Zonetrooper

One of us, one of us!

I came here to say pretty much the same thing. It's even more interesting when you're working with a future-of-the-real-world setting, and so you actually have to think about how present-day cultures might evolve into the future.

This is the way.

Right? It has such a distinctive look.

Soooooo, about that indictment...

These fears are both true and (kinda) not.

First, I would preface this by saying that many of those hobbies are functionally things which from the early-20th century / post-WW2 US wealth and population boom:

• Having a CNC machine at home unrelated to your business? Unlikely. Farmers might have had machines needed for their labors, but dense urban populations were very unlikely to have had any machine at home which did not have either practical utility (i.e., spinning wheel)

• Some were simply financially out of reach. "Hobbyist drones" and various chemical experiments for fun were far less available to the pre-WW2-era urban population.

• Some are even directly related to the conceit of living on open, privately-owned land. (No land? No need for each apartment to have motorized snow removal thingies.)

...now, understand when I'm saying this, I'm 100% with you. I love tinkering. One of my dreams is to set up a small machine shop for running various hobbyist engines.

So, what can you do?

Well, there aren't any easy answers. Trust me, I've looked. Local makerspaces are hard to find, and pricey to boot. You can try to limit your housing search to locations which do have a suitable garage, recognizing that this will limit you. You could try and rent a garage or utility space from a local business or something.

But one thing I would say is that if you're using your garage for actual hobbyist purposes, then I don't think you need to feel "car guilt". Or, at least, I wouldn't - at that point, you are paying not for a space to house a car (and all the associated issues), but space to house your hobbies.

Agreed. And it wasn't just blind trust in his promises despite a lack of deeds, unlike Trump's wild promises. Like I said, Long actually managed to achieve many positive things for the working-class Louisianian. I also didn't mention it, but he was remarkably hostile to racism for a 1930s Louisiana politician; one of his issues with the Social Security system implemented by Roosevelt was that individual states might deny its benefits to African Americans.

I do wonder if he would have remained so benevolent indefinitely - there is the aforementioned secret control of an oil company profiting from State-owned lands, whose profits Long used for political purposes - but at the same time I can't deny he did a lot of objectively good things which helped the people who needed it the most, was rightly beloved for it, and didn't seem to be stepping away from it in his future plans.

If nothing else, he's a fascinating study on how the political positions associated with populism have shifted over time in the US.

It may not be an exact comparison, given changes in both popular media and US culture, but Huey Long (1893-1935) is possibly one of the closer comparisons.

A wildly popular populist demagogue, Long similarly set about expelling political opponents from the government system following his election and engaging in political maneuvering and strongarming which ultimately got him impeached (though, like Trump, the effort collapsed before before long). His efforts included setting up Louisiana state boards which directed the distribution of state money to political allies, a move to deny hostile newspapers "official printer" status, worked with a businessman to create an oil company which profited from public lands allotted to it, produced his own newspaper which published positive stories, and other similarly totalitarian moves.

However, it must also be noted that unlike Trump, Long actually achieved many populist goals, such as dramatically expanding the road system and increasing school enrollment. He was hostile to Roosevelt's New Deal, claiming it was actually insufficiently populist and overly friendly to businesses, but also was highly isolationist and opposed to US involvement leading up to World War II.

Long was assassinated in 1935 by the son of a political opponent. Most believe he was shot by the assassin, though some believe his bodyguards accidentally shot him in confusion after the assassin missed.

I'm afraid you're not likely to get many actual answers on Lemmy. The politics here can be wildly, wildly skewed, and it doesn't generally create a conducive environment to calm, rational discussions. (In fairness, I'm not sure if any other site really does support truly balanced political discussion either.) I admire your attempt, however.

Another issue (which some others have already commented on) is what constitutes a "compromise". For instance, if I have four issues which left and right-wing movements are at odds over, is it "compromise" if for each of the two I decide to go with a strongly left- or right-wing position? Or is it only compromise if for all positions we take a moderate position which cleaves to neither bloc's position?

Anyhow, let me at least try to answer. Though I lean more left, I still find myself out of line with both major parties on some issues. For example: In the interests of addressing climate change and achieving stronger energy reliability and independence, I favor a drive to increase, not remove, hydroelectric dams and nuclear power facilities in the country.

It's not Earth-focused, but Eve Online had a minor subplot about how the coordination of time between multiple competing human civilizations became a major political problem because no one wanted to accept the system promoted by a rival empire.

Some years ago, I lost a drawing notebook full of sketches I'd done over a few years. Dunno if that counts as 'valuables'?

I'm 99% sure it's somewhere at home, but either way I'd really like that back.

I did not know that is where it came from, but that's neat (if a touch depressing). Thank you for that info. Fascinating how languages shift.

Part of it is that the question is phrased to make you react that way. By using "pundits" as opposed to "commentators" or "analysts", it primes you to think about someone at Fox (or, these days, Youtube) pounding on a table while screaming about immigrants, as opposed to a respected individual evenhandedly explaining the complexities of a nuanced issue.