S and a dot is just for when you want to abbreviate the S by adding an additional character.

Well it’s similar to what Churchill said about democracy… it’s a bad system but it’s better than all the others.

If you can put ideology aside and think in terms of economics, in many industries capitalism offers an efficient way of determining the an optimal price and quantity to produce considering the costs and value something brings. And it’s something that allows for industries to function without an excessive amount of centralized planning which will often get things wrong.

But it’s like a machine in a many ways. And like any machine it requires maintenance. Things like trust-busting, progessive taxation, regulations, and occasional stimulus are necessary to keep it running smoothly.

But once you bring ideology into it, it all becomes a shitshow. Some will argue capitalism is a perfect machine and any kind of maintenance on the machine will ruin it’s perfection. Others take any kind of maintenance on the machine as a sign the machine will inevitably fail and needs to be replaced entirely. But then we go back to the beginning where other systems have been tried and they’re worse. Charlatans, grifters, ideologues abound pushing people in every direct except for simply taking reasonable measures to keep the machine running smoothly. There’s an almost religious devotion towards arguing the either the machine is perfect or the machine is doomed to failure and not only should be replaced they should accelerate the failure so it can be replaced sooner.

Zealots from all sides demonize the mechanics that are simply keeping things running. A lot of emotional nonsense about this thing. But to an economist, it’s just a machine with both strengths and weaknesses. The functioning of the machine is well understood, and the other machines that have been tried didn’t really work.

You’re not offering any alternatives.

Well the cops might be taking pics of a dead body the next day. So then they could say “yeah we probably should’ve responded to that one last night, but we just couldn’t risk that it might’ve been one of the 0.01% of these calls where it turns out it’s an internet swatting thing.”

Buy 'em out, boys!

Dude’s gotta feed the monkey. You could donate some money to him on patreon then he wouldn’t need to have an amazon affiliate link.

What do estimate the percentage of these calls are some internet loser swatting someone rather than it being a legitimate report of domestic violence? You may be underestimating the number of actual domestic violence situations where the police need to intervene be a few orders of magnitude.

Someone calls an emergency number and says “My husband has a knife and he’s threatening to kill me!”

Should the operator say “nothing we can do until you provide provide me with some evidence, ma’am” ?

Seen it before… watched it again anyway. Praise Vectron!

Yeah I used to be like that, just not something I’d think of. Now I just automatically swap it out when I finish a tube of toothpaste.

Some of the ad revenue goes to pay the people that made the content tho.

But I have over 10,000 bookmarks!

Problem I have is I got my lastname@gmail.com as my email address. Many times when people with my same last name they’ll type firstname<space>lastname@gmail.com for their email address. And guess who gets signed up?

At first I unsubscribed, replied back to emails that were meant for someone else, etc. But the number of things to unsubscribe from unmanageable and it gets to be too much of a chore.

What they didn’t say was Jamie and Adam were shitting themselves in the workshop on a regularly basis.

Sure it seems draconian, but how else are we going to get the kids to stop vaping and start smoking cigarettes like we did when we were in high school?

Won’t someone please think of Phillip Morris’ profit margins?

Yeah it’s a weird thing about parasocial relationships. You like someone based on things you’ve seen about them on TV and then you start feeling like you know them. But really, nope you don’t.

I think it’s fine to like famous people, but just understand that you don’t really know them. If you later find out they’re a horrible person well then don’t like them anymore and it’s no big deal. You only like the things you know about the person, but if you avoid going down the road of feeling like you really know them, it’s fine.

Did you even read the article we’re discussing before insulting me about my reading comprehension? Or even the summary?

You can’t seem to grasp why it’s odd for you want to discuss anyone other than the Houthis in a discussion under an article that’s about the Houthis potentially using Twitter to buy weapons.

I guess it’s my bad for assuming you read the article.

You commented on air strikes but omitted the reason for the air strikes. I’ve corrected your omission.

Also from the article:

“It is inconceivable that they [the weapons dealers] are not operating on the Houthis’ behalf,” said the former British Ambassador to Yemen, Edmund Fitton-Brown, who now works for the Counter Extremism Project.

Do you have any evidence to back up your claims that it’s Yemeni civilians that are buying the weapons to protect themselves from the Houthis? The ambassador indicates the Houthis would shut down such activity.

What actual evidence do you have to support your claims?

Not sure if you’re in denial or just ignorant.

https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/yemen-huthi-authorities-sentence-seven-stoning-and-two-crucifixion-homosexual-crimes

I feel sympathy the Yemenis having to live under brutal regimes. Especially for homosexual Yemenis who are literally crucified.

I think it’s you that has no sympathy for Yemnis. You see Houthis hating the US and Israel and like that enough to look the other way about how horrible they are to the people of Yemen.