The low birth rates are a concern because they need the bodies to generate revenue so they can take care of old people who will lean on government services.

Why should you care about population decline? Fewer people are good for the climate, but the economic consequences are severe. In the 1960s, there were six people of working age for every retired person. Today, the ratio is three-to-one. By 2035, it will be two-to-one.

Some say we must learn to curb our obsession with growth, to become less consumer-obsessed, to learn to manage with a smaller population. That sounds very attractive. But who will buy the stuff you sell? Who will pay for your healthcare and pension when you get old?

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/birthrates-declining-globally-why-matters/

Ok, so what does that have to do with your question…

What age group tends to be the biggest voting bloc, the most xenophobic, the most nationalistic…? Old people. Get those foreign people off my lawn, keep those foreign drug dealers, thieves, and layabouts out of my country.

Then there’s exploitation of foreign labor to undercut wages and work rules of citizens of the country the labor is being imported into.

I’m sure there’s more, but basically it’s a hefty dose of xeonphobia and nationalism along with groups not wanting to literally lose jobs to someone who will do it for a lot less.

The liquid is still liquid.

The opposite of a jumbo small.

I think “without rambling” is more than just a stretch. Dude was all over place, but he was able to ramble clearly.

How you know you live in a really small and remote town.

They are. I’ve seen phones being on magnet mounts or held on the steering wheel with videos playing.

You bleed rainbows when cut.

And they get pretty obvious in big subs like /cars and /gaming. So many posting opinions like car magazines or gaming reviews do - point out nit-picky negatives that are relatively inconsequential to the product, softball other criticism, but give an overall decent review. Heaven help you if you actually voice an opinion critical of the object, because you’re allowed to have that opinion as an individual, that doesn’t toe the line and you get instant downvotes.

I don’t know. I’ve seen a few examples of women who have radically changed their facial photographic representation via skillful application of cosmetics.

I don’t know what to do with that. On one hand, society expects them to use available techniques to change their appearance to meet standards of beauty very few can ever accomplish. Otoh, it’s dishonest because irl they’re not who they seem to be, so an app that shows them without makeup might be useful. But the catch-22 is that the app may not be right, or that we judge too harshly based on an unattainable standard.

Man, Beauty is fucked up in the West. CGI, photoshop, photo manipulation have destroyed reality in favor of manipulating what desirability is.

I know lots of people that own corgis. I don’t know anyone that owns a dinosaur. Guess that means corgis are more popular?

Well shit. Gotta find a new one then.

Really? I use PIA all the time and haven’t had any issues with normal internet usage including reddit. Wirst I get is google making me check a captcha box once in a while.

I think for some it never takes hold. Ours are in the early teens and it’s barely starting to register.

A hard thing I try to get my kids to understand. The bus time is at [what:ever]. That’s when the bus leaves. Not when you roll up to the stop. Not when you step out the door. That’s butt-in-seat-leaving-time. If you’re walking up to the stop and the bus is pulling away at bus:time - too bad, so sad. That applies to many things that require you to be on time for. 5 minutes early is on time. On time is too late. Astonishing what a difficult concept that is to get across.

They just need to come out and “lease” the game.

“Buy” should no longer be on any selection as far as live service games go, or any game dependent on developer servers to operate.

Put your salami in that and it’s gonna come out looking like chorizo

Sentences you never thought you’d read.

53%?!

Sounds like one of those shitty used car joints “no credit, no problem” that you sign your life away for a mediocre car.

It’s the average they calculated they’d get in order to allocate the minimum budget and personnel to what the “normal” calculation would be and only inconvenience the customer when it rose about that amount.

Not actually the average they get, the average they allocated min budget for normal amount.

If they were bigger they’d get bitten off more often in all the fights.

It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off.

(Self aware double entendre in that statement)