The News Thread

[zabu of nΩd]

lmao you're clearly emotional about this particular issue for some reason.

It's true. I get that personal finance is a casual topic for many, but because it's such a horrendously misunderstood topic, and something where uninformed decisions routinely cost people years of unnecessary servitude in the rat race, I feel an obligation to educate people.

I didn't say all crypto and I'm not speaking categorically, I said "a single (non-shit) business stock vs a single (non-shit) cryptocurrency". Meaning, throw away penny stock scams, throw away shitcoin scams, take a gamble on a single longer-shot like GME vs a contemporary crypto fad. I'm not talking about buying an index fund or a hypothetical average.

Many stocks (including most with the greatest growth potential) don't offer dividends at all. Most companies "will be obsolete one day" too, which low-tier currently-hyper-speculative brick & mortars like GME and BBBY illustrate nicely. Oil companies (which do offer pretty strong dividends usually) could very well take a massive shit in a couple decades when you have GM promising to make their entire fleet electric by 2035. While I agree that bitcoin's realized value is primarily speculative, so is that of many physical assets such as gold and collectibles, which obviously doesn't in and of itself doesn't imply complete lack of value. Any Argentinian facing steady unending inflation of his dollar will find value in buying something with inherent scarcity, for example.

The rest of your post seems to be agreeing with what I said in my initial post which you dismissed as "irrelevant logic".

I see you're at least starting to acknowledge the merits of the stock market in aggregate, but it looks like you're still straining to draw this false equivalency with cryptos by harping on these issues (i.e. speculative stocks, and the number of companies that go out of business) that I've already shown don't matter at the aggregate level.

Yes, a lot of stocks don't pay dividends. That doesn't prove those stocks are worthless. Many companies (i.e. Apple) wait until their rapid growth phase is over to start paying a dividend, because they can grow faster initially by holding on to the excess cash and reinvesting it. If you're really that much of a conspiracy theorist about companies that don't pay dividends, you can always invest in a "high yield" index fund that screens stocks by dividend yield. You'll miss out on all the game-changing tech companies, but the market will still "work" under that prerequisite.

I'm actually a believer in gold. Like cryptos, it's not something that gains value by nature (and thus I'll probably never own nearly as much gold as stock), but it can at least hold value after inflation. The value of gold is mostly psychological, but not entirely, since it has some industrial uses. It also has a far "stickier" psychological value than cryptos, because it's been a major currency throughout human history, and it's ingrained in the world's institutions in a way that cryptos aren't (it amuses me how many people who gripe about central banks manipulating the gold market with their reserves overlook the very fact of them having gold reserves to begin with, which is a vote of confidence in gold's value). It's also something you can hold in physical form, so the government can't just "pull the plug" on your savings like they can with cryptos.

 

[SentinelSlain]

I've been talking to this phd physicist girl, I'm thinking we need to develop a time machine to save mankind from some bullshit mass extinction shit.

I wonder if that was what the face on mars was about, like some last ditch, 'look we lived', we're gonna die now, but at least future evolutions will see us, type of thing.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

One-third of US military members are declining COVID-19 vaccinations

Guess that gives a new meaning to "dying for your country".

Hoping this will speed up the essential worker phases so the rest of us can get ours sooner.

 

[rms]

Military got the only recent memory of getting fucked by "mandatory" government medicine. Black people still acting like they're gonna be the next syphilis experiment is fucking ridiculous

 

[Dak]

Guess that gives a new meaning to "dying for your country".

A vaccine with little to no upside, particularly for likely the healthiest group of adults in the US, also in the inconsequential mortality age ranges of 18-38 (and most on the younger end of that spread), and unknown downsides. I think the troops will be alright. It's going to wind up being mandatory relatively soon anyway. Just as pointless for this demo as the annual flu shot, and likely as ineffective.

 

[Einherjar86]

A vaccine with little to no upside, particularly for likely the healthiest group of adults in the US, also in the inconsequential mortality age ranges of 18-38 (and most on the younger end of that spread), and unknown downsides. I think the troops will be alright. It's going to wind up being mandatory relatively soon anyway. Just as pointless for this demo as the annual flu shot, and likely as ineffective.

Why are you opposed to this?

Studies suggest that vaccination reduces the risk of transmission. So even if military bros are less likely to show symptoms, that doesn’t mean they’re less likely to transmit.

I also don’t understand why you say “little to no upside.” The upside is slowing the spread.

 

[Bloopy]

The troops will be alright but maybe they shouldn't visit their grandmas. Coronavirus doesn't mutate as fast as the yearly flu strains, so I think more people getting vaccinated would significantly reduce the chance of COVID-19 mutating enough to require new vaccines.

 

[Slammed]

Yeah the US military will be fine, they'll just bring their covid into Darwin to share with other military groups

 

[Dak]

Why are you opposed to this?

Studies suggest that vaccination reduces the risk of transmission. So even if military bros are less likely to show symptoms, that doesn’t mean they’re less likely to transmit.

I also don’t understand why you say “little to no upside.” The upside is slowing the spread.

