Not the adjective I would choose. He has good reason to be fearful - both personally and for his country, which makes it personal again. That has nothing to do with intelligence, it's a lizard brain thing.
It also isn't like he had a wise premonition here; many convicts already returned and they are already "destabilising society".
Good. He can end all of this with one sentence. However, the consequences will be felt in Russia for a generation to come, that 1.5 million he sent to be killed will be missed.
At least Ukraine can show that some positives have come out of the war for them, too. Their bonds with Europe have strengthened, their national identity has been forged in fire. I'm not saying it wouldn't have been awesome if the war had never happened, or that it was a net benefit, but at least they are coming out of this with some real tangible benefits in addition to the tragic losses.
The six-month battlefield stint didn't diminish Azamat Iskaliyev's appetite for violent revenge against women.
The 37-year-old was sentenced to nine-years in jail after he killed his wife by stabbing her in his car in the summer of 2021 because she wanted a divorce.
Soon after returning to civilian life, he knifed an ex-girlfriend more than 60 times in the shop where she worked in October 2024 after she rejected his advances.
For that crime, he was jailed for more than 19 years, according to court records in the city of Saratov.
This case is one shocking example of the social problems that could await Russia as thousands of prisoners turned soldiers return home following an eventual end to the war.
Verstka, an independent Russian media outlet, reported that by October 2024 almost 500 civilians had become victims of soldiers returning from fighting in Ukraine.
The report said at least 242 people had been killed, and a further 227 were gravely injured, citing data from Russian court records.
Russia about to perform the miracle of becoming an even shittier place.
It's actually kind of mind boggling. Lenin knew this was a thing and took all sorts of steps to correct it, but his mistake was demanding it to improve by force. "We're making your lives better now, or else."
I mean, shit, a big ass group of armed dudes on horses show up in my cold ass disconnected village and they say we need to do x, y, and z to improve our lives or else? Yeah that's sus.
Not really. Actual democracies have incentives to make things better for the majority of people. And the easiest way to do that is to break up monopolies (especially in media), tax the rich, and then invest heavily in education.
Coincidentally, the way to kill a democracy is to do the exact opposite.
So your example is coalation of 50 tripes with council who decites major decitions? Wow. That really sound ground breaking and unique way to govern people.
Didint their end beging when they could not agree how to respond to British Crown request of aid during the American Revolution?
No. I asked you to prove your point and like i tought you just wanted to bash common modern ways of ruling without offering any concrete alternative.
The only example you produced was failed coalation of tribes, that was not unique in the eyes of history or especially well functioning alternative to modern goverments.
You just earlier argued that in any state where somebody has power they will use it wrong. How their system was immune to that?
while the Grand Council served an important ceremonial role, it was not a government in the sense that Morgan thought.[40][41][42] According to this view, Iroquois political and diplomatic decisions are made on the local level and are based on assessments of community consensus. A central government that develops policy and implements it for the people at large is not the Iroquois model of government.
Per your source. Also important to note that those that were allowed to sit on the "grand council" were determined through hereditary succession. So if this government had power it would be essentially a confederacy ruled by nobles.
I won't disagree that a nice decentralized democratic society would be pretty awesome, but it's also a lot harder to do with 7 billion people.
In your example each clan would have been no larger than a small town. Less than 1,000 people. Of course, there were towns that used to exist in the Americas that were much larger, but for many we don't know how those were governed. Particularly those in North America. By thr time Europeans began asking the large cities had collapsed due to disease
Yes, states end up authoritarian when the people give up on democracy. You seem to be using this as an argument to encourage people to give up, but that's just self fulfilling prophecy.
There is some irony is that the main part of a public sentiment in favor of Putin is that there wouldn't be another 90s era of violence and economical instability as long as he is in power. Well, the economy is somehow stable in how it degrades, but the amount of street violence climbs on. Out of last three times I took a fight in my block, first was in ~2008, last two happened in 2024, both with dead drunk proud boys in vomited over camo clothes, asking me if I served. It's not yet the 90s level of chaos, but I can't imagine having a daughter there. Many, as I've heard, share the same anxiety, but nevertheless can't figure out who created that problem in the first place.
That's the background for the story: Russia sent their convicts to war in trade of a "get out of jail"-card.
The guy was in jail for killing his wife. He took the deal and was sent to war. He got shot, got sent home as a free man, and immediately started killing people again.
It's not a single case. It's likely that convicts are taking the deal, not just to get out of jail, but also so they can go back and get revenge over those that put them in jail in the first place.
The 500 number is the number of victims from returning soldiers as of October 2024, not the total number of incarcerated soldiers in service as your comment implies.
Yes, but that is nothing. They loose 1000 soldiers every single day. Why should they care about a few (Russian) victims per month extra? Putin does not fear that at all. It is so irrelevant he might not even know about it to begin with. Let alone destabilizing the whole society, that is pure nonsense.
Broskys about to stroke out from the stress. His own body will kill him if not someone else. When you're responsible for a cumulative 1.5-2.5 million deaths, you're not a person people are sad to let go.
Economy tanking, losing the battle, 1.5 million dead Russians, he's not the mafia-fluencer he was in his youth. Lavrov is a fat slob, dude can't even stop his own drooling.
Modern warfare is entirely non beneficial to huge land masses. Try playing air defense swap-a-roo when the next missile or drone is 1k km away.
Also if Europe decides to ram his ass, they will, that will be his excuse to wind down the war, but to get to that tipping point, is so stress inducing, no amount of drugs will help. The drugs induce a spiral.
Europe's producing more rounds and providing more artillery than Murica. When the Yanks provide some old junk they appraise it at 50X the value then bemoan doing god's work while leaking Intel.
Europe and Ukraine are flexing. They've decimated Russia's military without any European boots on the ground (although they should be in the fight imo, it devalues Ukrainians to let them be the only one taking casualties for defending Europe). Then again, in 20 years, Ukraine will be telling Europe where and how to manage their militaries.
Ukraine was the powerhouse for arms manufacturing during the Soviet Era and they're quickly retaking this position.
He probably just shoots himself in the head. Or Mossad 2.o gets him. Or the ulcer. Or the Botox from his fluffy little cheeks seeps into his brain. Or the windows.. darn Russian windows
One Friedman Unit is equal to six months, specifically the "next six months", a period repeatedly declared by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman to be the most critical of the then-ongoing Iraq War
The have casualties in the tens of thounds per month
It's been a joke for years now that if Ukrainian kill counts were accurate, they'd have decimated the entire Russian army multiple times by now. Russian media has made similar claims of Ukrainian armed forces.
Both national media are doing the Vietnam Kill Count rhetoric to say they're winning a fully Pyrrich War.
Jep, except according to their own recruitment claims (which are naturally also off), they either have casualties in the 10s per month, or much more troops in Ukraine than anyone can cofirm.
10X-15X the battlefield deaths occur after the war is over. When the well cared for soldiers come home in a proper mental state. 10 times! Sustainable?
Hudson and Den Boer trace the rise in offspring sex selection in China and India that has resulted in a "surplus" of young men. They argue that such surpluses of men increase the potential for internal and external violence, while diminishing the prospects for democracy. This phenomenon could destabilize the two countries, the region, and beyond.
This was written in 2002. Seems like the pretictive power of the theory isn't too strong.
The only thing that he's actually good at is having powerful propaganda machinery that would have left Brezhnev deeply envious of.
Otherwise and outwardly, he looks unfazed at some military setbacks, but he still have legions of Black Hundred fanatics having bought the concept of Russia as the center of the world.
Companies across Europe and the United Kingdom are complaining that there has been a “flood” of Chinese products into the market, as the country seeks to redirect goods meant for the United States, according to a Nikkei report.
[...]
UK-based chemical giant Ineos [announced] this week, which said it is lowering production and cutting jobs due to the demand slowdown. The company said it is cutting 20 per cent of the workforce at its Acetyls plant in Hull, England, and is closing two production units in Rheinberg, Germany.
The announcement from Ineos blamed "dirt-cheap carbon-heavy" Chinese products that have been redirected from the US due to high tariffs but face no trade barriers in the EU or UK. Stephen Dossett, CEO of Ineos Inovyn in the statement added, “Europe is committing industrial suicide. While competitors in the US and China benefit from cheap energy, European producers are being priced out by our own policies and absence of tariff protection.”
[...]
German Chemical Industry Association (VCI) said it could not confirm a widespread increase in Chinese chemical imports after Trump's tariffs came in May, but noted increased price competitiveness as China's products continue despite domestic demand slowdown.
[...]
For the steel sector, over supply from China has caused disruption, with the UK and EU considering 50 per cent tariffs on excess products. If the plan is approved by the European Parliament and the European Council, the measures will take effect mid-2026.
[...]
EU textile body Euratex said Chinese exports have surged by 20 per cent in H1 2025 YoY. both in value and volume in the first half of 2025, compared with last year, according to the Financial Times.
Rare earths are a set of 17 lustrous silvery-white soft heavy metallic elements in the periodic table, made up of scandium, yttrium and the lanthanides. They are
You are getting these downvotes because the uyghurs are not topic. Do you call for slavery everytime someone talks about western economy? No? So its bad if the chinese do this but ok when the west does this?
Just because Americans are stupid and shot themselves in the face by electing Trump isn't a reason to also impose unilateral tariffs (versus reciprocal tariffs). While measures should be taken to discourage China from funding the Russian invasion of Ukraine via their opportunistic purchase of cheap Russian energy, other competitive advantages of the Chinese economy, such as comparatively low labor costs, are a sign that Europe should play to its own competitive advantages rather than adopting protectionist measures.
You're in a very similar boat. Starmer, AfD, Orban, that idiot from Italy who's name isn't worth looking up. Fascism is on the rise and ruins trade every time.
Probably. But tariffs are also valid in one market or another, if you make them while thinking. They are way to manipulate the comparative advantages.
(And no, international trade is not a competition. It's not "competitive advantages" that you are looking for. It's much more complicated and much less threatening than that.)
Well, that's been Chinese industrial policy for decades. The main issue right now is that there isn't enough demand for the total international manufacturing capacity and China's over investment is causing major economic and political issues for other developed countries.
Madagascar's President Andry Rajoelina on Sunday, October 12, said an "attempt to seize power illegally and by force" was underway, a day after a contingent of soldiers joined thousands of anti-government protesters in the capital. Soldiers based in the outskirts of Antananarivo on Saturday morning called on security units to "join forces" and to "refuse orders to shoot," repudiating the violent crackdown on youth-led protests that have rocked the Indian Ocean island for more than two weeks.
Nice to see the troops taking the side of the anti-fascist youth out there, good on them ♥️
He says he underwent 15 days of training in September 2024 and was sent to the battlefield a year later, on 30 September.
The next day, on 1 October, Mr Majothi said he had an altercation with his commander, after which he separated from Russian soldiers. That was when he came across a Ukrainian dugout and asked them for help, he added.
The BBC cannot independently verify the date or location of the video in which he makes these claims.
It's just that easy? "Fuck you guys, I'm out, where are the Ukrainians?"
Sorry not sure where else to put this but for anyone else running Mullvad:
We have rolled back version 2025.10. Please do not upgrade to this version if you are running Windows. If you are already running 2025.10 and it is working fine for you, then you can probably stay on that version without problem.
If you are stuck in the BSOD/boot loop, you can fix it by starting the computer in safe mode and uninstall the Mullvad VPN app and reboot. You can then install version 2025.9 and continue using Mullvad without problem!
Sorry for the trouble! We will get right to finding out why this happened! We have not touched the crashing driver in a very long time 🤔 It would be very helpful if people with this issue could report whether or not they run some anti-virus or other security related software that could be fighting against our app.
Is it a bug? I know this is an issue with the app, and contacting Mullvad support is not relevant. I have checked if others have reported this already I have checked the issue tracker to see if oth...
China is really really tired of USA now, normally they would be way more diplomatic in their communications, this kind of strong language would previously be completely unheard of in a situation where there are negotiations taking place.
And this is not just Trump, Biden continued most of Trump's policies against China when he was president, and USA has been trying to control China's access to global markets for more than half a century, at times forcing even non American companies to sanction China, to prevent them from competing on equal terms. Trump is making it worse of course, and he is probably the reason China now has had enough. But the fundamental problem is half a century old.
I guess the party is about to be over for USA, they can no longer bully the rest of the world into compliance that benefit only USA.
China and everyone else I think knows that this is just another round of market manipulation. He will back down since 130 percent tariffs are effectively a trade embargo and the US is still not positioned to be able to do that without economic calamity.
So the question is when he will back down and how. I think the same trick will work. He will implement it, do a whole song and dance about how he super duper means it this time, do a few other things to tank the stock market, and then he and his insiders will make big buys before backing down on everything.
Most likely he will back down, but it's false to claim everybody "knows". Because there is a level of uncertainty, and even if he does, it shows negotiations are not going smoothly. Trump is creating disruptions in the American market, and disruptions are harmful, especially they are extremely harmful to investments. So whether he TACO out or not doesn't really matter for the harm he is doing in the meantime.
~~just another round of market manipulation.~~ FTFY: another round of market disruption.
So whether he TACO out or not doesn't really matter for the harm he is doing in the meantime.
The disruptions and chaos are the only the worst part of this because everyone knows he will back down. Otherwise Chinese trade embargo itself would be far worse. If he actually did this the stock market would crash instead of just a hiccup, and the entire economy wouldn't be far behind. So it absolutely matters whether he chickens out or not.
