the US the 50 states basically act like they are different countries instead of different states. There's a lot of back and forth on that - through the last 50+ years the US federal government has done a lot to unify and centralize control. Visible things like the highway and air traffic systems, civil rights, federal funding of education and other programs which means the states either comply with federal "guidance" or they lose that (significant) money while still paying the same taxes... making more informed decisions and realise that often the mom and pop store option is cheaper in the long run. Informed, long run decisions don't seem to be a common practice in the US, especially in rural areas. we had a store (the Jumbo) which used to not have discounts, but saw less people buying from them that they changed it so now they are offering discounts again. In order for that to happen the Jumbo needs competition. In rural US areas that doesn't usually exist. There are examples of rural Florida WalMarts charging over double for products in their rural stores as compared to their stores in the cities 50 miles away - where they have competition. So, rural people have a choice: drive 100 miles for 50% off their purchases, or save the travel expense and get it at the local store. Transparently showing their strategy: the bigger ticket items that would be worth the trip into the city to save the margin are much closer in pricing. retro gaming community GameStop died here not long ago. I never saw the appeal in the first place: high prices to buy, insultingly low prices to sell, and they didn't really support older consoles/platforms - focusing always on the newer ones.

Arguably we should be imposing 25% DST on digital products to counter the 25% tariff on aluminium and steel and then 10% on everything else. The US started it by imposing blanket tariffs in spite of our free trade agreement.

AI isn't math formulas though. AI is a complex dynamic system reacting to external input. There is no fundamental difference here to a human brain in that regard imo. It's just that the processing isn't happening in biological tissue but in silicon. Is it way less complex than a human? Sure. Is there a fundamental qualitative difference? I don't think so. What's the qualitative difference in your opinion?

The biggest tech companies are still trimming from pandemic over hiring. Smaller companies are still snatching workers up. And you also have companies trimming payroll for the coming Trump recession. Neither have anything to do with AI.

If you want to stay on the bleeding edge you've got to be a reversal of Europe, which means allowing innovation and competition. Hence why VT is nearly 70% US.

Just be sure to add only the people you want to be there. I've heard some people add others and it's a bit messy