emergencyfood

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California’s billionaires pour cash into elections as big tech seeks new allies ( www.theguardian.com )

Outcry over taxes is just one of the ways the tech sector is ramping up its influence campaign. Several Super Pacs have popped up over the past few months and tech is injecting these committees with tens of millions. ...

emergencyfood ,

Theocracy has never been tried in history (not properly).

You're looking at it wrong. If your understanding of theocracy has never been seen in history, that only means that your understanding of theocracy is flawed. More generally, we need to accept that all systems evolve and change, and account for that.

The problem with the 'democracy' we have now is that it is a democracy of the rich. Those with the wealth to buy politicians, courts and media houses. So the solution is to prevent that - either prevent people becoming that rich in the first place, or, as a compromise, regulate political donations, media ownership and the assets of judges and other regulators.

Anarchism is the removal of such regulations, and any public authority that can enforce them. As such, it will only make things worse.

emergencyfood ,

Give me an example of true theocracy being used in history.

The theocracies that actually existed - the caliphate, or imperial Japan - are the true theocracies. In general, whatever exists is real and true; if our expectation does not match up to it, then it is our expectation that is flawed or incomplete.

Aren't those things already in place, to a degree, yet proven to be easily circumvented,

If they were easily circumvented, you would not hear billionaires crying about progressive taxes or labour standards.

as those same people create and uphold the laws regulating them.

And that's the problem with a completely free 'democracy'. The rich will use their greater wealth to buy politicians or spread disinformation. We need to either remoce wealth inequality, or at least prevent it warping democracy. This requires rules, and an authority to enforce them.

Anarchism is not the removal of regulations, it does remove central authority, the coercive and corruptible bodies in control.

If rules are not enforced, they might as well not exist.

Democracy in all of its current forms, in the world that we live in today, is not working.
It is badly broken.
There is far too much to fix, even by your own admittance.
It has grown into the very ugly behemoth that we see today.

I agree with all points except the third. A truly democratic state - one in which all people have equal voice - is the only defence against the rich and powerful abusing their wealth and power.

That will not happen within the democracy that we currently have.

I don't know. I hope peaceful change is possible. But those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable.

emergencyfood ,

Well at least she wasn't wearing blue or green.

emergencyfood ,

I believe it's a European thing. I've cried after eating Andhra food (more spicy than most Indian styles) but my stomach doesn't seem to mind. European visitors get indigestion.

emergencyfood ,

Also evolution (common genetic pool) and ecology (common niche, environmental pressures and behaviour).

emergencyfood ,

Yes. Also humans are chimps, dogs are wolves and wheat and most citrus fruits don't even exist.

Or we could accept that the whole idea of a purely genetic phylogeny with each clade bifurcating into two and later bifurcations always having to be grouped together with no regard for ecological pressures or mutation rates or hybridisation as the unhinged ravings of a geneticist (derogative) who has never touched grass, and move on.

emergencyfood ,

Centrism is okay during good times

Good times for whom?

emergencyfood ,

In any society, some sections would be having 'good times', and wouldn't want the status quo to change. Other sections wouldn't be having a great time, and would be asking for change.

Centrists then might be people who want some changes, although people who don't want any change often also call themselves centrists since (1) different sections would be asking for different directions of change, so staying put might seem the middle ground, and (2) it's more respectable than admitting the current system benefits them and they don't want it to change.

Also centralists are different. Centralisation / decentralisation is the debate over how much power national governments should have versus local governments.

emergencyfood ,

Just read first-hand accounts from the many people that have escaped the country.

It's important to note that most North Koreans escape to South Korea, where it is illegal to say anything positive about North Korea, and from where they cannot leave for some number of years. So I would completely trust such accounts.

Also reports about North Korea often contradict other reports about North Korea. It's a mess of truth, exaggeration, rumours, stuff somebody made up, and in one case a satirical news article from Japan or China that Western media took at face value.

emergencyfood ,

So, because the US is regrettably inching toward authoritarianism, the fully authoritarian state was the better one all along?

In which of these countries do the police shoot / choke random people in broad daylight? In which of them is slavery still legal?

