I agree whole-heartedly about he separations necessary. But (to me) it all starts by getting power back in the hands of the people on the street, rather than the rich assholes and CEOs. Citizen councils at least take that first step.

In my world, the council reps are like jury duty.

Elections proceed as normal for the Congressman/Senator/Member of Parliament, or whatever it is that is being elected. In that person's riding/constituency.

7 Averge, working class citizens are drawn randomly from his/her constituency for a 1-year term with the mandate being that, once a month, that representative has to present himself in front of that panel to defend their voting record, their expenditures, and their conduct.

Declutter what is unnecessary. Ditch the senate. In Canada it's an appointed useless position used for Cronyism, While in the states it's nonfunctional for it's supposed purpose (being a check and balance for the congress). With the representative now being directly answerable monthly to the people in their own constituency, the Senate is rendered moot.

I think every single elected representative needs to be under the direct scrutiny of a panel of seven people from their own constituency, made up of ordinary citizens from all walks of life. This panel has the mandate to scrutinize every expense, investigate every "donation", question every vote that representative has made in the house/senate/etc... and ask "Does this representative continue to work for our district's interest?"

If the answer ever becomes no, they have the authority to oust him immediately and have a recall election.

And yes, I'm fully aware that this was the original Marxist ideal of the concept of the Soviet before Stalinism purged that all away and went full authoritarian.

No. Not wrong. But like everything else in this propogandized polarised world, I generally believe nothing is either as bad or as good as the loudest voices like to pretend.

Cyber risks aren't unimportant, of course, but our risks from China are certainly no worse or better than the Cyber risks from the American government or even our own.

In a statement, Canada's big three automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis — said the entry of these EVs "undermines" the domestic auto industry and opens Canadians up to "cyber risks."

A hard cap of 49,000 Chinese E.V.s (roughly 3 percent of the market) doesn't undermine the Canadian manufacturers, it just forces them to actually fucking do somehing to make their own EVs more appealing.

Any guy who feels the need to proclaim himself a Nice Guy probably isn't one.

I've honestly been having some trouble getting into Prey. Don't know why. It theoretically should be everything I enjoy in a first person game, but somehow I always turn it off after a half hour or so. I'll keep trying because, hell, I paid for the damn thing. But yeah.... It's no dishonored (but what is really)

Trans women are women, so what's the writer's point here? That it's somehow gay to watch trans porn?

I'm the first person to say I don't understand how the nuances of sexuality work. If I had to make a guess, I'd say that humans aren't actually attracted to "Male" or "Female", so much as they are attracted to "Masculine" and "Feminine". regardless of the relative body parts that may or may not be under their clothes.

It says nothing at all about their sexuality, because it's nobody's business but their own.

He shits the bed and wants credit for putting the sheets in the wash

I'm stealing that metaphor. Yoink.

To be honest, I actually disagree with that.

Private ownership isn't the problem. CORPORATE ownership is.

When a company is no longer owned by humans and is instead owned by shareholders (who themselves are usually non-human hedgefunds, LLC's, financial firms, etc...), and being run "Boards of Directors"; fat-cats who have no idea what real life is like and are entirely beholden to a stock price.

When humanity is removed so far from the capitalist equation as they are in corporations, we've lost the plot of what capitalism was supposed to be in the first place; human's buying and selling from other human's.

I usually like to use, as an example, my best and my worst jobs. I worked for a locally owned furniture store. The owner was awesome. He built the business ground up with his family. And he was a success. He paid me fairly, gave good benefits, treated me like family. Would just randomly pass out raises if things were good because he believed in sharing success with the people that helped him achieve it.

The very reason he could do this is because he wasn't beholden to a stock price, or a Board of Directors, whose only legal mandate is to increase profit year over year. He was successful, in the multi-millionaire range. Could he have been even MORE successful (monetarily) if he didn't give raises, or benefits, or paid vacations? Sure he could have. But that's not what it was about.

Compare that to my worst job, working for a Telecom in Canada (frontline store manager, nothing major) and being told that no one was getting raises that year because the "company didn't make any money", even though I knew damn well that the company make 6 billion dollars. But the point was that, because at the beginning of the year, analysts forecast the company to make 7 billion, and because they didn't make it, the stock price was going to take a hit, and holding back raises would at least mitigate that hit a little big. (This...by the way...is the moment that fully radicalized me against corporations).

We need more of the first example and the second is the part of the system that needs to be burned to the fucking ground with extreme prejudice.