Two battalions of the US Army’s 11th Airborne Division, the Arctic Angels, cold weather warfare specialists, are on standby for deployment to Minnesota, I'm assuming at the behest of the federal mafia I mean "government".

Meanwhile, the governor of Minnesota has the Minnesota national guard on standby, ready to protect protesters.

Are we going to see federal vs state forces fighting?

@mynameistillian I have a genuine question: What about those who would seek change from within? When I see officials resigning because of something awful, I always wonder why they don't stay on and fight against it, instead of handing the reins to someone who is blatantly malevolent. It's the same sort of deal here, from my perspective.

I didn't get the job. We are completely fucked.

I need employment, *urgently*. I am not picky. My family needs to eat, and that overrides everything else. Please, does anybody out there work at a company that has machine learning or Python programming positions? Would you be willing to recommend me? I can demonstrate my abilities to you, first, if you need convincing, or I can share git repos.

Could billionaires even exist if all companies were cooperatives?

#Cooperatives
#CooperativeBasedEconomy
#Inequality

@Minimac @GhostOnTheHalfShell @benroyce

It all comes down to short term convenience. One of these days, though, things will reach the point where a lot of people can't even afford it anymore, and then they'll look around and realize how they've been suckered. It's only convenient in the short term. Long term, most of our suffering and work comes from this.

@maerlynofmiria @GreenSkyOverMe I'd be happy to help you find out, if you'd like that

@maerlynofmiria

Do you have any more info to know what I'm looking for?

@GreenSkyOverMe

@maerlynofmiria @GreenSkyOverMe They're all done by LLMs now so nobody reads them.

@maerlynofmiria @GreenSkyOverMe It's not a format that's appropriate for my learning style, so I have trouble with it. I want written tutorials too. It's a worse outcome for a lot of people for many different reasons, I think.

@skinnylatte The downside is, often you have to pay out of pocket, and it can be very pricey.

@adhdeanasl 75°F here today. And we are supposed to be in the 80s the next 2 days.

It was in the 20s just a week or two ago.

@inthehands Like many autistic people, I have encyclopedic recall for things that interest me -- neurodivergence being one of those topics. If you ever want to explore possible matches for your particular neurodivergence, I'd be happy to share that collected information.

@lkanies @cratermoon

I don't think that's what Paul was saying, though. We have identified these categories because those of us who fall in them (like me) often struggle more than others to conform to societal expectations. But that doesn't mean that anybody is "normal". You can say nobody is normal, or nobody is typical, without denying that outliers exist and face greater challenges in society.

@inthehands

@inthehands Wow, this is an awesome thread! I didn't know this stuff even crossed your mind, and then you suddenly just lay it all out and obliterate the silly assumptions people make. As someone who does fit (a bit awkwardly at times) in the clusters we have defined as ADHD and autism, I really appreciate this perspective!

I have an autistic friend here who I just found out has a large collection of online art they created. But this person doesn't share it here, because they have trouble describing visual details verbally. So I wanted to ask the community on this person's behalf:

What are the options for assistance with *creating* alt text? I know we have tags like #AltText4You, but I've never used it, so I don't know proper etiquette. (Is there any?) I also know there are automated tools for doing it, but (1) I don't know what they're called and (2) IDK if they are actually helpful to visually impaired folks.

I was thinking at the very least, this person could ask for help writing alt text, in the alt text itself, and then simply edit it once someone has assisted.

Please boost so we can get a variety of perspectives on this. I'm especially interested in hearing from the visually impaired community, as this impacts them the most.

@xankarn

"Almost one in four households couldn’t pay their energy bills in 2024, according to census data."

One in four. One in four. Read that again, folks. ONE IN FUCKING FOUR households. The propaganda is that we are a wealthy country. WE ARE NOT. There are a few wealthy people here, and there are a shit ton of poor people here. It's just that the wealthy people are *so* wealthy that when you include them in the average, it *sounds like* we are a wealthy nation. "A rising tide lifts all boats," my ass!

The US is ranked #6 in the world for extreme income inequality. That's right. You can literally count on one hand the countries that do it worse than us.

You want to know why one of the wealthiest countries in the world (when looked at in aggregate) is disintegrating before our very eyes? That's the reason.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/10/where-in-the-world-are-wealth-and-income-most-unequal

#WorldInequalityReport
#IncomeInequality
#WealthInequality
#Inequality
#GINI
#USA
#Populism
#Oligarchy
#Plutocracy

@Chigaze @evan

Replace publicly traded companies with cooperatives, and see if new billionaires are ever created again.

* 1 share per person.
* 1 dividend per person.
* 1 shareholder vote per person.
* The person must be a worker or customer.

Screwing over someone for profit stops being profitable when you get a slice of the pie that's exactly the same as everyone else's and you're one of the people who would get screwed over.

Are there any software projects that people would be willing to pay a small weekly or monthly contribution to support me while I develop it? I need a way to feed my family, and I don't like asking for handouts.

Please respond with ideas of things you'd like to see exist, that you'd maybe be willing to contribute an ongoing nonzero amount towards, and boost for reach. If you don't have idea of your own, that's fine. Boosting will still help!

#FediHired
#OpenSource
#Python
#MachineLearning
#Data
#Reporting
#BackendDeveloper