Each and every time the Trump admin pulls this kind of stunt, then walks it back a short time later, the world sees how weak, impotent and incompetent USA leadership is. They see the man behind the curtain now and he is no longer powerful.
There do exists the book "China Can Say No". Thus if this is now the thesis Xi now follows, where the Middle Kingdom can afford the luxury of refusal, if so they would rather trade with countries disenfranchised with or embargoed by the present US and its lunatic leadership.
Those fuckers love platiscs. Everything is individually wrapped and public trashcans are pretty much unheard of. Wanna throw out your trash? Wait until the day that specific kind of trash is picked up, from the net/cage outside. Hope the birds don't get to it first through or there'll be trash all over the fucking street. I swear for every fucking brilliant amazing thing you see in Japan, you can round a corner and find the dumbest, least thought through shit you've ever seen.
EDIT: Granted I haven't been there for almost 6 years so things could have changed of course.
This is so true and it infuriates me. I use self checkout most of the time now because cashiers will wrap my shit in plastic bags even if I tell them not to.
“We were in a slaughterhouse, not a prison. Unfortunately, we were in a slaughterhouse called the Ofer prison. Many young men are still there. The situation in the Israeli prisons is very difficult. There are no mattresses. They always take the mattresses away. The food situation is difficult. Things are difficult there,” he said.
“I went hungry for the past two years. I swear to God, they didn’t feed us. They kept us naked. They beat us while we were naked day and night. We were tortured,” Abu Seed said.
“Until our last day in Israeli prison, they cut us and hit us and abused us. We endured every kind of torture, emotional and physical.”
“We couldn’t even sleep. They threatened us with our children. They told me they killed my children. They told us that Gaza was destroyed. I arrived here and found that everything was gone. It looked like the end of the world. Everything is different.”
“He’s been locked up for 24 years,” said a relative of Saber Masalma, who was arrested in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison. “He looks like a dead body. But we will bring him back to life,” he said.
Occupied Palestine (QNN)- Palestinian detainees freed from Israeli jails on Monday under the Gaza ceasefire agreement once again showed signs of torture and starvation. Israel released 1,968 Palestini
I always felt like it was wrong to block an account unless it was smth absolutely insane. Nazis etc.
But now I'm blocking people who's tone I dont like, or who are baiting or actingnin bad faith.
I know I can't do it as a mod. But i can certainly do it as an individual now. Judgy comment? Blocked. Unnecessarily confrontational? Blocked.
This is new to me, literally 3 days. Wonder how this affects my feed. Only disappointing thing is they can still see and respond to my posts, just that I can't see it. I wish they couldn't see anything I posted either.
What are your blocking habits? If you do block a lot of people, has that affected your experience?
I wish there was a hide posts option, rather than a flat out block. There are some overly prolific posters that i would like to block, but their comments are not an issue, just the 40 rapid fire posts they make everyday.
Or even more granular. There's folks that make a large number of posts that I do like in some comms, and a large number of ones I don't care about in other comms.
If they're the main one making low effort posts in the Weevil community or whatever, but everyone else is great, it would be preferable to prune the community for myself instead of blocking it or them.
I still think they're a net positive for Lemmy and want to interact with them, just we may not like all the same things in the exact same way.
I block freely. My time and attention and mental and emotional bandwidth are limited resources, and to the extent possible I intend to spend them carefully.
When I see I have a message/reply in my Lemmy inbox, then open the inbox and see nothing - there is such a relaxing feeling pressing "mark all as read", knowing I just avoided an annoying interaction from some idiot I've blocked in the past.
More people need to make use of the curation tools available to them in my opinion. Too often I see people browsing /all and then complain about seeing tons of stuff that they don't like. There are tools that are available to them to help them create a more pleasant experience that they just aren't using. The fediverse doesn't have some algorithm that learns the type of content that you most often engage with and feed it to you, you have to more proactively do the curation yourself.
Just as an example, I was in a conversation with one of the lemmy.world admins a while back. We were talking about instance blocks and how infrequently users actually use them. Across all of the users on lemmy.world, only about 700 of them actually created an instance block for the most-blocked instance (lemmynsfw). Only two instances had more than 500 users block it.
I thought lemmynsfw was sort of 'mass-delisted' by most instances? In that users from lemmynsfw.com can interact with the wider fediverse but the communities on there don't display out to other communities - because the issue is the communities there, and not the users.
I have similar blocking habits. People who will not be enriching my life tend to announce themselves with brain-dead comments, hostility, or starting arguments just for the sake of arguing. I don't hesitate to block people like that.
same here, but on reddit i heard after 1000 blocks, it only soft-mutes them, or does something wierd and it doesnt silence them anymore. cant really report people all the time, otherwise you can get banned for abusing report button.
i do the same you are not alone. besides nazis, PROPaganda, or conservatives. condescending, passive aggressive, or "actually this is or that is wrong, and why you should do this or that to be better" i will block them too. or try to correct you on what they believe his "historically correct of a mythos", like an example couple weeks ago i was commenting on the nature of a specific "angel" and someone said actually i dont believe your interpretarion is corrects, its not to my view of the angel mythos, i dont want to know which one of your opinion is correct on a fabricated being. i regurlarly did this on reddit, it has saved me from getting into reportable arguements from time to time. confrontational and judgemental are also up on my list of blocks.
"No. { Several paragraphs of argument that's not mutually exclusive }"
Arghh hate that shit. I don't know why online argumenters love to start with "No and." I don't block because of it but man, nobody learns how to have a constructive debate anymore.
Only disappointing thing is they can still see and respond to my posts, just that I can't see it. I wish they couldn't see anything I posted either.
I've seen this view in discussions of blocking before and it really bugs me. You're desiring to unilaterally control what I can see and do on the Fediverse.
This is how it works on Reddit and it's a terrible mechanism. It means you can preemptively ensure that anyone who might refute misinformation will be excluded from your threads before you post them. It means you can step into a conversation I'm having with someone, derail it, and then prevent me from responding to your derail. Over on Reddit by far the most common use I see of the block tool is to get the "last word" in on whatever argument is going on, posting some sort of seemingly clever comeback and then instantly blocking me before I can point out the flaws.
For anyone wondering how the blocking feature has been weaponized to spread misinformation, in 2022 a redditor did an experiment: reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/co…
I don't understand this view either. What's it to ya? You cant see what the person does anyway. There doesn't seem to be a point behind it besides control.
Also, it simply is difficult to implement. You have to tell every server "do not show my posts and comments to these accounts". Other servers can just choose to ignore that. It's centralized thinking to believe the "feature" will work all the time.
on reddit people have been scorched for blocking and reporting, you can get banned for reporting too many times, or if the specific mods in a sub deems you "report too much". i block most of the time, instead of reporting. reddit has way too many bots and trolls, propaganda to block them all. the point of blocking is to get rid of trolls and propaganda comments, dont want them to keep harassing you, or using different accounts.
I hardly ever block individual posters, but communities, I've blocked 936 of them at the time of making this post. Sports, porn, anime, or furry shit are all block on sight. Plus a handful of randoms that I'm just not interested in.
I've finally got All where it's pleasant to browse. Takes some doing, but worth the effort if you want to customize your feed reductively vs actively seeking out and subscribing to communities.
I may have to start doing this. I've subscribed to enough that I see enough to keep me occupied, and if I don't I go to All and add anything that I find particularly interesting. This mean I miss new things I might really enjoy unless I'm not as occupied with my current subscription list. This could be better.
.ml and lemmy grad are more aggressive version of Hexbear, calling everything "lib" is a common conservative buzzword,"for things i dont like. one in the same", so i block that instance too.
The electronic machine you’re operating, and the electrons flowing through it that illuminate the screen constitute a highly ordered abstraction that your human brain interprets to have meaning. The software implementing that abstraction has been structured with paradigms developed over decades with functionality specifically created for you to manage the information displayed to you. Such is the power of these technologies that they are widely regarded to have culminated in a digital information age of revolution. One of the defining moments of that age is the point at which the software, which previously was designed to implement the will and preferences of the user, began changing to instead serve the developer. It could be said that the fundamental philosophy of social media software has become to optimize it such that the user continues to use it while still freely feeding it information and being subject to manipulation.
The abstraction has become hostile, and the tools to manage the information displayed are quickly disappearing as the implementation is abstracted away. The ability to block mimetically harmful information is being designed out of software - exposure to advertising, propaganda, violent or disturbing content, and even the addictive abstractions themselves, have become requirements for use. The filtering and management of information through the hardware and software that you OWN is not just a feature, it is a RIGHT that must be intrinsic to its design.
In my view, the use of blocking technology should not be considered a human social action with emotional weight, but rather a mechanical one like switching off a light or moving an object out of the way. They are information management tools built to serve YOU, the user. If the technology you are using does not serve you, then who are you serving?
I made it through nearly two years and eventually caved after I made the mistake of arguing in favor of the truth, supported by video evidence and a fact check from an internationally recognized fact-checking organization only to be told to "fuck off", a second user said that they enjoyed pissing on my shoe(s) in their personal fight against truth, and some other catastrophically braindead takes. I generally don't like the blocking approach for opinions I don't agree with because everyone has differing views and also people have bad days and that's just life. However, being actively hostile to the truth and being extremely confrontational about it was a bridge too far for me and it was either blocking a few mouldy potatoes in an attempt to keep things tolerable or getting off the threadi/fediverse so I decided to give the former a whirl.
If you do block a lot of people, has that affected your experience?
Thankfully haven't felt the need to block many, so the only thing I've really noticed is that occasionally one of the blocked users comments in the thread for something I've submitted (which I don't get a notification for and can't see) - but then someone unrelated replies to them and then I get a notification for a comment chain which I can't actually load. It took me a while to even figure out why I was getting these "ghost" notifications.
Only disappointing thing is they can still see and respond to my posts, just that I can't see it. I wish they couldn't see anything I posted either.
I understand. Lemmy users are divided on that issue because not only can these people see, comment and downvote your post, they can manipulate the situation to their advantage (feel free to use your imagination or search posts about blocking).
FWIW, I hear you loud and clear. Please understand that there are plenty of people in this world who are angry, unfulfilled and can’t/won’t touch grass whose only gratification is to try to make other people miserable. This mental instability coupled with current events is unfortunately unleashed here in Lemmy and you.
Block away and save your sanity. I’m here for the jokes and your memes. If I want to argue, I’ll go to work and get paid. Sadly, you are a volunteer and many people don’t realize that — they seem to think that it’s your job to take their crap. For that, I am truly sorry.
Two of my friends recently blocked .world and had good experiences with users from other instances. Recently, there was negativity in Uplifting News that had to be addressed; a .world mod left because they were burned out; some more drama recurring also at .world instance.
Please take good care of yourself and don’t take !+ from any of us!
Drama, angry people and excessive crossposting and reposting.
It’s a big instance which means a lot more people, so you will always run into a .world user and/or .world community — some are awesome and others are not so great. It was easier for them to block an instance after blocking 50+ communities and people. There’s also this:
There’s also drama at other communities like YPTB but it was really hard for me to follow; I saw it because my feed was set to ALL. Some of us come here for the news, memes and the occasional recipe but not to be verbally abused or bear witness to one.
In addition to the controversies, the amount of news articles being crossposted to four other news communities by the same user (user # 1) was just overwhelming. Then, another user (user # 2) will do the same exact thing, unbeknownst to them that the same articles were already posted since the time gap was usually about 5 minutes or less.
What do you do? Start blocking. Just when you think you have it all figured out, user # 1 creates an alt account and wipes the smile off your face. As you start blocking, user # 1 creates another alt account… and another. Holy cow!
Lucky for us, the weather is nice so to the great outdoors we go. TBH, I’ll probably be very annoyed if this is happening in the middle of a blizzard, lol.
I'm more on mastodon and their filter system is so nice
I made a filter for "idiot did a thing" and every time the news has another article about how some idiot whose name is on my list did something again, as they do, because that's all they've been doing for 20 years, I no longer have to read it.
But I still get the little "something was blocked, click here to read it" thing, so it's very satisfying.
I don't block often, but I would expect it's a similar upgrade.
I have blocked hundreds of communities to sanitise my ‘all’ feed, and a few foreign language instances. But only a handful of obnoxious users. The users I’m inclined to block often end up banned anyway
I've never really felt the need to block anyone (except the odd spam bot but I don't think that counts). I think that might be because I pretty much exclusively browse my subscribed feed which means I basically only see posts that interest me, and I find any bad comments are usually heavily downvoted anyway. And its rare enough that I just ignore it.
On Lemmy I usually block communities, if they are a drag in any way, like too negative, too weird, too much discussion of violence, etc. Didn't have to block individuals that much, but in smaller communities it's sometimes just an individual that makes it a drag, while most users post more pleasant things.
I guess I just read /all, or whatever it's called here, and find it super annoying when the feed is filled with 2-3-4-5 copies of the same post from one person, with separate conversations going on.
How do you read here, do you just subscribe to a few communities that don't overlap with frequent reposters?
No, I experience the same thing, I just don't find it super annoying. I just skip over those posts, or actually, if it has comments, look at the actually different comments. Sometimes it's quite interesting how different places have different comments
Been doing this with a warning system. I tag shitty people and block them if I see a person who is tagged acting shitty.
2 years in, no regrets.
