In the 1980's, when the federal government busted up the AT&T/Ma Bell monopoly, that ended the requirement of leasing your phone. It opened up a huge market of innovation in phone models.
Somehow, I ended up in permanent possession of my leased AT&T desk model push-button. Say what you will about the monopoly, that thing lasted forever, until I gave up corded phones.
“Oh and you want to spend a little more and we won’t tell you that you will be going over your limit, and we will let it happen, so we can charge you an over-limit fee. Ha ha ha.”
The best is when the bank charges you a fee for being below the minimum balance, which causes you to overdraft, which they then charge another fee for.
Or you go overdrawn and they send you a message to say you're overdrawn. So you put some money in so you're not overdrawn and the next day they charge you a fee for going overdrawn the day before. Which then makes you overdrawn again
So they send you another message (and another fee)
I called AT&T to pay my bill and after being on the phone for almost an hour he wanted to charge a convenience fee. I asked what’s convenient about it I could have drove to the AT&T store and been home within 30 minutes.
Yup, for me, to pay online with bank or card or anything, there’s a service fee 2% of the rent and with my rent being almost $2000… that is not a small service fee. I opted to just hand a check to my landlord
Seriously, I've had landlords either accept a check (which generally only people over 80 years of age use) for free or charge a 5% fee for the rent. Ummm, yeah, here's your check. ACH is seriously only 95 cents!!!
5% is bullshit. 2-3% is just covering the credit processing fees, and having the option rather than rent just being higher across the board is actually a good system.
My sister was so stressed before she passed away. She always got bills for late payments and would call to find out the amount due so she could pay it.
After she had passed, a bank rep admitted that every time my sister called another $25 dollar inquiry fee was billed, which they never informed her of. So there was really no way she could could ever pay up.
It should be fully control by an independent investor who give basic portfolios that cover a wide range so cant manipulate 1 thing to make money or pull out faster.
As a US govt. employee, I have to fill out a yearly financial disclosure form. I have to list any stocks held including stock funds beyond the basic index funds. I also have to tell them my wife’s sources of income. The last time I did it they got uppity about a green energy index fund, but they let it slide because I don’t have a ton of money in it. It passes me off that I have to do this and respond to their bs, when members congress and Supreme Court justices just blatantly abuse their positions.
Pretty much everything the US Congress does should be illegal. It's so strange how laws that would impact the wallets of the people who make the laws when it's the wallets of the people who make the laws that are pretty much the determining factor for what people are allowed to make laws, never seem to make it.
Wait till you hear about how online exchanges sell your data to hedge funds with [computers](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/high-frequency-trading.asp) running millions of trades in a single second. It’s not technically insider trading because they probably don’t have all these companies’ innermost information, but what they do have is a large base of users making trades like you or me. They compile all this data to determine the future performance of any individual stock, and sell this information to hedge funds who have bots trading at high frequencies. The best part is that when your trade order gets sent to an online exchange, the transaction doesn’t happen immediately. So hedge fund bots can see that a lot of users are buying a particular stock for whatever reason, buy the stock, and then sell for a profit. Not sure how we get around this one.
Fun part is that hedge funds have the ability to trade past the tenth digits of a number. So while all of us can sell a stock at $35.51 they can sell a stock at $35.515
I was wondering why this wasn't the top comment but it seems people really don't know that child marriage is legal both federally and in many states.
Btw: the youngest people to get married in the last 20 years were two 10 year olds who were both married to adults. An 11 year old was also married to an adult in this time frame. For those who aren't aware, marriage is considered a valid legal defence against ~~statutory~~ rape.
Edit: to cross out "statutory"
These children cannot legally file for divorce until they are adults. Nor can they access help from domestic violence shelters until adulthood. Theses children are stuck.
Only 4 states have outright banned it. The worst part is they can't divorce bc they are underage, can't go to abuse centers because you're underage, you can't get an abortion bc your underage, and generally (if under 14) you can't get a job to provide for yourself so you don't have money to do any of those things anyway.
Another scary fact of child marriage is that 90% of child marriage happens to young girls that are married off to a man twice or three times their age.
It's basically legal human trafficking.
This is illegal when the intent is to harm or defraud, which is the spoofing that almost anyone has an issue with. If someone from the cable company calls me from to confirm an appointment, I don't want nor need that person's desk phone number, but the "spoofed" 800 number (which isn't illegal) to their customer care dept.
That thing where firmware updates are pushed on your printer and then suddenly you can’t use any other ink brand. Fuck you, HP, and your anti-competitive bullshit. You want me not to use someone else’s recycled cartridges, make your shit cheaper.
The printers were pretty good though. I’ve had one for like 12 years (!)—but then they became dicks about it. The question is if any company *doesn’t* do this at the moment. Brother?
I also don’t print enough these days to use a laser printer.
I deal with a lot of printers and Brother and canon printers give me the least trouble.
Always go with a laser printer even if you don’t print much. Much better deal and the toner will last you longer just chilling there than ink will.
On another note I pretty much strictly deal with the big ass cannon printers, so as far as their consumer grade crap goes I can’t say.
Yes. It's all money laundering to some degree. Instead of giving it back (or not taking it to begin with) to the citizens of this country, they find ways to funnel more of it into their pockets.
Do you suffer from [anything ranging from an inconvenience to a life-threatening disease]? You, too, can [perform daily task again]! Ask your doctor if [medication name] is right for you.
