Though having cash is not enough. The stores also need to be able to accept cash without internet usage. I think we had a case in germany a few years ago, where some supermarkets could not sell anything, because the servers, to which the local payment system connected (also uses for cash) didn’t work. Not sure, if that was because of a security incident.

In germany - I think - blood and plasma donations are most commonly done with the DRK (German Red Cross). I might be wrong, but DRK is not a for profit organization, but “gemeinnützig”. Organizations with that status get controlled by the government for it, so they are non-profit. I think the 25€ are an incentive to come and donate, just as the chocolate and drinks and the small goodies, that you get there. And you only can get the money, if you go to one of the fixed DRK locations. If the DRK comes to somewhere near you (as they often do with churches, town halls, schools and universities) you don’t get any money. I can at least believe, that these two are monetarily similar for the DRK. If you come to them, they don’t need to pay for getting the equipment and people to you. And providing incentives for donating blood is in effect a good thing, as they are working, thus we have more blood to save lifes.

Ofcourse actors later in the chain are probably profit oriented. Though there I would see the discussion disconnected from the donation. It is more about if we want profit oriented actors in healthcare.

And - as always - the US healthcare system seems to do the worst thing possible every time. Sorry, americans, don’t want to bash you, but capitalism…

An interesting customer base might be small communal organisations. At our local scouts troop I had a discussion with a friend, who is also in IT. His idea (not fleshed out) was to provide small local organizations with a stack of already configured open source software to support the typical needs of such organizations (like a wordpress website, a nextcloud for file storage and common calender, limesurvey for surveys and event registration, mailman3 for mailing lists,…). Depending on the needs you could sell the initial setup process (your personal work in setting up and skill transfer) or ongoing support. Though such organizations normally don’t have much money to give away. So probably its not really worth your time financially (though probably really appreciated in the community).

Eh, Wonderwall sounding right is really not a kid level song. I struggled for some time with it. Lady in Black is the absolute beginner song. Good for practicing a 4/4 strumming pattern and 2 of the easiest chords (Em and D).

Individuals and corporations both rent out houses/apartments to get more money out of it than by selling it again. Your model would absolutely lower the return on renting property out. So increasing the rent would be a logical decision for them. Or if your rules make renting unprofitable, noone will build more houses/apartments than their own. Sure, the house market might see low prices, but at some point it might be more logical to hold the property than to sell for a very big loss, hoping for better times. So a lower limit would be there. Then you have many non-sellable homes sitting around and still many people, who cannot afford to buy but also cannot rent (since nobody rents out anymore).

One interesting thing in your scenario would also be, how to handle the part ownerships. Lets take a student at the university renting a small room/apartment for the time of their studies. They might make payments towards ownership for a few years, accumulating something like a few percent of ownership. Then their studies are finished, they move and another student comes in. Rinse and repeat. You will get property owned by tens of persons this way, even when not every tenant wants to do the payments. Would be a hell to administer. Nothing would work anymore regarding decisions and work relating the property.

I think nothing can work around the fact, that we need many and good publicly owned properties for renters, where the rent is no driven by the profit motive and in effect is decided in democratic structures (like city government). Maybe in your scenario you would also want public entities buying homes to then rent without profit.

Do english speaking dads really do that? Kinda weird

Yeah, sure, delusional. Until you call a local polititian “so 1 dick” on some online platform, leading to you and also your ex grilfriend getting raided by the police, all electronic devices taken by them as evidence for an undetermined time and the low key threats from the prosecutor about what would happen next. Or until a journalist dares to link to a website, that the state recently criminalized the creators of, though the state itself links to that specific site, too. And depending on how easy the access for the police is: You might wanna refrain from being too popular (like a famous singer or actor) or from being active against climate change or right wing extremism. Your personal data is easily leaked through the police to anyone of their friends.

You might think, that this is overly specific and won’t really happen? Well, it already did. In germany. Sure, most people won’t have the states crosshair on their forehead. But nontheless you might easily be one of the exceptions.

