legend

I actually don't think the ACA benefited me personally a lot, because I've never been denied coverage and have been fairly fortunate in life. I don't think there is a meaningful difference between "not harmful" and "helpful" in this kind of context. You make choices by how good they are relative to your other options. Even if a good M4A plan eventually gets implemented thereby giving all people access to decent health care, many people will still struggle in life and there will be more work to be done to make the world better. So I think we can keep dangling the "helpful" carrot for quite some time. But perhaps then our main disagreement is just semantics if we both agree "the democrats would be better for rural people." I certainly have no qualms with pushing the dems to be better. I wish Biden was.

I appreciate that you voted for Biden, I really do. I also appreciate and entirely sympathize with the democratic party not being united behind big ideas. But I still don't see how you can get to democratic policies not helping rural people more. I can't really comment on your anecdote about your mom - I know nothing about it other than the little you've said. But the ACA *did* help a lot of people, and even the weak goals of Biden to expand it are a vast improvement compared to where the GOP wants to go. And it seems like if you're conceding "yes the republican's want even worse" that it's not really consistent with an objection to the claim that democrats will help them more. And if more rural communities acknowledged that fact and voted democratic, by your own reasoning the democrats would do even more since right now you see their efforts as "compromise" out of necessity. So once again, we arrive at the conclusion that rural communities voting republican are doing themselves a disservice and they'd be helped more by democrats. If you temper your objection to "democrats don't do nearly as much as we would want, so lets not sing their praises" I will, however, agree with that!

There are dems who actually want to give those things... But Biden's absolutely far less ambitious than other democrats goals, so lets go ahead and focus on that. It sounds like you're saying "yes the republican's won't even go that far," which sounds like a concession that, yes, democrats would be better for rural America. At which point I think you just argued the counter point.

I'm not asking you to reward or praise Biden. You don't need to champion him as some great progressive. He's not. I am asking, or at least hoping, that you can still maintain the perspective that he is significantly better for the country than Trump in meaningful ways. And yes, even for poorer rural people, if not them in particular.

Hey, I want M4A too! Biden's not my top pick. But if you don't think there are serious effectual differences between him and Trump, you're quite frankly insane! I seriously cannot begin to understand how you went through these last 4 years thinking this is just business as usual.

Having health care dismantled is not minor, let alone comparing that with Biden who is trying to implement a public option for people who don't have good options from work! (Especially now with so many who have lost their jobs.) Providing financial support at the individual, small business, and school level is not minor! Feeding a perception that it's no big deal and the big bad dems are just out to get you is profoundly counter productive. Throwing out the group for handling pandemics was not fucking productive. Look, covid wouldn't have been nothing if someone else was president during this year. It would still suck. But it could have sucked less with someone competent. Taking this defeatist stance that there was nothing we could do is one of the worst fucking things we can do. We should be taking lessons for how to handle this in the future because it *will* happen again and there are things we could have done *much* better.

I'm not sure I agree with him ignoring them. He's made a lot of efforts to go out to rural areas in his campaign and tried to talk about the issues that they are facing, especially during this pandemic. As I said, we can always indefinitely raise the bar, but it's not ignoring them. I am glad to hear you don't think he's antagonizing them though. As far as the polices not being being materially different I vehemently disagree. Trump's mishandling of the pandemic, his efforts to dismantle health care in general, and his stupid trade war with China has absolutely impacted rural communities. Trump very clearly cares only about his bottom line and since his supports mind bogglingly support him while he literally leaves them out in the cold means he'll continue to fuck them to his personal benefit.

I have no doubt plenty of regular people on the left are antagonizing them because people have had it. But you think Biden is antagonizing them? I mean, we can always say "Biden should say more" -- that's a bar we can indefinitely raise, but you think he's out right antagonizing them?

I have no idea how to measure the actual impact odds, but I will say that Trump's efforts to suppress the science from federal agencies (more recently CDC, but more relevantly to this topic, the EPA, etc.) seems like it could have long lasting negative impacts if we let him go even further with it with another term. I'd be more specific but one of the problems with Trump is that because he make's a controversy every week, it's hard to remember the specifics of something he did to fuck the country that happened longer than a month ago.

I am deeply skeptical of your core thesis here. In 2016, I can give some people a pass for simply not having time to really look into who Trump was and just voting R, while a lot of dems stupidly didn't vote because they didn't like Clinton. And I still do give some of those people a pass, because there are a number of people who have come out with deep regrets and are now voting for Biden. How many? I don't know, but clearly some people just didn't know. They get a pass. If you *still* don't know, I have no fucking idea how to reach you. Trump is the most obvious con man I've ever seen. He makes obvious movie villains I once considered "contrived" suddenly plausible he's so fucking transparent. Yet his supporters still don't get it. I am very skeptical of the "if only there was a progressive talking to them." There are! The most progressive people in democratic party, such as AOC and Bernie do exactly that! Help the working class, *including* in rural America is a focal point of their campaigns. But the number of these people who are Trump supporters, but also like AOC and Bernie seems incredibly tiny. The conclusion I find myself unable to avoid is that there is a serious cultural problem for much of the country that cannot be fixed by merely talking to this portion of the population. I'm at a complete loss for how to solve it. If you have suggestions, I'm very open to them, but I just cannot believe that this is solved by a politicians talking nicely to them.

There are plenty of interpretations of the term that are not nearly as bad and absolutist as the one you ascribed to him. Notice that the very first response to your elaboration of what you thought it meant was someone disagreeing with you that the term meant that? You're assuming way too much from such a small off-hand remark.

Well if you were previously assuming the least charitable position of someone and holding that who wins doesn't matter, you were wrong then too

Very worried for the following reasons. 1. Even low probability events should worry you if the effect is consequential enough. 2. I'm quite concerned about the voting situation we're in with Covid, the deterioration of the the USPS, and the active efforts the GOP is taking to *not* count votes. 3. I'm quite concerned about how people are going to respond regardless of the outcome. Assuming someone is using the wokest meaning of the term, especially @mclumber1 is rather uncharitable. Please don't become James Lindsay. Biden is far from my favorite candidate, but the difference between him and Trump is overwhelming. You're deluding yourself if you think otherwise and it's frankly baffling that after 2020, let alone these last 4 years, you think it doesn't matter. Please slap yourself and get your perspective back.

You have a really nice PC with a 3080. It will be hard to top that hardware wise, so I'd just wait until it has enough exclusives you really want. That's what I did with PS4.

Great, thanks!

@Mr.Vic20 I think I'll probably also need to upgrade my HDMI cable. I have a supposedly "high speed" one but I bought it like a year ago and I think it's not really up to snuff. Do you know which cables are actually legit?

Ah. Then I will get to looking for a USB stick!

Looks like it's not over their TV updater yet (at least not yet for me). If it doesn't release there soon, I'll scavenge for a USB stick.

Thanks for the update!

I feel like he will perpetually be the same age he was in The Last Crusade in my mind, but 90 is a good run. Sad day.

Absolutely try some medication, it can help a lot. While I haven't been through depression per se myself, I have gone through some really bad anxiety issues within the last few years which is generally in the same medical boat. I got some medication and after a few months I was kind of reset and okay without it. Maybe you'd need it for longer, but since it seems like it was triggered for you, rather than a lifetime issue, it might not be something you'd have to be on for long. That said, not every medicine is a good fit for someone, and it may take some searching, but I highly recommend you try,

I would like to pile onto the "please come back @Greatoneshere " train

People never cease to baffle me.

I'm still happy I got a 3080 for reasons already discussed, but I'm glad to see AMD stepping up.

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