Democritus also thought they would be different shapes depending on the substance, like that metal atoms would have interlocking hooks, which was supposed to explain why it was so durable.

It's funny that we tend to start with him. Like, here's the first person who thought substance had an indivisible component. Imagine the smallest thing you can. Nothing gets smaller. Except forget that immediately, because yes it does.

Look, if this were a publication in a scientific journal, sure.

But it's not. It's a webforum. In casual conversation, you can gesture to the idea that there was more sealife before mechanization, pollution, and industrial fishing becacasue... yeah. Duh. Of course there was.

if you can dismiss the proofless infograph without proof, I can dismiss your dismissal without proof. We can go on recursively all day.

The issue is the price gouging still exists for everyone who isn't on Medicare. You have to either be old enough, or prove to the government that you fit their criteria for disabled before you get the reasonable price.

Democrats win by turning out people who otherwise don't vote. If they aren't already turned on by republicans talking like this, will those people see this as anything other than Democrats talking down to them?

People recognize when they're being talked down to, this is a losing strategy.

Do you have evidence that oceans were less plentiful in the past? Or are you just taking a contrarian position because it's easy?

It's within the governments power to lock prices. For something as medically necessary as insulin, anything less is a half measure.

they’re not talking about the CTC expiring.

no, just the bit Biden did, the thing that was cited as one of his major accomplishments.

and c'mon; Insulin is cheaper for Medicare recipients. Insulin is cheaper for the elderly. It is, in effect, the same statement. You really quibbling over wording to try and scrape together a point?

You know medicare is primarily for retirees, right?

Edit: since you only read the first sentence I quoted from CBS, here's the second:

But as the nation struggled to emerge from the pandemic in 2021, lawmakers expanded the $2,000 credit to as much as $3,600.

and the fourth

Once it expired in 2022, the poverty rate for children soared.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/09/politics/inflation-reduction-act-medicare-insulin-cap/index.html

Senior citizens and other Medicare enrollees can now get a break on the cost of their insulin.

They won’t pay more than $35 a month for each insulin prescription that’s covered by their Medicare Part D plan. And they won’t be subject to a deductible for insulin.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-budget-tax-child-tax-credit-ctc-eitc-who-qualifies/

The CTC isn't a new tax credit — it's been around since the 1990s. But as the nation struggled to emerge from the pandemic in 2021, lawmakers expanded the $2,000 credit to as much as $3,600. As part of that expansion, families received half of the CTC in monthly checks over six months, providing them with as much as $300 per child for each of those months.

That expanded tax benefit, which proved to be immensely popular with families, also helped lift millions of kids out of poverty. Once it expired in 2022, the poverty rate for children soared.

https://www.existentialcomics.com/comic/9

is moviebob still around?

I think the Democratic Party is more to blame for running a Status Quo candidate when there's so much dissatisfaction with the state of things. When people are angry, the guy who blows up the system is more appealing than the person trying to maintain it. You gotta actually promise to overhaul things, that's how Obama won.

the child tax credit only lasted one year, and the cost reduction was only for the elderly

The electoral reforms would certainly help, but you risk the Trudeau effect of a candidate running on them, then getting in office and saying, "Well, it can't be that broken if I still managed to win."

part of being an adult is doing the work in front of you that needs doing, regardless of "ought"s "supposed to"s

we all benefit from the next generation learning to treat others properly, regardless of our own parental status

The definition I find useful is, Fascism is when an imperial power begins applying colonial policies to citizens in its core.

So, for a practical example, the United States has used extra-judicial black sites to disappear and torture people the CIA/pentagon deem enemies for decades. Locking up people in El Salvador without (constitutionally mandatory) trial or legal council is just that policy brought home.

Here's the super luminescence research paper https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.01469

although, this PBS youtube video is the summary I actually understand

Yes, it's an assumption to say consciousness is non-computable. But it's also an assumption to say it is computable. Not really a phenomenon we understand.

I agree that fleshy brains are probably not the only things capable of producing consciousness. I think it's actually fairly likely that a machine could be made that reproduces it, I'm just... really skeptical that it's gonna look anything like a Turing machine. It would certainly be convenient if it did.

As to brains being made of discrete units... there's some evidence to suggest it might not be. When you put a person (or any living thing) under general anesthetics, the thing the anesthetics target is microtubules within cells. And microtubules themselves have quantum mechanical properties. They've been shown to er, "do", super-luminescence in lab experiments (I don't understand quantum).

Admittedly, that's a lot of correlation and almost no direct example of causation. But it does suggest there's... something... there that needs more examination and research.