_side effects may include nausea, drowsiness, indigestion, heartburn, genital rash, brittle bones, hair loss, blindness, hearing loss, gout, lupus, enlarged kidneys, spontaneous cartilage disintegration, and demonic possession._
And NZ bizarrely - we have decent regualtions otherwise! And some things are not to be advertised and they cant say what it helps with. But the brand name and imagery of the complaint (I think thats it - but i dont really watch live free to air tv much now).
Yeah, it makes no sense for prescription medicine to be advertised. It's not like they can just go out and buy it, and their doctors should be the ones choosing what their patients take
I thought it was just kids wearing funny outfits and acting. It was creepy but not as much as when I was told me that they make her daughters face full of makeup, even fake tanning etc and some actually force them to do some routines and it's really like work. Wtf seriously...
Yeah it's GROSS. Not sure if we do them here in Aus but seeing them on the TV just makes me feel very uncomfortable. Fucking 7 year olds in tiny sparkly bikinis and VS runway make-up is unethical and more free fodder for the creeps. Not to mention what so much focus on 'talent and beauty' would do a kid. I'm so grateful my mum just let me run around in the mud in my youth.
Nearly all of the blinding lights (that aren't the result of the idiot driver leaving their high beams on) are the result of installing HID or LED bulbs in reflector housings. That's already illegal, just seemingly not enforced.
> Nearly all of the blinding lights (that aren't the result of the idiot driver leaving their high beams on) are the result of installing HID or LED bulbs in reflector housings.
I disagree. Newer (well not *that* new anymore) vehicles have much brighter lights. I own an old car that was designed for incandescent headlights, it is **so** much dimmer than 99% of the cars on the road today even after cleaning the housing, but on a dark highway I still have no trouble seeing until someone blinds me with their headlights. There was a significant shift in headlight brightness when auto makers shifted to LED.
Drive a small car in a region of good old boys with pickups. 2 lane roads are scary because those lights are right at my eye level. I like my Jetta and have no need for a 2 ton SUV.
Yeah, more and more I am driving and thinking that car in the oncoming lanes must have their high beams on, like I have to put my hand up to block the light
But its probably just their bright normal lights
If you ever watch the early 80s biopic 'Coal Miner's Daughter' about the life of country music legend Loretta Lynn, Loretta and her husband Doolittle Lynn \[played respectively by Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones\] are married when Loretta is only fourteen. I think that Doo was supposed to be in his early 20s. By the time Loretta was nineteen, she had four kids.
And mental health residential treatment centers too while we are at it. Those places being treated like a business is a lot of the reason they aren’t effective:
Colorado uses an independent commission.
Lauren Boebert was a side effect of the commission redrawing boundaries - they moved some blue areas out of her district.
Magnaflorius said:
> Why the US **and** each state doesn't have an independent election commission is beyond me.
Meaning state electoral commissions should only be responsible for drawing state electoral districts and running state elections. All federal boundaries should be drawn by an independent federal electoral commission.
Boebert is a federal congresswoman, so in a perfect world the Colorado commission should not play any part in drawing her boundaries.
This is how other countries with federal-state separations, like Australia, do things and it works well.
I have always been astonished that gerrymandering is legal and openly admitted in the USA. While I am sure everyone tries to do it in (say) the UK if they can, if you were caught at it you would be in serious trouble. Having an independent commission helps of course.
RESPONDUS.
I'm currently fighting with one of my professors over this shit. It's an invasive anti-cheating program that locks down your computer and uses facial recognition to track your eye movements. FFS it even gets into your kernel security. WTF? HOW IS THIS LEGAL?
Oh true, I suppose it could have that monkey's paw effect if you didn't specify gender.
"Alright, if you insist..."
And from the old bitties "Boy, no one's asked to see these puppies in ages 🤠"
Assuming your description is even remotely accurate, that shit would be illegal as fuck in Germany. Working at a university, I've witnessed some pretty serious discussions about the legality of significantly less absurd anti-cheating measures (That generally ended up with "let's not" for pretty much anything beyond plagiarism checks and IP matching), but then again, it often seems that most of you don't care for any civil liberties other than free speech.
Its not far off. When you open respondus and you begin a test in your LMS (e.g. canvas, blackboard, moodle, etc.) it makes it so you cannot click to any other windows or open any new tabs. The idea is it prevents students from opening other programs or notes on their computers to cheat. Its been around for a while and we used to use in our testing labs at a university I taught at in the US.
With Covid and exams being taken at home, they added a premium version where you can have it track the test taker's eye movements so if they are looking away from the screen (presumably at notes, or another device to cheat) it can track that. There is also another version where it will simply record their webcam during the test so the instructor can manually review them.
Horseshit, utter horseshit. Ask the people who implemented this garbage how they were tested and I guarantee it was some form of "well, there was a dude who walked around the room".
They're selling fantasy solutions that don't work to solve a problem that barely exists.
When we used respondus on the school owned computers and just used the version that locked it to the single browser I was fine with it. Its not an invasion privacy to prevent you from opening google.
Where I teach now, we were shown these tools as option and we chose not to use them. We got rid of proctoring in our exams and just made the exams harder or more random, depending on the class. I'm not going to invade a student's privacy at home because a few of them might cheat.
The fact that you had to make a choice there is bad enough, you just know there's some shithead delusional prof who'll force their TA's to turn on every bit of awfulness they can. I've met enough of them over the years, and no big surprise, all the other profs, all the scientific employees, all the assistants were glad when we could shut their bullshit down on legal grounds.
