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California Ranks Last in ‘Business Friendliness,’ #1 in Electricity Cost – and Another Company Flees the State
Smithfield Foods, Inc. is joining the ever-going ranks of businesses fleeing California due to the exorbitant cost of business – and, especially, of energy – in the Golden State.
On Friday, Smithfield announced that it will cease all harvest and processing operations in its Vernon, California plant in early 2023 and begin planning to close all of its farms in the state.
“Smithfield is taking these steps due to the escalating cost of doing business in California,” the company said in a press release.
Fully 272 corporate headquarters left California between January 1, 2018 and June 30, 2021, a Hoover Institute study finds, with the rate of exit doubling in the first six months of 2021 from its full-year 2020 rate.
While California ranks as one of the worst states in terms of overall business cost, “business friendliness,” and business tax climate - the high cost of utilities is a major factor fueling the exodus, as California businesses have the highest average cost of electricity:
Highest average electricity price (17.74 cents per kWh) of 48 lower states and D.C. (Approve.com 2021 Business Cost Index)
48th in overall business costs (WalletHub)
Worst (50th) in terms of state “business friendliness” (CNBC study)
48th in 2022 State Business Tax Climate Index (The Tax Foundation)In California, the cost of utilities is 3.5 times higher per head to produce pork compared to the 45 other U.S. plants Smithfield operates, a company spokesman told The Wall Street Journal.
In addition to the high “fixed” costs of California’s electrical system, public programs like CARE and wildfire mitigation, are also driving up the price of electricity in the state, a UC Berkeley study concluded, Cal Matters reports.
“When households adopt solar, they’re not paying their fair share,” the study’ co-author Meredith Fowlie told Cal Matters. While solar users generate power that decreases their bills, they still rely on the state’s electric grid for much of their power consumption — without paying for its fixed costs like others do, Fowlie explained.
That's a new twist - blaming solar power for your high energy costs. Whatever - if the exodus continues, California's huge economy may come crashing down.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2022, @10:24PM (37 children)
Just secede from the union. Everyone will be rushing to get into the Californian utopia.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2022, @10:58PM (1 child)
California's a great place to live. Unless you want to work for a living.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @01:33AM
Or need to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2022, @11:04PM (34 children)
More pig shit for Runaway and Arkansas.
(Score: 3, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2022, @11:30PM (10 children)
Yet another non-reality based journal entry from Runaway? Color me bored. Besides, no one wants industrial hog production in their neighborhood, or state, with the possible exception of Arkansas. It's the smell. Also, they pass off pig rectum as calamari, and boar penis as tranny penis. No wonder Runaway is upset.
Say goodnight, Paul!
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday June 14 2022, @03:04PM (9 children)
CA will keep the hogs, they have lots of farms.
In fact, they have the largest agricultural output in the nation. [beef2live.com]
I love how the the welfare leech states think we need them for food!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @09:41PM
That should continue, now that CA has canceled irrigation water, and flushed storage water out to the delta. Plan Ahd!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 15 2022, @01:11AM (2 children)
Probably because of the slow suicide thing going on there. California will need a lot more than food in a few decades, methinks.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 15 2022, @03:00PM (1 child)
CA will need to make more food to provide even more subsidies to the loser states?
Or CA will need more food because this claimed exodus is bullshit?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 15 2022, @10:57PM
How do you know who subsidizes who? My take remains that you need to look at who gets that federal funding - not what state that funding happens to be spent in. For example, IT spending no matter the state will involve California businesses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2022, @10:38AM (4 children)
I'd like to see that re-ordered by calories instead of dollars.
Subsidies have distorted the market to the point that $ values are misleading at best. To be clear, I have no doubt that California would still rank as a high-producing state, just not to the same extent. A pound of walnuts probably has as much nutrition as 3 pounds of corn, but it also costs 30 times as much.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 15 2022, @11:01PM (3 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2022, @02:15PM (2 children)
Well yes. That's what I said. Walnuts taste better than corn, but cost more per calorie.
