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Yes, they cover this in the article. Flyby + probe.

Huh? They specifically said, in a quote from the article, that it rules out Earth-like life. It’s too dry to have supported that kind.

If I pick up an item that should have an allergen that I’m used to seeing, and it’s not listed, I can safely trust it’s because they made it without that ingredient somehow.

That’s why they say to throw it out. 90% of people will ignore the recommendation. Some will dispose out of an abundance of caution, some will dispose because they had the thought I listed at the top of your comment.


Yes, so if you were to encounter this butter in the wild, I understand that not seeing the label would throw you off.

But in this particular case, in order to comply with the instructions telling you to throw the butter away, you need to know that this is the butter you bought that actually contains milk but isn't labeled so.

The very act of noticing that the butter doesn't have the right label tells you that it contains milk.


Someone else might come to your house and open your fridge and use butter with a label that says "Ingredients: Milk" and not realize you received mislabeled butter.


Maybe in the general case, but in this case, butter is literally made from milk, by definition.

If it wasn't made from milk, it would actually be illegal (and factually incorrect) to label it as butter.

An analogy would be if you picked up water that wasn't labeled as containing hydrogen, in a hypothetical world where hydrogen must be labeled, and you concluding that this water must be made without hydrogen.


What’s “milk” is not perfectly clear today. You can certainly coagulate the fats from more than just one liquid.

Anyways my point is that it just causes confusion in a system where, normally, you can simply trust that the labels are following the law.


*usually reversible


…a vasectomy is under $100? That is absolutely mind blowing. What other surgery is that cheap???


The photos of Pluto from the New Horizons mission are stunningly beautiful. Who knew you could fall in love with a frozen rock?


This is the part that blows my mind consistently. The number of people screaming “WHY would ANYONE vote for him?!” and then not even considering trying to find out is a true bummer.


Not trying? It was all the media did for like 2017 through 2018. “Venture safari-style among the rural or flyover-state-suburban white“ was practically its own genre, and it was everywhere. You couldn’t turn on NPR without hearing a devout rural white Christian relate how they prayed on it then held their nose and voted for the unrepentant sinner because of abortion. It’s why Vance’s weird, insulting book was embraced by the Left(!) as “real talk” from an actual member of the group they were trying to understand.


[flagged]


This is the kind of thing the people they interviewed were saying.

[edit] I mean it was my shorthand for “I know he’s a serial adulterer, and his business dealings are shady, and he says some really awful things… but I prayed on it and…” which is closer to a direct quote of things I heard multiple times. Other demographics had other reasons but that was a common one from the pro-life set.


To be fair, most Christian denominations establish inflexibility at the outset by claiming to be a worldview that is "true", "unerring", or similar attribute, despite lacking any epistemological introspection -- meaning of the 5,000 or so different denominations in the world, at least 4,999 are sorely disappointed that not only do they not reconcile to each other, they also don't reconcile to reality.

Whereas a person can review an idea, try it on like a coat, see how it fits, and then keep or discard if it's found amenable and improving to their views of the world.

Vice President Harris' opponent also professes and acts on a worldview wildly deviant from most, if not all, Christian denominations.


Well, objectively, only one religion can be true if any religion is true, just as the existence of gravity is irreconcilable with the existence of no gravity; but go on. We haven't grown up as a nation and collectively decided which one it is yet, but I have preferences. Not that preferences even matter - if I'm falling off a building, my preference for there to be no gravity won't make a difference.


At most one. Kinda. Does depend on the beliefs, which are by convention basically unrestricted. Also how we’re defining “true” could easily admit partial truth for a whole bunch that might be incompatible if any were entirely true.


Oh, a big whopping plurality hits the "Nones" just fine. As it is not a religion, it avoids the plaguing morass of inchoate morality claims justifying a grift altogether.


[flagged]


> And claims like this are why you lost this election, will never win elections, or win anyone over to your side.

Interesting!

1. I didn't run for an office

2. I am a political independent

3. I am not a political party in a first-past-the-post-system defined by the reverberations of the 3/5th compromise.

I'm genuinely curious why you paint more than half the nation (though not half the presidential 2024 voters) with a broad brush of negative antithesis regarding a relatively different claim ("Nones" exercise morality individually, rather than externalizing their moral decision making to an inchoate morass of morality-derived alleged religious authorities).