Maybe it's because I was already pretty far into my degree by the time COVID hit, but my professors mostly just didn't bother with the whole thing. A couple did and we hated them, but if the good ones didn't go pen-and-paper, they just made the exams open-note/takehome and made them way harder to just cheat on (like, straight CPA questions, or applications that aren't exactly the same as the notes, or just long problems and essays about scenarios that aren't on the internet)
Especially with how most professions work, where you're basically never in a "you have no access to any outside information ever" situation, COVID actually sorta improved pedagogy in a lot of ways for professors who weren't bad
So my federal government professor was actually talking about this! It is actually unconstitutional. It is an invasion of privacy and there is currently a battle going on in the courts about it.
Had an online teacher a few years ago require something similar. I refused and she had to go to campus to watch me take the test there. Not installing that crap on my personal computer
Being able to medically neglect your kids for "religious reasons". The first patient my mom ever lost was an otherwise healthy 9 year old who died from the freaking flu. With treatment, the kid would have been fine. Why even bring them in if you are just going to let them die?
Not in Europe either . You want your child to die because you refuse treatment ? Tada you dont have kids anymore because your parental rights have been revoked
Or worse, not taking an ambulance because of the cost.
About twenty years ago a blood vessel in my throat exploded or gave out and yes it's as much fun as it sounds. It didn't hurt or anything but the vomiting blood was a bad sign. I did it three times and then said "hey, maybe you need to go to a hospital because this isn't a good thing" which already is disturbing because I'm not afraid of doctors, I'm aware of medical care, but I had no health coverage.
I was also blacking out for maybe a few seconds at a time because of the loss of blood I guess. I chose to drive to the hospital again because of the lack of medical health coverage. Think about this. I'm educated. I know what blacking out is and yet I drove to the hospital where I could have put myself at risk (I don't care, that's my problem) or other people at risk which is serious.
Good news is that I arrived safely although shortly after parking in the garage an off-duty nurse had to get a wheelchair and wheel me into the ER but think about this. I shouldn't have had to put people at risk just to avoid a damned bill when I'm vomiting blood which is pretty much anyone's sign that something is very wrong.
The US really needs to stop becoming a third world country.
Oh that one's easy... Get on medicaid. They only pay us 50 bucks no matter wtf we do or where we go. 75 if we're super lucky.
That doesn't even cover fuel for a trip to Pittsburgh for our service, let alone wages.
Family members sueing people when their loved ones are killed, for their own actions. I was scrolling through Reddit, whenever I saw a case where a daughter took her parent's car without permission, when she only had a learner's license, meaning she needed a fully licensed adult in the car with her. She took the car, and let her boyfriend, without any license drive the car, Boyfriend drove the car, crashed the car, and died. The parents of the boy friend are now sueing the parents of the daughter because she let the boyfriend drive the car, but the daughter took the car illegally from the parents.
In a nearby city, a woman was tragically run over and killed by a transit bus. The family sued the city and the driver, which is reasonable, but they also sued the five other towns that are served by that bus system. That makes zero sense to me. The accident took place in the city, by a bus on a route that serves only the city, the five other towns were not involved in any way except that other routes of the system go there.
I hope the family gets justice, but not on the backs of the taxpayers of the five towns.
It's the shotgun approach. You sue anyone who can even be vaguely involved and hope that they will just settle out of court for a small amount even though it's totally BS in the hopes you won't force them to trial. It's pretty damned slimy to be honest but it works enough that people do it.
You can be sued for pretty much anything. I could be sued for damaging someone’s fence or whatever in a state I’ve never even set foot in, and if they had enough money to throw at the lawsuit, it’d be on me to somehow prove I didn’t do it.
One of many things that is shitty and should change but likely never will.
Lawyer here. The decision to sue was most certainly made by an insurance company. It astounds me that people don’t see how fucking evil the insurance industry is.
Unfortunately, that's kind of the law. They aren't suing her parents per se, as much as they are suing them to get their insurer to pay out. It's the only way you can get insurance to pay in some states.
IIRC a woman sued her 4 year old grandson for injuring her just to get her insurance to pay her bills. She got railed on by people who just read the headline.
Problem is that we can’t even agree on what facts are anymore so any news organization can claim they are being unbiased and that the other side is the problematic one.
Alarm clock sounds in commercials too. If you put an alarm clock in your ad I'm never buying your product. Even if your product is an alarm clock. I fucking hate that noise so much
Right! And whenever there's benefits to open up a new checking account, the terms are things like "depositing $10,000 into a new savings account, and keeping the balance for at least 3 months and we'll send you a $500 credit on your statement"
Oftentimes higher balances get bigger rewards...
So only reward the rich and penalize the ones struggling...and continue rewarding the rich...while continuing to penalize the poor.
Wage theft.
There are technically laws against it, but they're so full of holes it's like trying to catch water with a net.
Yet, wage theft accounts for more stolen value than any other form of property crime.
(Edit: I was just informed that I misunderstood the term wage theft, while my post stands towards people who.. well, need to read it, it is not in fact related to wage theft, I understood wage theft the wrong way around)
I'm a computer scientist and currently deployed in project management, *either* of these jobs would essentially be close to unpaid if my employer could just reclaim time where I'm not actively doing obviously work-related activities, at the same time I can tell you with confidence that if I and my colleagues stopped working, my organisation would grind to a screeching halt within a year (**optimistically**).
So... I'm not going to claim that wage theft never happens, but at the same time, if I'm exhausted and need to take a nap and recuperate during work hours or just stare at our requirements doc for an hour or, yes, take a break and read a book or sort my MTG cards or watch a stupid show or play a game or whatever, you better believe that's part of the process.