I do wish Lemmy would fix the blocking system though. If someone who I've blocked responds to me, I don't see it. Fair enough, but I also don't see what people who respond to that say. I feel like it should just show the username as [blocked] and the content as [hidden] with an option for me to show that content/username, while keeping the rest of the child content fully visible.
How should Lemmy handle it if they quote a portion or even the entire message in a child comment? If someone's goal is to not have to worry about shit someone says, and then they are still shown what that person says, does that not defeat the purpose of blocking?
Just be aware of any filter bubble you might create. If you block every person that has an opposite perspective, you'll fall into your own echo chamber.
This is the biggest reason why I only block sparingly. If you aren't regularly challenged in a way that forces you to assess and explain your world view and why it makes sense to you, then you risk becoming detached from reality in the same way that so many people have these days. It's easy to fall into the idea that your way of thinking is inherently correct, especially when you only interact with people who agree with you.
It's tough to interact with someone who disagrees with you, especially on the internet where people can be unnecessarily harsh, but it's also good to do for your own understanding of the world. I think of it like a workout for my moral compass - if I can't fully explain why my viewpoint is more accurate than someone else's, then there's something I'm missing, and I know where I need to spend more time reassessing my beliefs.
Kidding. I block BS and mean ness. If someone can express their point and let me express mine, I'm good. It's when people start insulting others to get their point out I just don't resonate with them and don't see a point of ever talking to them again.
I constantly see people blocking others just for making a point they disagree with. Rather than actually think through the logic and reasoning of what the other person is saying they go 'oh I have no counter point to that, that must mean that you're arguing in bad faith, blocked'.
The internet is already an inherent filter bubble, you don't need to accelerate that. Most people would benefit from spending more time deeply considering that they might be wrong in ways they can't fully comprehend, then they would blocking people who fervently disagree with them.
I only block communities for now. And my instance blocks a lot of ... debate heavy instances.
Regarding blocking of individuals: feel free to do that, if it helps you having a better time, that is perfectly fine.
But I started tagging strange people if I think that something they said is not correct. Then later I randomly see them somewhere else behaving normally. So my current plan is tag them first to see if I find this one person repulsive again and if so then block them. This way it is less carpet bombing and I accept that everybody can have a bad day where they lash out.
My feed is perfectly fine without them. And the communities I block are the ones that I don't want to see or know anything about like fucking politics and news.
You’ve no obligation to socialize with everyone in real life, why should online be any different?
If someone is consistently annoying, rude or spouting noxious stuff, you’re perfectly reasonable in blocking them.
Interaction in written text online is still a fairly unnatural way for humans to communicate. It’s missing the depth that physical and aural clues provide.
Add to that the evidence that humans can’t really manage more than about 50 relationships makes these global forums too much for a person to really handle.
Block away. Trim your interactions to a manageable level.
I know I am taking the wrong message from this, but online is different in basically every way. You cannot block someone in real life. You can try to avoid them, but they can still talk to you. You can put in ear buds, but that doesn't make them not there.
Really, the solution is to spend less time on technology and more time communicating IRL. Even if it is uncomfy
I block pretty freely, on all social media. Being both trans and religious means that people on any part of the political spectrum might think I'm subhuman, and I don't see the point of engaging when that's the case.
I am fast and loose with blocking on all platforms. No regrets.
It's often not even personal. Sometimes someone expresses a mild dislike of cats and I'm like "don't need your noise".
Repost a hilarious meme that I whole heatedly agree with, but with the word "fuck" poorly crossed out? "Algo-speak promoting motherfuckers", roll of the dice on my mood, probably blocked.
My Guild Wars 2 ignore list is full of people labeled "says boiz too much", "annoying fashion", "made bad joke about bees".
There are so many people on the Internet, it's fine. I've taken this approach since MUDs were in fashion and I am pretty confident that it's only served to improve my online experiences.
Im a big block proponent although I don't block all that many people. I usually give people enough rope to hang themselves as the old saying goes. That being said I think people need to treat internet media like real life. Do you go to bars you hate or hang around annoying people? Likely not. This whole your going to be stuck in a bubble is sorta bs. Hang with who you want to and avoid you like. Thats just life.
I block people who are dishonest or abrasive. I'm here for entertainment, not for any higher purpose. I'm not obligated to give those people any attention and I have nothing to gain by it.
I'm blocking maybe a dozen across all of Lemmy. Things are much more pleasant.
Yes. I block at the drop of a hat, but I'm still really not blocking all that many total users. Most folks here are very considerate.
It is funny though, I'll often see half a conversation with an asshole - and I won't know if it's because the community is well moderated or because I just previously blocked the asshole.
More rarely, I'll see half of an interesting good faoth conversation, and I'll revisit and unblock someone.
I've gotten more aggressive with blocks lately. Feels like there's been a lot more arguing and drama on here lately than usual, and I haven't been on as much because of it. Blocking at least drowns a lot of that out.
I have gone through phases of blocking very vocal idiots, but then as you said I feel at an informational disadvantage.
I've gotten recently into tagging people with descriptions of repeated behavior. That way I still know what's going on, but I know what to expect from them.
People keep mentionkmg tagging. I'm on eternity and it doesn't have the option. Are y'all using your browser for Lemmy or dk other apps have this option too?
It's better to hurt old people's feelings than allow them to continue to debase themselves with the false belief that they're competent.
It's possible to have a readily applicable standard for polite interactions when we're not divided by fascist rhetoric.
The way feminists relate to men's issues is often founded in a universalizing noxious ideology of feminism. Men shouldn't be feminists, they should be allies.
What I'm trying to say is: blocking isn't the reason that our politics have entered into toxic polarization, fascism is the reason for that. There's nothing really wrong with blocking.
I don't block unless it's excessive spam. Informational disadvantage, yadda yadda.
I just exercise the same muscle I use to restrain myself from responding to bait on modern day Reddit, since my account there is still active but not posting (yes, even lurking is technically contribution, but there's too much useful information there for me to justify completely cutting it out).
And for the record, I disagree with block features removing posts from the user on the other end. Public information -> only I get to decide what I do and don't see. Private information -> only I get to decide what I do and don't share. A bit idealistic, but we're talking about a web forum here.
I block people who are clearly trolls and that one moron who signed all their posts with an anti-ai signature that does nothing because it was either that or get banned by the mods on .world because “I’m harassing them”.
I think the ability or willingness to have a decent conversation with people who have a different opinion is important for the advancement of ideas and a cornerstone of what we call civilization. I find it so weird to see how people "debate" these days instead of conversing, it's somehow more about winning than finding the truth of a matter. Watch for example how political discourse has changed over the last few decades, compare discussions from the 70s like Chomsky vs Foucault to the circus of today. People are already largely separated in different platforms, blocking only exacerbates the bubble effect. That being said, to each their own and I hope your life is better for it.
I mainly block accounts that seem like they have an agenda. Usually new accounts they post a lot about one very controversial topic. Likewise, I block accounts that are concern trolling or arguing in bad faith. There are so many bots and bad faith actors on the internet I feel like you should be blocking them because they don’t deserve our attention.
I'm using Boost, so I've been using tagging a lot. It's useful to remind yourself whether someone routinely behaves in a way that you don't want to interact with.
I've probably untagged more people than I've blocked at this point. People are complicated, moods change with the weather.
Also helped me to correlate that the majority of my tags were on ml users. I've filtered that instance and, can't lie, using Lemmy is much nicer now.
I personally do not block. I have always hoped to see changes of heart in people I disagree with, and I also have been on much more abrasive communities, lemmy is kept relatively tidy (at least from my instance's point of view).
Personally if I find someone very unagreeable I will check their account to see if this is their whole online personality or just one or two posts, everyone has bad days. If it seems like a a person I would rather avoid altogether I will block.
My blocked list on nextdoor is starting to max out. Have to block all the nazi's that live around me as they are a lost cause and just repeat constant propaganda.
My lemmy block list is zero and hope it will remain that way for a while. It's fairly tame discussions here and no real issues so far.
Still rare, only trolls. If someone is judgy or confrontational I’ll move on. It’s only if they’re trying to start a fight, trying to create an ongoing argument that I’ll block them.
I haven't blocked anyone here, but on Tumblr I started unfollowing folks who posted about doom and gloom all the time. That site's more conducive to memes and TV show discussions than it is discussion about news/politics, and I don't like scrolling through a bunch of superhero memes and then getting hit with a post about the latest atrocity in the world. That stuffs important, but it's not healthy to fixate on it all the time.
It's important to curate what you're doing so that you dont fall into a doomscrolling trap or get ragebaited into arguments that go nowhere.
I block individuals pretty freely, and it generally improves my experience online.
The reason I block is because I've lived through bullies and a shitty family, and I am familiar with the techniques bad people use to eat up my time/overwhelm me.
These days, I am also secure in myself and my emotional responses in such a way that I no longer feel bad or guilty (as I was conditioned to growing up) when I remove these people from my life. They are not owed my time or eyeballs.
I figure that if they behave in such a way that other people (such as me) decide it's better to remove them from their life and block them--that's their fault, not mine.
I also know my intellect well enough to understand that I'm not losing something irreplaceable intellectually if I block. I actually am better at learning and improving myself in a form that is NOT debate, or live, or putting pressure on me in the moment, because stepping away from the immediacy of something gives me the tools and breathing room to actually think.
So folks yapping and fretting about echo chambers forming if you block and curate your experience is weird to me...even pre-internet I went out of my way to learn new things. If you're in an echo chamber, you chose to be there, it doesn't happen on its own. And blocking asshats won't magically put you in an echo chamber unless you've chosen to be in one already.
Live debate with unpleasant people who often in this day and age have ulterior motives, including a desire to provoke an emotional response that will hinder one's thinking ability, is a technique used to manipulate others. By blocking and opting out of such things online, I can keep my temper more easily and use my brain instead.
So yeah. I block freely, whenever I feel like, and I've stopped feeling bad about it because I have quite a bit of experience on the internet now, and have seen the patterns in which people engage, and a handy block button is basically the only effective tool to manage it with.
I also block communities, but that's mostly just so I can browse Lemmy in public without looking like a degenerate with all the porn subs hanging out in the open.
I've become massively hardened to online discourse. I don't need to block users when I can just ignore and not need to get the last word in. I know this is an incredibly rare ability, but I just wanted to entertain the idea here that there are alternatives.
The exception could be for discoverability. If garbage trolling spam overwhelms your front page, then it'll be too time consuming to wade through it.. So blocking entire communities makes a lot of sense in this case.
I don't ever want people I blocked to not be able to see my stuff when the account is public. It's just a weird limitation and gives a false sense of security. Though not being able to directly reply to things would be nice.
I block only when I see a user who is unhinged enough and is obviously not getting banned by moderators. Usually theses people can be baited into making terrible arguments terrible opinions backed by either terrible ideology or lies, and mods can deal with them.
I think reporting users is more effective to not let the whole site become completely unusable by attracting shitheads/trolls/agitators who even if blocked keep posting garbage because that might be seen by new users.
Also responding to them is taxing on some people's mental health, so this isint for everyone and I get why people might opt for it. I prefer arguing since there is a chance that they might be misinformed or hot headed (me included).
Honestly it depends on how you want to engage with a platform.
If Framework is some "AI", then the reasons are obvious (they were fed this stuff) and 'embraces' is a very misleading term for something with no volition. (I'm not reading the article, please explain in the comments)
Framework purchased a biotech company specialized in growing human analog homunculus for organ transplant, but the tech is based on Nazi experiments from WW2, so it's kind of unethical.
People are mad about it, understandably. It's all in the article.
TBF a lot of people are just utterly stupid and just eat and regurgitate party lines and the American/Western lines in the past two decades have been heavy on the "white nationalist", racist and hateful stuff. Since they never believed in anything in earnest, they will fall for everything including this "feel good" drug for white folks we call white supremacy. 🤷
There’s also a psychological trap. It doesn’t make falling for it acceptable, but it does make it more understandable.
Humans naturally seek belonging, and almost any group can fulfill that need. Many such groups also use "us vs. them" rhetoric, which can make you feel more special than you actually are. Feeling special is another human need that groups often fulfill. Humans crave direction and purpose, and most groups provide both.
Just look at religious groups, environmentalists, political ideologies, conspiracy nuts and racist to see what I mean.
I think there's also an issue that many people got radicalized through internet rabbitholes and the like in recent years. I assume you need to already have some compatible views, but there's a big difference between "a bit racist" and "full on nazi". It's a matter of which tendencies get reinforced and what biased information you're being fed - many of those people who were a bit racist 15 years ago could have went the completely opposite direction if they had been fed different content.
Pretty sure there is a pretty generous window where you can just return the thing for a refund no questions asked. It might be worth looking into.
Depending on the wording of the return policy, you might even be able to request one and tell them the reason is "The far right has taken over the world's biggest government and they're snatching people in the streets. The time to hide support for them behind 'everyone's welcome to their opinion' is over. If at this moment in history you're not willing to exclude far-right people from your circle, then go fuck yourself, fuck your hardware, give me my money back, in hindsight people should have done this to BMW and IG Farben both before and after the war. I hope you wake the fuck up. You will not be safe indefinitely from them coming for you, unless people braver than yourself stop them before they reach you."