China is far from perfect but why would you compare it to like the second worst country in the world?

emergencyfood ,

China isn't Israel.

emergencyfood ,

Learn to check sources if you do not wish to be dismissed as a conspiracy theorist. You linked a Wikipedia page. Did you even bother to check the references? The first five include conspiracy nutter Adrian Zenz, the rag that spread the Palestinians raped Israelis and killed children conspiracy, and some group based in Taiwan. That's two worthless sources, and one sus source, out of five.

emergencyfood ,

https://xkcd.com/978/

Also are these the same governments that acknowledged that Iraq had WMDs?

emergencyfood ,

yet

emergencyfood ,

Arya / Aryan is a valid name in many* parts of India. (* It would be rude in Tamil Nadu and rare in the northeast.)

emergencyfood ,

The Aryans are a steppe (modern day south Russia) people who migrated to India four thousand years ago. Depending on who you ask, they mixed with / drove out the native people from India's north and west.

Modern Indians speak Indo-European languages (often seen as being of Aryan origin) in the north and west, Dravidian languages (supposedly the native languages) in the south and Austroasiatic and other languages (from China and southeast Asia) in the northeast. In the 1950s, after India became independent, the Indo-European majority wanted Hindi, an IE language, to be the national language of India. There was opposition in the south and northeast, and the result is that India today has no national language, with the union (=federal) government using both English and Hindi, and states free to choose their own language(s). In Tamil Nadu, India's southernmost state, opposition to Hindi was strongest, and it gradually extended to other aspects of 'Aryan' culture. So the names Arya / Aryan would be considered a bit 'culturally insensitive'. They would also be rare in the northeast, but more strange than rude.

emergencyfood ,

That was fascinating.

Why "sitting is the new smoking"

Oh, I've been warned about this by a doctor, but I can't do much apart than keeping my legs raised when I can. (My work involves both sitting and standing in one place. My veins are so dead.)

Almost worth the thousands of dollars it cost

:-(

emergencyfood ,

Cowbee means economic imperialism - using the resources / wealth of another country for yourself. So invading another country would not, by itself, be imperialism.

I think this definition is a bit reductionist, but it's a good starting point to ask 'is this war for profit or some other reason?'.

emergencyfood ,

I do think your wording is causing some confusion. Of course, the aim of most imperialists is economic exploitation, but there historically there have been other drivers of conquest such as religion and racism.

emergencyfood ,

I'm sure they originate in economic pressures. But it's like letting a genie out of a lamp - you can easily whip up religious / racist hatred, but once out, it takes a life of its own and can turn even on its own creators.

emergencyfood ,

This implies the existance of ethical gooners.

emergencyfood ,

Sir this is a-lemmy. We all hate Microslop, rich people and cars here.

emergencyfood ,

Do they send in the tanks?

You don't use tanks in a city. You use machine guns.

Do they kill 1,000,000 people?

If they can, probably

Would republican civilians see empathy for the dead americans who were democrats?

Ask yourself how many people in the US showed empathy for the Gazans.

Or would it unite the nation like 9/11 did, except this time against the government?

Lol no, the US is a terminally propagandised country. Iraq has WMDs, Venezuela has drugs, free healthcare is bad somehow, Israel is not genociding the Palestinians, etc. etc.

As US influence wanes, the Chinese trade surplus strangles manufacturing across the globe ( www.theguardian.com )

When the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, took to the podium at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week to lament how “great economic powers” were dismantling the international order, it seemed clear that he was talking about the United States. He might have been talking about China as well. ...

emergencyfood ,

The country with the most scientists and engineers in the world, and a decades-long policy of investimg in education and public infrastructure, is outcompeting everyone else at manufacturing? I'm shocked!

Eswar Prassad, a former head of the China division at the International Monetary Fund

Maybe your advise to poor countries to cut all public services and sell everything to Western companies was wrong, IMF shill? Maybe countries should instead invest in their people and their infrastructure? Radical, I know. Heresy, even.

emergencyfood ,

I'm a huge fan of Xiaomi's phones (for the hardware and pricing) but let's be honest their software isn't exactly their strength. To be fair, it has improved in recent years.

emergencyfood ,

but lions and tigers... guess they were harder to spot among the foliage

Lions live in the savanna and grassland. They can hide among the grass, but they generally hunt by chasing prey in turns until the prey tires. Tigers are ambush predators and excellent at hiding.

Healthy lions and tigers do not hunt humans. They can kill humans pretty easily, but prefer meatier prey. But when they get too old / sick to hunt wild animals, they might hunt humans out of desperation.

Also Asian lions have become used to humans since their protected area has tribal settlements and is surrounded by villages. Local people sometimes feed the lions, and on youtube you can find videos of people even touching them. (This is dangerous, messes with the lions' ecology and is illegal, but people do it and stopping them now might cause new problems.)

emergencyfood ,

Yeah, this is most likely about oil.

emergencyfood ,

Cuba is a threat to the United States?

