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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • Ok, so I’ll be straight with you. I want to respond to your whole comment, but I need to stop engaging in these discussions. So know that I read all that you wrote, and I want to respond to everything. But I need to limit myself.

    Do you mean rioting? […]

    I don’t know. I don’t think so. But something has to be done, and it can’t wait until the next election. I’m not advocating violence. Part of me wants to say “eat the rich” and “if enough people shows up with torches and pitchforks, what is Musk going to do?”

    But violence isn’t solving anything, and besides it would play right into the MAGA dream of a civil war. What has to happen is to copy what MAGA has been doing. Go after local positions. Put prodemocracy persons on school boards, town councils, election boards. Vote in prodemocracy officials like prosecutors, judges, and sheriffs (if any of them aren’t just appointed by now)

    The guy even won the popular vote, possibly fair and square. Are you under the impression that there is some action we can take at this point to improve the situation?

    He only won the popular vote because of the inactions of good people. Prodemocracy movements need an inspiring leader and a cause. Apparently “save the US, save the world” wasn’t inspiring enough. IDK what would be, but getting the non fascist Americans motivated and organized is imperative.

    Refusing to admit the part the Dems play is part of the problem as well. We can’t keep doing the same thing we’ve always done, and if we don’t learn from this we are truly doomed.

    I agree, and the part of that paragraph you didn’t quote says pretty much the same thing.



  • What’s so weird to me is how Americans can just be “oh bother! The not fascist prodemocracy party lost. If only I would care enough to do something, oh well better luck next time.” why aren’t you guys screaming?

    Trump’s relationship with Putin is going to change the current world order. You know the world? It’s where the US is?

    If that’s too abstract, then look at the remaining SCOTUS judges. With Trump in the Whitehouse then Alito and Thomas can step down and be replaced with more Gen Xers ensuring right-wing dominance for the next 30 years. Repealing Roe v Wade is going to be dwarfed by the what’s coming now.

    Harris wasn’t ideal. Harris was as interesting as a corporate newsletter. But at least she wasn’t a threat to democracies worldwide. Harris would have meant less injustice, but not “no injustice”. But because people couldn’t get no injustice, they stayed home and got 20x the injustice they would have gotten otherwise. And now they’re justifying that? GTFO!

    The US political system is broken. But it’s broken deliberately by one side to suit them, while the other side is too busy blaming each other for their own common failures to do anything.










  • Meh, why do today what you can put off until it’s someone else’s problem?

    It’s not even like you leave for future you, that guy hates you already^1 you leave it for someone entirely unknown. They won’t even know who to blame.

    ^1 Shayne Smith banned from karate reference.

    Bummer, superscript doesn’t work in any client, does it work for anybody else? Come to think about it, how stupid am I, I’ve used ^ extensively in this fucking thread smh


  • Yeah, I think most people, myself included at one time, are more fascinated by RO than we understand the practical considerations.

    Use RO locally at a single tap in the house, if the water quality warrants it. Perhaps add a desalination unit before the water heater, or centrally if you have some very hard water. But a central RO? Sounds expensive.

    I’ve considered a central RO for prepping purposes, but even then a gravel/sand/active charcoal filter, followed by a UV-C mercury lamp, would probably be more cost effective, and easier to maintain without access to replacement membranes.


  • How about dead SSNs between ‘36 and ‘62?

    That’s why I extrapolated from the 1962-2018 numbers and came to a total number of 174.4 x 10^6 deaths.

    The whole situation is ridiculous if you ask me.

    Oh I agree. But it’s a classic issue with old databases. We had a similar issue awhile back with license plates in Denmark. The plates had been assigned inefficiently by incrementing parts annually. So we had unused ranges as well as disused plates. But somehow nobody had made a list of these plates.





  • The first SSNs were issued in 1936 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_number

    According to the death master file entry in wiki 111x10^6 SSNs died between 1962 and 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Master_File

    That’s 1.982 x 10^6 x deaths x year^-1. Assume that number to be a constant during the period 1936-2024

    1.982 x 10^6 x deaths x year^-1 x (2024-1936) x year = 174.4 x 10^6 deaths

    According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States there’s 335.9 x 10^6 residents, but I can’t tell if they are citizens with SSNs, but I’m going to assume that for now.

    So (335.9 + 174.4) x 10^6 is 510.3 x 10^6 spent SSNs.

    According to the same demographics wiki article the birth rate is 11 births per 1000 population. Death rate is 10.4 deaths per 1000 population. Because I’m just doing back of the envelope estimation for fun, while trying to manage my hangover in the early afternoon, I’m not going to create an exponential function to describe population growth. Instead I’m going to only consider future the US population a constant and not consider the 200 x 10^3 annual net growth (it only affects the next year’s growth by 120 anyway)

    With all of that BS out of the way, at the present birthrate the US requires 3.695 x 10^6 new SSNs annually. The total amount SSNs in the current scheme is (10^9) - 1. I’m going to be leaving out the -1. 10^9 total SSNs - 510.3x^6 spent SSNs leaves 489.7 x 10^6 SSNs available. 489.7/3.695 is 132.5.

    So in conclusion, assuming a constant population, the US can go for another 132.5 years with the present scheme without having to reuse any SSN.