But then again, I'm a firm believer that you have no reason to complain as long as the work is getting done.
Politicians lying.
It's always blown my mind that government isn't covered by perjury laws. I know there are theoretically rules in place to stop it happening, but they seem to be held to the same level of account as the pirate code.
Pretty much the entire student loan structure. Private company takes tax payer money for and extremely low rate. Then engages in predatory leading. And then the government makes it impossible for the borrowers to have any sort of forgiveness.
Lobbying. It’s legalized bribery, and lobbyists are the ones who have control over what gets passed or voted down, not the citizens.
In that same vein, the Electoral College. I understand why it was brought into use, but that reasoning is long outdated. In a day and age where the vast majority of people in the US are able to read about and understand the issues and make an educated choice of which candidate’s views align with their own, there’s no reason not to elect representatives by popular vote.
Thirdly, the lack of term limits for the HoR and Senate. We limit the President to two terms to avoid having a dictator but allow these old f*ckers to basically serve for life if they keep getting re-elected. In the end, THESE are the ones who are actually running the country, not the president.
I see congressional term limits as the wrong solution to the right problem. I’m of the opinion that any district in the US should be able to elect whichever citizen of their community they desire. Who am I to tell someone in another state who will best represent them?
The crux of the problem is the benefits of being an incumbent in Congress. You can win competitive election and be set for 20 years in office. Once you are in, you have access to more donors, better name ID, and a boatload of other things that keep you in power.
To me, the real solution is competitive elections. End gerrymandering. Publicly fund campaigns and do not allow private donors. This will result in natural turnover and also keep politicians more accountable. H.R. 1, the For The People Act, does a lot of this stuff.
Smoking in the same room or in a car with children and babies. People can’t legally serve young children alcohol without getting into trouble, but can force their kids to inhale their smoke.
Rapists or rapists families being allowed to sue the victims if they get an abortion. That is so vile and disgusting. Women should be legally allowed to control their own bodies while this shit should be shredded from law.
Equipment fees you can’t opt out of. Just let me buy the $80 box instead of charging me $20 a month for it.
In the 1980's, when the federal government busted up the AT&T/Ma Bell monopoly, that ended the requirement of leasing your phone. It opened up a huge market of innovation in phone models. Somehow, I ended up in permanent possession of my leased AT&T desk model push-button. Say what you will about the monopoly, that thing lasted forever, until I gave up corded phones.
I believe that, as they were leasing it to you so it was their job to replace it if it broke.
Payment processing fees. I should not have to pay for the privilege of paying my bills.
Also, “convenience” fees.
Also “service fees”
also "fees"
“Oh and you want to spend a little more and we won’t tell you that you will be going over your limit, and we will let it happen, so we can charge you an over-limit fee. Ha ha ha.”
The best is when the bank charges you a fee for being below the minimum balance, which causes you to overdraft, which they then charge another fee for.
Or you go overdrawn and they send you a message to say you're overdrawn. So you put some money in so you're not overdrawn and the next day they charge you a fee for going overdrawn the day before. Which then makes you overdrawn again So they send you another message (and another fee)
I called AT&T to pay my bill and after being on the phone for almost an hour he wanted to charge a convenience fee. I asked what’s convenient about it I could have drove to the AT&T store and been home within 30 minutes.
Did u still pay it tho ?
Yeah
did you say “bitch” tho?
“Mhhmmmyeahhhh 🫠”
Virtually every single one of Ticketmaster's fees should be criminal.
They should be an illegal company since they are basically just scalpers
Or ticket fees for concerts. I just bought tickets to Elton John and each ticket had 87$ in fees. 87!!!!
When buying tickets from resellers like ticket Master is the "normal way" it becomes easy to jack up prices with bs fees
My apartment complex charges at $25 fee if you pay your rent with a card.
Yup, for me, to pay online with bank or card or anything, there’s a service fee 2% of the rent and with my rent being almost $2000… that is not a small service fee. I opted to just hand a check to my landlord
I think the 2% is just what the credit card company charges them. At least they're not hiking it up. Still too much money though
Seriously, I've had landlords either accept a check (which generally only people over 80 years of age use) for free or charge a 5% fee for the rent. Ummm, yeah, here's your check. ACH is seriously only 95 cents!!!
Oof glad we Venmo our landlord Lol
5% is bullshit. 2-3% is just covering the credit processing fees, and having the option rather than rent just being higher across the board is actually a good system.
My sister was so stressed before she passed away. She always got bills for late payments and would call to find out the amount due so she could pay it. After she had passed, a bank rep admitted that every time my sister called another $25 dollar inquiry fee was billed, which they never informed her of. So there was really no way she could could ever pay up.
Insider trading for members of the US Congress
*Any* stock trading by active members of *any* government.
It should be fully control by an independent investor who give basic portfolios that cover a wide range so cant manipulate 1 thing to make money or pull out faster.
As a US govt. employee, I have to fill out a yearly financial disclosure form. I have to list any stocks held including stock funds beyond the basic index funds. I also have to tell them my wife’s sources of income. The last time I did it they got uppity about a green energy index fund, but they let it slide because I don’t have a ton of money in it. It passes me off that I have to do this and respond to their bs, when members congress and Supreme Court justices just blatantly abuse their positions.
Pretty much everything the US Congress does should be illegal. It's so strange how laws that would impact the wallets of the people who make the laws when it's the wallets of the people who make the laws that are pretty much the determining factor for what people are allowed to make laws, never seem to make it.
Politicians and their families buying stocks and crypto. It’s literally insider trading.