[flagged]


Oh, I think I get your point, you want people to simply ignore folks that gleefully transgress social norms and exercise sexism, racism, and other bigotries against people who, by your definition, are mentally ill and thus a worthy target of mockery and conduct unbecoming christianity's moral standards, or by most normal people, are guilty of being women, of being men, of being gay, of being lesbian, of being queer, of being trans, of being of light pigment, of being educated, of being uneducated, of being homeless, of actually being mentally ill, of being disabled, of being children, of being elderly, of being generally unwanted by a heaving horde of hate.

Do you believe the same for people who violate religious taboos?

Regardless of the answer, we're far afield of the original discussion, and I'll not pursue this thread further.

Though, I do empathize -- it must be highly embarrassing to have racism, sexism, and other bigotries noted as being offensive to people in public. Triumphalism, often a result of religious fervor, masks that in an echo chamber, so social media can be jarring for folks in such a situation.

---

PS

>> If that's not sexist, I don't know what is.

This fact is quite apparent that you don't know what sexism, and somehow think it applies in a situation where a trans fem wants to be in a situation more protective than forcing a locker room share with her sexual assignment at birth. What your assumed resolution, coached carefully by pollsters no doubt before being coached through formal and informal propaganda channels, actually is is transgressive and probably unnecessary. Though to redefine sexism as "not respecting of gender norms my religion requires me to prefer" is quite a stretch


[flagged]


I object to the statement that a Black woman is a woman. This is a distortion of language and science.


Apologies, Dang. I wasn’t trying to spawn an instance of the Internet’s Oldest Flamewar by choosing as my example of Trump voter interviews in the late twenty-teens a paraphrase of the ones I remembered best, which happened to be the statements of pro-life evangelicals.


We know why. They are ignorant, don't care, or duped. There is no reason to vote for a person morally bankrupt and doesn't have any reasonable solutions to problems. A person with felonies can't even be on a Jury in this country, and people elected him President after his attempt to overthrow the government? I would struggle to hire him to mow my grass let alone run the country. This whole "You need to talk to us" is ridiculous as the positions.


I'll give it a shot, just maybe to help one person understand.

They voted for him because 15+ years of government + federal reserve policy has led to massive bubbles in all US capital assets while impoverishing a wide swath of the population. The people who voted for Trump are those who've "lost" in the giant crypto+stock Ponzi scheme.

The reason people on the winning side of this have such a hard time seeing it is that, en masse, they've turned away from any semblance of traditional valuation measures for capital assets. I assume they've done this because it's too emotionally uncomfortable to consider the notion that their entire wealth isn't because they're geniuses but because of deranged government policy.


And somehow Trump is going to reign this in? Him? How? Did you see both crypto markets and stock "ponzi" scheme reaction to his election? If this is their reasoning, it is flawed, to avoid using terms that are much less charitable. It feels that this kind of justification is trying to fit a narrative to the deed that makes no sense, somehow justify it.

I personally think it's a culture war thing that caused this. And it is probably going to get worse.


Of course he won't. But, see, no one will. Both parties are equally culpable here. People are just doing protest votes at this point. What are they even supposed to do? No one can even buy a house. The only actual solution is to put interest rates up to 8% and trigger a revaluation and a recession, but the odds of that are zero, no matter who is president.


Isn't Trump the pro-"crypto Ponzi scheme" (as you called it) candidate? Asset prices of both crypto and stocks seem to think so.


Not only pro but going to put your tax dollars in:

>US Senator Lummis reaffirms Bitcoin will be become a national reserve asset following Trump's victory


Read my other comments. It's a protest vote. They don't care what his actual policies are. No one is willing to pop the economic bubble, so voters are just going to burn the whole thing down.


Yep. It's ironic and shitty, but people just did a protest vote. They aren't looking at the specific proposals. They don't care anymore. You're absolutely right, but honestly both parties are completely in on the Ponzi scheme. So it probably doesn't matter.


I'd bet a dollar this is 100% incorrect, and that cryptobros voted overwhelming for Trump/Vance/Thiel/Musk.


It's probably split. But it doesn't matter. The important question is who the people who have lost in the lottery voted for, not who the winners voted for.


> They are ignorant, don't care, or duped.

That's what a lot of Trump voters believe about people who don't like him. He used to generally have good public opinion (prior to his ascendance in 2015). A lot of people believe that his bad press is primarily due to intentional smear campaigns and lawfare by the powers that be.

In that sense, for many people, a vote for Trump is like apes in /r/stonks buying and holding GME. It's less about what they want in a positive sense, and more about what they don't want: namely extreme leftism and the current ruling class in Washington, the media, billionaires, and everyone else who attended the WEF in Davos -- all the folks who care nothing for the average Joe.

