Google and Amazon.

What surprises me is the subject mater of the lawsuit. If anything I would have thought it would have been about Epic or Spotify's complaints or Meta's in terms of Apple not allowing them to track people without users giving their consent.

Instead, it's mostly over:
  • Apple Watch does not work with competitors phones
  • iMessage access is blocked from competitors
  • FindMy location blocked from competitors (iPhone location is not available to competitors device / services)
  • NFC (Tap to pay) is not available to third party apps.
 
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