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OT: First video from Mars

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DTP said:
What about private corporations that get subsidized by tax dollars?
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See my earlier comment about Medicare waste, fraud, and abuse.

There just isn't as much incentive to prevent it with government. It doesn't impact them in any way to allow or prevent it. Think of all the good things that kind of money could do instead of being funneled into the pockets of crooks.
 
DTP said:
What about private corporations that get subsidized by tax dollars?
Click to expand...

I'm going to need you to be more specific....
You talking the banking industry, insurance industry, defense industry, aviation industry, oil industry, automobile industry, farming, big corn, construction, or just anyone who happened to get a PPP loan?
 
Ajcane8 said:
8 years, 10 billion dollars, 50 million miles all for 20 seconds of grainy footage that looks like it was taken from my grandmother’s back yard in Tucson. Color me unimpressed.
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This is peak mope. That footage travelled 128 million miles and is better quality than most of my zoom calls. I'm sure the rocket scientist geniuses at NASA are working feverously to come up with a plan to impress you. Just sit tight.
 
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****, that looks like a place me and a dozen college teammates got together for a week this past summer on a ranch in the Texas Flint Hills, or maybe I was that drunk the entire time.

Breaing news; Houston we have a problem:
141862620_10219785793135298_4001554598517783366_o.jpg
 
JD08 said:
But I have a choice whether to buy a corporation's products and subsidize that. I have no choice but to pay for government waste through higher taxes.
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Look, I love you, but that's a hot, steaming pile of BULLSH!TE.

First, you do not have a "choice" to buy from a waste-free, fraud-free, abuse-free corporation. They don't exist. And even if one did, you'd have no means or ability to differentiate.

Second, you always have a choice in government. Vote the scoundrels out. If they are Republicans, put in Democrats. If they are Democrats, put in Republicans. The choice may not be perfect, but there is a choice.

And, as Neil Peart beautifully stated it, if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

Finally, you missed the point entirely. Both "government" and "corporations" are run by PEOPLE. People are the ones who commit all of the waste and fraud and abuse. Not "the government". Not "corporations". But the people who run each of those institutions.

Thus, through human greed, incompetence, and selfishness, all large entities are susceptible to waste, fraud, and abuse. Making it ridiculous to be mad at government, while exhibiting no comparable frustration/anger towards corporations.

Medicare waste/fraud/abuse might have been 29 billion in one year. Do you honestly believe that all of the waste/fraud/abuse in medical-hospital-pharmaceutical-health insurance companies doesn't dwarf that? Come on, now.

If you want to be butt-hurt all the time because you don't think you have a "choice" in government, that's up to you. But I guaran-*******-tee you that every single time you get food, buy a product, or purchase a service, a healthy chunk of every single one of your expenditures is subsidizing corporate waste, fraud, and abuse.

I've been working for large publicly-traded corporations for 20 years. You have to hold your nose and tolerate the nonsense just as much in the corporate world as you do in the governmental world.

There's no difference. People suck.
 
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So uh.. I really hate to do this to everyone but after watching it several times to see if it -seemed- legitimate? It -is- but with a major caveat... It’s not Perseverance but Curiosity and the audio is unfortunately added in post (Curiosity didn’t have audio capture capabilities) =/ I really look forward to when we can HEAR Mars (and I am sure it will be soon) but this isn’t it 🤦‍♀️
 
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JD08 said:
But I have a choice whether to buy a corporation's products and subsidize that. I have no choice but to pay for government waste through higher taxes.
Click to expand...
There’s always a choice. One could choose an attempt at ingratiating oneself among the Amazonian Awa people. I’m pretty sure they have 0 complaints re government spending. I mean, they’d probably kill you and eat you - but if one thinks that outcome is preferable to being robbed by Uncle Sam by all means have at it.
 
puertorricane said:
Is it like the moon landing? All recorded in a studio somewhere.
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No cap; I was like this looks like the scene “The Martian” w/ Matt Damon. Man, don’t wanna be critical, but seeing an American Flag wave back & forth on the moon when there’s literally no gravity up there always got me like, hmmmmmmm. Lol
 
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TheOriginalCane said:
Look, I love you, but that's a hot, steaming pile of BULLSH!TE.

First, you do not have a "choice" to buy from a waste-free, fraud-free, abuse-free corporation. They don't exist. And even if one did, you'd have no means or ability to differentiate.

Second, you always have a choice in government. Vote the scoundrels out. If they are Republicans, put in Democrats. If they are Democrats, put in Republicans. The choice may not be perfect, but there is a choice.

And, as Neil Peart beautifully stated it, if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

Finally, you missed the point entirely. Both "government" and "corporations" are run by PEOPLE. People are the ones who commit all of the waste and fraud and abuse. Not "the government". Not "corporations". But the people who run each of those institutions.

Thus, through human greed, incompetence, and selfishness, all large entities are susceptible to waste, fraud, and abuse. Making it ridiculous to be mad at government, while exhibiting no comparable frustration/anger towards corporations.

Medicare waste/fraud/abuse might have been 29 billion in one year. Do you honestly believe that all of the waste/fraud/abuse in medical-hospital-pharmaceutical-health insurance companies doesn't dwarf that? Come on, now.

If you want to be butt-hurt all the time because you don't think you have a "choice" in government, that's up to you. But I guaran-*******-tee you that every single time you get food, buy a product, or purchase a service, a healthy chunk of every single one of your expenditures is subsidizing corporate waste, fraud, and abuse.

I've been working for large publicly-traded corporations for 20 years. You have to hold your nose and tolerate the nonsense just as much in the corporate world as you do in the governmental world.

There's no difference. People suck.
Click to expand...
Aw, I love you too.

Ostensibly, you do have a choice on whether to purchase a particular corporation's product, but you aren't afforded that luxury with government.

I know very, very well that there's plenty of wasteful spending in corporations and that it gets passed to consumers. Unfortunately, because of the non-monopoly nature of it, it's not always illegal. Even when it is it doesn't get caught. My first job out of college was for a large family owned company and I saw them charge an $85k jaguar as office supplies. And yes, they are very well connected politically. One of the owners is a trustee emeritus at our alma mater.

My biggest problem is one of opportunity costs. We always hear politicians wanting more and more for this project or that, whether useful or not, while the money they need is right in front of them, but they lack the will to upset the apple cart. So they come to us, not with their hat in hand, but full of righteousness about how denying them is a moral failure.

We simply can't reward corruption under the guise that it happens everywhere because silence is tacit approval.

Yes, people suck. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying to hold them accountable in both the private and public sectors.
 
Ajcane8 said:
There’s always a choice. One could choose an attempt at ingratiating oneself among the Amazonian Awa people. I’m pretty sure they have 0 complaints re government spending. I mean, they’d probably kill you and eat you - but if one thinks that outcome is preferable to being robbed by Uncle Sam by all means have at it.
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And deal with deforestation?!

Besides, some problems should be solved rather than avoided.
 
Would love to snatch a sure fire elite recruit from here, though. On Soul. Hopefully we would use him better than Hester, though.
 
A bunch of Internet geniuses on here I swear. Most of the people on here couldn’t connect an old-school surroundsound system. The same people couldn’t even get around in major metropolitan city without a GPS. Don’t even get me started on basic map reading. But here we are criticizing 128,000,000 mile journey to the darkness of space and landing an autonomy rover that can use Twitter.
 
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