Not a good analogy because you'd still be learning a ton from a paid sexual experience vs not having any. It'd be more like apple picking and eating them with the farmer that grew them, while they tell you how the apple trees are planted, cultivated, and harvested. Do it enough times and you'll have the confidence and general idea on how you can do it on your own. There's obviously a risk of getting too addicted to the instant gratification and getting stuck in this loop but I suspect that'd be a small percentage as eventually people will want the real deal relationship.
Plus you'd be (temporarily) alleviating the pain and frustration of loneliness, which is a huge boost in morale and will bring hope. That being said I've never tried a prostitute, although I've considered it in times of loneliness for the same reasons above.
I've seen a similar website before with IndieHacker or ProductHunt verified revenues (forgot which). Maybe I missed it here but how are these reoccurring revenues verified, and as others mentioned here, are they audited?
Yes. This is all real data. No false data. All data taken from various sources like stripe, paddle, baremetrics data.
Only thing to note is - this is before expenditure deduction.
Its revenue. Not profit. But with most of these typically sass and lean startups, I would say 80%-90% would be profits, may be.
>Yes. This is all real data. No false data. All data taken from various sources like stripe, paddle, baremetrics data.
I get that, but the owner of the site reiterating the validity does not really verify anything. At least a page on the website that explains the methodology of arriving at these numbers would be better, maybe with some anonymized screenshots even.
Listing payment processors does not explain methodology. Did the startup owners send screenshots of their revenues from these processors to listt.xyz? Or did listt.xyz reach out to stripe, paddle, baremetrics ask to verify revenue data?
If the whole premise of listt.xyz is showcasing financials of private businesses, I wouldn't trust the data integrity so blindly without at least some credible explanation of how those numbers came to be.
Private business can still opt to display their revenues via comapnies like baremetrics.
So, companies like baremetrics pulls this data from their stripe,paddle accounts. Business will give access to baremetrics/similar companies to pull this data. Listt uses data from this kind of sources.
Has blockchain based voting been tried anywhere else in the world? This is a very neat idea but would it's application even make it to this year's general elections?
With the attacks USPS is under, I hope something like this comes to life.
No doubt your president wants to limit it, but you have to understand most of the people in the west would see postal voting without proper documentation and system that is verifiable is insanity and borderline corruption.
True, in my country it is mostly forbidden. Essentially it is only allowed when living abroad and even then voting via the embassy is preferred.
Why? Because when you and you alone go into the voting booth, take that red pencil, and tick the box, it is guaranteed you and you alone who casts that vote. You can only be allowed by two other people to vote for them. We also have no voting computers so maybe my country is just old fashioned.
In any case, if something needs to chance in the USA it is far too late for that. The current elections cannot be allowed to be compromised so voting by mail should be facilitated.
For some historical context, IDs cost money in most states and there's no national identification system. So if you implement voting ids, all it does is end up being voter suppression because generally the poor cannot afford to get a driver's license or cannot afford to drive therefore don't have a license. State Ids have a similar issue.
Historically, voter ID laws have been associated with disenfranchisement.
You could make a sane argument in EU countries since getting documents and keeping them updated in every 8 years costs money here as well but no one would take that argument seriously here.
Yeah but the EU or EU countries will just eat the costs for the populace. In the US, this is a contentious issue (as is every social program for the poor tbh).
Voter suppression would be when people are actually kept from going to polling stations to cast their votes. Limiting mail-in voting is not voting suppression, it is limiting access to a specific - and rather contentious - way to cast your vote. These are not the same things, at all.
First of all, that is absolutely not the definition of voter suppression— it is much broader voter disenfranchisement, from voter ID in neighborhoods with low ID ownership, to this example, which is giving people who do not want to risk their lives to vote the option to vote remotely in a manner that is proven as secure.
From what I gather - correct me if I'm wrong - voter ID is not a thing which is limited to 'neighbourhoods with low ID ownership' but a state-mandated policy where 36 of 50 states require some form of voter ID [1]. There seem to be possibilities to vote without an ID, the procedure varies from state to state and the eligibility may hinge on the voter presenting ID at a later moment.
Also, people who do not want to risk their lives to vote the option to vote remotely in a manner that is proven as secure is quite a bit of hyperbole in many ways. The risk[ing] their lives part should be clear, there is no reason for a visit to a polling station to be more risk-filled than a visit to the supermarket. Those who really can not vote in person can still request absentee ballots as far as I can tell, it is not as if the USPS is being dismantled. The part about a manner that is proven as secure is just untrue as can be seen by the percentage of mail-in votes which are marked as invalid (up to 10%) and the fact that the registers used to send out ballots seem to be heavily polluted with ballots being sent out for dead people, for previous inhabitants, for pets (!) and more. The system suffers from a garbage-in-garbage-out problem, as long as those registers are polluted that part of the problem remains. Mail-in voting also suffers from the problem of enabling voter coercion in which someone - say a gang leader - uses a threat of force to coerce people into voting for 'his' candidate.
