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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • Could someone just make, like, Raunchy Mastercard and just process payments from everyone including all the porn and weird shit that the other mainstream companies don’t want? It seems like the payment processors being puritanical dipshits is a weakness that could be exploited by an enterprising competitor.

    But then again, we’re talking about a natural monopoly that has been in place for decades at this point. I wouldn’t expect them to exactly play fair.





  • Anybody who has ever been unfortunate enough to have to apply for any of these healthcare or food stipend programs would know that it’s not as easy as the government makes it seem. In fact, the amount of bureaucracy, means testing, and highly restrictive income limitations means that most people don’t qualify period and people who do qualify have to spend an inordinate amount of time waiting to hear back from the government to know if they have been accepted or not, all the while hoping and praying they don’t get sick and can manage their money long enough to continue feeding themselves.

    Case in point, my fiance is out of work right now and actively seeking work. She applied for both MediCAL and SNAP and was denied for MediCAL because she had earned too much already that year to qualify and the SNAP benefits totaled out to $20/month in food stamps, based on historical income, which is insufficient even for the most frugal of individuals to make work. This is for someone currently earning $0/month and being almost entirely supported by me.

    After a certain point, it becomes a massive drain on your time and resources that could be spent looking for a job, so you stop bothering with the system altogether because who wants to spend hours doing paperwork and submitting claims just to get enough spare change to buy a bulk bag of rice to feed yourself a struggle meal?

    I don’t want to hear shit about “handouts” from anybody. My fiance paid her taxes faithfully for years without ever having to rely on the program, so where are her benefits? She has undoubtedly paid more into the system than she will ever extract.


  • That’s basically the rational take here. Israel was attacked and is defending itself, but going far and beyond self defense using the extermination of terrorists as an excuse to commit genocide. Palestinian civilians are caught up in the crossfire and are innocent of any wrongdoing, but the Palestinian government knowingly harbors Hamas within their borders and refuses to cooperate with Israel at every opportunity to create a two state system. Finally, there’s Hamas, who are bad guys full stop with no redeeming qualities.

    So, Obama’s take is pretty solid. Nobody has their hands clean in all of this and everybody sucks, but there are still ways to stop the bloodshed, but those solutions are complicated. Especially when nobody really wants to come to the negotiation table right now. Israeli citizens right now remind me of American citizens in the wake of 9/11 - bloodthirsty and hungry for vengeance at any cost. So long as they remain furious, Netanyahu has a clear political motivation to continue the attacks.