The question was about food growing states, I think they should be ordered by calorie count. When you're hungry enough any source of calories tastes good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2022, @05:37PM
Yep, that's the plan. Feelers and exoskeletons provide a lot of crunchy dietary fiber.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 19 2022, @09:59PM
And you just gave a reason why ordering by calorie count is a bad idea. Walnuts and corn would be ordered in preference for corn even though walnuts are valued more.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2022, @11:33PM (3 children)
Runaway copy and pastes a wall of text, no citation, no link, no source given. Is this from Brietbarf? Of Zunhinged? Or RT? Runaway always has the very best deranged right-wing sources!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @05:16AM (2 children)
You'd have to grab a sentence or two and pop it into a search engine, if you cared so much. (But you do, since you announced that you were anticipating a "deranged" messenger to attack, regardless of the veracity of the statements. How about counter-arguments from you?)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @09:17AM (1 child)
No counter argument, since there is no argument, only derangement. It is like a insurrectionist, who said Trump called him to DC, and after all Trump has done for us, . . . that is when I stopped, and thought, what? Other than getting Paul Ryan's tax break for the wealthy passed, what did Trump ever do for anyone, besides himself? See, that kind of derangement is impossible to argue against, and Runaway is full on as demented. California? Really? The name itself is enough to start him foaming. Throw in a "Pelosi" or "Kamala", or god forbid, a "Hilary" and he will just totally loose his shit, and have to go change his pants, again.
Providing a link is a common courtesy, and in this case would tell me whether a click if worth it or not. Since you, in your MAGA kindness, also did not give a citation, I assume it is one of your conservative daisy-chain circle-jerk human centipede publications. Will not search, will not click, and will cancel if in my power.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @04:37PM
If we did all your homework for you, you would never learn anything.
Whoops, too late for you!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2022, @11:39PM (18 children)
Yes, it's all a fabrication of that vast right-wing conspiracy. And that endless stream of eastward bound cars is just your imagination. And all the old TV shows set in California are exactly what it's like living there today. The dream lives... load up the truck and move to Beverly.
Come and knock on our door
We've been waiting for you
Where kisses are hers and hers and his
Three's Company, too
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @02:04AM (9 children)
Eh, I met some rednecks on the way out on my way in. Good riddance. I moved out of flyover country to get away from that kind of idiot. Charming idiots in their way, but still idiots.
Actually it's pretty fucking good here in the city. I haven't seen a single Confederate flag, no rolling coal, and only a couple loud trucks here and there.
I think it's more the case that the losers are leaving to go grow Smithfield bacon for us at poverty wages, because they can't handle the hard work we do in the city. I know that the work is hard, because it's valued so highly according to the exchange theory of value.
Only a Marxist would argue that an hour of my time watching build scripts from my air conditioned 15th floor office and making the occasional tweak here and there is equivalent to an hour doing tractor repair in hundred degree heat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @02:42AM (6 children)
An I-5 commute and 15th floor script kiddie life might appeal to you now. Don't assume you are a cross-section of anything. You make Wally sound productive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @03:25AM (5 children)
I could see myself retiring back to flyover country when I'm 50 or so. I wouldn't have to work another day in my life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @04:56PM (4 children)
When you hit the magic four-oh, and those young bucks start flooding the place, and you realize there isn't an automatic pathway to the top floor... there's a line bein' drawn.
Some people saw that line when outgo was always going to exceed income, when property tax meant they could no longer max-out their 401-K, when they looked around the middle-class neighborhood and realized that nearly every house had five, six or seven cars parked out front, and they wondered where all those people could sleep. When the... oh, just mark this post as "Troll" and let the whole thing be a surprise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @05:35PM (1 child)
lol. You sound like a capitalcel. Hit the magic four-oh, and I'm netting more than I ever have. (Yep, retirement looms in under a decade! W007!) All I had to do was move out of flyover country.