> 36 of 50 states require some form of voter ID [1]
The key thing here is not that any voter ID law is necessarily voter-suppression. Some may argue that any ID law is, but most people would evaluate these on a case-by-case basis. For example, in many of those states, you can still vote without the appropriate ID. Some of these laws include alternatives like simply having a person working at the polling place vouch that you are who you say you are. We could argue the merits of such a law, but it's fairly clear that it's still possible to vote in many places without ID.
On the other hand, some laws have been found by the courts to be disenfranchising. Therefore, we should take the skeptical position and assume that new Voter ID laws would disenfranchise legitimate voters, and force the state to provide evidence that such a law's benefits outweighs the rights of the people it injures.
> The risk[ing] their lives part should be clear, there is no reason for a visit to a polling station to be more risk-filled than a visit to the supermarket
This seems ignorant of how polling places work in some neighborhoods. I've never seen lines like this outside of a grocery store. Many polling places will have people waiting for hours to vote, and these issues tend to effect predominantly black neighborhoods... for reasons. https://www.texasobserver.org/lines-wait-vote-texas-primary-...
> Those who really can not vote in person can still request absentee ballots as far as I can tell, it is not as if the USPS is being dismantled.
Yes, but the USPS has said that they will likely not be able to deliver those ballots in time for the election. This combined with having less in-person voting places. When you place your vote, and that vote isn't counted... then you've been disenfranchised. So what will happen to those people who waited in those long lines to vote in the past? Will they go wait for hours with dozens of other people? or will they vote by mail and risk the USPS not delivering it?
Your first sentence is essentially what gerrymandering is. Sadly, Republicans have spent decades doing this and closing down polling places in non-GOP friendly districts [1][2][3][4].
Here are some recent facts I tied together based on the current state and Trump's actions. Trump doesn't want mail-in voting because he knows that it will result in more democrats voting and him likely losing the election. Every decision he's made about the USPS has been with that concept in mind. He even said in an interview on Fox news last month that if mail in voting is allowed you'll never see another Republican in office again. He knows it. Everyone in politics knows it. The right will never admit they know this, and will look for any and every excuse to hold back the USPS without directly saying that its because they don't want more democrats than republicans voting.
With mail-in voting being accepted in a majority of states, and even set as the primary method for a few with COVID present, it really screws things up for the GOP. Couple that with Trump's gamble that convincing his voters the virus is no big deal will get them to the polls, while the scaredy cat democrats will stay home. So he spent a very long time building up this giant "virus hoax" to calm his masses. He is simultaneously trying to train them to believe that mail-in voting is fraud, even though he, himself does so, as have many, many of his voters, historically.
It worked. But what he didn't account for was states creating blanket acceptances of mail-in voting applications. That instantly turns the tables, because not only does it undo the removal of polling places, but it also allows the democrats (and the GOP, if they so choose) to vote from the safety and comfort of their homes while avoiding lines, saving time, and not risking COVID. His supporters, however, will be going to polling places in full force, in what will likely be a very bad time for the country as COVID starts to rear its face again between flu-season and school openings (especially in red states that are in denial and have entirely in-person classes).
So then, what happens, is a ton of his voters are going to be against voting by mail, and most will have not applied to do so, forcing them to go to the ballots, in what will most likely be a time that the pandemic is gaining speed. His advisors basically laid out the future for him of his silly comments, and where they were leading. So, in recent weeks, you've seen him compliment "absentee voting", trying to making it a completely separate thing from "mail-in voting", as not to look like an incompetent liar to his voters. But he knows his advantage still lies at the polling places, so he is simultaneously trying to hinder the USPS from delivering ballots. The number of mail-in voting applications for democrats FAR surpasses those for republicans, so while it may cost him a few votes, he is betting that it will cost democrats so many that his supporters who do show up will be able to tip the scales. He is also taking the approach of preparing to call the election invalid due to the amount of mail-in voting, should he lose.
It is sad to see how party politics get in the way of solving problems in the USA. Your whole reply is worded from the standpoint of someone who is clearly against the GOP and - given the practical reality of the de-facto two-party system in the USA - most likely planning to vote for the DNC candidate. From that standpoint you come to the conclusion that the GOP is planning to use the reliability problems with mail-in voting to contend the election results in case their candidate were to loose the election.
Then there are those who do not support the DNC - which is not the same as stating they support the GOP - who claim that it is actually the DNC which intends to contend the results in case their candidate looses on base of mail-in voting being thwarted. Add to that the fact that the USPS workers union has voiced its explicit support for the DNC candidate [1] and the story gets even more muddled.
Meanwhile Fauci has stated he sees no problems in people going to polling stations [2] which should give rise to doubts about the reasoning behind the urgency of mail-in voting.
I am not an American and as such consider myself to be an interested bystander in this drama. What I can state with certainty is that this type of manoeuvring is extremely unlikely to happen in my country of birth (the Netherlands) but is in some ways comparable to the situation in the country where I currently live (Sweden). The Swedish voting system has come under criticism from the OSCE [3] partly due to irregularities in the way ballot forms are being distributed - forms for specific parties have a tendency to 'get lost' in the mail or otherwise end up missing at the ballot stations, often to be found in garbage containers or dumped in some ditch somewhere. There are other criticisms but this one comes the closes to the current conundrum with mail-in voting in the USA. Sweden accepted OSCE inspectors to watch the election procedures, it remains to be seen what the country will do with their recommendations. It would be enlightening to have an external, non-partisan organisation do the same with the coming elections in the USA. Which organisation that would be I do not know, it will be hard if not impossible to find an American organisation which is truly neutral towards all parties and probably even harder to find a foreign one which is neutral towards the USA as a whole.
