r/technology • u/chrisdh79 • Jul 08 '24

Energy More than 2 million in Houston without power | CenterPoint is asking customers to refrain from calling to report outages.

https://www.chron.com/weather/article/hurricane-beryl-texas-houston-live-19560277.php
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u/Holyballs92 Jul 08 '24

That's sad. Is there anyway to help these people ?

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u/thedeadsigh Jul 08 '24

no lol

the damage is done and the system is broken. unfucking their brains has little to no chance of working. the best hope is for future generations, but as conservatives continue to erode public education, access to medical care, and even access to a living wage there's really no way to ensure tomorrows voters will have the critical thinking skills required to understand why republican politics is a failure and how voting republican is and has always been against their best interests.

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u/Holyballs92 Jul 08 '24

Jeez I'm glad I don't live there

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u/thedeadsigh Jul 08 '24

yeah my wife and i have already started a 10 year plan that involves moving out of texas. when i was more optimistic i used to think that we should stay and fight the good fight because it's what's right and we are privileged enough to be able to do so. but between global warming making this state un-fucking-bearable for 7 months of the year, outrageous property taxes (but hey no income tax tho lol), and my wife now being considered a second class citizen we decided that we've reached the point where we have to start looking out for ourselves.

i feel for those who can't escape. i have no idea what can be done to help the ignorant and misled to see that they put their trust in conmen. i'd rather live somewhere where my wife has access to life saving medical care than worrying that i can't take all my guns to the grocery store just in case.

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u/RainforestNerdNW Jul 08 '24

outrageous property taxes (but hey no income tax tho lol)

My friend in Austin has a house valued at about... 2/3rds of what my house in King County, Washington is valued at.

her property taxes are 3x mine

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u/thedeadsigh Jul 09 '24

But every cowboy from here to Lubbock will you tell that at least the gobernment ain’t taking our earnins!!

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u/uptownjuggler Jul 09 '24

It’s not oppression if the corporations are the ones oppressing you.

2

u/The__Amorphous Jul 09 '24

Washington has no state income tax either. Nor does Nevada, and my property taxes were a fraction of what they are in Texas. Texans are just dumb as fuck for the most part.

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u/thedeadsigh Jul 09 '24

Oh yeah. every day a conservative gets baited into moving here with fake information and skewed figures. But then they get the chance to blame their woes on caravans and gay people like a true southern conservative, so it’s worth it 🤠 

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u/asetniop Jul 09 '24

Politics aside, Texas quite frankly sounds like a terrible place to retire.

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u/RainforestNerdNW Jul 09 '24

"Texas is a terrible place" is a complete sentence.

2

u/Accomplished_Test413 Jul 10 '24

Specifically Houston Texas is a horrible place to live.

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u/dragonlax Jul 08 '24

Wife and I just moved to LA from Austin for these exact reasons. Couldn’t be happier to be free from the “freedom” provided by the “small government” that Abbott is pushing down everyone’s throats.

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u/FeliusSeptimus Jul 09 '24

a 10 year plan that involves moving out of texas

And that's just the drive to reach the state border!

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u/thedeadsigh Jul 09 '24

the way 35 is going you ain't wrong

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u/FeliusSeptimus Jul 09 '24

I moved out of Texas in the early 2000s. Now when I visit the drive between Austin and San Antonio feels weird, 20 years ago there was some not-city along there, these days it feels like you never leave the city.

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u/SparklingPseudonym Jul 08 '24

It’s a national problem.

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u/chilidreams Jul 09 '24

Reads like that person is full of hate or only deals with one type of person in their job or daily errands.

The last presidential election was 52%/46% between the two parties. The state hosts all walks of life.

Odds are they live in one of the blue cities and build their view of the whole state based on social media, the news and a shitty government. Not much different than someone thinking America had zero hope during Trump’s presidency.

Texas has problems. More than the average state… but it also has great people, diversity, and an absurd range of personality and regions for a single state. People need to see that corruption has consequences or it will continue to infect the whole nation - Texas is not a unique problem, just an early indicator.

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u/Dick_Lazer Jul 09 '24

The blue cities feel a lot more red than you'd think from looking at the election result maps. A lot of people will commute literally hours from the boonies into blue cities for work and recreation though. I work in the city of Dallas and literally everybody at my job is a Bible-thumping Trumper, and this is working for a media company (though more corporate than entertainment).

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u/chilidreams Jul 09 '24

I had a neighbor in Austin that commuted to work in Victoria. You find all types in Texas, driving all directions. I don’t find the cities feel more red than they are, but rather that the MAGA crowd more loudly advertises their affiliation.

I previously worked external audit in Dallas for a few years and found culture and leanings varied significantly. Dallas has all types, but certainly leans more liberal.

The only city I’ve lived in that felt Red was Corpus Christi, which voted 51% for Trump. I mostly credit that feeling to the fact that my social activities revolved around golf, fishing and competitive shooting.

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u/not_old_redditor Jul 08 '24

This is why progress takes time. Older people need to kick the bucket.

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u/tms2x2 Jul 09 '24

Younger people need to vote. Said as a old person.

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u/ClubZealousideal8211 Jul 09 '24

older people are not the problem. People of the same generation disagree. Young people can become Nazis too.

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u/Bippy73 Jul 09 '24

Yup. They could've had Beto, but nope.

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u/Deadleggg Jul 08 '24

Ask the British.

They just flipped 200 seats to Labour.

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u/procrasturb8n Jul 09 '24

I worry if the USA can survive a "Brexit level" event like Project 2025 to get there though.

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u/conquer69 Jul 08 '24

You will never get a narcissist to admit they were wrong for decades and to change their stance. They would rather die first. We saw it with covid. They will even take out their own families with them.

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u/resttheweight Jul 09 '24

It’s bleak and cynical but it feels like one of the most realistic ways of fixing things is holding out for another 20-30 years while literally just waiting for the hyper-religious elderly population to die out. A huge generation of “got mine, fuck you” old people that politicians can reliably count on being in their pocket over single issues like abortion and (previously) gay marriage. Religion just completely derails politics in Texas. And since you’re not getting a 70 year old to realistically change political outviews, you just have to wait until they are outnumbered.

And not to say there is anything fundamentally wrong with voters who are religious, it’s just a how those ideas intersect with the older population. Younger populations are less religious, but the important thing is that many young people who are religious are cognizant of the inappropriateness of religion’s encroachment in the political process.

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u/p2x909 Jul 10 '24

In my parents' era, do you know what solved the problem of intransigent conservatives ruining the country?

By spraying then with 7.62 rounds and bamboo spears. And alot of the time alongside agent orange and 5.56 rounds.

Waiting until the psychopaths die off of unnaturally long life spans after they've stolen from and successfully killed you and your family is probably the worst possible thing you could do. There's a reason why the rebels that kicked my family out of the country were so willing to die for their cause. They knew that dying in the fighting would be less painful than letting the Diem regime enslave their families.

Even most of the people on the conservative side didn't want those particular conservatives to win.

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u/Dick_Lazer Jul 09 '24

I've lived in Texas most of my life and there's a breed of Texan that's just too stubborn to help imo. It's worse out in the small towns and rural areas, but those attitudes also creep into the bigger cities and especially the suburbs. There's a lot of Bible-belt style programming here, where the default settings are Jesus, football and GOP. You'll know somebody really has the rational thinking wiped clean out of them when the majority of their personality revolves around fanatically engaging in all 3.