I firmly believe that a “crustless ice mantle” meets the definition of an ocean.

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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: September 3rd, 2023

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  • Not only that, but having the entire executive branch come down to a single elected ticket is a clumsy and low-resolution choice for voters. Especially when you consider that there are only two tickets (blue and red) to vote for.

    The position of the president is superfluous and should be eliminated. A president hires people to run the executive branch. That’s how senile Biden can be so effective. He hires well. The American people should be hiring (directly electing) the cabinet, the judicial branch, the top generals, the top ambassadors, etc. Those people could vote to approve/veto bills, or do other jobs currently reserved for the president. This would mean that our whole executive branch isn’t getting replaced every 4-8 years. I bet that if people were voting for each cabinet position independently, we would see a lot more specialized candidates running, and room for third-party break-ins to smaller positions. Each cabinet position is focused on specific issues that relate to that position. This gives voters more granular control over the executive branch. Have each position up for election on a staggered timeline so not everyone is up for election at once. Force the races to be focused on specific issues by making the election be about a specific department. Maybe AOC could win Labor Secretary, but that race shouldn’t have a foreign policy discussion. Maybe Bernie could run for Secretary of State as a referendum on pulling out of the Middle East. If we are electing people to specific jobs, we can focus on those jobs instead of all the other bullshit that the election cycle focuses on. Replace the presidency with a document/constitution that outlines the checks and balances, roles and responsibilities of each of these positions.



  • There is a difference between background-level bulk sniffing and someone-here-maybe-incited-violence targeted sniffing. The former is data collection, which is passive in the form practiced by “the feds”. The latter is data connection, putting effort into connecting a subset of the data that has been collected to form a story. Data connections need a framing, a nucleation seed, an impetus for why the feds might think such a connection is interesting or relevant or worth adding to their story about a larger incident. Collecting data is cheap and done in bulk, partly because it can be done passively and partly because the US govt paid a lot of money on storage and collection mechanisms. Connecting data is something that requires a lot more time, effort, patience, and vetting to make sure you are doing it right.

    Or you can give the job to generative AI and hope it doesn’t hallucinate that someone innocent is guilty; with a large enough data pool (ie the internet, reality, what-have-you) it’s possible to select a misleading subset to support whatever hallucination you want.

    It’s easy to do wrong, which is exactly why you don’t want the feds sniffing around. Especially now that they have the tools to automate doing it wrong, and might not know how to use them yet.






  • I’m down with that. Direct election of cabinet members, judges, military brass, and anyone else that the president hires to delegate work. Presidents don’t work, they hire. The people should be the ones hiring. Some cabinet seats would in turn gain the power of vote to exercise other formerly presidential powers, such as signing or vetoing bills. All meetings with other world leaders (for example) are managed by the ambassador to the UN, directly elected by the people. We would ranked vote for who we think the best ambassador would be, independent of the best labor secretary, etc. Forces us to focus on specific jobs as a framing for the electoral process.



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  • I love organic maps and openstreetmaps. The biggest thing missing is satellite view. I like to wander around and explore an area on maps before visiting. OSM has more interesting/relevant details and better visual color coding than the vector street map on google. Google has a satellite map, which is non-negotiable for me especially if I need to quickly orient myself while driving in a new place. I use three layers loaded into qgis for planning trips: OSM, google maps satellite, and a topographic map from USGS. I sometimes use organic maps on my phone if I don’t have access to a computer with qgis. I rely on Google while on location because organic maps lacks a satellite feed.







  • If he’s getting results cleaning up Trump’s mess, it’s because of his team. Showcase his team and all the work they’ve done. It’s his choice of cabinet members and Supreme Court nominations that we are voting for.

    That and the military is all the president really does. Our system of military alliances are a mess. Joe inherited that and young people are demonstrating that they want to see that changed.

    The moderate play is to showcase the people who a vote for Trump would fire. John Oliver’s piece on Schedule F hits on that well. This is an important core feature of why we want Joe.

    He also needs to do something to adapt our foreign policy (which is the President’s core power) to the people’s desire to change our role on the world stage to a less violent one.

    He needs both to win big for the dems. It doesn’t matter if he’s feeble and old if the election isn’t about him. It isn’t. This election is about the fundamental nature of what our country is. America has to confront its darkness and fix itself. Neutral isn’t an option when we’ve been going in reverse. Where are we going? Set a destination for what America should strive to be, and ask people to vote for that.

    The circus format makes people want the big strong man barking out at the debates. We need the man intensely feeling the moment he’s in with looks of pain as he tries to process his predecessor’s ranting. We need to show the people and system of civil rights/service/reparations that a vote for Uncle Joe represents.

    Trump 2 is the American Revolution finally ending with its version of a Napoleon moment. Hey: we held out a bit longer than the French!

    Biden 2 is four more years of life support. Educate us on the people and their roles, Joe. Open up for democracy and new ideas to build a new America. We need to know what’s there in order to collectively imagine what could be. We need to know who else we are voting for when we vote for Joe. He needs to set the stage for people to feel like they are voting to build and protect an America that they want to live in.

    Ultimately, we need some constitutional amendments to fix our broken government. Evolve past an enlightenment-era collapse pattern and into something that can last. Maybe run on a slate of amendments that a vote for Joe would endorse. Undo Citizens United, cement Roe, net neutrality, rank choice voting, etc. Make a list and have everyone agree that that is what we are voting for. If he wins with that pitch, he has a good argument for either congress or the states to ratify the amendments, or to call a convention if they don’t follow through. Let Trump write a list of amendments, too, and put it up to a vote. Joe’s Constitution vs Trump’s Constitution. Joe’s American vs Trump’s America. Actually, ending up with two constitutions up to a vote like that sounds like the start of civil war II: which states ratify which constitution to get behind which president. Maybe that’s just where we are headed, unless we can be convinced to use a civil way of negotiating for a new system. A civil way would be more responsive to nuance and less prone to bake-in of ideas due to backlash.

    We need that next revolution, but first we need to set up a system of civil resolution to make sure that it doesn’t destroy us.