Dealing with potentially 100°F/38°C summers and sub 0°F/-18°C winters

Very common question but no one wants to hear the truth… You don’t.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but for the majority of people you kind of don’t. The social situations where you might meet people in your you ger days are closing or have already closed.

School is usually a big one for most, but after a certain age, you’re not likely to be in school any longer and if you are, then you’ll be considerably older than others.

Work is another one, but recent trends work against that. People tend to work at places for a short period of time before they jump ship. Shorter period of time, short number of connections you might make. Also with the hysteria over sexual harassment, people tend to not want anything to do with finding close connections these days at work. And of course working from home is clearly the biggest killer. You’re not going to connect with someone over a few Teams messages.

People tend to be less physically active as they get older, so meeting people on a team sport tends to be less common.

Lastly everything kind of snowballs. The less friends you have, the less friends-of-friends you might meet. And if you have some friends that are in a relationship, then forget about it. They’ll want to spend time with their significant other, and god forbid they get married and have kids. You’ll never see those people again unless you also have kids. I’m not painting a very positive picture here, but I think it’s way more realistic than many want to admit.

SO GO AFTER FACEBOOK. Holy shit. How is that sooooo difficult to understand?! Someone named Fred murdered someone last week. Does that mean that all people named Fred are murderers?? That’s the kind of ridiculous logic you are trying to apply.

There are well over a million companies in the US with 10 employees or more, but yes, by all means focus on the tiny percentage that violate the law to suite your talking-points. Anywhere else, that would be called cherry-picking, but I guess when you are trying to fit your narrative that CaPiTaLiSm BaD then let’s pretend that everyone is a crook.

It is obliged to become as unfettered as possible to achieve that.

Which is where laws and regulations step in. People act like capitalism is some kind of lawless world. The CEOs might want that, but no one is saying we have to give it to them.

Except that Capitalism has proven to be a world-changing entity. We aren’t talking about fancy ideas in someone’s head or in a closely controlled laboratory experiment. Real life. The rise of the post-war American middleclass was one of the biggest growth of wealth spread out to the largest group of people in human history. The 50s and 60s were an economic miracle where companies competed which led to some amazing innovations and upward mobility for works. Of course then came the doldrums of the 70s and then the disaster of the Reagan Administration and everything went to shit. Enter stage unfettered capitalism.

Companies cooperating always lead to better results

Define “better”.

Better for whom exactly? Shareholders? Workers? Consumers? CEOs? Companies cooperating is good when you are talking about USB and ANSI and ISO standards and such. Where having one cohesive set of rules makes sense.

For most other things, companies competing with each other is far better for everyone involved. Competition breeds innovation.

tremendous incentive for any successful capitalist to… defetterate

I agree… there is always the incentive and that is there we need politicians who aren’t so morally bankrupt that they bendover backwards and sell the people out and give these companies these sweetheart deals. And nothing keeps politicians more honest than an engaged public and a news media that is willing to report on these issues. That’s kind of where all this starts to fall apart.

The government should be on the side of consumers/workers/the nation at large. Government is the only entity large enough to tame these larger corporations. You don’t want them dictating the color and trim packages of Ford F150 that are produced, but you need government telling them that “hey, maybe dumping unfiltered burnt leaded gsoline into the air ain’t such a good idea”.

Unfettered Capitalism is, in part, when the government is on the side of big business to the determent of everyone else. In that case, the government is actively giving blank checks to these mega corporations - look at the Military Industrial Complex for examples. Or when sweetheart deals are made which blindly favor one company because the CEO is cousins with some lawmaker.

Most people who hate capitalism are focusing in on its evil brother, “unfettered capitalism”. UC is a shit show which has created many of the problems we see today and is the unholy unity created when big business and the government combine. When done right, capitalism pushes to lower costs and improve services for consumers. Companies competing is a good thing. Unfortunately the greed of corporations knows no bounds which is when UC enters the picture and fucks everything up.

Facebook, Twitter and now Threads. Have no interest and zero use for that stuff.

Self driving cars or honestly the majority of car tech introduced in the last 5 years or so, such a lane keeping assist or other drivers “aids” which ultimately seem to distract drivers more than ever help them.

Why not?

There’s nothing here on Earth holding me back, so why the fuck not explore the universe?

Even understanding the vast, vast, vast empty nature of the universe, I don’t see why or h9w I could say no.

The smoke from the fire pit also helps in keeping them away.

One can also plant lavender and catnip and some other plants which mosquitos don’t like.

If you are inside, set up an oscillating fan. They can’t fly well in windy conditions.

Was watching a video where one place they rest is under the leaves of plants. Yiu can buy mosquitoe killer spray, but be sure to get underneath the leaves.

As others have mentioned, standing water is bad. They can survive and thus breed in a LOT smaller volume of water than people realize.