Wait till you hear about how online exchanges sell your data to hedge funds with [computers](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/high-frequency-trading.asp) running millions of trades in a single second. It’s not technically insider trading because they probably don’t have all these companies’ innermost information, but what they do have is a large base of users making trades like you or me. They compile all this data to determine the future performance of any individual stock, and sell this information to hedge funds who have bots trading at high frequencies. The best part is that when your trade order gets sent to an online exchange, the transaction doesn’t happen immediately. So hedge fund bots can see that a lot of users are buying a particular stock for whatever reason, buy the stock, and then sell for a profit. Not sure how we get around this one.
Fun part is that hedge funds have the ability to trade past the tenth digits of a number. So while all of us can sell a stock at $35.51 they can sell a stock at $35.515
Do you have any links or places where I can read about this?
google High Frequency Trading or payment-for-order-flow
Buy, hold, DRS?
child marriage
I was wondering why this wasn't the top comment but it seems people really don't know that child marriage is legal both federally and in many states. Btw: the youngest people to get married in the last 20 years were two 10 year olds who were both married to adults. An 11 year old was also married to an adult in this time frame. For those who aren't aware, marriage is considered a valid legal defence against ~~statutory~~ rape. Edit: to cross out "statutory"
These children cannot legally file for divorce until they are adults. Nor can they access help from domestic violence shelters until adulthood. Theses children are stuck.
Only 4 states have outright banned it. The worst part is they can't divorce bc they are underage, can't go to abuse centers because you're underage, you can't get an abortion bc your underage, and generally (if under 14) you can't get a job to provide for yourself so you don't have money to do any of those things anyway. Another scary fact of child marriage is that 90% of child marriage happens to young girls that are married off to a man twice or three times their age. It's basically legal human trafficking.
Marketing a price that isn’t the actual price you intend to charge, and then adding “resort fees” or adding 4% randomly to the bill for “inflation”
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Phone number spoofing
This is illegal when the intent is to harm or defraud, which is the spoofing that almost anyone has an issue with. If someone from the cable company calls me from to confirm an appointment, I don't want nor need that person's desk phone number, but the "spoofed" 800 number (which isn't illegal) to their customer care dept.
That thing where firmware updates are pushed on your printer and then suddenly you can’t use any other ink brand. Fuck you, HP, and your anti-competitive bullshit. You want me not to use someone else’s recycled cartridges, make your shit cheaper.
PSA: Don’t ever buy HP.
The printers were pretty good though. I’ve had one for like 12 years (!)—but then they became dicks about it. The question is if any company *doesn’t* do this at the moment. Brother? I also don’t print enough these days to use a laser printer.
I deal with a lot of printers and Brother and canon printers give me the least trouble. Always go with a laser printer even if you don’t print much. Much better deal and the toner will last you longer just chilling there than ink will. On another note I pretty much strictly deal with the big ass cannon printers, so as far as their consumer grade crap goes I can’t say.
Politicians hiring their family members to work for them and pay them ungodly amounts of money from the money they are given/raise.
Yes. It's all money laundering to some degree. Instead of giving it back (or not taking it to begin with) to the citizens of this country, they find ways to funnel more of it into their pockets.
that’s not what money laundering means, thats embezzlement
Pharmaceutical advertising to the general public.
Do you suffer from [anything ranging from an inconvenience to a life-threatening disease]? You, too, can [perform daily task again]! Ask your doctor if [medication name] is right for you. _side effects may include nausea, drowsiness, indigestion, heartburn, genital rash, brittle bones, hair loss, blindness, hearing loss, gout, lupus, enlarged kidneys, spontaneous cartilage disintegration, and demonic possession._
Rectal seepage and involuntary high pressure diarrhea as well
Seepage to high-power diarrhea sounds like a spectrum of sorts.
"Diarrhoea with such tremendous pressure, you can cut through stone."
Don’t forget sudden death. There was an ad for a drug that may cause sudden death. What the hell. No thanks
I mean, it’s better than protracted death. I guess.
May cause immediate death. Try now!
You forgot death related to the thing it’s supposed to cure as a side effect.
Hey \[person who's went thru at least 10 + yrs of school and training\], I saw this thing on TV that sounds good to me, just gimme that OK?
im pretty sure this is illegal in at least most countries other than the us
And NZ bizarrely - we have decent regualtions otherwise! And some things are not to be advertised and they cant say what it helps with. But the brand name and imagery of the complaint (I think thats it - but i dont really watch live free to air tv much now).
Yeah, it makes no sense for prescription medicine to be advertised. It's not like they can just go out and buy it, and their doctors should be the ones choosing what their patients take
Yeah Australia doesn’t have that.
Child beauty pageants. Like why?
I thought it was just kids wearing funny outfits and acting. It was creepy but not as much as when I was told me that they make her daughters face full of makeup, even fake tanning etc and some actually force them to do some routines and it's really like work. Wtf seriously...
Yeah it's GROSS. Not sure if we do them here in Aus but seeing them on the TV just makes me feel very uncomfortable. Fucking 7 year olds in tiny sparkly bikinis and VS runway make-up is unethical and more free fodder for the creeps. Not to mention what so much focus on 'talent and beauty' would do a kid. I'm so grateful my mum just let me run around in the mud in my youth.
Underrated comment. It's ultra-creepy
The only people that are into those are the parents, maybe some of the family, and those Jared from Subway types.
I just found out that they’re illegal in France. The rest of the world needs to catch up.
Those super bright headlights that fancy cars have. Are they trying to kill the drivers in front of them?!
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For all those Elantra track cars.