He may not fix it, they may not even expect him to be able to, but voting for him is a way to have a voice. At least he really upsets all those powerful people! And he did get some stuff conservatives liked done in his first term.


They didn't want the rich guy, so they voted the rich guy in? I think you need to work on your argument.


It's not the riches per se that they take issue with. In fact, they admire and celebrate rich people who got there by hard work, luck, and good business (just like apes in /r/stonks celebrate how rich DFV got on GME options). What they take issue with is how certain powerful people use their riches and power in ways that benefit only themselves and hurt everyone else (who isn't rich) -- particularly the power establishment in Washington, New York, and Silicon Valley.

To give one specific example, private equity firms have been buying out small local businesses on a massive scale (like veterinary clinics), jacking up the prices, paying the workers less, and giving customers a worse experience.

That's not the sort of thing they perceive Trump to be doing with his riches and power. In fact, I don't see any way Trump is messing with the macroeconomy in his own business practices (do you know of any?).


Trump has a reputation for not paying his debts [1], and for stiffing the little people that have worked for him [2]

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/aa383026-ac12-4d39-b6ee-075c2a248...

[2] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dozens-of-lawsuits-accuse-t...


That's not the macroeconomy.

That's not like Bill Gates buying up 275000 acres of farmland. That's not like World Economic Forum people in Davos scheming to eliminate ownership from common people across the world.

There's such a wide gulf between Trump and these sorts of people.

Besides, the examples you gave would come across as something a legacy media smear campaign dug up and misrepresented.


And what about the various court cases that require evidence? Are those made up too?


I didn't say the charges weren't true, or that they were made up.

Just that whatever he did as a businessman, it didn't threaten or negatively affect the entire US economy.


I think it points to a real lack of humility. Why would you try to find out how your thinking might be flawed if you start with the assumption that everyone who disagrees with you is an idiot?

And I say this as someone who did this exact thing in 2016.


I did, partly out of curiosity, partly because I'm in a progressive town literally surrounded for a hundred miles by a sea of red.

They like Trump because he appears anti-establishment and they fear/dislike the establishment. They don't feel the establishment in place is good for them. They truly, truly struggle with finances. Many are in the military and on food stamps. Some are farmers who can't make farming work anymore. They fear immigrants because they might take jobs or bring crime (and drugs). They fear they cannot protect themselves so the want access to guns.

One common thread was the stimulus checks. They really liked the stimulus checks.

Another thing is pining for the good ol' days. Lot of that, too. No issues like pronouns muddying things up.

Generally, not racist, not sexist, but some are, just like any rando person.

Seemed to me just like regular folk who are scared and can't make ends meet like they used to, well, a long time ago. The grocery store prices that are annoying to me are truly a decision point for them.

Then when you take three steps back, and look at it objectively, it's often of their own doing. A lot, I mean a lot, of disparagement of education, even of K-12, so the means to get better employment is more of a struggle. A whole lot of drug and alcohol abuse on top of it. They are the only people I know who smoke. Lot of broken relationships and marriages. Family chaos. The image of solid salt of the earth isn't what my Trumper acquaintances (friends?) are experiencing. They are pretty desperate and really wish there was some way to get back on top of things.

So, in desperation they vote for a person that promises to make it better. And really they don't care about much else. If you want to win elections, do the chicken in every pot line.

This is all anecdotal of course, but I went to the effort, this was seven people, all of whom I'm on good terms with and converse with on a regular basis. And they were respectful of my position - that you need both conservatives (to keep what's good of the old ways) and progressives (to find new ways that are better) in the political arena to make it work. That's not a popular position, though.


This feels close enough to my experience that I believe you actually do speak genuinely with these people.

I think a huge part of it is also that they feel seen by someone, finally. Trump did a great job of making these people feel like the spotlight was finally on them, and honestly it’s true.


Many of us have, and that's how we know their stated reasons are just nonsense. There's a video of the creator interviewing a Trumper about how tariffs work....


You think you're going to get a solid answer interviewing some random person on the street? That's what an intelligent person would call a strawman. Do you want me to point you to the video of well-educated coastal elites calling the assassination attempt a Hoax?

There are of course more than one reason why people voted for him, but there's literally tons of comments in this very thread explaining why with no nonsense and under no uncertain terms.

Ironically, a lot of those comments get flagged and are no longer visible.


