Wes4Humanity

"A monopoly is a market structure with a single seller or producer that assumes a dominant position in an industry or a sector. Monopolies are discouraged in free-market economies because they stifle competition, limit consumer substitutes, and thus, limit consumer choice." ~investopedia

Nothing about needing to jack prices up. I'd say Amazon fits the description perfectly

Crest 3D strips work well, but do not fall asleep with them in... I did that by accident, swallowed one of the strips and woke up in such excruciating pain I had to crawl to the bathroom and puke. Just as heads up

Fix the fucking election system... No more gerrymandering, money out, make voting day a holiday, make mail in easy, zero bullshit restrictions making voting harder, ranked choice, no electoral college, get a handle on primaries too

Ah yes... My favorite gospel

Jesus made sure EVERYONE knew

The majority of the people are significantly more left leaning, but our politicians continue to drag the country to the right. (Particularly economically... Socially they just drag their feet, but we've had some progress) This is because the only "people" they care about are corporate people (as in corporations are people).

However, while the vast majority of human people are far left of anything happening in politics, what remains of the right is becoming more and more violently entrenched in their conservative ways... Basically the schism is because most of society is progressing into the future, while a small group refuses to come with us, and is determined to hold us all back.

If you see the upcoming civil war as inevitable, then triggering it now would mean the government forces are on our side, and with Trump dead you'd get a bunch of different maga factions the government could sweep up quickly. Now when the civil war begins, Trump will be president, maga will be united behind him, and the government forces will be working FOR them.

Over the next 100 years or so VR and haptic tech make it so people can become fully emersed in virtual reality. So pretty much everyone does. There are arguments on both sides, but eventually most people choose to live in their own world as a "god" with only VR interaction between one another. Everyone in VR stops having real kids, but thanks to AI improvements they can still have "kids". Technology eventually allows people to plug in permanently while their bodies are maintained by AI and robots systems. Eventually their bodies die, but their consciousness has been captured enough by the system that no one knows or notices when their VR friends bodies die in reality.

In the real world a very small segment of society refuses to join the VR universe and pledge to remain in the real world. Maybe there's some war in there because of this. Eventually though, the population of earth drops to maybe a few hundred thousand mostly wandering communal groups, while everyone else's consciousness is in VR systems. This is good for the planet.

After a few thousand years, the people in reality have multiplied and built a better more equitable world, but have completely forgotten about the people in VR, and the automated buildings containing the computers have become buried and lost to time. Until one day someone stumbles across one of these ruins and begins interacting with the VR people again despite a mythical belief system that such technology is all bad.

Some shit happens and there's a VR vs reality reckoning... Maybe some sort of Romeo and Juliet love story to keep it interesting.

That bad apple has long since ruined the bunch

I think an easier solution would be to expand section 8. The government should have tons of housing units built, and then families can "pay them off" with section 8 funding. Right now section 8 money just goes to slumlords. Instead that money could go to the people who actually need it. This would increase housing supply, so prices would come back down, plus allow people to build equity and ownership in their home allowing them to start raising themselves out of poverty.

You're correct, pedophilia is a mental illness. A very tragic one since there is no hope and no cure. They can't even ask for help because everyone will automatically assume they are also child molesters. Which is what you're describing, but not all child molesters are pedophiles, and most pedophiles will never become child molesters... Like you said, some people just get off on exploiting the power dynamic and aren't necessarily sexually attracted to children. Those people are the real danger.

The reason the government is garbage is because most of them are working for the corporations. If we heavily regulated the corporations and made it so they couldn't interfere with politics, the government would be better... They'd actually be working for the people and our interests, like they're supposed to

The problem isn't government, it's corporate control of the government

Privatizing things will always cost more because then you need to account for profits as well. Publicly controlled=x cost, privately controlled=x costs+profit for the rich

Even the most corrupt government employee is only getting a pay check (no profits). They make their corruption money by colluding with corporations and rich people