Wandering Adventure Party

@jenniferplusplus equating "capitalism" with "trade" has been one of the biggest coups of discourse - you get people sincerely believing "well without capitalism would we just barter???" and now we must start everything by explaining that no, money was invented in 3000 BC, in fact Jesus was overturning moneylender tables 1500 years before the Dutch East India Company, etc

@TechConnectify Shoutout to Biden's Infrastructure Bill, which (among many other things) provided grants and incentives to ISPs to build out broadband access in underserved areas. We live in a semi-rural spot in Arkansas (not farms, but populaton-sparse with big lots) and our options like yours were 12mbps DSL, flaky fixed wi-fi, or cell towers a long ways off. Last year a super-local company came and buried fiber lines _everywhere_ and we pay less now for excellent, reliable Internet - and they claimed some of that grant money as a reward. Would never have happened otherwise.

I think often about how the government mandated telco lines to everyone in the past - "it won't pay back" was simply not an option. We have the ability to do these things right now - it's not hard! it's not complicated! - but what's missing is the people in power to just DO IT.

Naturally, the rural broadband incentive was deliberately ended in 2025.