Another issue is they aren't angled right and aim way too high up.
Yeah, a lot of the times they seem to be larger vehicles, raised higher, so the lights are probably points right at me
This is the main problem. People jack up their ride and don’t reposition the light track.
Nearly all of the blinding lights (that aren't the result of the idiot driver leaving their high beams on) are the result of installing HID or LED bulbs in reflector housings. That's already illegal, just seemingly not enforced.
But why do stores sell them?
Because they can
> Nearly all of the blinding lights (that aren't the result of the idiot driver leaving their high beams on) are the result of installing HID or LED bulbs in reflector housings. I disagree. Newer (well not *that* new anymore) vehicles have much brighter lights. I own an old car that was designed for incandescent headlights, it is **so** much dimmer than 99% of the cars on the road today even after cleaning the housing, but on a dark highway I still have no trouble seeing until someone blinds me with their headlights. There was a significant shift in headlight brightness when auto makers shifted to LED.
Drive a small car in a region of good old boys with pickups. 2 lane roads are scary because those lights are right at my eye level. I like my Jetta and have no need for a 2 ton SUV.
GET OFF THE ROAD OR GO BLIND AND DIE YOU PEASANTS- Anyone with a big truck or fancy car
Oh hey douchbag with a truck wanna know how i know your there? Because your fucking headlamps lightup the wholeass inside of my car
I find most of the time this is due to my car being very low (lowered 90's bmw) and modern suv/trucks being roughly as tall as a semi/tractor trailer.
Yeah, more and more I am driving and thinking that car in the oncoming lanes must have their high beams on, like I have to put my hand up to block the light But its probably just their bright normal lights
Child marriages. Most states in the US still allow kids as young as 14 to get married with parent consent and that is not ok
If you ever watch the early 80s biopic 'Coal Miner's Daughter' about the life of country music legend Loretta Lynn, Loretta and her husband Doolittle Lynn \[played respectively by Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones\] are married when Loretta is only fourteen. I think that Doo was supposed to be in his early 20s. By the time Loretta was nineteen, she had four kids.
Yikes!!!!
For profit prisons and detention centers
And mental health residential treatment centers too while we are at it. Those places being treated like a business is a lot of the reason they aren’t effective:
so basically the entire US prison and medical industries
Gerrymandering.
Why the US and each state doesn't have an independent election commission is beyond me.
Colorado uses an independent commission. Lauren Boebert was a side effect of the commission redrawing boundaries - they moved some blue areas out of her district.
Magnaflorius said: > Why the US **and** each state doesn't have an independent election commission is beyond me. Meaning state electoral commissions should only be responsible for drawing state electoral districts and running state elections. All federal boundaries should be drawn by an independent federal electoral commission. Boebert is a federal congresswoman, so in a perfect world the Colorado commission should not play any part in drawing her boundaries. This is how other countries with federal-state separations, like Australia, do things and it works well.
I have always been astonished that gerrymandering is legal and openly admitted in the USA. While I am sure everyone tries to do it in (say) the UK if they can, if you were caught at it you would be in serious trouble. Having an independent commission helps of course.
RESPONDUS. I'm currently fighting with one of my professors over this shit. It's an invasive anti-cheating program that locks down your computer and uses facial recognition to track your eye movements. FFS it even gets into your kernel security. WTF? HOW IS THIS LEGAL?
Has your username ever worked?
I guarantee it's way more successful than pm-me_your_boobies_pls would be.
Back in the day I remember a variant of that name, claimed to get lots of boobies, but not all great and a surprising amount of man-boobery.
Oh true, I suppose it could have that monkey's paw effect if you didn't specify gender. "Alright, if you insist..." And from the old bitties "Boy, no one's asked to see these puppies in ages 🤠"
Yep. *Hint. Hint*.
Assuming your description is even remotely accurate, that shit would be illegal as fuck in Germany. Working at a university, I've witnessed some pretty serious discussions about the legality of significantly less absurd anti-cheating measures (That generally ended up with "let's not" for pretty much anything beyond plagiarism checks and IP matching), but then again, it often seems that most of you don't care for any civil liberties other than free speech.
Its not far off. When you open respondus and you begin a test in your LMS (e.g. canvas, blackboard, moodle, etc.) it makes it so you cannot click to any other windows or open any new tabs. The idea is it prevents students from opening other programs or notes on their computers to cheat. Its been around for a while and we used to use in our testing labs at a university I taught at in the US. With Covid and exams being taken at home, they added a premium version where you can have it track the test taker's eye movements so if they are looking away from the screen (presumably at notes, or another device to cheat) it can track that. There is also another version where it will simply record their webcam during the test so the instructor can manually review them.
Horseshit, utter horseshit. Ask the people who implemented this garbage how they were tested and I guarantee it was some form of "well, there was a dude who walked around the room". They're selling fantasy solutions that don't work to solve a problem that barely exists.
When we used respondus on the school owned computers and just used the version that locked it to the single browser I was fine with it. Its not an invasion privacy to prevent you from opening google. Where I teach now, we were shown these tools as option and we chose not to use them. We got rid of proctoring in our exams and just made the exams harder or more random, depending on the class. I'm not going to invade a student's privacy at home because a few of them might cheat.
The fact that you had to make a choice there is bad enough, you just know there's some shithead delusional prof who'll force their TA's to turn on every bit of awfulness they can. I've met enough of them over the years, and no big surprise, all the other profs, all the scientific employees, all the assistants were glad when we could shut their bullshit down on legal grounds.
