That's about the time the worm ate through his brain and stopped any further thinking.

Wouldn't your comment equally apply to being a small business owner (let's say blacksmith) under feudalism? As a good blacksmith, you will earn more clients and prestige, while poor blacksmiths won't get repeat business. You might be able to expand your forge and hire more people to do the tedious work of making chainmail or whatever.

I don't know that anyone can ever provide an "objective" source on capitalism. Anyone who writes on the topic has inherent biases. Here are a few: https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-at-Work-Cure-Capitalism/dp/1608462471

https://www.amazon.com/Slow-Down-Manifesto-KOHEI-SAITO/dp/1662602723

https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/doughnut-economics-paperback/

https://www.amazon.com/What-Wrong-Capitalism-Ruchir-Sharma/dp/1668008262

https://www.amazon.com/There-Are-No-Accidents-Disaster_Who/dp/1982129689

https://www.amazon.com/Deaths-Despair-Future-Capitalism-Anne/dp/0691217076

If you have an extra bedroom that you can use exclusively as an office, it's pretty great. When you're in your office, that's "work", and the rest of your house is "not work".

Because it's literally what's happening? X has not named a legal representative in Brazil. Therefore it cannot do business in Brazil. Thus, all ISPs are ordered to block X so that it cannot do business in Brazil. (same link). Starlink, as an ISP, said they would not comply. Now they are complying. This has literally nothing to do with internet speech and everything to do with complying with a country's laws.

If Chevron were to start drilling in Brazil without any sort of permits or company representative, you might say that Brazil is within its rights to seize that mining equipment. Would that also be censorship?

You're basically taking the position that you should drive without a seatbelt. Either you always drive with your seatbelt (i.e. get a proper kydex holster, practice your draw, be familiar with your equipment and setup) or you shouldn't get in a car. You should never draw your gun simply to brandish - if you draw, you should be drawing with the intent to fire because your life is in imminent danger. Taking an extra few seconds in a literal life or death situation to rack your slide, when 1) you might not have the use of both hands, 2) your hands might slip due to adrenaline, or 3) you might fuck up the slide rack and induce a malfunction - i'm sure there are other situations too. These are all things you do NOT want to have happen if you are drawing your gun to save your life. And if you have the time to leisurely draw, rack, and brandish, a zealous prosecutor could easily argue that you weren't afraid for your life and/or you could have used that time to get further away from your attacker.

Says every reputable CCW instructor. If you do not carry with one in the chamber, you either do not trust your equipment (in which case you should get better equipment) or do not trust yourself (in which case you should not be carrying).

If you carry, you should be carrying with a round in the chamber (I assume this is what you mean by loaded). If you're not comfortable carrying with a round in the chamber, you should not be carrying a pistol.

Here's an explainer: https://www.npr.org/2024/07/21/g-s1-12556/kamala-harris-coconut-tree-meme-context-unburdened

My American brain can only understand lbs, but converting it, 5.6kg = more than 12lbs, which is on the high end even for DA guns. I believe both the Sig 226 and CZ 75 are around 9-10lbs in DA. For comparison, Glocks have about a 6lb trigger pull, which would be barely heavier than your P8's SA trigger weight.

Two points: 1. most guns don't have safeties, and 2. safeties are pretty easy to toggle

First, many guns don't have any sort of safety like you see in the movies - "toggle this button to make the gun able to fire." Most safety features in current guns are to prevent the gun from going of accidentally - i.e. other than someone pulling the trigger. Therefore, the most common safeties are a trigger dongle and a firing pin block, which makes the gun drop-safe. In other words, if you drop the gun, it won't go off, but if you pull the trigger, it will go bang. A Glock is a prototypical example of a gun with no safeties - most police departments in the US issue Glocks to their officers, and if used correctly (i.e. keeping your finger off the trigger), they are thought to be very safe (as far as guns go).

That said, for guns that do have safeties, safeties are generally very easy to toggle on and off. A 1911 style pistol is fairly common and has several safeties. 1911s have both a grip safety and a safety on the frame. If the gun is on safe, the safety is "up", and when you grab it, you release the grip safety, and your thumb should sweep down and release the frame safety. Many people "ride" the frame safety, which means they just keep their thumb on the safety since it's a comfortable ledge. Once you're done firing, you should sweep your thumb up to put the gun back on safe. Both safeties are intended for the same purpose as Glocks - to prevent the gun from firing when you don't intend it to (like, into your leg when carried in a holster). They are not intended to make the gun an inert object.

Many new gun owners want a safety because they think it's an added layer of protection against you doing something dumb. And it is, to an extent, but once you become more familiar with safe gun handling, a safety is basically extraneous - it generally won't help from anything catastrophic (like what happened in this article), and is a potential point of failure (for example, there are stories about marines with berettas having them go from safe to unsafe because of plane vibrations). Once an owner trains to become proficient with their pistol, having a safety or not is basically a wash - doesn't matter either way, as long as you're handling the gun properly.

With all that said, that means any pistol that is not secured by a lock or case is 100% unsafe to be left around children, safety or not. There are plenty of "quick access" safes that people can install in their cars that will allow a pistol to be secured, but also retrieved quickly. Having a totally unsecured firearm is simply negligence.

There are a ton of different kinds of pistols, and all have varying types of trigger weight. If you trained in a EU military, you probably trained with something like a Beretta 92 or CZ 75, both of which have a double action/single action ("DA/SA") design, where the long DA is a safety feature. After the first shot, the gun will be in SA mode, with a much lighter weight for easier follow-up shots. One can also put a DA/SA gun into SA mode by chambering a round and cocking the hammer. Most consider this to be an unsafe way to carry a pistol without a further manual safety (both the Beretta and CZ have one for carrying in this manner).

Glock is the most common pistol make in the US, and they use a striker fired design. A striker fired pistol is typically equipped with a medium-weight trigger - lighter than a DA pull, but not as light as a SA.

Because the toddler shot himself in the chest, he was also likely using his thumbs, rather than index finger on the trigger. I think a toddler would easily have the strength to pull a striker trigger, and definitely a SA.

I actually really like seeing AOC not being one of those “burn the house down” politicians as I knew her when she started

But that's why peopled liked her. Who she is now is basically totally unrepresentative of who she ran as.

Do you think "we" as voters didn't want a primary? It's party insiders the whole way. And if you vote for Biden anyways, you're saying "yeah, i liked how this worked just fine." DNC screwed bernie twice, and RFK, Marianne, and Dean this time. Regardless of who you would back ultimately, the DNC removes all democracy from the process then says they're saving democracy.

IDK, I feel like Biden is exactly another Hillary - he's dramatically unpopular everywhere outside liberal bastions. It doesn't seem like liberals need to worry about mobilizing the red base, they need people to come out and vote FOR them in the key swing states instead of staying home.

That's just the government though, similar to how a lot of the systems in the US still run on COBOL (including the IRS).