twovests

twovests OP wrote

Reply to It's been four years since Scalia died by twovests

Explanation:

Scalia was one of nine Supreme Court judges in the US. They are important because they have the final say in interpreting the US constitution, and they hear cases that may or may not be important.

Presidents are supposed to be able to pick these judges. They usually serve for life, so a president who picks a judge has a long influence on US politics. Some are liberal and some are conservative. So far, Trump has had two.

Four years ago, Scalia died while Obama was in office, and the GOP blocked Obama from nominating a new Judge to the supreme court, since it was so close to the end of his term. That's bullshit, but it worked.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a liberal judge who is very great and generally well loved. And she's also very old (86 years!) For the past four or so years, there's been a lot of anxiety. It'd be sad for someone at 86 to die, but not surprising. But if RBG dies while Trump is in office, then Trump would get a third judge, which would have bad, bad consequences.

She's had four hospitalizations for cancer (twice within the past few months) and had a fall last year that broke three ribs, so the fear has been especially real. She's an extremely hard worker, recovering and working through her hospitalizations. Read her Wiki article to understand why she's so thoroughly loved. When she dies, it will be a great loss.

But February 13th, 2020 has passed, marking the four year anniversary of Scalia's death. If she dies now, the precedent should be that Trump can't elect a new judge to replace her unless he is re-elected.

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twovests OP wrote

Reply to I'm really happy none of the worst things I ever accidentally said were on Twitter dot Com by twovests

i should qualify that i've never had an incorrect thought in my life and i am basically a fuckening genious

but i'm super bad at talking and so sometimes i say horrible things that don't match with what i wanna say at all. if you try to speak succintly and candidly about abuse but people don't know ur history then you might fuckup and they won't give you the benefit of the doubt!

i'm not a public figure please don't quote me unless i've had 2 hours per sentence to prepare.

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twovests wrote

Reply to i need a favour: people who have been driving for less than five years, please answer two questions for me by neku

I only ever drove to practice and get my license. I have awful spatial awareness, I cannot properly control a car, and when I was driving I was putting peoples lives at some risk. I should not have a license, but I do.

Luckily, I don't need a car, I bike and use public transportation.

This is how I might answer: A safe driver is one who respects the huge responsibility they have over other people's lives. The need for a license should be lower and the bar should be higher. In a more ideal society, anybody who texts while driving or fails to use turn signals should be barred from driving for a year.

Anybody who disagrees with this probably isn't a safe driver, and probably likes Louis CK. I know this may seem extreme, but so is murdering others or yourself through a drivers hubris

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twovests OP wrote (edited )

Reply to Tom Scott video on VPNs, very thorough explanation of when *actually* to and when not to use a VPN for privacy reason by twovests

EDIT: A TLDR of the video:

VPNs are useful for:

  • Appearing to be from a different country to get past content restrictions (piracy!)
  • To get past firewalls/filters (e.g. in China)
  • To stop your ISP or people on your network from seeing and monetizing your DNS queries
  • To hide your public IP address from sites you connect to
  • To protect your data on HTTP / non-SSL sites from your device to the proxy
  • (Not mentioned in the video) for creating a virtual network, useful in some work situations

VPNs don't actually help much with protecting the contents you send over the web (these are usually encrypted), i.e.

  • Bank passwords and data
  • Stopping advertisers from tracking you (there's a lot of stuff other than your IP)
  • Making you anonymous
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