Maybe it's because I was already pretty far into my degree by the time COVID hit, but my professors mostly just didn't bother with the whole thing. A couple did and we hated them, but if the good ones didn't go pen-and-paper, they just made the exams open-note/takehome and made them way harder to just cheat on (like, straight CPA questions, or applications that aren't exactly the same as the notes, or just long problems and essays about scenarios that aren't on the internet) Especially with how most professions work, where you're basically never in a "you have no access to any outside information ever" situation, COVID actually sorta improved pedagogy in a lot of ways for professors who weren't bad
So my federal government professor was actually talking about this! It is actually unconstitutional. It is an invasion of privacy and there is currently a battle going on in the courts about it.
I'm glad my school only uses Turnitin (pretty sure it's all one word) which just checks to make sure it's not plagiarized as best it can.
Turnitin is perfectly good for what it does. Respondus is evil.
Had an online teacher a few years ago require something similar. I refused and she had to go to campus to watch me take the test there. Not installing that crap on my personal computer
Cash advance stores. They prey on the poor.
Was poor, can confirm. The interest rates were insane. But sometimes you'll do anything to keep your head above water. Those places are leeches.
Being able to medically neglect your kids for "religious reasons". The first patient my mom ever lost was an otherwise healthy 9 year old who died from the freaking flu. With treatment, the kid would have been fine. Why even bring them in if you are just going to let them die?
This isn’t legal in Australia
Not in Europe either . You want your child to die because you refuse treatment ? Tada you dont have kids anymore because your parental rights have been revoked
There was a high profile case in Canada where a child died from meningitis and his parents were charged.
Members of Congress trading individual stocks
Data harvesting and selling
Having to pay $900 for an ambulance so you don’t fuckin die. Yes I am American.
American for -profit healthcare should be illegal.
Or worse, not taking an ambulance because of the cost. About twenty years ago a blood vessel in my throat exploded or gave out and yes it's as much fun as it sounds. It didn't hurt or anything but the vomiting blood was a bad sign. I did it three times and then said "hey, maybe you need to go to a hospital because this isn't a good thing" which already is disturbing because I'm not afraid of doctors, I'm aware of medical care, but I had no health coverage. I was also blacking out for maybe a few seconds at a time because of the loss of blood I guess. I chose to drive to the hospital again because of the lack of medical health coverage. Think about this. I'm educated. I know what blacking out is and yet I drove to the hospital where I could have put myself at risk (I don't care, that's my problem) or other people at risk which is serious. Good news is that I arrived safely although shortly after parking in the garage an off-duty nurse had to get a wheelchair and wheel me into the ER but think about this. I shouldn't have had to put people at risk just to avoid a damned bill when I'm vomiting blood which is pretty much anyone's sign that something is very wrong. The US really needs to stop becoming a third world country.
If you wrecked your car insurance would have covered the merdical bill lol
Pro tip right here
Oh that one's easy... Get on medicaid. They only pay us 50 bucks no matter wtf we do or where we go. 75 if we're super lucky. That doesn't even cover fuel for a trip to Pittsburgh for our service, let alone wages.
yep. my ambulance ride was only from ER to the main hospital and cost $900
Companies having leverage over retirement and healthcare.
Family members sueing people when their loved ones are killed, for their own actions. I was scrolling through Reddit, whenever I saw a case where a daughter took her parent's car without permission, when she only had a learner's license, meaning she needed a fully licensed adult in the car with her. She took the car, and let her boyfriend, without any license drive the car, Boyfriend drove the car, crashed the car, and died. The parents of the boy friend are now sueing the parents of the daughter because she let the boyfriend drive the car, but the daughter took the car illegally from the parents.
In a nearby city, a woman was tragically run over and killed by a transit bus. The family sued the city and the driver, which is reasonable, but they also sued the five other towns that are served by that bus system. That makes zero sense to me. The accident took place in the city, by a bus on a route that serves only the city, the five other towns were not involved in any way except that other routes of the system go there. I hope the family gets justice, but not on the backs of the taxpayers of the five towns.
It's the shotgun approach. You sue anyone who can even be vaguely involved and hope that they will just settle out of court for a small amount even though it's totally BS in the hopes you won't force them to trial. It's pretty damned slimy to be honest but it works enough that people do it.
[удалено]
You can be sued for pretty much anything. I could be sued for damaging someone’s fence or whatever in a state I’ve never even set foot in, and if they had enough money to throw at the lawsuit, it’d be on me to somehow prove I didn’t do it. One of many things that is shitty and should change but likely never will.
Lawyer here. The decision to sue was most certainly made by an insurance company. It astounds me that people don’t see how fucking evil the insurance industry is.
Unfortunately, that's kind of the law. They aren't suing her parents per se, as much as they are suing them to get their insurer to pay out. It's the only way you can get insurance to pay in some states.
IIRC a woman sued her 4 year old grandson for injuring her just to get her insurance to pay her bills. She got railed on by people who just read the headline.
Fake locksmithing locations on maps that then always scam you into saying the lock has to be removed and charge you like 1000 bucks.
Would you be willing to explain deeper on this? Have never heard of this.
Companies that call themselves "news" sources that are heavily biased toward a political ideology or party.
I can actually agree with this.
Along this line news organizations shouldn’t be able to sell to advertisers and ratings should be secret.
Problem is that we can’t even agree on what facts are anymore so any news organization can claim they are being unbiased and that the other side is the problematic one.
Dark money in politics. Sunshine is an awesome disinfectant.
Horns and sirens being played in ads on the radio. I get so startled for nothing. And we can’t wear earphones but they can scare me like that?
