You are the only one implying preference
Third party here, jumping into this thread. It’s pretty clear that OP didn’t say, or even imply, anything about preference, and even put scare quotes around “preference” when responding to you bringing it up. You come off as paranoid and bizarrely defensive in this thread, and it’s a bad look.
I’m going to answer from the perspective of U.S. law, because that’s what I know.
age is a protected class
The idea of protected classes comes from whether Congress or a state legislature protected that class by passing a valid law prohibiting that kind of discrimination. We can describe that generally with protected classes, as a broad summary, but if you’re actually going to get into the weeds of whether some kind of discrimination is legal or not you have to figure out the specific laws.
First, you have to ask what the context is. Is this employment discrimination? Public accommodations discrimination? Housing discrimination? Education discrimination? Each is governed by its own laws. For example Title VII prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, or national origin. Title VI has the same protected classes, but applies in programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance (like universities and hospitals and others). The Equal Credit Opportunity Act prohibits discrimination in providing credit on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, and sex (like the Civil Rights Act) and adds on marital status, age, receipt of public assistance.
The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, family status, or disability.
The Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act add protections for discrimination on the basis of disability.
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act prohibits discrimination against those over 40 on the basis of age.
So if you’re talking about neighborhoods, you’re only looking at housing discrimination, and not public accomodations or employment or schooling or anything like that. The Fair Housing Act doesn’t prohibit housing discrimination on age. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act doesn’t apply to housing discrimination (and is one of the few that only goes one way, in protecting only people above 40).
How is that not the same as an “active white living” community that bans other races?
Because the Fair Housing Act prohibits whites-only neighborhoods, or any other kind of race discrimination in housing.
On a side note, there’s also constitutional Equal Protection claims for governmental discrimination that comes from the Constitution rather than any law passed by Congress. Those aren’t discussed in terms of “protected” class, but rather in “suspect class,” where non-equal treatment on the basis of race, color, or religion is reviewed by the courts with “strict scrutiny” (and almost always struck down). Unequal treatment on the basis of sex or citizenship is subject to “intermediate scrutiny,” which sometimes survives court review. Unequal treatment on the basis of pretty much anything else, though, gets “rational basis” review and basically survives if the government can come up with any rational reason for the rule.
They’re killing the middle class though
Some schools might be, but not places like Chicago or Harvard. At least not through their tuition policies. They give financial aid to those up to a pretty high income threshold.
UChicago, for example, gives free tuition to anyone who is the first in their family to attend college, or makes less than $125k a year. Harvard, as I mentioned, essentially gives free tuition up to $150k. MIT’s threshold is $200k. Families in these income ranges are doing pretty well for themselves.
And then when students graduate from these schools they have a pretty easy path to being rich themselves. The degree, the connections, and possibly the education itself provided a pathway towards six figure jobs, maybe $200k+, before the age of 30.
So no, I think these schools are a pretty good value proposition for even the middle class. Upper middle class has to pay the highest percentage of their own income, but it’s still worth the cost for them.
All the schools rip off the rich to subsidize the middle class. You’re essentially subsidizing a bunch of students who are paying close to nothing.m, because you can afford $70k tuition.
As another example, Harvard is free for anyone whose family makes less than $85k per year. Not just the tuition ($56k per year), but also the housing (worth $13k), food ($8k), health insurance ($1600), books, and a modest living stipend designed to cover things like a computer, commuting/travel, other expenses.
And those who make up to $150k per year are capped at 10% of their income to pay for all that. In the end, the average cost of Harvard for the typical student is about $15,000 per year including housing and food.
In other words, attending Harvard is cheaper than not attending school for anyone whose families make less than $150k, which is basically 75% of the nation. So if you’re actually paying full tuition, you’re probably pretty rich.
I think that some people had trouble with the raised angle of the hostel smile photo, and the way that cameras of different focal lengths (technically, more a function of distance between camera and subject) tend to flatten three dimensional features in slightly different ways. The posts where people were saying that various pictures don’t look like the same person, but like you, I think they look pretty similar.
20 years ago it was the people who worshipped Jack Welch, not realizing (or not caring) that he was running GE into the ground.
one that eats sulfur and excretes iron, and one that eats iron and excretes sulfur
Thermodynamically, how could these two cycles sustain metabolism? Were there other processes/species in the mix to introduce chemical compounds that had more energy contained within?
There’s also really tight coordination between sight and proprioception, as our visual processing seamlessly stitches together visual information into a three dimensional model of reality, even if we’re moving while taking in that visual information, through stereoscopic signals from two eyes.
More specifically, the more recent studies analyze non-drinkers in two categories: those who just choose not to drink (generally healthier than even light drinkers), and those who don’t drink because they have serious health conditions incompatible with drinking or people recovering from substance/alcohol abuse issues who (generally much less healthy than light drinkers). By separating those who don’t drink versus those who can’t drink, the studies reverse earlier findings that non-drinkers are less healthy than light drinkers.