All currently available data point to asymptomatic transmission being highly unlikely. Plus the military does mandate mask wearing and quarantines positive cases for 14 days post-symptoms. Evidence of low risk:

https://militarybenefits.info/coronavirus-cases-military/

Less than 1/4 of the active US military has tested positive after over a year of possible exposure (probably more have contracted it and been asymptomatic and thus not tested), and the death rate is less than .0001%. Like I said, I think the troops will be ok.

The vaccine has little upside as even if it happens to work against the initial strain, covid is rapidly mutating. To the degree that an annual covid vaccine is a "success", I expect that it will have the similar 40-60% estimated effectiveness of flu vaccines, and will be functionally pointless in healthy individuals under the age of 65. Add in the unknown long term risks and it loses the neo-Pascal's wager in my mind.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Biden's doing a great job so far, refusing to forgive more than 10k in student debt and likely tying future stimulus to PAYGO. The fiscal conservative we needed after Trump.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

I don't need covid vaccine

I'm patient zero

 

[Serjeant Grumbles]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/11/lou-ottens-inventor-of-the-cassette-tape-dies-aged-94

He lived a long life, but once his intestines came unraveled, there wasn't much anybody could do. R.I.P.

 

[Slammed]

They couldn't stick a pen in there and wind it all back in?
Damn, I thought medical science had advanced.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

When it was announced that the active US military would be able to get the Corona virus vaccine a few days before any American civilians, it was briefly stated on television that the vaccine would eventually become mandatory for all active American military
This was softly spoken by a guy who was only onscreen for about 45 seconds and somehow no one really noticed this statement because it was subtly wedged in the middle of that other military guy talking non-stop for a whole 45 minutes

Active American military vaccination being mandatory actually made sense to me
I remembered it being mentioned because

A)
I thought it was an awesome idea, go ahead and make a list of situations and people were vaccination is mandatory, and active American military being on this list totally made sense

B)
I instantly noticed that this breif moment of a guy in street clothes weirdly inturupting a guy doing a monologue in military fatigues was the military covering its ass in case the idea of mandatory vaccination for active American military ended up being mentioned at a later date
(As in "see, see, we already talked about this before today") but IIRC, it never actually came up
It was seemingly only mentioned just once and I just happened to be watching it when it happened

C)
My mental state makes me clearly remember the specific things every one else completely forgets
It's annoying as hell and it's not anywhere near an eidetic memory superpower
It's a compartmentalizing issue where I completely forget some of the things every one else clearly remembers

NOTE
This memory problem is something that I notice all the time when I'm stone cold sober, being meth high amplifies it, and when I'm so high that everyone around me knows I'm high as a kite, this thing of me remembering the wrong things and forgetting the wrong things is so obvious that it sometimes totally scares the fucking hell out of the specific people who are just a little bit scared of meth users anyway

 

[zabu of nΩd]

When it was announced that the active US military would be able to get the Corona virus vaccine a few days before any American civilians, it was briefly stated on television that the vaccine would eventually become mandatory for all active American military
This was softly spoken by a guy who was only onscreen for about 45 seconds and somehow no one really noticed this statement because it was subtly wedged in the middle of that other military guy talking non-stop for a whole 45 minutes

Active American military vaccination being mandatory actually made sense to me
I remembered it being mentioned because

A)
I thought it was an awesome idea, go ahead and make a list of situations and people were vaccination is mandatory, and active American military being on this list totally made sense

B)
I instantly noticed that this breif moment of a guy in street clothes weirdly inturupting a guy doing a monologue in military fatigues was the military covering its ass in case the idea of mandatory vaccination for active American military ended up being mentioned at a later date
(As in "see, see, we already talked about this before today") but IIRC, it never actually came up
It was seemingly only mentioned just once and I just happened to be watching it when it happened

C)
My mental state makes me clearly remember the specific things every one else completely forgets
It's annoying as hell and it's not anywhere near an eidetic memory superpower
It's a compartmentalizing issue where I completely forget some of the things every one else clearly remembers

NOTE
This memory problem is something that I notice all the time when I'm stone cold sober, being meth high amplifies it, and when I'm so high that everyone around me knows I'm high as a kite, this thing of me remembering the wrong things and forgetting the wrong things is so obvious that it sometimes totally scares the fucking hell out of the specific people who are just a little bit scared of meth users anyway

Yeah, that's interesting about the guy who only came on to announce that the vaccine would be mandatory. Not sure I would call it scary, though it is weird at least, maybe an example of the bureaucratic nature of the military (and most govt institutions). What other kinds of shit have you scared people by remembering?

 

[Slammed]

His login details for this forum!

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

. What other kinds of shit have you scared people by remembering?

I memorized some one else's social security number before I memorized my own

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

@zabu of nΩd

inherited my mental condition from my mom

My mom initially hated the first X-Men movie because she'd memorized every freaking detail of every episode of the 90s cartoon and then the movie didn't look anything close to anything that happened in the the cartoon

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

Yeah, that's interesting about the guy who only came on to announce that the vaccine would be mandatory. Not sure I would call it scary, though it is weird at least, maybe an example of the bureaucratic nature of the military (and most govt institutions).

Honestly I think America is clearly going to get to a point where there is going to be some kinda list of specific situations where the vaccine will be mandatory

Just not sure if "active military" will be able to be one of those things on the list

 

[CiG]

Fox News Host Tucker Carlson Called Iraqis 'Primitive Monkeys' in Second Audio Recording, Report Says.