No, I think there needs to be a culture of talking to and respecting people with different opinions.

And before you jump to the extreme of “but they don’t want me to EXIST!”, that’s not the point. The point is that we temper each other, partially by negotiating, and partially by simply making the “other side” more used to our ideas.

That just happens with repeated exposure. If something is scary, but generally not bad, people can get used to it, but only if they’re exposed to it regularly. You get used to public speaking after the ten thousandth time instead, because you’ve likely already confronted every fear you had in real life by now.

Ironically, this is extremely easy to fix. Politicians can simply get along in public. We’ve got studies showing that political extremism can die almost overnight when the opposing politicians simply explain that they do respect their opponent.

As for the people here explaining themselves clearly - that’s because dang has done a good job of fostering a community of high quality commenters. You won’t find this kind of discourse anywhere else, and it’s the main reason I treasure this site.


> No, I think there needs to be a culture of talking to and respecting people with different opinions.

Absolutely.

> As for the people here explaining themselves clearly - that’s because dang has done a good job of fostering a community of high quality commenters.

Hard disagree. The level of political discussion on HN is barely a step above r/politics. This is a forum for 110 IQ codecels who think minor domain expertise means they are smarter than everyone else in all aspects.

The contempt for ordinary people in this very thread is nauseating.


holy fuck this was the most based fucking thing i have read in a long time


> You think you're going to get a solid answer interviewing some random person on the street?

Yes. We educate the population for good reason. People _should_ understand that a tariff is a tax imposed on consumers, and if done with reasonable intent it is to prop up a key industry despite the distortionary effects with a particular goal in mind, such as national security, improvement of the populace, etc.

"Bringing back manufacturing" is not a coherent goal, it just sounds like one, because as soon as the tariffs are removed the US is back to offshoring again OR the purchasing power of the dollar is so low that it doesn't matter.

"Establishing manufacturing in key industries" is a completely reasonable goal -- which Biden did (solar, among others).

So once again, the Trump policy set is not actually good policy.


Again:

people _should_ understand that a president getting shot at live on television is not a hoax.

Do you really think farming plebs for political gain on social media is going to break for democrats? Really? That feels a bit out of touch to me.


> people _should_ understand that a president getting shot at live on television is not a hoax.

I am not seeing how this tangent is connected to the rest of the conversation. Can you please explain why you thought it related to discussions regarding interviews of random individuals on the street?

> Do you really think farming plebs for political gain on social media is going to break for democrats? Really? That feels a bit out of touch to me.

Are you saying I'm farming plebs for political gain on social media for the democrats? That's weird. I've no association to any political party nor do I care for their political gain. I think political parties are unfortunate and strongly prefer ranked choice voting explicitly to weaken their grip. That said, I do analysis for policy and strategy, so perhaps I should have been more explicit in my recommendation that actual outcomes-focused policy is better for people than vibes-focused word salads (which Trump often espouses as well as most Republicans and Democrats as they attempt to make soundbites) regardless of political affiliation. Please forgive my clear lack of clarity.


By interviewing random people you can easily find people who say seemingly dumb shit that make members of a particular political party look incredibly stupid.

A video of a random Trump supporter misunderstanding tarrifs is not a steelman argument against Trump supporters.

In the same way coastal liberals denying the assassination attempt and calling it a hoax is not a steelman argument against liberalism.

Both sides do this but theres a particular brand of "dumb out of touch liberals" that is pervasive on social media.


> A video of a random Trump supporter misunderstanding tarrifs is not a steelman argument against Trump supporters.

By way of background and disclosure, I got a PhD in economics at a point in life. This just means I've spent a bit of time thinking about tariffs and impact more than the average person. I understand the "theory" of tariffs and their impact, and the data has mostly supported the stylized facts that people point to for why they aren't good policy.

It's definitely true that tariffs aren't the first thing people think of in the morning (me included), and I consider it reasonable to say it is unfair to most people to expect, without some prompting first, a solid understanding that tariffs are a distortionary tax that the end buyer pays for. Higher tax means higher price. What concerns me is when I see people choosing to willfully ignore even a basic definition of something because of who said it, regardless of political affiliation. I strongly believe we can't operate on different facts, and should work to reduce jargon that confuse understanding.

> a particular brand of "dumb out of touch liberals" that is pervasive on social media.

I agree. I think this is an area where there is a lot of "both sides do this". Elitism is never a unifying attitude, nor are shibboleths generally.