Usually I am against bullying people into saying the political views or taking the political decisions you want them to take. You can think they're wrong about this (as obviously do I, for the reasons stated above) and say so without needing to try to strong-arm them. But, in this case, fuck 'em, for the reasons stated above. Read the return policy first of course to make sure you're on solid ground, I don't really know what it is.
listen, you're not Framework. you can't help that they're being idiots, and that has nothing to do with you and doesn't reflect on you whatsoever. if it did, we would all be in fucking trouble because every single tech company has done some fucking shady shit at some point.
I don't know what Rails has done recently, but it was created by DHH. My understanding is that Framework is now supporting a different project of his (Omarchy), and that's what people are upset about.
It's hard for me to understand how people in movements like repairability, anti obsolescence, open source, open hardware, and similar causes, can have such views. It seems so contradictory... and yet, so common.
There are plenty of people who are smart with tech and engineering but not very smart with people, society and politics. And these people sometimes develop a tendency to see all society's messiness and difficulties as engineering problems to be fixed. If you're looking at it that way, it's easy to become either a tankie or a fascist, because both offer neat engineering solutions that promise to make life work cleanly.
The article doesn't say exactly what was said it only gives an interpretation.
Edit: I've looked into it and turns out its just framework financially supporting open source projects that happen to have maintainers that have right wing ideology. Frameworks claims they support a large array of open source developers across the ecosystem as they want open source to win and they do this regardless of political alignment of the developers themselves.
Meh. I don't really agree with dessalines' politics on the left, but I wouldn't be upset if a company donated to Lemmy development just because of that. I don't really agree with the bs1770gain's guy's politics on the right, but I wouldn't be upset if a company donated to bs1770gain development just because of that. Neither software package is intrinsically tied to their politics.
I mean it’s fun to watch. Yeah I get frustrated sometimes but the lack of Linux knowledge or hating on Apple without knowing how to do stuff (not that there aren’t valid complaints), but I generally do enjoy a lot of the content. I don’t think it’s fair to just black and white the channel like that.
Does this contrast the LTT brand image or something? The recent statements from the Framework CEO sound like something that I would expect to hear from LTT as well.
LMG defended DBrand making racist jokes harder than DBrand did and multiple camera facing people have accusations of being a sex pest (one with audio evidence).
I got about halfway through the article before realizing that I lacked the ability to verify any of this information. I wouldn’t have purchased a framework laptop, regardless of the company’s views, so I’m just left with a vague feeling of curiosity and no means of sating it. I hate the age of discord so goddamn bad.
You can’t verify it because they didn’t provide any sources. Probably because any source on this would quickly show what a massive overreach these claims are.
Framework supports a bunch of open source initiatives, and some of those initiatives have figureheads that suck. Framework has basically stated that they are supporting open source as a whole and are staying neutral about the people running them. That’s a choice people may not agree with, I have fairly strong opinions on this myself… but there’s a huge gap between Framework’s actual statements and the author’s claims.
Which was why I wanted to see for myself what this business was about. A few hyperlinks would have gone a long way. What blog? Which post? Which discord? (Not that it matters, I can’t use discord) In the end, I gained nothing of value
I do genuinely believe this to be sort of a Hanlon's Razor situation, but I will quickly (aibeit disappointedly) admit to being wrong if any evidence comes out to disprove that. This seems like the company is being run by someone who subscribes to a black-and-white "Let's all just get along with one another" mentality without understanding that humanity just does not work this way. I hope to see an official statement retracting the initial "big tent" response and publicly aligning the morals of the company with that of the CEO.
Tbh if that’s the only value-add that windows can come up with compared to linux gaming in the long run… that’s a great argument for boycotting the games that insist on using that shit - or at least, insist on using insecure / shitty anticheat that’s incompatible with Linux, and/or requires comically and inappropriately broad permissions
Is this where I brag about using Linux and therefor being superior?
Honestly, I never and still don't entirely understand people's clingy-ness to old OSs. I was happily using Windows 8.1, 10, 11 (less happily), (and now Kubuntu brag successful), while apparently many were clinging to Windows 7. Maybe it's because I try to be more open to change, or maybe it's because I just like new and shiny software, but rarely do I cling to old software. The newer versions of windows were the new shiny thing with additional features (some useful, and some annoying), and now Linux is that new shiny thing with a lot of useful features and some annoying things.
P.S. I'm not sure if peertube supports timestamped links (it probably does, it's friggin peertube), but this would've been a time to use that feature, as the relevant part to the title doesn't begin until 1:48.
People are used to their workflows and windows makes it a big deal to update from one version to another. Especially if you've made particular setups or used hacks they're pretty much guaranteed to stop working. Linux doesn't usually do this but I'm getting the same issue with android where every update breaks something and it's worse because here there is no option to not upgrade.
Isn't Windows like the king of backwards compatibility? I am of the opinion that it's more people that just like the OS because they're used to it, not that it'd actually break their workflows. They'd just have to learn a few new ways of doing things, and they don't want to.
In thinking about this, I have come up with a couple of reasons to not upgrade OSs:
If the new OS costs money, like Windows used to, yeah I might not buy it if it isn't enough better. When my new laptop comes with it, I'm not going to go out of the way to downgrade it though.
If the only OS maker in town was a monopoly (but then again, if there was a monopoly, they'd probably force you to upgrade to continue using your device, almost like what windows is doing, as they really do have a large monopoly on gaming and non-overpriced/somewhat-repairable machines)
Finally, in thinking about this, I'm just so glad Linux exists and is actually finally a usable alternative to Windows.
From what I remember it's backwards compatible on lower levels but can you easily run a Windows 7 app on Windows 10? Windows 11 was a smaller change but then they force you to upgrade hardware which is the opposite of compatibility.
I wouldn't expect someone to upgrade hardware just to get the newest OS. And yeah, you can run a windows 7 app on windows 10, there's a compatibility mode in the properties of the exe where you can tell it to run in Windows xyz compatibility mode, though often you won't need to bother with that, as it'll just work.
but can you easily run a Windows 7 app on Windows 10?
Yes? Pretty much anything made for XP and up will run on 11. Shit as long as the program is 32 bit it will probably run. Only exception is games, and that's more just because hardware has moved on.
Just let me know when I can install heavy Windows-only apps to Linux and I will make the switch in a second. A couple of examples: SOLIDWORKS CAD or PTC Creo (and related apps), Adobe CC (well for this there at least are foss alternatives but not fully compatible/comparable).
For a company, switching a CAD system for example would cost major $$$ and any automatic conversion is nowhere near complete, so you’d basically have to redraw everything relevant from scratch with the new system. Also there simply does not appear to be any major CAD system supporting Linux, NX used to but not anymore.
Yeah, when I switched from Linux I had to give up Fusion360, and now am using OnShape. I'm also not generally talking about companies, at work I'm still required to use Windows, and that's kinda understandable, though I could do my job on Linux. I am a creator, and do wish some of the alternatives for CC apps were better, but I also never considered giving money to Adobe, even when I used Windows.
In the case of Windows, it is because MS has spent the past... 20 or so years slowly phasing out old functionality while not actually adding in new ones. So you get the mess of two (three?) different control panels which each one having capabilities the other doesn't and so forth.
I also personally hated when they got rid of the start menu but also acknowledge that for the past almost 15 years my workflow has been "winkey and then type what I want".
But mostly it is the MS mindset of completely changing the UX sometimes mid-generation and expecting people to figure it out. Which... I am not going to pretend that neurodivergence doesn't play a factor but I kind of fucking hate my machine rebooting and suddenly I have to figure out a new interface.
Also there is MS increasingly activating more and more monitoring and spyware (sometimes re-enabling silently) with every single update. Same with increasingly locking people into MS accounts and cloud shit.
And while I do think many of the Lemmy Linux Users are more obnoxious than Vegans What Do Crossfit... contrast that with Linux where you find a desktop environment you like and you are basically good for a decade... and then another eight years after that when everyone is "slowly migrating". And as long as you stay the fuck away from Gentoo and Arch, you have a pretty idiot proof setup for the vast majority of people.
I just said I use Linux, I am aware. There were a couple of games I played that had shitty incompatible anticheat, GTAO and The Crew 2. There are a lot of good games out there, I can live without.
Open-source Windows and Office activator featuring HWID, Ohook, TSforge, KMS38, and Online KMS activation methods, along with advanced troubleshooting.
Given how few upvotes this has, it seems people in this thread don’t like Microsoft’s policy, but also have a moral objection to running a script to get the extended updates free.
Episode 47 - Elena Rossini - Director & Fedi Advocate - Livestream 2025-10-10
Benvenuti Fedi Friends all'episodio quarantasette di Fireside Fedi! Sono il votro presentatore ozoned. Fireside Fedi è un programma dedicato alle persone del Fediverso. Se stai vedendo questo, voi fai parte del Fediverso.
Welcome Fedi Friends to episode 47 of Fireside Fedi! I'm your host ozoned. Fireside Fedi is a show about folks within the Fediverse. If you're seeing this, you are a part of the Fediverse.
If you haven't guessed by now our guested today is an Italian filmmaker, photographer and writer based in Paris, France who ❤️ #FOSS 🎬 Director of: The Illusionists documentary + a Fediverse promotional video (https://news.elenarossini.com/fediverse-video/)
Thank you to cptbichez for helping with the translation.
The CEOs of KT and Palantir Technologies held their first meeting in Korea, Tuesday, to discuss ways to expand the use of Palantir’s platform across local industries.
At the meeting, held at KT’s headquarters in Seoul, the company’s CEO Kim Young-shub and Palantir CEO Alex Karp reviewed the progress of the two companies’ joint initiatives to deploy Palantir’s data platforms and refined execution strategies to scale these solutions across Korean enterprises.
Palantir will open a pop-up store in Seongsu-dong on Tuesday and Wednesday as part of its brand engagement efforts. The two-day event will showcase limited-edition merchandise such as ontology-themed sweatshirts
China will remove its tariffs on Canadian agriculture — including on canola products — if Canada scraps its levies on Chinese electric vehicles, that country’s ambassador says.
Seems like a no-brainer. Canada doesn't have an EV production to speak of. I believe it was originally done to support the U.S. EV industry, but do we really need to be doing that?
It might have been the only official justification. However I suspect that there’s unofficial ones, like “we are worried it’ll come with spyware that directly reports everything to China” or “if we do this we might becoming mainly dependent on Chinese cars, which then means China can pull them out from under us, maybe disable them remotely, etc”.
Depends on how much they thought this through and how much they trust China now and in the next few decades.
To me this is a difference between a chaotic type of untrustworthiness and a more stable type of untrustworthiness. Wouldn’t want to pick either if it can be avoided.
I can't understand why there is no law against that - at least give users a choice. This concern is valid for all cars, not only EVs and not only Chinese.
They export them in droves to Europe, and I'd be very surprised if there's a single thing on a vehicle which isn't regulated stricter in Europe than in North America. Maybe emissions in California? Not much emissions from an EV, though.
Mozilla’s latest edition of *Privacy Not Included reveals how 25 major car brands collect and share deeply personal data, including sexual activity, facial expressions, and genetic and health information.
Even though EU has substantial tariffs on them. If we lowered the tariffs or eliminate them, we'd have dirty cheap cars and no more domestic car industry over night.
I'm asking this in honest curiosity. Do we have a domestic car industry anymore? Does a Can-Am Spyder count? I might just be tired this morning, but I can't think of a single Canadian car manufacturer of any volume right now.
if canada opened up reasonable access to its market for china. that would make trump and the US not think of canada as its little bitch. threaten the US with loss of its market in canada to china and they will not think we are their only option. china is opening a huge car factory in mexico, get that for canada. even just talking to china about it would give us leverage in talks to the USA
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded its 2025 Peace Prize to the leader of Venezuela’s far-right opposition, Maria Corina Machado, an event that is as significant as it is sinister.
The award was announced on October 9 in Oslo, Norway, a country whose wealth, strategic role in NATO, and large military investments position it as a bulwark for imperialist interests in Europe and beyond.
The award provides a glaring demonstration of the hypocrisy of capitalist public opinion as it is marshaled behind another catastrophic imperialist intervention in Latin America.
There is nothing unprecedented about bestowing the peace prize upon far-right or blood-drenched figures. If “political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,” as American songwriter, satirist and mathematician Tom Lehrer quipped in 1973, the award to Machado hammers another nail into its coffin.
In the years in between, the prize went to mass murderers and war criminals such as Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, the former Irgun terrorist responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon, and Aung San Suu Kyi, whose government was responsible for genocidal violence against Myanmar’s Rohingya minority. Barack Obama received the award in 2009, on the eve of launching a major military surge in Afghanistan and as his government was unleashing a wave of drone assassinations. Then as now, the prize served not as a reward to peacemakers, but as a tool for anointing those favored by imperialism and to legitimize war.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded its 2025 Peace Prize to the leader of Venezuela’s far-right opposition, Maria Corina Machado, an event that is as significant as it is sinister.
When I read the title, I thought the OP had editorialised it. Then, I clicked through and realised it was editorialised by the source itself. This is not serious news. It is effectively opinion. It does not belong here. Read the rules again, OP.
OP posts articles from WSWS all the time. They all have a Marxist bent. They have to link every news story to how the workers of the world are getting screwed in some way.
There are a lot to choose from in this article, so I'll just include the one that indicates disdain for Stalin, as WSWS is very much in favor of Trotskyism. They don't like Chavez and Maduro, but for all the wrong reasons.
However, with the aid of their Stalinist, Social Democratic and Pabloite hangers-on, these governments have fostered illusions that sustainable social and democratic gains could be secured for workers and poor peasants and imperialist oppression opposed on the basis of a nationalist program, without overthrowing capitalism.
