An awful lot of regulations are written in blood. I am not suggesting we relax any of them. I’m talking about the endless supply of permits and forms and local government licenses and that sort of thing. There is an awful lot of regulation that does absolutely nothing to increase safety, it’s just bureaucracy. We could get rid of all that without impacting safety.

In that scenario, the spouse doing the parenting who isn’t a narcissist should divorce the narcissist. Or keep their pants on until the divorce happens.

‘somehow that leads to cheating’ No it does not ‘somehow’ lead to anything.

Either the person is in control of their actions, in which case they should have the self-control to postpone sex at least until divorce process begins, or they are not in control of their actions and are helpless to prevent themselves from sleeping with the other person, in which case they are not the paragon of virtue you paint them to be. They may well be a better parent than the narcissist, which is why I don’t say custody should be automatic. I am only saying that infidelity should be strongly considered in custody decisions.

Yeah but throw some batteries on that solar, which you really should do anyway, and you’re good to go. IMHO the batteries are what really makes self-sufficiency possible. With a good size solar array and a good size battery, you can be not only a net exporter but more or less an always exporter, rarely if ever taking power from the grid.

Run on sunshine during the day and stored sunshine at night. Unfortunately a lot of places it’s not legal to have a house with no grid connection, even if one isn’t necessary.

Absolutely 100% Right now having solar panels on your house is ‘branded’ as some sort of green save the planet thing.

Putting enough panels that your house can go totally off-grid with a little cutback and usage, that’s as independent as you get. Save money too.

Yes absolutely this. Cheating should not be a crime you go to jail for.
But it should have consequences. I think a good way to go is a law that unless there is a prenup that specifically deals with cheating, and unless it was an agreed to open relationship or there was otherwise permission to cheat, a cheater is ineligible for alimony and must be considered morally suspect for the question of child custody.

This is largely accurate unfortunately. A good example is Apple. They tried to make a high-end desktop computer manufactured in the US. To do this they needed a specific type of screw. In the area near their factory, they only found one machine shop that could make the screw and they could guarantee an output of 50 screws per day after a 3 week lead time to tool up. And that was the final offer.

When they finally moved to China, they submitted the same request. Multiple vendors appeared offering thousands of screws per day and if they wanted to place a bigger order the company would set up a new factory just to produce those screws and could output tens or hundreds of thousands per day depending on requirements.

Another example is the iPhone and Gorilla Glass. There were a few Chinese companies in the running to manufacture the glass panel that would go on top of the phone. The one that got the contract, in anticipation of getting the contract, had already purchased the machine to form the glass and had samples ready for inspection at the contract signing.

We have allowed our business climate to become so bogged down in red tape and liability and lawyers and insurance, that most American companies are simply unable to execute at the same speed as China when it comes to manufacturing.

I would absolutely love to get more manufacturing back in the US. But the process of outsourcing is not going to get unwound overnight. It took two decades to move everything to China, even if the whole country agreed that was a mistake it would take another two decades to bring it back. Because as the Apple screws demonstrate, it’s not just about the factory that produces the widget. It’s about everything that goes into that factory, the companies that make the parts and the screws and the plastic. When you deal with China, they are all right there and they are all ready to go. Same can’t be said for the US.

I think most commenters here are missing the point.

There is a more extreme reaction to transgender people as opposed to gay or lesbian people, because of issues like sports and bathrooms. And that hits at people’s sense of injustice. For example if you have a young daughter, a lot of people will hate the idea of a person with a penis going into the women’s room and being around their little girl. Or if that daughter grows up and joins a sports team, the idea of somebody who is hormonally male and thus naturally more muscular competing against your daughter is unpleasant.

Put differently, I think a lot of people we now classify as ‘transphobic’ don’t actually have much problem with trans people themselves. Rather, with how the efforts to ensure trans people receive the full treatment of their chosen gender can affect the rest of society.

For me personally, I don’t know what the answer is. I generally don’t care which bathroom you use as long as you wash your hands. I have no problem with anyone presenting themselves to the world as whatever they wish, if it makes you happier than by all means. At the same time though, I don’t think it’s transphobic to point out that somebody who is largely or entirely biologically male will have a natural competitive advantage in the field of sports.
So while I certainly don’t want to exclude anybody, I think there is at least a little justification for restricting some women’s sports to those who are genetically female.