> In the same way coastal liberals denying the assassination attempt and calling it a hoax is not a steelman argument against liberalism.

Yep. What chaos that event was. There are details both sides ignore that I call out only to acknowledge them, not agree with -- the shooter having strong affiliation with one party and weak affiliation with the other, the acknowledgement or ignoring of Trump's prior behavior and actions to influence opinion drawing from his entertainment background in WWE/The Apprentice -- but most of the speculation is crass and downplays the fact that someone tried to shoot a candidate for president. Speculate all you want about conspiracies on either side, it's not something that draws people together nor promotes liberalism.


I am eternally grateful that my MIL is an unironic trumper from an unbelievably small town in the Midwest, specifically so that I don’t need to listen to a “creator”. It’s an eye-opening experience to hear what their true, heartfelt concerns are.

If nothing else, surely we can empathize with being frustrated for ages and finally feeling seen.


Well, what are their concerns and how does voting for a serial con man solve them?

Do they know Trump doesn't see them either - that he just wants their vote and their tax money?


Hard to find a family in rural America without a serial con somewhere at least in the extended family, usually due to drugs or alcohol unfortunately. It's relatable if anything.

They want cheaper gas prices first and foremost, and I guarantee that'll happen to some extent. Trump will expand drilling in the US, or reduce sales of our exports and divert them to the US, or something to that effect. The price of gas is a huge concern.

They don't want to hear any more about these culture movements they view as ridiculous, or for schools to teach their kids how to feel about $currentSocialMovement, especially when it goes directly against legitimately-held religious beliefs - "I can raise my kids how I want, thanks"-type attitude. This is the kindling for more parental rights political campaigns, which often includes the right to send your kid to whichever school you want.

They don't want to send money to Ukraine. Some know it's a lot of equipment, but it still costs money to send that, and there's an opportunity cost. It sucks what's happening over there, but they worry about being able to afford gas to get to work. They don't really care about what's going on half a world away.

etc. etc.

Plus, the media in general has been pretty aggressive towards Trump. Deserved or not, there's at least an air of truth to it. It's easy to dismiss a lot of concerns from the media. The Hunter Biden laptop thing (I haven't followed this at all) apparently is a big deal and seems to have massively fueled this idea.

I'm not going to reiterate their entire stance, because it probably varies from region to region anyways. Please don't shoot the messenger, I'm not going to argue their points, I'm simply summarizing what I've heard.


Well, what are their concerns and how does voting for a serial con man solve them?

Do they know Trump doesn't see them either - that he just wants their vote and their tax money!


> If nothing else, surely we can empathize with being frustrated for ages and finally feeling seen.

I for one cannot. As a libertarian, I've long empathized with the concerns. I share many of the concerns. I've often tried to discuss how I was working to create solutions to their concerns of centralized control in the technology sphere, or that there are actually ways to prevent "GPS satellites tracking their phones" and not just resigned angst. None of it mattered. Because I wasn't just repeating their not-even-wrong talking points, I was othered and ignored regardless.

There is a severe lack of analysis going on in that red tribe, which is why they keep voting for politicians that superficially play to their egos while actually making their situation worse and worse. Trump is nothing new for them - he's from the same vein of looting elites they'll follow until they finally realize they've been had. The main difference is the degree to which Trump openly shits on American institutions and values, and it's a true tragedy for western civilization that four years was not enough for them to see it this time.


They’re literally trying to find out when they exclaim that question.

To me this seems a pretty clear case of inflation=“punish the incumbent” and also Biden spread out the pain of covid recovery instead of making red states bear the burden. Kamala promised more of the same, including lots of investment into rural and red areas that aren’t gonna vote for her anyway. Result? 10-15 million blue voters stayed home this cycle. Trump turned out his entire base.

Just pontificating…


> They’re literally trying to find out when they exclaim that question.

I've seen these conversations happen thousands of times in political communities online, before you know it, the person trying to understand starts getting angry at some point, and both people are calling each other names. Very few people truly want to understand the other side. If you want to understand the other side, the first step is to listen, and not say anything (don't try to defend your viewpoint, this isn't part of your goal, and it will derail it), ask questions, and agree to disagree politely.


Because those discussions go like this:

(to a C programmer) "Why are you using C?"

"Because it's memory-safe."

"But it's not memory-safe."

"Yes it is. Your program will just segfault rather than getting hacked."

"No it won't... see these examples of C programs getting hacked without segfaulting."