You are a national extremist, using dehumanizing language (roaches, degenerates) against your politcal opponents. Things that fascists do. People should ignore you, Mods should ban you.
The claim, that socialist journalism supports "russian genocidal imperialism" is counterfactual, based on a deep misunderstanding what their analysis means and directed by your own ideological encrustation.
No, it is fair to call disgusting tankies roaches and degenerates. There is no ideology involved.
Like, lol. But alright, let's go, I bite.
No sane person would confirm, that it's "fair" to use dehumanizing language. That statement only shows how far off the rails you are. But alright, what's a tankie for you? I asked in the past, you didn't answer. Every russian? People that support a socialist agenda? You use that as a blanket statement, as a degoratory generalisation against people that do not support your hate-fueled diarrhea. And the hate comes through in the form of dehumanising hate speech. Thanks for affirming that.
"North Korea is a great place to live and is a vanguard against imperialism" is not a serious statement.
Okay sure, so you do not think that North Korea does exist in a constant struggle against capitalist takeover? Sure, that's an acceptable take. But why do you have to make things up and generalise, again, to then throw that fantasy take as a blanket over every "tankie"? I'm sure, there might once has been some person that might have said that, but what does that prove about anyone else, other than that person? You do realise this is disingenuous and dumb, right?
We both know that the vast majority of tankies are bored teenagers and malicious demagogues. Don't play dumb with me.
I reject every part of that take - you seem to be living in oppositve-world. It's driven by your ideological hate towards leftist thought. Do you ever leave your flat? Why do you keep generalising towards your degoratory use of the word "tankie", only to excuse yourself to dehumanise people?
The tankie source does support russian genocidal imperialism.
Without yapping, prove their support for "russian genocidal imperialism", and while doing that, please also prove the "genocidal" part. And I mean support, you know what the word means, right? Again, not just some kind of position that's not in line with your hope and dreams for your national purity.
"The pattern shows that accusations of supporting 'Russian genocidal imperialism' primarily come from centrist liberals, NATO supporters, and establishment political figures who use these extreme characterizations to delegitimize any leftist critique of Western foreign policy, regardless of whether those leftists actually support Russian actions or simply advocate for diplomatic solutions and criticism of all imperial powers." Some AI summary, because I can't be bothered to do more for you.
You don't even speak Ukrainian or russian and have never. You're in position talk about "deep misunderstanding"
*no position You excluding my opinion based on nationality or language (without actually knowing which languages I speak) is an immature ad hominem, a clear sign of your nationalist character and also displays your lack of understanding socialist or communist thought. Are you claiming, that "tankies" are always russian or that every socialist is a tankie? What you say doesnt even make any sense. What's with socialist Ukrainians, are they tankie cockroaches, too? So, do I either have to be a tankie or an enemy of a tankie to actually understand either take and formulate an opinion on them? You do have opinions on Palestine and Israel, I've seen. But you're neither. You see the problem?
You're full of shit and you are a hateful nationalist. Get fucked.
You know exactly what a tankie is, don't play dumb.
I will most definitely call out idiots who roleplay as communists online and don't speak any other languages. No one is buying your bullshit about "Ukrainian socialists". The communists party of Ukraine was a russian proxy force. Genuine Ukrainian socialists (or anyone for that matter) would want nothing to do with some online roleplayers who come up with degenerate statements such "North Korea is the vanguard against imperialism!" and support russian genocidal imperialism.
And I will most definitely call out Nazis who roleplay as victims online and don't speak other languages.
I know what the term "tankie" actually means and also how right-wingers use it to discredit anything opposing their little völkisch fantasies. I asked you specifically, how you define it, because you throw it around everywhere and you make that outgroup (them, the others) out to be responsible for all the bad things in your world. So much so, that you end up yapping like a lunatic two seconds before stroking out.
Which you are, a little Ukrainian nationalist lunatic with a hate for everything slightly pointing towards anything associated with your Russian neighbour, ... like the endangerment of the Ukrainian national identity. But sadly, that's all you've got, it's everything that defines you as a person.
But the reality is, the Ukrainians are forced to kill their Russian brothers and sisters and the Russians are forced to kill their Ukrainian brothers and sisters. You are the same, working class people. You are not fighting for your country or your Ukrainian blood, you are being consumed by the capitalist, imperialist war machine. You fucking idiot, snap out of it, the enemy is not at the other end of the field.
You delegitimise leftist thought by claiming they'd only be roleplaying. Conveniently, when you do that, you have a basis to then go on to tell us, that they are just lying and are evil for deceiving us like that. And since they're evil, they're roaches and need to be exterminated. Convenient thought process. Interestingly, they're so clever to deceive us, but also so very deranged, huh.
You are a dumb Nazi, the sooner you realise that, the sooner you can heal.
Nice one, stalker. Please, show me the part where I do that and explain to me, how that's victim blaming.
Also, you are coming to the defense of the guy you reluctantly banned for, let me check, five whole days from your little nazi bar for repeately using dehumanizing hate speech, only after weeks during which you did not act on it, although you were confronted with it several times. You are the Bartender of a nazi bar, gj.
At least come with some new copytext! You think I haven't seen this gibberish before?
Everyone I don't like is a Nazi!
It is reasonable to call an individual who lectures Ukrainians (without knowing Ukrainian or ever having lived here) that "you are brothers with the russians" a degenerate roach.
Your attitude shows the lack of solidarity with your equals and the lack of actual humanity by consistently using dehumanizing language.
Everyone I don't like is a Nazi!
Nah man, not everyone, you specifically.
If you keep being confronted with these kinds of accusations, maybe stop and wonder: Why does this keep happening? And no, it’s not because the people that bring forth those accusations are degenerate roaches.
The real irony is we both know tankies regularly use the term roaches and call for death over the stupidest things (with fantasies about killing posters with ice picks).
Some degenerates claiming that "everything I don't like is a BIA conspiracy!!!" are not my (are anyone's) equals.
No, we do not both know that. I don’t even know why you yap about Serbia‘s security information agency. You‘re in fantasy land again.
Prove to me that this is what “tankies” say, like in a way that shows „that‘s representative of tankies“, because you are the one accusing a whole group, that you deem to be a roaches. You can’t, because you make this shit up. Liar.
But either way, that also would never excuse your own hate speech. You don’t even reject me labeling you a Nazi or fascist, because you’re proud of it, but you are also a freaking coward, without the courage to openly say it, because it would get you in trouble. Coward.
You also failed to prove that these journalists are “supporting Russian genocidal imperialism”, but you do repeatedly delegitimize and dehumanize journalists that don’t follow your narrative. You know who does that? Facsists do.
Ukrainian nationalist lunatic with a hate for everything slightly pointing towards anything associated with your Russian neighbour, … like the endangerment of the Ukrainian national identity.
Sure, he be mad. But his national identity is all he’s got, it’s how he defines himself, how he gets his self worth. Normal people don’t screech around the internet, how everyone are cockroaches and degenerates, if they only so much as try to formulate an opinion other than ‘Slava Ukraina’. That’s still hate speech.
We don’t tolerate this shit with Russians, nor Palestinians, sometimes we do with Israelis, but sane people don’t.
You don’t need to tolerate or excuse national extremism, to show support and solidarity with the people being forced to fight and die in a war.
I think their nationalism is a response to lemmy users showing a lack of solidarity with Ukrainian people being forced to fight and die in a war of Imperial agression. For example if that war is called 'complicated' or an 'NATO proxy war'.
If that would be the case, then I’d suggest to them to lay down the phone, go outside and touch some grass.
Their nationalism emerging through lemmy commentary is what I would call a hot take.
They’re not forced to engage in political discussion on the internet, that they have trouble to process emotionally and they are also not forced to participate in hate-based communities, neither are they forced to use hate speech in general.
This user is notoriously using hate speech and counterfactual fabrications. I appreciate you trying to explain their behavior in an effort to show solidarity with what the Ukrainian people are enduring, but I’d also caution you, not to find excuses for right-wing extremists.
Why hello, my confused, stereotypical American friend. I'm sure life's hard over there in the imperial core, so let me suggest some light reading to you, while you wait for the complete authoritarian take-over from the right, while you keep whining about the left:
Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism by Michael Parenti
An accessible exploration of the differences between fascism and communism, addressing why Western societies often conflate the two, and how capitalist interests have portrayed socialist movements as “red fascists.” Especially readable for American audiences looking for a critical but not apologetic take on “tankies” and authoritarianism.
The Authoritarian Specter by Bob Altemeyer
A highly readable introduction to the psychology of authoritarianism, focusing especially on how these tendencies can arise in ordinary Americans — not just extremists or “the other side.” Explains why people across the spectrum endorse authoritarian politics.
Or may I suggest a pretty good video, getting into the basics:
It's very hard to convince the American people, that they should send their sons, maybe who knows some day even their daugthers, to go fight and die in some jungle to make the world safe for United Fruit Companies or Chase Manhattan or Procter & Gamble or ITT.
So you say: it's to stop the threat of that communist country.
It's very hard to convince the American people, that a tiny country like Nicaragua or Vietnam or El Salvador is a threat to US security.
So you say: It's not Nicaragua. They are the puppets of the Cubans, who are the puppets of, bum bum bum bum, the big red bear in the Kremlin.
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Yes, you are correct in that Geopolitical economy is a contemporary Marxist approach to understanding the capitalist world historically. I don‘t see the problem. You scared of Marxism? If billionaire owned western media does not provide factual reporting, you‘ll have to go elsewhere.
As I said, focus on the substance. Do you believe what is shown there is wrong? Like, the tweets of Machado or the quoted reporting from more mainstream outlets?
Listening to her interview on NPR was kind of wild
She had nothing but praise for Trump and defended the decision to bomb the boats in the Caribbean. Then she made a bunch of proclamations about accepting US intervention for enforcing regime change, and then advocated for doing the same in Cuba and Nicaragua
Once Maduro goes and we liberate our country, the Cuban regime will follow, the Nicaraguan regime will follow.
And for the first time in history, for the first time in history, we will have the Americas free of communism and narco dictatorships
Ive heard a few people ask if she's a CIA asset, amd while I don't think it's appropriate to speculate, I can see why the question is asked. The American State Department has been trying to install western-backed regimes in central and south America since the cold war.
Part of the reason we even have narco states in the south is because of the decades long proxy battle happening there.
The Nobel prize has a weird amount of legitimacy for how often it backs western regime change
An American civil rights group on Friday called on the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize winner to renounce her support for Zionism and fascism, including over her links to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political party and right-wing groups in Europe.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) said that they “strongly disagree” with the Nobel Prize committee’s decision to award the prize to Maria Corina Machado, who they said “delivered remarks at a conference of European fascists, including Geert Wilders and Marie Le Pen, which openly called for a new Reconquista, referencing the ethnic cleansing of Spanish Muslims and Jews in the 1500s”.
An American civil rights group on Friday called on the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner to renounce her support for Zionism and fascism, including over her links to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political party and right-wing groups in Eur…
It also just feels weird to make a choice that itself is likely to promote war. Trump is seemingly too stupid to immediately capitalize on this, but raising Venezuela's dictatorship up to being the most important dictatorship in the world and then praising someone in favor of military intervention by a country currently trying to spark a war for repressive purposes seems incredibly irresponsible for a committee seeking to promote "peace".
And the Nobel committee is sanctifying her as a saint of peace and democracy and her positions as inherently moral.
It seems like a very classical liberal move to shy away from outright embracing the fascists, but thinking if they just support them where their interests converge they can guide them from the shadows to deal with their problems.
She's supposedly an opposition leader trying to jumpstart democracy, yet she invites external aggression which makes people crazy enough to tear down existing democratic institutions. Her dictatorship is going to crumble so she needed to prop it up with the spectre of US aggression?
She's a mouthpiece for the corrupt ollgarchy that ran Venezuela before Chavez took over. She's kissing Bolsonaro's and Trump's asses in hopes that they might help make her Venezuela's Pinochet.
I always assumed these cases were somewhat proactive. Here’s someone who said something about peace and is in a position to make it happen. Let’s try to shame them into it
Does it matter anymore? Henry Kissinger won it, for fucks sake. This is the second time that I'm aware of someone winning the prize where it almost feels sarcastic. We live in opposite land.
It's meta like everything else. Sure, there are relatively simple rules that ought to lead to obvious, inexorable outcomes. But people are in charge and they're thinking: But what would it mean?
Give the Peace Prize to Putin! Maybe it will slow him down.
Give the Peace Prize to Kissinger! Maybe our empathetic embrace will soften his demeanor.
Give the Peace Prize to a conservative nut job. Let's throw in some support for fostering democratic values.
Promoting Western imperialism seems to be the main one. The postmodern West loves to make fun of human values by giving a "peace prize" to pillaging murderers, lol.
... Which MEE presents and uncritically defends. It's an article about a Nobel Peace Prize winner that literally doesn't mention why the Prize was awarded. Please think before you post.
“The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: /- – -/ one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” (Excerpt from the will of Alfred Nobel)
Machado spends pretty much each breath calling for war.
On Friday, Machado dedicated the prize to US President Donald Trump and the people of Venezuela, saying, “I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause”.
Fucking disgusting. How the fuck did she win the fucking peace prize?