Maybe all those people are just living beyond their means. They should stop buying iphones with $300/month plans. Do they really need a $200/mo 10 gigabit internet with ESPN? They need better budgeting skills. They shouldn't be having children they can't afford, and don't tell me I need to pay for your kids like some kind of Trotskyist, Luxemburgist, or Marxist-Leninist! Don't go into debt, especially not at 25% APR! Why haven't they invested any of their money? You should be saving during good times so you aren't crushed when there are bad times. Make sure you have a spare gas can for when you run out of gas on the side of the road.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @05:45PM
As I said earlier, "Don't assume you are a cross-section of anything." It sounds like you're trying not to become a victim of hubris, but it's amazing what happens around us when we try to mind our own business. How about a new catchphrase... Well, You know, California Happens.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @07:26PM (1 child)
Whenever I see more than 5 cars parked at a house it's either godfather's birthday or that neighbourhood has really poor public transport.
Imagine the traffic jams!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @09:17PM
I noticed it first in the Bay Area, >30-years ago. Drive through a regular neighborhood, and parking was bumper-to-bumper on both sides of the street. They had/have funny regulations on building, so before they priced themselves out of the market, it was already tough on regular people.
There's just one like that in my non-CA neighborhood. It's like they have some kind of factory in the garage, too. No morning commute, because they apparently work in the factory. No kids, no pets, no chemical smells.
Garage businesses aren't unusual these days, except that CA probably has restrictions against it. I needed a big cutting job done, and this guy had a huge laser-cutting rig in his garage. Wonder what he does in his spare bedroom. Wonder what his electric bill is like.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @03:29PM (1 child)
"I know that the work is hard, because it's valued so highly according to the exchange theory of value."
The exchange theory of value ... *sigh* ... is not the only theory out there. And it is itself contextually dependent, and has no bearing on the hardness of labour. Even if you followed it to the last detail, nothing in the exchange theory of value relates the value of an exchange to the labour involved in production at any side of an exchange.
I mean, great rhetorical spin. 10/10 for theatrics. 0/10 for economics.
"Only a Marxist would argue that an hour of my time watching build scripts from my air conditioned 15th floor office and making the occasional tweak here and there is equivalent to an hour doing tractor repair in hundred degree heat."
Well, actually, you see - no. Marxists wouldn't generally argue that for a number of reasons, and you also fail at getting marxism right. At an absolute minimum, the context of the work in terms of the embodied labour in the equipment would play a role in the calculus.
You managed to completely misconstrue two different theories of value in one post. Maybe you'd like to give up the economics and concentrate on coding? At least in code the compiler will tell you when you can't even get your semantics right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @04:39PM
Marxism isn't about economics. It's about fairness or equity or meeting new people while standing in lines for food, or something like that.
(Score: 5, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday June 14 2022, @03:01PM (6 children)
And yet, the population of CA continues to increase. [worldpopulationreview.com]
People move around for all sort of reasons and Texans even move to California.
Wake me up if their population actually drops.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @04:29PM
Now, look at the population mix in California now, versus earlier. Productive, constructive, creative people are the ones who are leaving. You know, the people who want to actively participate in a growing, vibrant, society.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @05:19PM (2 children)
Now do a search for "california population decline 2022" for a list of articles saying exactly the opposite.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday June 14 2022, @08:01PM (1 child)
Needing to narrow your scope to half a year is a pretty good indicator of a cherry-pick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @09:21PM
Okay, live in the past. This is about California today. The article linked above says "And yet, the population of CA continues to increase." Continues means, ahem, now.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 15 2022, @11:11PM (1 child)
Something wrong with the narrative.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @04:38AM
California numbers are known to be iffy. And then you have the southern influx to that "sanctuary state" nobody wants to count accurately, except when asking for money. Maybe U-Haul knows for sure. All that glitters isn't the Golden State:
Census Bureau Says It "Significantly" Miscounted Population In More Than 1/4 Of States In 2020 Census [notthebee.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @05:16PM
- Report: Thousands of Californians Flee to Mexico in Search of More Affordable Living [breitbart.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2022, @10:27PM (6 children)
I don't believe it. Everybody that is connected should be and probably is paying for the hookup.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Reziac on Monday June 13 2022, @10:50PM (4 children)
There are two ways to distribute fixed costs:
-- Flat minimum charge (that's what I pay here in the Northern Wastes, on a rural electric co-op)
-- built into the per-KWH rate charge (that's what SoCalEd does, dunno about PG&E)
Either way, every customer pays, and one could argue that built into the rate structure is more proportional.