It feels so real in how disappointing the experience becomes for the straight characters.
This hits the nail on the head. It’s funny because of the point of view of the actual participants.
The funny thing about this thread is that there are so many comments essentially agreeing with the central premise of the sketch, that it’s relatable and disorienting when you stumble onto some kind of established fandom and can’t seem to keep up with why it’s popular or what is or isn’t “part of it.” The popularity is confusing in itself, and the need to dissect the lore (as OP is doing, perhaps even unintentionally following the sketch itself) distracts from the original purpose of going there to be entertained.
In other words, the sketch is funny and relatable exactly for the same reasons why much of the audience doesn’t find it funny and relatable.
Oh you can remember which one is which by remembering that they have a university named USC.
Anywhere strangers tend to be around each other long enough to where small talk might be a welcome distraction: waiting in lines for something, sitting at a community table or bar/counter with mixed groups (especially while waiting for the rest of your respective friend groups to show up), sitting next to each other at a public event like live sports or a concert with downtime, volunteer events where you might be set up next to strangers doing the same thing, etc.
It’s easier when there’s a natural end to the interaction (your turn in line, the start of the sporting event), too.
Smartphones and headphones have made it harder, but there are still opportunities when people are bored and sitting around.
There’s a paper from 1984 that worked out the math for a two-sail system that could get a spacecraft to Alpha Centauri, and slow down and end up in that gravity well, with a 41-year mission time. It would do so by discarding a reflector that points backward at the actual payload with its own sail. The paper also proposes a mechanism for a round trip mission, too, using 3 sails.
What’s fun about these is that the mass of the actual vehicle can be much smaller if it doesn’t need to carry rocketry and fuel on board. So even though they’ll never compete with rockets for power (energy used over a specific length of time), starting at a lighter weight and never running out of fuel means that these systems could theoretically exceed the top speeds (relative to the earth) of our fastest rockets, given enough time.
You’re giving the Green Party credit for Joe Biden dropping out, and not the concerted effort or dozens of Democrat insiders who actually hold elected officer and caucus leadership positions?
Running two candidates on literal Genocide wow we’re really running left
So you agree that the Green Party hasn’t moved the Overton Window, and have been unsuccessful in getting anything done?
I predict the Green Party will get less than 0.5% of the popular vote this year. I predict they will hold zero seats in any state legislature. That’s not a position to influence anything, and it’ll arguably be going on the wrong direction, underperforming their 2016 performance.
You expect the Greens to go from 0.36% to 51% in a single election?
No, I expect the Greens to stay under 0.5% permanently, except in the rare case where both major parties run exceedingly unpopular candidates.
The Green Party candidate underperformed Ralph Nader’s independent runs both times he ran without Green Party support, in 2004 and 2008.
If they want to be a serious party, they’ll find a way to win elections for smaller offices at the state and local level. They’ll find a way to outperform the Libertarian party. And they’ll find a way to consistently outperform independent candidates. The Green Party hasn’t been able to do any of these things, and I don’t expect they’ll ever get there.
Furthermore you don’t even seem to comprehend their role in forcing the Democrats to move left.
You serious? Democrats don’t think about the Green Party at all. The people who actually do move the Democratic Party left win elections and then influence the party from positions of power within the caucus: Bernie Sanders, AOC, etc.
The only dip she took was 2020
Stein didn’t run in 2020. The Green Party nominated Howie Hawkins. Get your own history right if you’re going to have a conversation about a fringe political party.
The Greens have gotten more than 1% of the popular vote only twice in its history: 2000 and 2016. In fact, they haven’t gotten 0.5% of the vote in any other year. So it’s easier to look at that total history and understand that it was 2016, not 2020, that was the outlier.
Running the same candidate again after losing twice is a sign that the party isn’t serious.
I think you’re right. The line blurring between corporate sponsorship and community support is pretty difficult to determine. If someone wants to build a community around a particular video game or movie or television show, of course the corporation that publishes it benefits from a bunch of positive discussion about it. But at the same time, that corporate-owned product is part of our shared culture, and a legitimate topic to discuss in a forum like this.
And it’s not even necessarily pure corporate stuff, either. There are nonprofit and trade and governmental organizations that rely on advertising for public messaging: a tourism board promoting their location as a good vacation spot, an agricultural trade group promoting recipes using their specific product, a government health department drive encouraging vaccinations, etc. They pay for ads through conventional outlets while also promoting their interests on social media.
It’s just an ecosystem. We should be aware that there are those who would seek to influence us here, whether for money or politics or other motivation, and navigate these spaces with that in mind.
I dunno, I think our comment histories are pretty distinct, in both our views/preferences and the topics we’re comfortable discussing. I think that’s pretty clear for anyone who just wants to take a look. Again, by insisting that we must be alts for the same person with a secret vegan agenda comes off as paranoid and delusional.