Sounds as dumb of an idea as the one child policy

What is currently the state of things for nuclear waste in the US? In germany they still search for a place for storing it long term. Gets in the news now and then. Did the US have more success with finding a good site? Or is this again just companies betting to hand over the waste to the public when they are done? As I remember in germany the companies got a cheap buy out for the waste after the closure of nuclear power plants where setup.

I think these nations setup the ISPs to look for the packets using a VPN protocol. This protocol is only used between the user and the VPN provider, so the target website doesn’t see it. Though I think this can be evaded too with a bit of work (masking the packets as normal web traffic). One reason why repressive regimes also want to control the devices of the user.

Or something like Rapture XD

I’m not sure about the weekly limit, but I guess it has also to do with the absorbtion of nitrogen into your blood, which is why you make safety stops after going deep and why there are daily limits.

Depending on how deep and how long you dive, more nitrogen will get dissolved in your blood due to the increased pressure. It stays there until you get into lower pressure ( ascending to the surface). If you do that too fast, the nitrogen will build up bubbles. And bubbles in the bloodstream is really really bad, hindering the flow of blood. Doing safety stops in lower depths gives some nitrogen the time to leave your body through the lungs while breathing. Not diving for a certain time after your dive sessions will give time to release all additional nitrogen from the blood, preventing a builtup over each dive.

How could one protect electronics/hard disks/etc from a Crrington type event?

I’ve previously printed custom lego pieces for the Lego League kids, that my wife has at work. I’m using a Creality Ender 3 S1 with 0.4mm nozzle. Though I’ve not tried smaller parts. They were 8x2 units and 2 or 3 units high. They have the name of the kid on the side. It took some tries to get the tolerances good enough, but now I can print them with normal speed and minimal post processing.

So I think it depends on what pieces you want to print.

What people want in life often comes from what they experienced themselves previously. You mentioned charity. I’ve put 13 years of my life into being a scouts group leader, organizimg weekly meetups, many events and multiple scout camps a year. I’m very passionate about this, since I’ve got so much out of being a scout since I was 7, growing up with a community, that was meaningful and not harsh and punishing as school. I wanted tp give these experience back to the next scout generation. And during my time as scout group leader I could grew even more, making my own life better through helping others. Soon I will shift my focus away from the scouts (currently its too much together with work; also I want kids soon).

I’m not saying, that you need to do this. I just wanted to explain where my motivation comes from. I get a sense of fulfilment and I’m proud of what I’ve done and I’m proud of the kids, that I saw growing up and now being group leaders themselves.

Finding something, that you are passionate about is very important. It doesn’t need to include external responsibilities. Taking responsibility for your own self, like putting in hard work to learn a new skill, can be as fulfilling as the above.

Alcohol consumption. I don’t drink alcohol - ever. Never have and probably never will. And it can be really hard being with people, who find it cool and funny to drink excessive amounts. I volunteer as a scout leader in my country. It is astonisihing, what some of the troop leaders think of ok, when working with youth groups. And often enough even the regulations for underage drinking are broken (which are already relatively low, comparing to the US). They all just don’t care as long as they get to drink as they like. You can probably hear how frustrated I am, though I’m over with fighting it. Won’t change ever and it is not good for my psychological state to go against society here apart from my own personal decisions.

Doesn’t drink alcohol ever

Wow, call me triggered here XD I’m interested what your reasoning here is.

Though I wouldnt count the barely-avoiding-imminent-human-Apocalypse from Project Hail Mary a trend to the better for humanity 😆

How would one describe “how stupid” these 99% are? Sure, you can take the distribution of IQ, though that doesn’t mean much.

A good idiom to think about: 99% of people believe, that 99% of people are idiots.

Where I live in germany there is a saying: “Anderswo is auch scheiße”. Literally translates to “Other places are also shit”. So I’m currently not considering moving into another country. Though I often ask myself, what I would do if germany goes the nazi route again. The AfD is real scum.