Looks to me like someone is seeking a way to charge customers rent on their own solar power setups.
In any event, most of the cost of power in CA isn't those "fixed costs", rather it's that they buy out-of-state power thanks to the "deregulation" scam, and that is vastly more expensive than when it was all homegrown.
I remember too painfully when "deregulation" hit my bill. Previously, I was paying about $8 per month. (Eight. Not a typo.) Within a year after deregulation, my bill was averaging $80 per month, despite having cut my usage back by a third. Spent quite a lot of time on the phone with SoCalEd trying to figure out how the hell my bill had expanded so dramatically when according to the bill itself I was using fewer KWH, and didn't learn a thing.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2022, @11:47PM
As hard as they try, California is not the communist paradise you describe. You can tell when it is, by the blood flowing through the CA dry riverbeds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @12:50AM (2 children)
Too bad people don't reflect on what causes "deregulation", or their power to reverse it
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Tuesday June 14 2022, @01:22AM (1 child)
See also Enron and Montana Power, the prototype for CA's "deregulation".
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @01:57AM
The cause is much closer to home
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @01:27PM
I don't believe the "Power Companies" would let anyone get away with not overpaying for something.
(Score: 5, Informative) by dalek on Monday June 13 2022, @11:07PM (12 children)
California generates a significant amount of its electricity from hydroelectric plants. Right now, the Southwest is experiencing a severe drought. To the east, water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell keep reaching record lows, cutting into the amount of electricity that can be produced. If water levels drop too low, it won't be possible for large dams like Hoover Dam to continue producing electricity. Before you say that this is a failure of clean energy, one of the reasons that California relies on hydroelectric plants so much is that it's a source of cheap electricity.
Yes, there are some regulatory issues involved that are factors in Smithfield closing their plant. But those regulatory issues are specific to California. It doesn't explain why Smithfield also wants to close plants in Arizona and Utah. The regulations in California don't extend beyond state lines, and it's fairly unlikely that either Arizona or Utah would be willing to enact similar regulations.
It's more likely that the regulations hastened Smithfield's exit from California. Other factors like drought causing water and electricity to become more expensive are bigger factors here, making it considerably less profitable to operate in the western US. If this was just a single severe drought, it might not justify packing up and leaving the western US. However, companies are probably looking at this as the new normal, or perhaps even something that's going to get worse.
Here's a story that discusses it further, without the politics: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/historic-drought-in-west-forcing-ranchers-to-take-painful-measures [nationalgeographic.com]. That's probably the main factor here, with regulation being the reason that California's plant closed before the others.
EXTERMINATE
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2022, @11:44PM (8 children)
California "generates" a significant amount of its electricity by buying it from other states. I'd like to thank CA for keeping electric rates lower elsewhere.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday June 14 2022, @03:11PM (7 children)
And? We have this thing called a grid in the lower....47 I guess....that allows us to trade electricity between states.
That way if there's, say, a large storm interrupting power generation in one state you get if from another state.
This is likely all new information to you since you live in Texas with it's super reliable non-grid!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @04:34PM (5 children)
The "storm" in California is that they are destroying their ability to produce power, while their needs continue to grow beyond their shrinking capacity. In a grid, there is some expectation that partners will be able to help another state, should their storm hit... that can't happen, with California in that grid.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday June 14 2022, @06:16PM (4 children)
The "storm" in California is a drought. Pretty sure those commies in CA are not responsible for the lack of rain upstream.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @08:03PM
No but it provides hindsight to diversify into other energy sources such as harnessing that Pacific coastline with wave and offshore wind.
