The obvious answer is that it’s fast, tasty, and requires minimal effort for the consumer, especially if it’s getting delivered. But it also tends to be very cheap compared to dining out. I don’t know what you are ordering where a combo is so much but I normally get a bunch of food from Taco Bell to eat over the course of two days. I can get 2000 calories of food I like to eat for $12.

I don’t see why you would think that. Someone like Bernie was too radical for the American left to win a primary, no way he would be considered more appealing to America at large in the general.

It’s frustrating because Biden/Harris are too moderate to capture far left voters and too radical to wrestle the center from a populist like Trump. And it seems many disenfranchised voters are content to stay at home because better isn’t good enough. I’m not trying to absolve them of responsibility, but I genuinely think Democrats could make great strides if the left was as good at banding with each other as the right. Instead, the Democrats lost the popular vote for the first time in twenty years.

Trump is projected to win the popular vote too, the first time a Republican presidential candidate has since 2004. There are more of the other guys showing up at least.

None of you should explain anything to five year olds.

The TvTropes links are mostly right though? It matches the third variation of Earth All Along. The linked examples match what OP is describing except not being restricted to Fantasy.

I’m not saying it can’t be done, but getting a compromise from a debate is not a primary goal. For competitions, the goal is usually to demonstrate and practice debate skills and the topic and positions matter less. For more serious debates, it is meant to be a way to expose people to the strengths of your position’s arguments and expose the weaknesses of your opponent’s. It’s valuable as an opportunity to persuade an audience of people who haven’t been firmly entrenched in either position, or who may have only been exposed to one side’s arguments in earnest.

The framework does presume both viewpoints are valid, since both sides are expected to believe in their position, be rational, and be reasonably well-informed. An invalid perspective would not be argued by someone meeting these criteria. It does not presume equality as that would be preemptively judging the quality of the argument. Either the debate platform or the other debater would presumably not agree to a debate with someone who cannot be expected to meet these criteria.

In the US, brokerage companies legally have to send you a Form 1099 which covers all investment income over the year. You then include this when submitting your taxes. They probably send a similar report to your government instead.

This wouldn’t be 25% of your profit, it’s just increasing one of your expenses by 25%. It looks like it’s going up to $3000.

Edit: Enterprise price is negotiated with each company, so there’s not a set subscription price. But it’s still just the price of one expense, not a portion of total profits.

But it came back to bite them in the debate. Trump sounded particularly unhinged when he brought it up and wanted to change topics quickly when he realized how it sounded. Even his supporters must have been confused about what he was talking about.

I am not a lawyer, but consumer protections should generally kick in when an issue is actually evaluated in a court. If you are being charged for things you believe to be unfair, you would need to refuse to pay, then see them in action after the business escalates it. Often, a predatory business will give up when it knows it doesn’t have a case. But it’s pretty hard to work on behalf of a citizen if they ultimately are convinced that they do have an obligation to pay after all.

I agree with the other commenter on the first issue. If you have been paying the amount you were charged, and then hit with surprise retroactive charges, you would have a serious case in small claims. I expect a judge would favor you if it’s as described. $1000 for late fees is exorbitant, especially when the glitch was from their software and not rectified quickly. Unless you’re leaving out relevant details that explains the situation better.

For the second issue, needlessly cumbersome cancellation processes are considered dark patterns and may be illegal in some cases. These cases are being enforced more recently, even against large companies like Amazon. For your pest control case though, if you face pushback when cancelling it’s pretty simple to tell them you won’t be using their services and will refuse to pay. If you already paid, you may be able to issue a chargeback after explaining the situation to your bank. Seeing as how you would be being charged for services not done, I don’t see how the business could contest that after being informed of the cancellation. You would still be on the hook for a (reasonable) cancellation fee, as lost business from a cancelled reservation does represent real damages.

We are a country with a litigious history and we have recognized considerable rights for consumers. Just because you feel powerless doesn’t mean you are.

Of course, and any job will expect some degree of training anyway. But there’s only so much that can be tested for before hiring someone. A degree is just a reference from the university that you meet their standards of mastery at whatever major at whatever level. Some jobs expect you to have one just like some expect you to have references from individuals, but others will have other tests for qualification which may even just be an interview conversation. Apprenticeships are pretty similar; each is an individual or group staking their reputation on vouching for your competency. Even a GED or high school diploma is a reference, just from an organization or a public institution.

My favorite:

It seems bizarre to me that the only user I have seen actually trying to provide constructive criticism for the bot so far in this thread is the one that already likes it. Especially when others instead advocate for things like the mods taking a political stance to endorse and using mod powers to reinforce it.

I like the bot. It’s valuable to have context for the organization pushing a story. I agree that others are reading too much from the orgs they like being labeled as biased. It’s assumed a news source will have some bias, and trying to avoid acknowledging that is dangerous. The takeaway is simply to be wary of any narrative being pushed (intentionally or not) by framing or omission, and get news from a variety of sources when possible. Instead, people tend to think identifying bias is advocating that the article should be disregarded, which is untrue.

To your suggestion, I do think adding more sources for reliability and bias judgements is a good idea. It would give more credibility if multiple respected independent organizations come to the same conclusion. More insight into their methodology in the comment itself could also be nice. The downside of adding these is that it would make the comment even longer when people have already complained about its size.

Other than that, I have seen people dislike using the American political center as a basis for alignment, but I have yet to see a good alternative. I expect a significant plurality of users are from the US, and US politics are globally relevant, so it seems to be a natural choice.

Nearly every critic I have seen so far just thinks it should be removed entirely because they find it annoying. I would say even if it isn’t considered useful for the majority of users, the amount of value it provides people who do use it justifies whatever minor annoyance it is to others. Anyone who gets really tired of collapsing the comment or scrolling past it can block it in seconds.

Thank you to the mod who created this thread. Even if it’s good to gather feedback, it’s obviously not easy to get bombarded with negative comments. I’m impressed with the patience you have shown in this thread.

You can get more reasonable prices per sandwich with coupon codes. For the ones near me, they almost always have a “FLBOGO” or “BOGOFTL” or “FTL1299” or similar variation to get two for the price of one. But YMMV and you have to be ok with leftovers if you’re eating alone.

Actually, the devil demonstrated considerable skill with his fiddle. Johnny himself admitted he was pretty good. This poster needs to read the Bible.

I remember seeing a video of a rubber arm experiment that goes through a series of exercises to convince someone’s mind that a rubber arm placed against their shoulder is theirs, while the real one is blocked out of sight. Once these phantom sensations are in place, the organizer then hits the rubber hand with a hammer, causing great shock in the subject but no real harm. The immediate panic is exaggerated by the fact their mind can’t actually move “their” hand out of the way when they see the swing coming.

Another study had organizers shine a harmless light on participants’ arm for a few minutes and see how they react, allegedly for some sampling purpose. The twist was that they would have the real subjects stay in a waiting room beforehand and watch actors leave while appearing to be in considerable pain from the session where the light was targeting. They then experienced a significant burning sensation from the “laser” despite the organizers insisting it was harmless. Some would go as far as to raise their voice and demand the experiment stop.

The idea is that people can be convinced that something is painful just from others’ reactions to it. This may have been what the organizers were actually testing for, and the electrical shock wasn’t real or was barely large enough to felt. But OP was just immune to being influenced. I would expect the ability to follow cues from others has strong correlation to success at socializing, so considering they use 4chan OP might actually just be built different.