I dunno who Menachem is, but I can only assume they're also a war criminal like Kissinger. The older I get, the fewer things and people seem to have any integrity. I'm fucking sick of finding out things or people that were supposedly paragons of morality are just as broken and corrupt as everything else. Nothing in this world is actually what it claims to be. 😬
Enjoy. Long story short, though: Former terrorist (as in literally the leader of Igrun), founder of Likud and former Israeli PM. He got the prize with Sadat after signing the peace treaty with Egypt and proceeded to bomb Iraq and invade Lebanon three years later.
Hamas is a fascist organization by every definition, so are you saying it's wrong to stop fighting until they're destroyed? That's the view of many in power in Israel.
I think many people are angry about the Nobel Peace Prize because they're actually against there being peace.
As we saw on October 7, the capacity for Hamas to commit genocide wasn't limited by their intent, it's only limited by their capability. If there were 1400 people in the villages on that day, there would be 1400 dead instead of 1200. If they had the capability of killing a million Jews they would.
And you would make excuses for their actions because you're a genocide apologist. The whataboutism started the day after Hamas massacred villages, and it came from the actual genocide apologists who were conditioned for more than a decade to look the other way on any horrible action committed by Hamas.
You clearly either don't know what a genocide is, or you shill way too much for Bibi. Either way, blocked, and I encourage everyone to do as much, you don't have anything to actually add to the conversation.
Netanyahu is an incompetent idiot and I hope he's removed from power in the next election.
Hamas are psychopaths that torture Palestinians for speaking out against them and prevent elections from happening. They're genocidal fascists and are the biggest obstacle preventing the Palestinian people from being free. And you're an apologist for them because you look the other way on their genocidal actions and look the other way on their oppression of Palestinians.
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I'd put substitute first, but yours sounds better 😀
(I'm a big Immich fan, and I'm taking and sharing photos more than ever before, in part because Immich is awesome, self hosted, and open source [the other part is that I have kids now so I'm taking way more photos that grandparents want to see].)
You always did. People walking around with guns, religious fanatics, places where you can get killed for no reason. People abducted and tortured -> Guantanamo bay. Your economy is just running better and your military is way more offensive.
I’m listening to the book now, about halfway through. If you’ve been on places like Lemmy or Reddit the past several years you’ve likely heard most of the anecdotes he presents to support his claims, but there’s some new ones I hadn’t heard that are interesting.
I really enjoyed Chokepoint Capitalism (2022), the book he co-authored (read: had someone else back up his frequently repeated anecdotes with reputable citations in a proper Bibliography) with Rebecca Giblin. 90% of the interview can be found in that book already with 10% being new slogans and anecdotes that can't be found in that book.
Have you noticed that these johnny-come-lately websites constantly have these conversations in every lemmy.ml community reply section? Well, it turns out they are also constantly haranguing the main developers in their Matrix chatroom. This place is a hoot it turns out I should have come earlier
No no, perfection must be the enemy of good, otherwise how will anything ever improve? We have to let the worst people win so the world gets worse and then magically everything will be fixed by revolution.
Bernie's ex foreign policy advisor. Explains a lot why Bernie consistently has such awful foreign policy takes. He surrounds himself with AIPAC warmongers.
Hasan Piker did an awful softball interview with him a while ago where Matt Duss flops out one Zionist talking point after another and Hasan doesn't call him out somehow youtu.be/Gfv2uzVb3Pw
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Israeli and Arab military officials have come together for meetings and trainings, facilitated by U.S. Central Command, on regional threats, Iran and underground tunnels.
A lot of these dictatorships saw that cooperation with Israel got them on the good side of the US and Europe and helped them against Iran. But once Israel bombed multiple Arab countries, it made that connection unpopular and made dictators hesitate. Once Israel bombed Qatar, it shattered that perception. Now Israel is seen as the bigger threat over Iran by far.
In a move co-ordinated with France, Germany and the United States, Sir Keir Starmer said the UK was willing to unlock up to £25 billion of Russian money held in the UK for the war effort.
The decision, after months of talks among the G7 and other western allies, may release as much as £250 billion to Ukraine in tranches to fund weapons purchases and prop up its war economy.
In a joint statement with President Macron of France and Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, Starmer said that the three leaders had agreed to “increase pressure” on Putin to counter his “stalling tactics and abhorrent attacks in response to peace talks”.
They said: “To that end, we are ready to progress towards using, in a co-ordinated way, the value of the immobilised Russian sovereign assets to support Ukraine’s armed forces and thus bring Russia to the negotiation table. We aim to do this in close co-operation with the United States of America.”
Starmer is also understood to have discussed the plan with President Zelensky of Ukraine. Downing Street said that the UK, France and Germany were “united in wanting to drive progress towards using the full value of the immobilised Russian sovereign assets to end the war”.
The UK is believed to hold more than £25 billion of Russian financial assets that were seized after the invasion of Ukraine [...] Belgium holds €190 billion (£165 billion) worth of assets in Euroclear, the Brussels-based central securities depository, and France holds €19 billion (£16 billion).
[...] under a plan being worked up by EU and G7 leaders, countries would issue up to €172 billion (£149 billion) in loans to Ukraine by swapping Russian cash linked to the immobilised assets for zero-interest bonds. Ukraine would have to pay back the loan only if Moscow paid war reparations, which is considered unlikely.
Instead of directly transferring the assets, they are using them as collateral for loans to strip the legal risk. The result should be indistinguishable as long as russia is eventually sentenced to pay reparations.
Groups of Madagascar soldiers joined thousands of protestors in the capital Saturday, AFP reporters said, after announcing they would refuse any orders to shoot demonstrators.
Fresh youth-led demonstrations in Antananarivo drew large crowds in one of the biggest gatherings since a protest movement erupted on the Indian Ocean island on September 25.
The article says it's a "youth-led movement that was sparked by anger over power and water shortages and evolved into a broader anti-government movement." Factions of the military have joined the protesters. The current president was appointed after the last military coup in 2009.
The UN has said that at least 22 people were killed in the first days of the protests that started on 25 September at the call of a youth-led movement called "Gen Z".
Gotta get some more green on that map! I'm thinking fascist-occupied Italy would be a great place to start, given what happened there almost exactly a century ago..
And the US and Russia, of course, but those are both almost too obvious to be worth mentioning and too entrenched to happen anywhere near as soon as we'd like..
Makes you wonder about how most armies and soldiers fail to see what and who they are supposed to be in service of. It's this part of the article that struck me the most...
"Let us join forces, military, gendarmes and police, and refuse to be paid to shoot our friends, our brothers and our sisters," the soldiers at the base in Soanierana district said in a video posted on social media.
They called on soldiers at the airport to "prevent all aircraft from taking off" and those in other camps to "refuse orders to shoot your friends".
"Close the gates and await our instructions," they said. "Do not obey orders from your superiors. Point your weapons at those who order you to fire on your comrades-in-arms, because they will not take care of our families if we die."
Bravo. These are true soldiers. Not the cowards holding guns in uniforms like in most places.
What are you talking about? There absolutely was no mass refusal from the military to follow orders either in Vietnam or domestically when deployed against American protestors and the "silent majority" actually cheered them on.
I think they’re talking about “fragging,” or the practice by veteran units of killing green officers who gave orders likely to get people killed. I have no idea how common it was, or if it was even anything more than urban legend.
Israel is continuing to force the collapse of Gaza’s devastated healthcare system, despite the supposed ceasefire – during which it has killed well over a hundred people through continued bombing and shooting.
Israel is refusing to release kidnapped Gaza medics
The colonial regime has also refused entry to international volunteer doctors trying to return to Gaza to help treat the wounded and starving during the ‘ceasefire’, as surgeons Victoria Rose and Graeme Groome explained during an interview yesterday:
Israel has murdered over 1,500 healthcare workers, some of those tortured to death in prison. Israel has over 350 healthcare workers abducted and being held in prisons, under inhumane conditions and frequent torture and violence. The occupation has destroyed or severely damaged all of Gaza’s hospitals and medical experts say that more than four hundred people a day in Gaza are dying from hunger and disease.
Yep, this is merely a truce,good for Israel to rearm. There can't be peace without the creation of a Palestinian State and everyone should know that at this point.
The State which has the monopoly on the legitimate (as defined by itself) use of violence, through its laws and regulations and sub-organizations and shaping of society. The State that is an apartheid State.
Recognizing the countries around Israel doesn't keep Israel from attacking them whenever they feel like it. Recognizing Palestine is important in the long term, sure, but that won't matter as long as Israel keeps behaving the same way.
The idea of a Palestinian state is downright laughable at this point. The only people keeping that myth alive are Israeli propagandists. Keeping the myth of such a state around is a useful distraction from real peace efforts.
Seriously, anyone still clinging to the idea in 2025 is hopelessly out of touch.
The intention was never peace. Trump can force israel to stop everything if he want same as Biden but they are both genocide enablers. Blinken also claimed that Biden laid thr groundwork for this fs fake peace deal
He got one side to agree to peace, I think that should get him HALF a nobel peace prize.
Then later, when he gets the OTHER side to agree to whichever peace deal THEY prefer, he can get the OTHER half of his nobel peace prize, and he can put them together into a whole nobel peace prize. Cover up the seam with some gold paint, and pretty soon people will be telling him it's really beautiful, that it's the best looking nobel peace prize that they've ever seen, it's probably actually better than the original kind. Other people have never gotten one like this. And it's more meaningful too, he had to do twice as much work to get it. That's what people are saying. It's probably the most important nobel peace prize of all time, actually.
I'd not heard about the Montana initiative. But it's not surprising ... it's an interesting state, politically, as the main throughline seems to be "leave me the fuck alone, and if others aren't hurting me, let them do what they want." You know, rugged individualism that we at once enshrine as the basis of the American spirit and also call "woke."
In a way, I'm glad Orwell didn't live to see how far short he fell with Nineteen Eighty-Four. We see Ingsoc fully formed, but the road there is left as an exercise for the reader.
The better analogy at this point is V for Vendetta.
On the 20th anniversary of the creation of the Roberts Supreme Court, one point of consensus persists: Most Americans believe money corrupts the political process — and they want to overturn the Citizens United precedent that empowers oligarchs to buy elections.
And yet, in two little-noticed cases — including one spearheaded by Vice President J.D. Vance — the high court could soon do the opposite, eliminating the last restrictions on campaign donations and obstructing law enforcement’s efforts to halt bribery.
As we recount in our new book Master Plan, the Citizens United case was the culmination of conservatives’ 50-year master plan to deregulate the campaign finance system and legalize corruption. What started as an incendiary memo from soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell became one ruling equating money with constitutionally protected speech and another extending personhood rights to corporations.
UK: Foreign Secretary says China does pose security threat to Britain, says she is ‘deeply frustrated’ at collapse of spy trial after Labour refuses to call Beijing an enemy
[...]
Yvette Cooper admitted the UK faced a “whole series” of risks from Beijing, days after the chief prosecutor said a case against two alleged spies collapsed because the Government had failed to brand China a threat to national security.
[...]
Ms Cooper was asked whether, during her time at the Home Office, she saw a dossier outlining the fact that China had frequently been referred to as a threat to Britain’s national security.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Let me be clear that we know China poses threats to UK national security from things like transnational repression and espionage to hostile cyber activity as well, and we have said so.
“And they also of course are a trading partner and they are a crucial partner in the process for example on tackling climate change. But I am deeply frustrated about this case because I of course wanted to see it prosecuted.”
[...]
Christopher Cash, 30, and Christopher Berry, 33, had been accused of passing foreign policy information to a high-ranking member of the Chinese government, charges that were denied by both men.
A Whitehall investigation into Chinese spying was also suppressed by Jonathan Powell, the national security adviser, after lobbying from the Treasury.
[...]
China sceptics have long called on successive governments to formally shift their diplomatic stance and call China a threat to reflect concerns around security, surveillance and human rights abuses.
[...]
Chinese state-backed hackers targeted the Electoral Commission and accessed the voting records of 40 million people from August 2021. The breach was not identified until more than a year later.
China was also blamed for hacking the Ministry of Defence in May 2024, with hackers gaining access to payroll information including bank details, names and addresses.
The US foreign relation policies are completely brainrotten to a degree that it feels masochistic. They keep hitting themselves over and over, and it makes less and less sense.
Lol okay I hear you. But think like if you were a Russian asset just trying to do as much damage as possible and steal as much USD and convert it to a useful currency before you crash the dollar and cripple your enemy. Would that make it more clear?
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Did Lunduke now entirely jump on that bandwagon? Seems he now does 3 videos a week "calling out" wokeness and "extreme" leftists and it's become quite monothematic.
Yeah, he got a bit nuts over time... but i still watch him for his shit stirring and his ranting - but sometimes, even now, he still unearths really interesting bits like that one.
Indeed, the story is funny and weird. Though he used to share lots of interesting and funny perspectives. And these days the Youtube comments underneath are way more funny and on point than all his content.
Idk, I can't find that supposed Bluesky and Mastodon discussions, I think he made that up. And he fails to mention the email address is just a text field, people can put anything in there. And while highlighting it, he also completely fails to spot the timezone which is right next to it. And that's set to UTC-4 so America east coast. And as a blogger/influencer he could at least have sent a mail and see if it bounces before reporting on it... And then he invents what the reviewer's thought process was according to him, while the real next joke is their nationality, but he doesn't spot that either. So I don't know what to make of this. Sure he has a community and reach, and brings attention to niche things. But his own take on it tends to be wrong(?) and not in an inspiring way... In the old days he used to play devil's advocate and I think that was extremely on point. But you can't really fabricate "facts" and argue against that, because it turns it from a sarcastic, Socratic dialogue into just framing, spiked with misinformation and the next 15 minutes are just rambling and bullshit... And I think that's a bit sad because we know he's able to do more than that. And there's no shortage of people rambling and talking bullshit, so there is no need for him to jump on it as well. It turns him from the troll he used to be into just your average anti-woke nut without any originality, just a Linux theme slapped on top...