But surely any commitment to net zero would rely on an interconnected grid to neighboring states, subsidizing excess renewable capacity in those regions to guarantee 100% renewable supply to California when the wind ain't shining, the sun ain't pumping and the hydro ain't blowing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @09:38PM (2 children)
You still don't get it! Ahem! California doesn't have enough capacity for a clear and sunny Tuesday, a stormy Saturday, or a tempestuous Blernsday.
Rainy days and Mondays always get them down... they don't have enough electricity for all the shiny new electric cars everybody's supposed to be buying right now. California is bereft of power... it is an ex-paradise!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @01:30PM (1 child)
I believe they call it something like "Interstate Commerce".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @05:09PM
And "fair-weather friends."
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 19 2022, @10:05PM
Only if it doesn't also disruption power transmission too!
The real problem here is that you're talking about something that shouldn't be normal - transporting power from other states when California should be quite capable of producing its own.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @02:56AM (2 children)
Smithfield — a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Chinese Communist Party — is not a good example of anything. They are as much interested in "laundering" hogs for home use, as anything else. Recall the problems that country has growing healthy pigs, chicken, rice, soy beans...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @10:34PM
Wow, who knew? Yet another reason to not buy from Smithfield.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods [wikipedia.org]
Wholly owned by a Chinese company, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WH_Group [wikipedia.org]
WH Group (Chinese: 万洲国际; pinyin: Wànzhōu Guójì), formerly known as Shuanghui Group (Chinese: 双汇集团; pinyin: Shuānghuì Jítuán),[3] is a publicly traded Chinese multinational meat and food processing company headquartered in Hong Kong.[1][4] Sometimes also known as Shineway Group in English-speaking countries, the company's businesses include hog raising, consumer meat products, flavoring products, and logistics.[5] It is the largest meat producer in China
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2022, @01:59AM
But they can run a hellofa bat cave.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @01:08AM (1 child)
<sigh>Your last journal article not go according to plan again? Why not quit while you're behind, runaway?</sigh>
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @02:45AM
It's not his fault California isn't the promised land it once was.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday June 14 2022, @04:24AM (2 children)
This will probably come as a huge surprise to you -- it will *definitely* give Mr. Hallow a stroke if he ever truly comprehends it -- but business is not the be-all and end-all of human existence. We do not exist merely to generate and concentrate wealth at the top. "Business-friendly" just means "has a weaker social and noetic immune system" when you get right down to it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @04:38AM
The workers need control not for platonic purposes, but in order to exert practical influence upon the production and commercial operations of the employers. This cannot, however, be attained unless the control, in one form or another, within such and such limits, is transformed into direct management.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @02:17PM
The result of all this is Texas vote Dems in 6 years
Then they take Runaway's guns away
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @03:33PM (12 children)
"That's a new twist - blaming solar power for your high energy costs."
More reasonable than Ted Cruz blaming Biden for Texas' deregulated and isolated energy prices. Funny how you make fun of reality while being proud of bullshit. Truly a marvel of modern propaganda you are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @09:43PM (11 children)
What, you'd rather blame the Russians, maybe?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @11:05PM (10 children)
Yes, being the ones that started a war that is apparently causing economic woes the Russians would be a better target for gas prices than Biden. The old fart is even cozying up to that psychopath in Saudi Arabia to try and ease gas prices. Republicunts: batshit crazy and angrier than a hornet's nest for no real reason!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @11:47PM (9 children)
That's insane. The war has nothing to do with gas prices, other than the convenient false pretext for election year campaigning. The companies are just gouging. They have a whole bunch of capped wells they can open back up. And for Biden to cozy up with the Saudis is just plain evil, only to salvage the petrodollar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2022, @12:25AM (8 children)
Then stop complaining!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2022, @01:14AM (7 children)
Who's complaining? I'm just mocking your bullshit about Putin. The economic effects of the war are caused by American provocation and sanctions, and said gouging. Russia doesn't have that kind of power over anybody outside of Europe (Germany)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2022, @04:15PM (6 children)
Oh noes the Russian shill is backing Putin! Who woulda think?