???????

emergencyfood ,

I don't think there's anything wrong in wanting to live forever / very long.

But it shouldn't come at the cost of others, and it should be available for everyone, not just the rich.

emergencyfood ,

How does the sale of Tiktok's US operation to a US consortium affect a Palestinian?

... an account that appeared to have the same username was still visible on TikTok in Australia – but not in the Middle East, when Al Jazeera checked in different geographies.

Either she got banned on the real Tiktok - and this has nothing to do with the sale of Tiktok US - or she and Al Jazeera are using US Tiktok in the Middle East (but why?).

emergencyfood ,

True, but it would only work in the US, no? Tiktok itself is still Singaporean, and they don't care about Israel's crimes being revealed.

emergencyfood ,

Yes. A group of US companies have bought Tiktok US. Tiktok elsewhere is still owned by the Singaporean / Chinese company.

emergencyfood ,

Yeah I find GPL to be ironically non-free because it removes the right for anybody to use the code as they see fit, basically adding a restriction on the developer.

Sometimes, in order to protect everyone's freedom, you have to put some restrictions on freedom. Like 'you should not stab people', or 'don't drive on the wrong side of the road'. I guess this is similar.

But also check who legally 'owns' your work. It could be the government, your university, or whoever funds your work. They might have rules on licencing.

emergencyfood ,

In principle yes, but isn't a relatively neutral authority that includes countries like Russia and Qatar better than Israel being allowed to bomb Gazans as they like?

emergencyfood ,

Cute

emergencyfood ,

It's the fair thing to do. They get a choice. Best case they learn to live like everyone else, and maybe do something good. In which case, great! Worst case they show they can't be let out in society, and are sent to prison. In which case, hey at least they got a second chance, which is more than what their victims got.

emergencyfood ,

China has been selling US treasury bonds over the last year.

emergencyfood ,

Both have issues:-

  • Euro - for other countries to use the Euro, they need to have Euro stocks. For this, the EU needs to (1) run a deficit, and (2) manufacture something of value to the rest of the world. But the EU won't run a deficit, and its manufacturing sector is collapsing.
  • Yuan - China does not want rich foreigners speculating on their currency and causing financial crises, so they have limits on how much (digital) yuan foreigners can own. They do loan yuan to foreign governments, but those are usually given for specific projects like a dam or a railway line.
emergencyfood ,

It depends. By default, it uses a weaker encryption than WhatsApp. You can turn on e2e encryption, but not in group chats.

On the other hand, it has multiple FOSS clients, will work on pretty much any platform, and has a great UI.

If you want a fairly secure chat app that your grandparents can use, then Telegram is perfect. If you're sending highly confidential stuff, then no.

It's also suitable for project groups, because of the better tools (and moderation bots) available to the mods.

emergencyfood ,

'Surely the leopards wouldn't eat my face?'

emergencyfood ,

It's a matter of semantics. Taiwan is the island, and neither the People's Republic of China, which governs mainland China, nor the Republic of China, which governs the island, consider Taiwan to be an independent country, or seek its independence from China. The dispute is over who gets to govern all of China (mainland and island). So the AI is correct.

emergencyfood ,

Maybe. But the statement quoted in the article - “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China.” - is one the PRC, the ROC and the UN all agree on. It very much is established fact.

emergencyfood ,

Probably because it's a media article and they want some clickbait. Or maybe there actually is censorship. But if the only evidence is the one quote given, I'm going with the former.

emergencyfood ,

Hey, that's not arcane knowledge.

Arcane knowledge is memorising the server's IP address.

emergencyfood ,

India is 'stamp limit'?

Maybe Xuanzang was annoyed by how expensive it was to send letters home.

emergencyfood ,

To translate from one language to another, you need to know both languages very well, including puns, idioms, etc., and have a deep understanding of both cultures involved. A word for word translation will rarely do; you may even have to come up with new jokes / references to replace ones that don't work in the target language.

If you have read translations of manga by, say, Rumiko Takahashi, you might have seen footnotes explaining all the puns and references. And even this is not ideal, since it breaks the reader's flow.

emergencyfood ,

And wtf is Neptune doing in second place.

Pluto and the Kuiper belt.

Note that Saturn is relatively close to Jupiter, while Neptune is far from any other large planets. So while it is smaller, it dominates a much larger part of the solar system.

emergencyfood ,

The country that loses a war is the one that is forced to make concessions. Right and wrong have nothing to do with it.