Copy/pasting jorblumesea's comment above that I think answers your questions.
"It's interesting to see that in America, some government services can run at a loss but others are expected to be solvent. No one complains that the military doesn't pay back the 700 billion a year it takes but if public transportation goes over budget or the post office, suddenly it's a big deal.
I honestly don't get it. Most services in most countries run at a loss but they provide huge public benefits so it's worth it. The USPS allows people to vote, seniors to get their medication, people to pay mortgages or send packages.
It seems so non-political and yet somehow even the most basic of services provided by the government are now a battleground.
I feel like this country has just collectively lost its mind."
Would you want a socialized fast food chain, or computer company? Probably not, and do you know why? It's because these are services clearly designed for the market to solve. I hope we can agree there. Delivery is just something that's FAR more efficient in the markets.
And the difference in inefficiency is just going to grow. Look at what UPS has been doing the past x years. They constantly reinvest money into new tech and decreasing labor, and USPS just gets more money from the government.
It's a fair question to ask "at what difference in cost should we stop giving USPS money because we're wasting so much of it". I think we've reached that difference already.
You know what happens when you raise a child with an unlimited allowance and no incentive to work?
America will stay ahead because of our belief in the private markets. Socialization of services can do good in the short term, but almost always looses out to competition in the long term.
The USPS has mandates from the federal government like having to deliver mail to far flung unprofitable areas and to deliver mail on Saturdays. Lets see UPS get saddled with these requirements and then "look at what UPS has been doing the past x years".
There was a time when taxpayers were taking money out of USPS, maybe it should be returned to USPS with interest?
My understanding was that USPS does not receive funding from the government. Granted, I'm not counting reimbursement for franked mail because that seems equivalent to the sender having paid postage like any other sender would. Can you provide a link with more info on USPS receiving money from the government?
Don't have much knowledge into the efficiency and the economics of government services, and you do have a valid point. But would the millions of elderly that rely on it for their medicine, SS checks, etc., still reliably receive their mail without additional cost to them or the sender if they were shipped through a private carrier? The suspicion and outcry for the changes to the USPS is clearly a timing matter. Why does Trump all of a sudden care about the postal service?
Lets be real here for a second. Trump simply doesn't want mail-in voting because he knows that it will result in more democrats voting and him likely losing the election. Every decision he's made about the USPS has been with that concept in mind. He even said in an interview on Fox news last month that if mail in voting is allowed you'll never see another Republican in office again. He knows it. Everyone in politics knows it. The right will never admit they know this, and will look for any and every excuse to hold back the USPS without directly saying that its because they don't want more democrats than republicans voting.
With mail-in voting being accepted in a majority of states, and even set as the primary method for a few with COVID present, it really screws things up for the GOP. Couple that with Trump's gamble that convincing his voters the virus is no big deal will get them to the polls, while the scaredy cat democrats will stay home. So he spent a very long time building up this giant "virus hoax" to calm his masses. He is simultaneously trying to train them to believe that mail-in voting is fraud, even though he, himself does so, as have many, many of his voters, historically.
It worked. But what he didn't account for was states creating blanket acceptances of mail-in voting applications. That instantly turns the tables, because not only does it undo the removal of polling places, but it also allows the democrats (and the GOP, if they so choose) to vote from the safety and comfort of their homes while avoiding lines, saving time, and not risking COVID. His supporters, however, will be going to polling places in full force, in what will likely be a very bad time for the country as COVID starts to rear its face again between flu-season and school openings (especially in red states that are in denial and have entirely in-person classes).
So then, what happens, is a ton of his voters are going to be against voting by mail, and most will have not applied to do so, forcing them to go to the ballots, in what will most likely be a time that the pandemic is gaining speed. His advisors basically laid out the future for him of his silly comments, and where they were leading. So, in recent weeks, you've seen him compliment "absentee voting", trying to making it a completely separate thing from "mail-in voting", as not to look like an incompetent liar to his voters. But he knows his advantage still lies at the polling places, so he is simultaneously trying to hinder the USPS from delivering ballots. The number of mail-in voting applications for democrats FAR surpasses those for republicans, so while it may cost him a few votes, he is betting that it will cost democrats so many that his supporters who do show up will be able to tip the scales. He is also taking the approach of preparing to call the election invalid due to the amount of mail-in voting, should he lose.
I just checked, and when I did it it was free, although I think that's because GA were on a marketing blitz (I think their 2 hour courses are typically ~$80 - money extremely well spent in this case).
This is the link to the course; it was called 'Intro to UX Design'
Plus you'd be (temporarily) alleviating the pain and frustration of loneliness, which is a huge boost in morale and will bring hope. That being said I've never tried a prostitute, although I've considered it in times of loneliness for the same reasons above.