If I remember correctly, people assumed that Wheeler had a deep hatred in his heart for the cable company oligopoly in America which stonewalled his company/invention from taking root in the states. A brief look at his wiki page seems to tell some of that story, calling the Nabu Network “the internet, 10 years ahead of its time”. Imagine if you essentially invented the internet, the cable companies prevented your invention from coming to fruition, and then someone went and implemented it on phone lines instead shortly after.

There’s more to the story than just cable oligopoly rat fucks, including technical and arbitrary limitations of the technology, compared to the standardized open web we know.

Meanwhile, this guy is a straight up conservative hatchet man installed to damage and destabilize. He holds no grudges against the folks enriching him.

It looks like as long as the host has a Plex pass, this doesn’t change much. It is a regression of service, which sucks, but there are viable alternatives for those unable or unwilling to pay. And honestly, jellyfin is the clear winner in that case and always has been.

Now, if they start to charge my friends and family for access to my media after I have already paid them for their lifetime subscription, then I’ll grab a pitchfork with the crowd.

Also, why not run both and be ready? The resources required are minimal if you’re running via docker, just some extra RAM and a negligible amount of compute for overhead on library maintenance tasks.

You’re not wrong, but having a specific score of upvoting problematic content feels like a new low.

A social credit score, if you will. Government is gonna love purchasing this on the cheap. Hell, maybe they already have.

This should make tax season pressure free for new families, given the sudden uptick in octuplets birthed in the previous tax year. It’s nice not to have to worry about getting audited.

Besides, the IRS is definitely going to get turned into a political weapon, given that they’ve already accused Democrats of that, this is one of their next projections.

I didn’t think you did. I was more continuing the conversation to point out that there is no alternative. Someone else replied to me with a great point about Churchill being in a similar situation as Zelenskyy during WW2.

It’s clear this go around, America is going to join the wrong side of history. That’s not a new thing, but it will be the first world war specifically where we are clearly are on the bad side. Typically America commits it’s atrocities in smaller skirmishes, and by destabilizing and taking advantage less developed nations for profit. That slavery habit does hard.

The world is fucked, and America is deciding whether to go through a civil war, or to let it be a “bloodless revolution” to quote the heritage foundation president. Europe is going to have to figure out how to defend in a post American world at best, or it’s going to have to figure out how to defend against America at worst.

Also, to your edit… Not just the end of Russian sanctions, but the full official cut of military aid to Ukraine. We’re witnessing the beginning of WW3. Hope we both make it through or that tensions die down.

I mean, whats the alternative? Unconditional surrender?

As I see it, here’s the 3 options:

Bend the knee to trump, give up your resources, and keep your country with no security guarantee worth a damn, just to lose your country later. And not just the lack of credible security guarantees, but specifically agreeing to never join the one alliance that would give such a guarantee.

Bend the knee to Putin, and just let Russia annex Ukraine fully, therefore avoiding a war in the unspecified future.

Go at it with or without US support.

If you were the leader of your country, how much of your land and resources would you give away in the pursuit of temporary peace, knowing that it is only temporary?

Exactly. How much of your country and resources will you be willing to give up when Russia and their useful idiot comes knocking? If the answer isn’t everything, you should probably help Ukraine make a stand now before the “peace deal” results in loosened sanctions and before Russia starts to re-arm.

In this thread I’ve had two separate people mention the major problem with campaign finance or money in politics. And I think I have to agree, part of the reason that the Democrats are so disappointing because they serve the same masters.

Maybe that could be a concentrated goal and and the rallying cry for the Democrats approaching the midterms, that you shouldn’t even try to run on the Democratic ticket unless you’re going to push for campaign finance reform that ends citizens united. That might be a big enough change to start improving our democratic system.

I can certainly agree with the money in politics being an openly corrupt system. Maybe that’s the rallying cry for the midterms? The neo liberal status quo is indeed bullshit, and you’re right that they just toss us breadcrumbs. This is a big enough breadcrumb to make a difference though.

Unfortunately, not much given that this is the framework of the American democratic process. But, I think talking about it, openly and inviting new ideas to the mix, and encouraging people to vote in every election is a needed part of the process, while pessimism without solutions serves nobody and hinders progress.

It’s appropriate to be frustrated, but eventually we have to channel that frustration into action or it will disincentive everyone else from even trying.

Personally, I wish we had the economic freedom and class consciousness necessary to effectively protest. Eventually our economic troubles might be bad enough to completely override our “gotta make ends meet” inertia, but I hope we can improve things before that happens.

Do you have any ideas as to what we could do differently or more efficiently? We joke about it, but even revolution isnt out of the question if you can get enough support, the problem as always is that broad support.

Absolutely. Political funding is broken thanks in large part to citizens United. Campaign finance reform certainly should be a campaign item for any progressive candidate.

I think that’s appropriately cautious. It may be more safe and feasible in solidly blue cities/towns/districts, and it will have to get a lot more support than the tea party did for it to have any hope at spreading to “battleground” elections without serious risk.

I agree on every point, though I do feel like alternative parties to the Democrats can be successful in local and state elections, much like how the tea party has found some successes in more local politics. And I would say if locally people start successfully voting in more progressive alternatives, it will result in irrefutable proof that progressive policies are the winning move.

But, that starts local. It starts small, not big. And it starts where politicians impact you the most, your local community.

1000%, let’s encourage people to vote in democratic primaries anytime we see this “both sides” sentiment. Thank you!

We agree. We have about 3 years until the next presidential election cycle, maybe, and we either need to challenge the Democratic party, or improve it.

Instead of pessimism, do you have any ideas?

I don’t even know if we have to bankrupt them anymore. I think a Biden executive order just stopped or severely limited credit reporting on medical debt, and I don’t think trump or musk has fucked that one back up.

But what they did do is fuck up the CFPB, so these debt collectors are going to get away with more fraud fueled bullshit. But I wonder if you can simply report any medical debt that does show up to be inaccurate based on the Biden EO.

There still are laws in place, the dumb dickheads just fired some of the enforcers. Now, debt collectors are going to have to try to garner your wages, and if you’re smart enough, you’ll go into court with evidence that you have been following the process of law, and they haven’t since the enforcers are gone, and it’ll just further roadblock the debt collecting scumbags.

That is of course, in a just world. In the real world, very few will know about their rights and recourse, and all it takes is one shitty judge with prejudice to ruin lives, as usual.

So let’s get this right.

They currently have care, including preventative care. If we remove them from Medicaid, they will no longer be able to afford care, even preventative care.

The only doctor’s office that can’t turn them down based on their ability to pay is the emergency room, the most expensive form of healthcare in America.

So instead of preventing large medical bills and keeping emergency rooms manageable, we’re going to instead shift the burden onto hospitals, fill emergency rooms, who as usual, shift this burden onto the paying customers (also us, btw), at the most expensive rate possible.

Yep, sounds like a republican plan to me.

That’s a fair point, and an interesting one. I generally expect western nations to have the most draconian view on IP rights, but there certainly has been a rise in IP litigation in the east and in Japan specifically hasn’t there?

Nah, it’s a somewhat recent development they decided to be anti fun. Their founders would be incredibly disappointed with what they’ve become.