Me? I am just happy to see rightwingers devolve so far that even the stupidest among us are hard to fool.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2022, @04:43PM (5 children)
I forgive you, you don't know what you're saying. You're just hopelessly swallowed up in propaganda, a perfect reflection of your "right-wing" antagonists. Not sure what it will take to wake you up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2022, @09:30PM (4 children)
As a former Republican I can assure you the other AC is correct. I thought the media was doing its usual BS about Trump, but during his admin I saw too many easily disproven lies. It was a hard 6 months or so, dove into alcohol, could not wrap my head around having believed the Fox lineup and how badly corrupted my country actually is. I've had to branch out from my social group quite a bit and was very surprised to find out most liberals I talked to were closer to my values than some of my friends that talk about violent revolution regularly. The election was not stolen, enough Republicans confirmed that so I do not lose any sleep over it. Once you remove that lie there is no danger to our democracy and I suddenly got perspective on my supposedly patriotic friends excited about being able to gun down liberals. It has been a wild ride, but I feel like I have a better perspective on our actual problems instead of a vague but intense anger that democrats are somehow destroying our country. Rich vs. Poor, same as its always been. In case it helps, Elon Musk's increasingly scammy behavior with crypto really helped me get over the Tony Stark exceptionalism we're taught to believe in. Good luck with your own existential crisis, the longer you ugnore it the more it will hurt, I have one friend that was sorta getting there but got really depressed and ended their life. Please don't do that, healing and moving on is not nearly as bad as you think it will be, losing friends and family over such BS was the hardest for me really.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @07:21PM (3 children)
What is that thing!?!? It looks like it started as a big AI experiment a few years ago, reduced to talking points, then to click-bait headlines, then run through some other AI thing to try to make it sound like continuous sentences. It mentions Musk, so the database is being updated with current targets.
It looks like English-as-a-second-language click-bait. Wouldn't it be cool if it could respond to questions?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:44AM (2 children)
I agree, I think.
It feels like an AI troll trained on semi-plausible phrases. "It was a hard 6 months or so, dove into alcohol, could not wrap my head around having believed the Fox lineup and how badly corrupted my country actually is." -- really? What kind of damaged human being would end up boozing despondent about the lies of politicians? (Said lies unspecified, of course.)
"It has been a wild ride, but I feel like I have a better perspective on our actual problems instead of a vague but intense anger that democrats are somehow destroying our country. Rich vs. Poor, same as its always been. In case it helps, Elon Musk's increasingly scammy behavior with crypto really helped me get over the Tony Stark exceptionalism we're taught to believe in. " -- word salad. We dance from a sort of weird (unspecified) introspective moment to some kind of reflection on class conflict, to a vague smear on Elon Musk?
Even assuming (and it's a pretty big leap) that a real human being wrote that, meaning every word, I'm more inclined to think that this person needs serious, professional help than that they somehow received any kind of clarity on the nation.
You see, if they had, they might have shared it with us. With details. Specifics. References.
But no.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @04:18AM (1 child)
It's attempting to be a classic morality play. If you make the wrong decisions in life, you will slip into depression, alcoholism, and guaranteed death. Those were common, over 100 years ago, and even into the silent movie era.
Maybe they're coming back as internet videos. God, I hope we're more sophisticated than that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @04:37AM
Ah! Should've thought a little longer. It does have that Chinese ring to it. A search for "Chinese Morality Play" and there you go!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2022, @07:48PM
Anyone think Texas has enough sense of community to help their own? Or does AOC need to run another fundraiser?
https://apnews.com/article/texas-united-states-odessa-climate-and-environment-0f9fbef57ee9bad74879b8e686ebfe97 [apnews.com]