"You're using it wrong. See look, if you write with spaces instead of tabs, your program is memory-safe."

Do you remember "MongoDB is web scale"? Would you not get angry when trying to find good reasons to use MongoDB? That's what it's like talking to the average Trump supporter, except it's about the removal of human rights instead of just which database you should use.


I see this behavior coming from either side. We are insanely polarized.


Why do people vote for him? America is a closet racist country and the education system obviously doesn't produce critical thinkers. The south is poor and Trump will make them money again some how - they believe that. Trump will make grocery prices' go down and create many magnificent jobs. Trump will make interest rates go down and loans cheaper. He will deport all the Mexicans so the black or white people can fill the jobs.Trump is a populist con man who conned his base. No public company or start up will ever hire a CEO like him. I call this political entropy. This is the decline in America in my view. It's a sad day and I will just stick my head in the sand and hope we make it through.


Yup all my comments offering to explain and explaining have been flagged. Even ones with no sarcasm. Just because waiting for someone to doxx me again and dang to do nothing.


HN just flags all comments that seem to support Trump in any way, even with good arguments. So no idea why comments are even open anymore when some points of view are obviously not allowed here yet 52% of the country seem to supported them to a degree. Obviously HN users just want their own groupthink eco chamber without wanting to hear other opinions. So in that regard I'm enjoying watching lib woketards having a mental breakdown for the second time since 2016. Stay ignorant, stay foolish.

Hell, I'm not even from America and I saw it comming from a mile away. Calling half of their country "nazis" and "fascist" was the worst campaign move I have ever seen in my life.


> "stop calling people names!"

> "lib woketards"

but i agree with you that alienating more than half of the country was a move so stupid that only the establishment democrats could pull it off.


I never said "you personally should stop calling people names". I said that if you(politicians specifically) do call people names, put labels on them and segregate them based on race and gender, then they'll hate you and retaliate against you.

Which is why people voted Trump and why I called them "lib woketards", because I don't care about being popular or winning anyone's approval, but presidential candidates do, which is why it's so stupid how dems alienated a large part of their voter base like that and still thought they could win.


Yeah, I've been threatened and doxxed on this forum... no action. So brave. Stunning.


Why?


I've been doxxed for saying men and women are different and men can't be women. I did report to dang, and nothing.


Probably because you're not a marginalized minority. Otherwise HN moderation would go in overdrive to protect you.


The user base here seems to be just as close-minded and condescending as it is on Reddit.

Very disappointing to be honest.


Ideally the new economic policies will break the stranglehold of Silicon Valley. Already with the arrival of Musk, oracle, etc in Texas, there's a balance beginning to shift.


It's literally just regulatory capture. It has nothing to do with capitalism.

In a truly capitalistic economy, there would be no regulations preventing competitors from coming in and creating competition. The propaganda doesn't have to be good when nobody understands what is and isn't capitalism anyways.


This isn't regulatory capture, this is deed restrictions. HOAs, water rights, mineral rights et.al. use this same mechanism.


To be honest, I think all of those should be abolished as well.


That’s correct: Albertsons is responsible for upholding the deed restrictions, and can use any legal means to do so. The regulators could have said that a monopoly has grown too big to enjoy good standing in court, but instead of that they chose a small fee.


But what's being described here (ie the land use covenants) is not regulation, it's contractual restraint.


You are incorrect. This has nothing to do with regulations.

It's the same as a farmer secretly buying up neighboring already irrigated fields from bankrupt farmers, and not planting on them in order to be able to raise the price on their own crops, assuming that the cost of importing the same crops from elsewhere is prohibitive and there is no other readily arable land nearby (thus they have a monopoly on the local market). So it's cheaper for them to leave the purchased fields fallow, and raise prices, than grow more crops.

This is the type of predatory capitalist practices for which we need regulation in the first place.


The Onion Futures Act for example.


pretty crazy that there is an act of Congress that concerns a single vegetable only


It also covers futures on motion picture box office performance, the onions of a new generation.


When the incumbent owns the vacant lot, it's capitalism. Free formation of contracts (saying you promise not to open a grocery store there, in exchange for getting the land at all) is also a big part of capitalism.


I assume they’re not really paying attention to you, like if you were a child vying for attention. You’re not likely to run into many salient points speaking to someone who isn’t tracking the basic things an adult should do.


Nobody is implying it’s so simple that you can “eat whatever you want” and be at a healthy weight. This is true if you’re underweight as well. If you’re trying to gain weight, you need to eat more than you want.


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