If a yt channel is unpredictable enough that you can't turn it on at work where folks can hear it, it's crossed beyond "rant" and into "inappropriate" territory. I would personally question what I'm getting from this guy, but I'm not here to make your choices for you.
i don't actually know the guy you are speaking of, just saying that to be fair work can get stuck up and imposing on the most innocuous shit. "nsfw" can often be overbearing.
I can't stand the guy. Seems like all he does is post videos about him getting triggered about software being developed by people who are vocal about their care for others.
Like buddy, do you understand what the FOSS community mostly consists of?
Well, as far as i have observed this (from safe distance, far, far away...) Andreas Kling rejected a proposal from a new contributor to change documentation to use gender neutral terms... and as usual with those things, people tend to get mad.
Kling has promoted the nonsense white replacement conspiracy theory, whined about "leftist activists".
The answer is because just a tiny bit of looking at kling - just like with DHH - will reveal so much more far-right attitude and behavior beyond kling rejecting an offer to fix the poorly written documentation.
I am not involved in the Ladybird project, do not really follow the development or the community thereof in any close fashion, so i do not want to take any sides here. What i can say for sure after spending ~ 30 years online is, that the net often amplifies drama beyond any rational measure... so, until i find the time and energy to look into that (unlikely) i will stay with a neutral "oookay...."
As someone who has been online since the late 80's (BBS) and early 90's (internet), I'm well aware of how things can be amplified.
However, this does not require in-depth review. These are things you can discover with a cursory search that would have taken less time than writing that comment, FYI. I don't think anyone is sitting here suggesting Kling has grand plans for a gassing center, just that he promotes far right conspiracy theories and other hard-right ideology. This is a simple, easily verifiable statement.
i will stay with a neutral “oookay….”
Just so you know, this can come across condescending. I'm not going to say that was your intention, but that is absolutely how it would be read.
Just so you know, this can come across condescending. I’m not going to say that was your intention, but that is absolutely how it would be read.
Just to clarify: It is not meant that way, it is meant as an "Okay, i understand what you say but i will take anything i read online with a truckload of salt - no offense"
Kling has promoted the nonsense white replacement conspiracy theory
This is news to me. I'll look into them saying that and change how I talk about this event. Because before knowing this I would've described it similarly as the other person. But yeah, any grace I was willing to extend goes away if they're parroting white replacement.
Lets combine that with the contributing.md here as a response to "Your docs could be written better, I can do that", and how he stands with DHH (note Lunduke there btw), which was a response to DHH+Ruby....
Well it kind of paints a picture. A very specific one, imo.
Lunduke, the video of the post, is also a pretty notably tech right wing, which is why I mention to note that earlier.
I will say, I think Kling hides it better than DHH, same with Vaxry, but... yeah its pretty small and specific circles that seem to gather.
It can get real ugly in tech sometimes, and I really hate seeing it.
For a long time I considered tech the more inviting and accepting bunch, but that has definitely changed over time. There's some real gross stuff out there.
Lmao there's actually something kind of hilarious about a person trying to push gender neutral terms into documentation for a program called "Ladybird".
Did they want the project to be renamed to "Lady/Man/Thembird" too? /S
For some, sure. For me, no... I genuinely feel bad for anybody who's head is so far up their ass that they fail to see the humour around the irony here.
I am also genuinely confused as to how there can be documentation for a web browser that has gendered terms in it in the first place... Aside from the browser name, what other gendered terms would there be?
For example developers or users could be referred to with a default male pronoun (if the user wants … he can …) when, and that might surprise you, women and queer people do exist and might even use browsers or develop software. There's no need to be exclusive.
Why would it surprise me in even the slightest? It surprises me that people would default to a specific gender when all there is to go by is a username - I would expect they/them/[username] to be the typical reference.
What surprises me more is how judgmental and hostile people are here in the absolutely horrible assumptions they're making about me, because of a very obviously sarcastic remark I made about changing the only thing I could think of having a gendered term to a gender neutral term in the documentation for an application... My bad for mistaking "documentation" for manpages, and for somehow thinking a thread about Ladybird would be about the project's previous name and a myriad of other projects. How foolish of me not to be psychic in a thread calling out people for trying to be psychics in commits and code comments, right?
Officials from Indonesia’s nuclear energy regulatory agency have traced the source of contamination to a steel manufacturer in the Cikande industrial area known as Peter Metal Technology, or PMT. Some of the highest levels of contamination detected in the area were reportedly found in the company’s furnace, which is about 1.5 miles southwest of the BMS Foods facility where the shrimp was processed.
Investigators think that radioactive dust was released into the environment after PMT inadvertently smelted scrap metal containing cesium-137. “Because it’s airborne, the contamination can be carried by wind,” said Bara Khrishna Hasibuan, a senior adviser to Indonesia’s Ministry of Food Affairs, at a Sept. 30 press conference.
Scrap metal was commonly used as a raw material by PMT, according to the Indonesian outlet Antara News. It’s unclear how it may have become contaminated with cesium-137. Biegalski, whose area of expertise includes nuclear forensics, told CR that the “easiest explanation” is that a medical or industrial device containing cesium-137 was inadvertently reprocessed as scrap metal. The radioactive material could have become gaseous after entering the PMT furnace and then been released from the facility’s smokestack, he said.
Scrap metal was commonly used as a raw material by PMT, according to the Indonesian outlet Antara News. It’s unclear how it may have become contaminated with cesium-137. Biegalski, whose area of expertise includes nuclear forensics, told CR that the “easiest explanation” is that a medical or industrial device containing cesium-137 was inadvertently reprocessed as scrap metal
The Goiânia accident [ɡoˈjɐ̃njə] was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987, in Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil, after an unsecured radiotherapy source was stolen from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths. About 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination and 249 of them were found to have been contaminated.[1]
[2]The radiation source in the Goiânia accident was a small capsule containing about 93 grams (3.3 oz) of highly radioactive caesium chloride (a caesium salt) made with the radioactive isotope caesium-137, and encased in a shielding canister made of lead and steel.
On September 13, 1987, the guard tasked with protecting the site did not show up for work. Roberto dos Santos Alves and Wagner Mota Pereira illegally entered the partially demolished IGR site.[7] They partially disassembled the teletherapy unit and placed the source assembly in a wheelbarrow to later take to Roberto's home. They thought they might get some scrap value for the unit.[1]
A radioactive contamination incident occurred in 1984 in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, originating from a radiation therapy unit purchased by a private medical company and subsequently dismantled for lack of personnel to operate it. The radioactive material, cobalt-60, ended up in a junkyard, where it was sold to foundries that inadvertently melted it with other metals and produced about 6,000 tons of contaminated rebar.[1] These were distributed in 17 Mexican states and several cities in the United States. It is estimated that 4,000 people were exposed to radiation as a result of this incident.
[1]Detection of radioactive material
On January 16, 1984, a radiation detector at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the U.S. state of New Mexico detected the presence of radioactivity in the vicinity. The detector went on because a truck carrying rebar produced by Achisa had taken an accidental detour and passed through the entrance and exit gate of the laboratory's LAMPF technical area.
A radiation accident occurred in Samut Prakan Province, Thailand in January–February 2000. The accident happened when an insecurely stored unlicensed cobalt-60 radiation source was recovered by scrap metal collectors who, together with a scrapyard worker, subsequently dismantled the container, unknowingly exposing themselves and others nearby to ionizing radiation. Over the following weeks, those exposed developed symptoms of radiation sickness and eventually sought medical attention. The Office of Atomic Energy for Peace (OAEP), Thailand's nuclear regulatory agency, was notified when doctors came to suspect radiation injury, some 17 days after the initial exposure. The OAEP sent an emergency response team to locate and contain the radiation source, which was estimated to have an activity of 15.7 terabecquerels (420 Ci), and was eventually traced to its owner. Investigations found failure to ensure secure storage of the radiation source to be the root cause of the accident, which resulted in ten people being hospitalized for radiation injury, three of whom died, as well as the potentially significant exposure of 1,872 people.[1]
The theft of radioactive material in Tammiku, often called the Tammiku nuclear accident, took place in 1994. Three brothers in Tammiku, Männiku, Saku Parish (Harju County), Estonia, who were scrap metal scavengers, entered a fenced area in the woods and broke into a small shed that was seemingly abandoned (after having had no success with entering a larger building inside the area), with stairs leading to an underground hall. The brothers did not know that the buildings were nuclear waste storage facilities (although there were signs at the gate, they did not see them because they had climbed over the fence elsewhere). One of the brothers, Ivan, suffered a crush injury when a drum fell onto him. The brothers placed some pieces of metal into their pockets and went home, planning to return later. Ivan placed a metal cylinder in his pocket, not knowing that it was a strong caesium-137 radioactive source that was released from a container broken by the falling drum.[1] He received a 4,000 rad whole-body dose and died 12 days later.[2] Only after Ivan's family's dog died, and Ivan's stepson showed radiation burn of his hands (as a result of briefly touching the cylinder), was the cause of Ivan's death identified. The delay in information was due to the brothers' reluctance to admitting to the break-in.[3]
While we've often --- not always --- managed to label radiation sources, in general, people scrapping metal stuff, often stealing it, haven't done the best job of understanding or following related rules.
Three men from Lia (later designated as patients 1-DN, 2-MG, and 3-MB by the IAEA) had driven 45–50 km (28–31 mi) to a forest overlooking the Enguri Dam reservoir to gather firewood. They drove up a nearly impassable road in snowy winter weather, and discovered two canisters at around 6 pm. Around the canisters there was no snow for about a 1 m (3.3 ft) radius, and the ground was steaming. Patient 3-MB picked up one of the canisters and immediately dropped it, as it was very hot. Deciding that it was too late to drive back, and realizing the apparent utility of the devices as heat sources, the men decided to move the sources a short distance and make camp around them. Patient 3-MB used a stout wire to pick up one source and carried it to a rocky outcrop that would provide shelter. The other patients lit a fire, and then patients 3-MB and 2-MG worked together to move the other source under the outcrop. They ate dinner and had a small amount of vodka, while remaining close to the sources. Despite the small amount of alcohol, they all vomited soon after consuming it, the first sign of acute radiation syndrome (ARS), about three hours after first exposure. Vomiting was severe and lasted through the night, leading to little sleep. The men used the sources to keep them warm through the night, positioning them against their backs, and as close as 10 cm (3.9 in). The next day, the sources may have been hung from the backs of Patient 1-DN and 2-MG as they loaded wood onto their truck. They felt very exhausted in the morning and only loaded half the wood they intended. They returned home that evening.
If you find a strange grey canister in the middle of the woods that has somehow melted the snow around it and is steaming hot for no reason, don't fucking touch it.
....but we all know in our hearts that if we didn't have prior understanding of these thing, all of us would totally go touch the mystical heat canister.
If you read the first incident above, the Goiânia incident, after the people involved managed to use tools to break open and extract whatever was behind all that protective shielding, they found a glowing blue substance that they thought might be supernatural, so they brought over their friends and family to show them. And the kids played with it...
They began dismantling the equipment. That same evening, they both began to vomit due to radiation sickness.[clarification needed] The following day, Pereira began to experience diarrhea and dizziness, and his left hand began to swell. He later developed a burn on his hand in the same size and shape as the aperture, and he underwent partial amputation of several fingers.
[8]On September 15, Pereira visited a local clinic, where he was diagnosed with a foodborne illness; he was told to return home and rest.[1] Roberto, however, continued with his efforts to dismantle the equipment and eventually freed the caesium capsule from its protective rotating head. His prolonged exposure to the radioactive material led to his right forearm becoming ulcerated, requiring amputation on October 14.
[9]On September 16, Roberto punctured the capsule's aperture window with a screwdriver, allowing him to see a deep blue light coming from the tiny opening he had created.[1] He inserted the screwdriver and successfully scooped out some of the glowing substance. Thinking it was perhaps a type of gunpowder, he tried to light it, but the powder would not ignite.
The exact mechanism by which the blue light was generated was not known at the time the IAEA report of the incident was written, though it was thought to be either ionized air glow, fluorescence, or Cherenkov radiation associated with the absorption of moisture by the source; a similar blue light was observed in 1988 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States during the disencapsulation of a caesium-137 source.
[1]On September 18, Roberto sold the items to a nearby scrapyard. That night, Devair Alves Ferreira, the owner of the scrapyard, noticed the blue glow from the punctured capsule. Thinking the capsule's contents were valuable or supernatural, he immediately brought it into his house. Over the next three days, he invited friends and family to view the strange glowing powder.
On September 21, at the scrapyard, one of Ferreira's friends (identified as "EF1" in the IAEA report) freed several rice-sized grains of the glowing material from the capsule using a screwdriver. Ferreira began to share some of them with various friends and family members. That same day, his wife, 37-year-old Maria Gabriela Ferreira, began to fall ill. On September 25, 1987, Devair Ferreira sold the scrap metal to a third scrapyard.
