What I read is his friends identified him as economically leftist, but took issue with identity politics

Yeah, the one good part of it

I dabble in comics and manga too, so I prefer the full screen to an e-ink display. It’s also nice for videos.

I just got a foldable. The increase in functionality of reading on my phone is substantial, and that’s such a big fraction of my phone use that I consider it worthwhile. I wouldn’t be as productive if I had to carry a bulky e-reader with me all the time, it’s incredibly convenient to be able to fold it up and put it in my pocket.

It’s a bit heavier, but I got used to it quickly. My old phone feels suspiciously light now, like a toy. The expense is certainly a factor, but for me the utility is worth it in the long run. It’s not for everyone, but there are people it makes sense for.

I fear the transitional period implied by some of these changes will be what gets you. You have unlimited authority; you can’t just snap your fingers like a genie, you’ll need to implement these policies. These things take time, and they’ll cause chaos and uncertainty, followed by confusion as people adjust. If you’re not careful with your rollout, you risk waves of disapproval.

Fibonacci numbers are easier than ln(5) to calculate on the spot tho

Or do you honestly believe he did everything he could?

In general? Definitely not. In this specific case? Yeah, probably. It’s not normal for appointees to be sycophant drones, and in terms of concentration of power it’s not even desirable. Concentrating total power in the President is not a good idea, and advocating it by blaming the President for things that fall outside the scope of their power only empowers the people who want a dictator.

He made his appointments to the Board. The decisions those Board members make are on them, if you have a problem with their decisions, criticize them directly and direct your correspondence to them. Concentrating every complaint on the President promotes an inaccurate, and therefore ineffective, conception of scope of responsibility.

Running for reelection.

I’m not making excuses for him, I’m discouraging an inaccurate conception of the division of powers. I’m fine blaming him for all the things that are his fault, but I don’t think reinforcing the idea that “the president is a king who has total authoritarian control over the federal government” helps anyone except the people who want to make that a reality. He appointed what he could to the Board, direct your ire, in this instance, at them.

Agreed, but it’s out of Biden’s hands now, I don’t like popularizing a unitary executive

Biden isn’t a king. Postmaster General is elected by the Board of Governors, which Biden did replace a number of. Also no more than half of them can be from the same party, so gridlock is natural.

So that’s what that phrase means

I was once an edgy online 14 year old idealist, my behavior was identical.

It has nothing to do with blame and everything to do with survival. Correctly blaming the wild animal isn’t much comfort when the damage is done.

That bigness is bad in a lot of ways, but it’s great for niche content. A big platform makes big communities horrible cesspools, but it makes small obscure communities actual communities

Free speech means the government can’t retaliate against you for what you say. That’s it. Any other consequences are on you.

Not really a big reader of the comics, but from my understanding the multiverse isn’t really a fringe topic. Seems like it’s been a pretty central aspect of the comics for decades.

Still, there’s the friction of checks and balances. It’s certainly not perfect, far from it, but the alternative is still worse.

The state is nothing but a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.

Which, ideally, is pretty much how it has to work. The state is, ideally, composed of elected representatives and their appointees. The alternative to violence monopolized by elected representatives is violence distributed to private interests. State monopoly of legitimate violence is not great and I agree with the problems inherent to that, but realistically the alternative seems worse. I’m racking my brain for another system, but I can’t think of anything that doesn’t devolve to oligarch-led private armies oppressing people.

I did try to be specific: on that day.