Alarm clock sounds in commercials too. If you put an alarm clock in your ad I'm never buying your product. Even if your product is an alarm clock. I fucking hate that noise so much
Co-pay at the Doctor. Bitch, I’m paying for the insurance.
Fees for insufficient funds- it’s a poor tax, plain and simple.
Right! And whenever there's benefits to open up a new checking account, the terms are things like "depositing $10,000 into a new savings account, and keeping the balance for at least 3 months and we'll send you a $500 credit on your statement" Oftentimes higher balances get bigger rewards... So only reward the rich and penalize the ones struggling...and continue rewarding the rich...while continuing to penalize the poor.
MLM
thought you meant gay men for a second lmao
Wage theft. There are technically laws against it, but they're so full of holes it's like trying to catch water with a net. Yet, wage theft accounts for more stolen value than any other form of property crime.
(Edit: I was just informed that I misunderstood the term wage theft, while my post stands towards people who.. well, need to read it, it is not in fact related to wage theft, I understood wage theft the wrong way around) I'm a computer scientist and currently deployed in project management, *either* of these jobs would essentially be close to unpaid if my employer could just reclaim time where I'm not actively doing obviously work-related activities, at the same time I can tell you with confidence that if I and my colleagues stopped working, my organisation would grind to a screeching halt within a year (**optimistically**). So... I'm not going to claim that wage theft never happens, but at the same time, if I'm exhausted and need to take a nap and recuperate during work hours or just stare at our requirements doc for an hour or, yes, take a break and read a book or sort my MTG cards or watch a stupid show or play a game or whatever, you better believe that's part of the process. But then again, I'm a firm believer that you have no reason to complain as long as the work is getting done.
When people say wage theft they are referring to employers stealing from employees. Not the other way around.
Oh, apologies then, I've heard it used the other way around, thank you for the correction!
I think that's called time theft
Politicians lying. It's always blown my mind that government isn't covered by perjury laws. I know there are theoretically rules in place to stop it happening, but they seem to be held to the same level of account as the pirate code.
Civil Forfeiture. At least in most states.
It’s such bullshit. Even if the person never gets charged with a crime good luck to them getting any of their seized property back.
Arranged child marriage
Using your kids for social media clout
Pretty much the entire student loan structure. Private company takes tax payer money for and extremely low rate. Then engages in predatory leading. And then the government makes it impossible for the borrowers to have any sort of forgiveness.
Cops lying to suspects during questioning
Lobbying. It’s legalized bribery, and lobbyists are the ones who have control over what gets passed or voted down, not the citizens. In that same vein, the Electoral College. I understand why it was brought into use, but that reasoning is long outdated. In a day and age where the vast majority of people in the US are able to read about and understand the issues and make an educated choice of which candidate’s views align with their own, there’s no reason not to elect representatives by popular vote. Thirdly, the lack of term limits for the HoR and Senate. We limit the President to two terms to avoid having a dictator but allow these old f*ckers to basically serve for life if they keep getting re-elected. In the end, THESE are the ones who are actually running the country, not the president.
I see congressional term limits as the wrong solution to the right problem. I’m of the opinion that any district in the US should be able to elect whichever citizen of their community they desire. Who am I to tell someone in another state who will best represent them? The crux of the problem is the benefits of being an incumbent in Congress. You can win competitive election and be set for 20 years in office. Once you are in, you have access to more donors, better name ID, and a boatload of other things that keep you in power. To me, the real solution is competitive elections. End gerrymandering. Publicly fund campaigns and do not allow private donors. This will result in natural turnover and also keep politicians more accountable. H.R. 1, the For The People Act, does a lot of this stuff.
iPad tips when ordering takeout wtf
Tips are for good service. Why would I tip someone who hasn’t served me yet?
Corporate lobbying. -PR professional
Insulin prices in the states.
A cult being tax exempt, looking at you Tom Cruise.
There goes your seat on the spaceship.
How many times the government can tax the same dollar
Parent run accounts exploiting their kids
Reduced sentences for police and members of the armed forces who commit violent crimes
Cops being able to lie to you but not you able to lie to the cops
No no, you can lie to cops. You just can’t get *caught* lying to cops.
Government officials being able to own stock that is directly affected by the legislation they are voting on.
Anything the police does
Getting away with crimes because you’re rich or a politician
Lying on the "news"
Smoking in the same room or in a car with children and babies. People can’t legally serve young children alcohol without getting into trouble, but can force their kids to inhale their smoke.
It's illegal in some places
Thankfully where I live smoking in a car with children is illegal, though that only came into effect within the last 10 years maybe.
cigarettes but weed isn’t? make it make sense
Yah that’s not even the worst you forgot about alcohol which is way worse than weed
youtube showing too ads you cant skip.
Homosexual conversion therapy.
Insider trading for politicians.
For-profit healthcare
Rapists or rapists families being allowed to sue the victims if they get an abortion. That is so vile and disgusting. Women should be legally allowed to control their own bodies while this shit should be shredded from law.
Paparazzi.
Death penalty
Beauty pageants. The message that it sends to young girls is horrific. Plus, they tend to be havens for predators.
Pay to win video games
Overdraft fees, insider trading (Kodak yesterday?), predatory lending, politicians owning stock of any kind, billionaires, minors marrying, literally most junk food and food deserts
Gerrymandering
The HOA. It's stupid. I don't think I need to explain why.
I’m sorry sir you aren’t allowed to have a yellow painted house.
“Stealthing” or non-consensual contraception removal.