Sure, but “effectiveness” is usually not a binary and is often difficult to measure. Small, but persistent changes should still add up. Eventually.

So long as people recognize that these things are in fact quite toothless, I’m not sure they are entirely detrimental. There’s no reason this couldn’t be used as a starting point for more effective action, now that signatories are in greater contact with the campaign.

I don’t know.

I still think there’s at least some value, even if the only thing it accomplishes is getting people to talk about it. Many people have never even heard of The Internet Archive.

Either way, there isn’t really a reason not to.

Sure, but it is still better than doing nothing.

Relevant username?

Bill Gates (and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), and some within the Biden administration have vocally opposed waiving IP rights on the Covid-19 vaccines

Additional article

destroying as much fossil fuel infrastructure as possible is a good thing

Maybe not when doing so would release as much methane as a small country.

This is great! Now you can compare prices for the 10 services you require and calculate the extent of your of financial ruin, all from the back of the ambulance!

I jest. Also, good luck opening a SQL database or parsing a massive minified JSON file. Many facilities do not provide the data in an easily accessible or standardized form, making it inaccessible for most people.

That’s fair.

Is it not tax evasion/fraud? In the US, either can bring criminal charges. For a smaller municipality, is there no assistance available from higher government?

It’s both.

An example of bad urban planning is low density urban sprawl, which requires lots of resources for few housing units.

Less housing, price go up. High build cost, price go up.

Blaming AirBnB for high housing prices is like setting up a chain of dominos, and criticizing a guy who comes by and knocks it over.

Yeah, and that’s exactly what they chose to do. They contributed to the reasons John Public can’t afford housing, and were rewarded massively for it.

If it wasn’t him, it would have been someone else, or the wind.

Yeah, anyone can rob a bank with poor security, but we should still punish the guy who actually robs the bank.

Cops would rather beat up college students and the unhoused than go after landlords.

that’s an expense that’s hard to justify to taxpayers

Ah, yes. We don’t have money because collecting taxes would be too expensive. Classic.

EDIT:

https://www.businessinsider.com/irs-tax-audits-recover-12-dollars-for-every-dollar-spent-2023-6?op=1

It depends whether you think killing 200,000+ civilians is a defensible act.

300,000+ if you include the bombing of Tokyo.

Nobody knows how a conventional war would have played out. To assert civilian deaths would have been higher is pure speculation and a gross attempt to justify the slaughter of noncombatants.

Though it is likely that even without nukes, the US would have still razed these cities with conventional munitions, given the events in Tokyo.

Somewhat conflicted on the “deliberate targeting”

Intentionally striking hospitals, aid workers, journalists, and families in their homes, is the deliberate targeting of civilians.

Still certain that Hamas knew what would happen and already had a plan to use it for propaganda purposes.

When a faction commits war crimes, the propaganda writes itself.

Israel already have all the weapons they need to flatten Gaza completely.

Yet the US continues to send military equipment and munitions.

The only people who can stop this suffering is the Israeli and Palestinian people

Not entirely. Israel relies heavily on foreign (US) capital. Threat of divestment and/or sanctions would likely be quite effective.

Say there is a car with no human driver, that is being sold as requiring “no human input other than set destination, stop, and go”.

If that vehicle crashes, you think the person who bought the car (the passenger) has legal liability, and not the manufacturer?

That’s like being a passenger on a bus and getting sued if the bus driver hits a parked car.

I’d say the scale of civilian death achieved through the deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure is so extreme, it could not have been foreseen. It is a vastly disproportionate response.

No, they knew, and counted on it to get support and to wreck any goodwill Israel had with their neighbours and the world.

This is just wrong. The western powers have unwaveringly supported Israel from the beginning. Only just recently has the US decided to perhaps reduce the weapon shipments to Israel, after vast destruction and loss of life has already occurred.

Are we talking truly autonomous vehicles with no driver, or today’s “self-driving-but-keep-your-hands-on-the-wheel” type cars?

In the case of the former, it should be absolutely the fault of the manufacturer.

Financial irregularities brought to light by the raid and subsequent investigations led to a conviction of the plant’s chief executive Sholom on bank fraud and related charges.

He was sentenced to 27 years in prison, but this led to an outcry by a bipartisan group of more than 100 former high-ranking and distinguished Department of Justice (DOJ) officials, prosecutors, judges, and legal scholars who expressed concern with the evidentiary proceedings in his case as well as with the severity of his sentence.

On December 20, 2017, then-President Donald Trump commuted his sentence to time served, and his trial on immigration charges was canceled.

Same article.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postville_raid

Neither the owner, Aaron Rubashkin, nor his sons Sholom and Heshy, who were in charge of the management of Agriprocessors, were convicted of immigration or labor law violations, although both Aaron and son Sholom were initially charged with 9,311 counts of child labor law violation, for which they could have faced over 700 years in prison if found guilty. All charges against Aaron were dropped right before the trial was scheduled to begin, and after a five-week trial Sholom was acquitted on all charges of violating child labor laws.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postville_raid

Undocumented workers have no rights. If they don’t accept the bad pay and conditions offered, they get reported. The state takes the current group of “troublemakers” away and you hire fresh immigrants.

All charges being dropped against the owners of the plant just before the trial is either corruption or a plea deal. The owners very likely snitched on themselves in exchange for amnesty.

Continued in reply…

Hamas attacked Israel, counting on the response being disproportionate and bloody. They wanted dead Palestinians

Yeah bro, they really just wanted to murder-suicide their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters Jonestown style. Trust me bro, they got what they deserved, bro.

It is disgusting to suggest they wished for the massacre of their people.