Honestly, the best country to approach this would be China, and I don’t think China would want to deal with the risk of building infrastructure.

I’ve got to go with a classic in Tony Soprano. He’s a real piece of shit, and yet I can’t look away.

A unicorn is just a rhinoceros through a long game of telephone.

Yeah. Trump can buy off police departments by giving them carte blanche over their personal conduct.

Yeah. I was going to go with my time myself.

They had to follow orders, but they did it in the minimal way possible.

They made sure the military looked like crap on parade. A lot of units weren’t in dress uniform and the marching was noted as sloppy where it looked on purpose.

Very little modern military equipment was used. That the US Army pulled out a Sherman tank shows what the military wanted to show off.

Also, over loudspeaker, they played Fortunate Son, which is an anti war song about how the rich don’t have to go to war but the poor do. That is not a song I would expect to hear at a military parade.

This was not a parade where the US military was showing off.

I think the big issue for Trump right now is the military. If you read between the lines of January 6, the military purposefully skipped the chain of command in allowing for the deployment of national guard troops. I wouldn’t be surprised if the military cut the President out of the chain of command at that time, especially as they got every former Secretary of Defense to defend their actions post instruction.

Trump and Hegseth have been trying a lot of carrot and stick incentives to get the military on board, but the recent Trump Birthday parade shows that there is still a deep disdain on serving Trump. You also have a lot of military strategists who likely see the writing on the wall regarding supporting Trump; Trump can’t give the military anything close to what the military already has.

Trump can clear out the civilian government, but the military is a lot harder to crack.

It is more that I’d be assessing if I can drive my car around with its plates.

Yeah. Xbox should be running a division that looks very similar to Steam. Hell, I have an alt history in my head where Microsoft pushes streaming forward by years using the Xbox for leverage.

Account for all my assets. I’ll need to figure out how much money I can rebuild my life with.

The problem with that is that you generally have to fly with an ID and a name; a name you need to provide when buying plane tickets.

I don’t see how the face scan let’s them do anything beyond what they already can.

The audience wins out over time.

What’s a Dutch woman going to say when you ask for her sign?

Stop.

After MAGA became a thing, probably better that they are angry about that.

The way that you’ve been presenting it toggles how money is distributed behind “everyone has what they need”, especially when I bring up issues like classism or access to the market.

We’ve seen it with social security, which acts as as a pseudo UBI for retired people in the USA. People dependent on UBI are generally pushed to lower cost of living areas of the USA due to cost. I expect that to skyrocket when rent control and government housing is pulled for a base salary. As I’ve mentioned before, this is going to exacerbate rich bubbles where wealth is generated or areas with natural amenities.

Some states have already started experimenting with a cash payment on the condition that they waive any rights to welfare. I can see UBI becoming a part of this; you’ve been paid to live, you just can’t afford to live here.

It becomes very hard to form a company of any reasonable size without government intervention. At that point, corporations that form need tight relations with the government.

it’s actually easier to find work

It depends on the job. If you want a job that requires more than a person’s basic needs, you may not be able to do it. You are also going to run into more nuisance job. Imagine how much bigger groups like Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Mormon Church can get when they don’t have to pay for their proselytizers.

does that not mean that everyone has their basic needs met?

Define basic needs. Can housing be denied if it is in a highly desirable area? Is clothing restricted based on material and cost? Are those without work going to complain that their basic needs of being treated as a human aren’t being met because they can’t have the quality of life of people are working, and are people who work in demanding jobs going to refuse working because they aren’t being compensated for their time?

Not OP, but it can be very detrimental to people’s mental health if they don’t have a role in society. Not a job, but a purpose where their labor provides a benefit to others, like being a caregiver or volunteer. Depression is commonly cited among those who are unemployed, on disability, or recently retired.

You are also going to see a lot of classism surrounding UBI. After all, I can see a lot of people who are able to work becoming bitter at a portion of society that don’t need to work.

But your style can be remembered for ages.

Who doesn’t like a Holiday in Cambodia?