Gray

I always thought it was funny while studying for my Cisco certification that their operating system was also called IOS. I had no idea there was actual drama behind it!

The only way that could conceivably work out is if everyone collectively protested their student loans together since it's such a massive problem for so many people. Even then, the government would probably buckle down and try to destroy half the country's financial viability before they caved and admitted this toxic industry preyed on kids that didn't know what that debt meant when they signed up for it.

The most effective ads I've seen in my lifetime have been podcast ads. I don't remember shit I see in mobile apps or on most corners of the internet. I could personally sell Blue Apron or Harry's Razors for all I've heard about them on podcasts though. The smartest companies allow the podcasters to joke around in their ads too. My Brother, My Brother, and Me will say some borderline offensive but hilarious stuff in their ads and I'll be damned if it doesn't keep me listening to their ads and hearing about the products being advertised.

Lmao, unfortunately not. Thanks for catching the typo.

isn't**

Oh it definitely happens. I'm a young millennial and I have a friend my age who deals with mental issues because he ate lead paint leftover in their old house as a child. Lead was so prevalent at one point that getting rid of it all isn't as simple as flipping a switch.

Edit: [wasn't -> isn't] There does not in fact exist a switch that we can now flip to remove lead. Thanks @[email protected].

I think it's easier to understand net neutrality as something ISP's can't do rather than something they must do, since we've never seen them really act on it before. It just means they can't speed up or slow down your internet based on what websites you're visiting. Under net neutrality, there can never be a deal with Google to give people faster speeds using Google searches than Bing or DuckDuckGo searches.

How a person reacts to being asked about the version of these things most close to them is telling. If they get defensive and deny the event happened, I would hesitate to trust their opinion on other things. Clearly that person bases their opinions on what they want to be true rather than reality. That's the kind of person whose ideology would likely lead to another event to be ashamed of. If, on the other hand, they admit it was a horrible thing and agree that people should be educated on it and that steps should be taken to prevent it from ever happening again, then I'm more likely to take their opinion seriously and believe that they can be part of the conversations we need to happen to create a better world.

No worries. You're right that it's absurd that we need to fight so much for our government to protect us from blatant corporate for-profit schemes. There was a time when even the US government at least did us the honor of pretending to not take bribes like this. The Intuit tax return money machine is such an obviously fixable problem. All my 20-something friends in the US know that this problem only exists because of lobbying. It's disgusting to watch elected representatives become so comfortable with their positions that they feel safe enacting policies that hurt their constituents like this.

For context, the reason I'm hating on Intuit and H&R Block and encouraging people to use FreeTaxUSA is because the first two are the main culprits behind the extensive lobbying that has led to the US government continuing to require people to file their own taxes rather than modernizing and making this process free and easy. My "gushing" is in pursuit of changing the broken system you're pointing out.

I know City-Data Forums is still pretty active. I've used it a lot when deciding on places to move. I'm also a bit of an urban design nerd and there's a lot of fascinating discussion I come across there.

Fuck Intuit and H&R Block, all my homies use FreeTaxUSA.

A lot of people here mentioning scientology's history of litigation and taking down the IRS and while that's true, I also think it's worth mentioning Waco. After the Waco seige the government lost a LOT of interest in going anywhere near cults. It's just a giant mess that nobody wants to put their ass on the line to deal with. When you're dealing with fanatics you never know what crazy shit is going to go down. As long as they aren't hurting people outside of their cult itself, many politicians would sooner keep away from them and avoid having something backfire. That's not to say that they're right to think that way. It's just the truth. Everything changed after Waco. Before Waco, the government was actually trying to do more about cults. The Jonestown massacre involved a sitting congressman getting gunned down. All the IRS shit with the scientologists went down before Waco too. IMO, Waco is the most important turning point to look at to understand why the government won't touch cults anymore.