The day before the sale to the third scrapyard, on September 24, Ivo, Devair's brother, successfully scraped some additional dust out of the source and took it to his house a short distance away. There he spread some of it on the concrete floor. His six-year-old daughter, Leide das Neves Ferreira, later ate an egg[10] while sitting on the floor. She was also fascinated by the blue glow of the powder, applying it to her body and showing it off to her mother. The egg was also exposed to dust from the powder; Leide absorbed 1.0 GBq and received a total dose of 6.0 Gy, a fatal dose for which medical intervention was ineffective.[11][12][13] Leide's mother, Lurdes Ferreira, also got sick from the radiation.[14]
[15]Maria Gabriela Ferreira had been the first to notice that many people around her had become severely ill at the same time.[16] On September 28, 1987 – fifteen days after the item was found – she reclaimed the materials from the rival scrapyard and transported them to a hospital.
In the morning of September 29, a visiting medical physicist[17] used a scintillation counter to confirm the presence of radioactivity and persuaded the authorities to take immediate action. The city, state, and national governments were all aware of the incident by the end of the day.
There was also a second ex-Soviet de-encapsulated RTG incident, like the one you mention, that I recall, where people came across RTG.
kagis
Okay, apparently more than two incidents. I was thinking of the second Georgia incident, I think.
That wasn't the only incident involving RTGs however. In 2001, scrappers broke into a lighthouse on Kandalashka Bay and stole three radioisotope sources (all three were recovered and sent to Moscow). Three men in the mountains of Georgia were also exposed in 2002 after stumbling upon cores left out in the woods. In 2003, scrappers hurled a core into the Baltic Sea, where a team of experts retrieved it.
All of this from a steel plant’s smoke stack radioactive plume, from the melting down of medical equipment? …I’m still suspicious of the containers themselves. But, that’s just me.
Cesium is highly radioactive, and the sensors are very sensitive.
When Iceland had the Huefaleflefthaflafla volcano outbreak, I could smell the sulphur from my house. In Norway. More than 1500 km / 900 miles across half the atlantic ocean.
So radioactive smoke being detectable 1.5 miles away makes sense to me.
I suppose that both the cloves and shrimp have been traced to the same geographic area it stands to reason that this is indeed correct. It’s just so strange and the spices contamination isn’t as fully explained. Maybe if I saw a map the plume theory would make more sense. But at that rate it seems the whole island may be experiencing this issue which is very unfortunate.
This is totally a kaiju-causing event and I expect the results looking like a giant guy in a big costume trying to hug things, but the eye holes are too small and keeps missing.
IF it's a salt, THEN it could easily be dissolved into whatever dissolves that salt ( like, you know, water ).
Scrap gets rained on, & salts washed away, going into the waterways..
I'm not saying that is what happened, this time, but I am saying that if they're using radioactive cesium salt, then they're creating extra risk, that wouldn't be the case if they were using a solid pellet of metal.
( this, obviously, applies to the spent fuel from any thorium-salt nuclear reactor, too: salts dissolve! Containment that is absolutely proof against that, for the entire required duration, .. may not be possible, for some long-duration isotopes, right? )
That it isn't an international-criminal-law offense to have such materials immediately taken to radioactive-waste-management, .. is .. morally-criminal.
Allowing it to just happen, when normal people aren't competent to either recognize, or deal-with, nuclear-radiation..
Typical rejection-of-accountability & rejection-of-responsibility, though, of authority, isn't it?
Not every salt is easily soluble in water. Salt in a chemical sense is a compound made up of multiple ions. Marble and pretty much all rocks/minerals are also salts in a chemical sense and you don't see our mountains being washed away by one rainfall. So saying they use a thorium salt is not in itself a problem, depending on which salt they use.
I couldn't find any definitive answer, but from what I found on Wikipedia is that they mostly use Thorium dioxide at the moment, which is practically insoluble in water and alkaline, by slightly soluble in acids.
So no, salts don't all dissolve. It completely depends on the specific salt and its properties.
But yeah, nuclear industry in general is pretty hands off with regard to accountability and taking care of the long time effects.
I knew, when writing, that some salts are functionally insoluable ( lithium-fluoride, I'd read, pretty-much doesn't dissolve in water ).
I'd hoped that I'd phrased it carefully-enough, but obviously didn't.
Definitely thank you for identifying that the salt specific to thorium-salt reactors isn't at room temperature going to be easily dissolveable into our environment..
but .. I've also learned that hot-chemistry can be drastically different from room-temperature chemistry, & after all the .. gaslighting .. of various industries, through the past decades..
I want systematic & thorough testing to see what that salt can react with, under its entire temperature & pressure regime, before anybody signs-off on it.
"hands off" is a very polite way of saying it, Hoomin..
& I'd never thought of marble as a salt, you got me on that point!
Was given this little wintel box by a friend fairly recently, but I haven't yet even powered it on. I don't have a power cable for it unfortunately but when I do, what do you think I should do with it? What would you do with it?
I think it could potentially be just a basic lightweight desktop for web browsing and such, maybe a little smart tv box or something like that to replace the Chromecast I'm ashamed to admit I use, maybe run some basic self hosted stuff like pihole or home assistant? Could probably be a little emulation machine for retro games but I doubt it would be capable of much more than that. But I'm not sure there's too many ideas! I need suggestions people
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
Yup! Though that's Adam Sandler doing the bit in the Rob Schneider movie, the original bit on SNL was done by Schneider (originally in 1993 i think). 🙂
For what it's worth I was able to migrate my docker of gitea to a docker of forgejo by just changing the image to be forgejo and remaining some if the environment variables. It uses the game data and database so it's basically a drop in replacement that they have instructions for on their website.
Makes trying it out pretty simple, not sure about migrating back to gitea from forgejo though.
Indeed but by doing so I can connect from the outside World too, e.g. if I'm at the dentist waiting for an appointment, I just connect to the VPN over my 5G connection, no login required.
You only need one VPN peering point inside your network. You do not need WG on other internal devices, just routing between intermediary subnet and LAN.
I setup WireGuard only last week so maybe I'm the one who misunderstand something : on your LAN assuming you are NOT using your router (or switch, or a networking device) to be a peer of the VPN, don't you need to add each machine as a peer to the VPN? Also doesn't that leave the most granularity so that the (root) user of each machine can chose to be on/off and more, e.g. split tunneling?
What you're saying is true, however VPNs connect both hosts and subnets. If you have a VPN server on your subnet, you can easily allow any client that connects to it to have access to your LAN.
VPNs are simply networking over encrypted tunnels. What you do with that tunnel is up to you.
I got some old Futro S920s recently. Put in WiFi/BT, loaded them up with Batocera and some Retro ROM's and gave them to friends to game on. Setup was super easy.
Sell it. Put your money earned to buy a general computer to tinker with instead.
If you have the skills you've already been tearing it down, soldering some pins, and compiling your modified uboot/EFI firmware and flashing it. The hack above has only like twenty people in the whole world who know how to do.
If it was a TV box and still functioning, there are people out there genuinely have a valid use case for it, to watch TV of course. Don't ruin it.
NetBSD. This box seems to have a vanilla x86 processor and it has plenty of resources (for NetBSD, that is). You can't use this as a daily driver, but it should be good enough to learn UNIX and/or self-host some stuff.
I used one of these (might even be the exact same model) as a little music player attached to an old soundbar. I could connect via ssh and play music through the speakers. The main challenge was finding a distribution that worked well with the internal sound card, since I wanted to use the aux output for sound. I don't think that I ever tried connecting a monitor to it, but it worked well for what I used it for, right up until I needed the sound bar for something else.
From a long term environmental standpoint that's not at all clear cut.
We objectively have too many humans in our biosphere for our current rate of resource consumption and we should significantly drop the overall number.
However, our current standard of living is mostly the result of a shared economy where we pool and share our resources and have a shit ton of people working.
Right now neural network algorithms consume a lot of processing power and resources, but they also solve whole new classes of automations problems that computers haven't been able to solve before.
If we actually want to maintain our standard of living and reduce the population size, we may very well need AI automation utilities. They can keep scaling down in size and power consumption in the way that a real human can't.
So we objectively have too large of a population, but not if we change our standard of living and you want AI to solve this problem not by reducing our standard of living but instead by reducing the population?
We can support the current population, it's just not profitable or popular to do so.
Birthrates naturally level off as societies develop. Many are already seeing negative growth.
Our current standard of living is mostly predicated on offshoring the suffering and waste to the global South, but even that could be comfortably leveled off if we weren't living under Capitalism.
We don't need large AI farms, we need empathy. The techbros will not save us.
We can support the current population, it's just not profitable or popular to do so.
If your solution ignores the nature of human psychology it's not a solution, it's a quixotic quest.
Our current standard of living is mostly predicated on offshoring the suffering and waste to the global South, but even that could be comfortably leveled off if we weren't living under Capitalism.
Yes, and as their standard of living rises to meet ours, the whole human output becomes increasingly unsustainable.
We don't need large AI farms, we need empathy. The techbros will not save us.
There is a more plausible path for neural networks to be involved in climate change solutions then their is for you to replace capitalism.
I'm sure that if AI could get to the state where it could even approach maybe doing those things, it will mesh very well with capitalism and we'd all benefit collectively. One of the core tenants of capitalism.
We're just going to pretend that the only reason companies are funding AI research isn't because they want to replace the work force because it could be cheaper?
They should. That's how automation works. We should be building a society that doesn't require as much work, not insisting on doing work that machines could do when we don't want to.
Surplus value cannot be extracted from technology? I guess if you mean directly.
Every technological advancement has been used to to create more value that workers produce that gets stolen by the owner class, so through the transitive property, 100% percent of the value created by technology is stolen from the people actually using the technology to produce the value.
We've had insane technology breakthroughs that have made the value we produce skyrocket, and we're in the negative, by a shit ton.
Also those data centers would be classified under "means of production" and in an actual socialistic or communistic economy would be under the control of the people and would then produce value for us.
my brother in christ what are you saying? you know that rich people are the biggest polluters?
you know how ai datacenters literally destroy our planet? and for what? these supposed automation tasks will not serve us. we will have mass poverty and more wealth concentrated into the hands of a habdful of tech bros. it's the industrial revolution all over again.
the global south is suffering from our actions. and how do you define living standards? do you think a capital slave that works in deadly conditions will be happy becase now they have an iphone and access to electricity? No. a slave is still a slave.
my brother in christ what are you saying? you know that rich people are the biggest polluters?
Yes, and what do you think is happening as other countries rise out of poverty? We have way too many humans on this planet to support everyone having a middle class lifestyle.
you know how ai datacenters literally destroy our planet?
Yeah, right now. But if you tried to render 4k videos in 1990 it would also take a full data center and enormous amount of power, but computer chips can do this thing where they get smaller and orders of magnitude more efficient over time, which is how every single phone can do it on 5W of usb power today.
The rain of down votes on ur comments shows me that Lemmy has become every bit as much if not worse an echo chamber than reddit. Facts of the matter are humans are overcrowding the plant and gobbling up all the resources at an unsustainable rate. Human population DOES need to drop a bit of we are to use this planet long term, lest we spell our own doom in a few hundred years by picking this once beautiful planet to the bone.
Only on lemmy would someone think 22 total votes of which only 3/4 are downvotes would be considered a “rain of downvotes” imagine if you were in a room with 22 people and 4 agree with you but 18 didn’t. That wouldn’t be considered a flood of downvotes. That’d just be a minority position.
You can separate the vote totals in the settings i believe. Piefed does it automatically. You can also use lemvotes.org to see how each person voted for the comment or post.
I am using the voyager app and have not found a place to separate them but I appreciate the response! I have not looked much into other Lemmy browsing apps and hardly ever use it on the computer...
They're the ecofascist yet you're the one saying "you'll shit in the mud and you'll like it".
Birthrates lower partially thanks to higher standard of living, which are not sustainable for 7+ billions people.
Not that I think LLMs are going to help in any way, but every time someone mentions overpopulation, all the counter arguments I see are loads of anti system rhetoric with nothing to show for it.
You think soviet Russia was/current China is sustainable?
The earth can easily sustain our current population at a 1st world standard of living, but only if we are orders of magnitude more efficient. That means things like no mass car usage, eco-urbanisn, no more single family homes with quarter acre empty lawns, widespread plant-based foods as the norm, and repairable technology that actually lasts decades instead of planned obsolescence and cheap plastic junk that fills up landfills.
You don't need to be some anarcho-primitivist/Ted Kaczynski wannabe living in a wooden shack with one set of clothes.
Now is that viable in the current societal climate? No, people, especially Americans generally hate much of those eco-urbanist ideas. As long as Capitalism is the default economic system and neo-liberal politics is the default political approach to democracy, we will continue marching towards a consumerist doom.
If we actually want to maintain our standard of living and reduce the population size, we may very well need AI automation utilities. They can keep scaling down in size and power consumption in the way that a real human can't.
Theoreticisizing LLM's usefulness and resourcefulness doesn't help you there. For now they are rather useless embaracingly inefficient resoucehogs existing purely because of the bubble. It's a gamble at best, or a waste of resources and a degradation of human workforce at worst.
AI is not just LLMs, and it's already revolutionized biotechnical engineering through things like alpha fold. Like I said, "AI", as in neural network algorithms of which LLMs are just one example, are literally solving entirely new classes of problems that we simply could not solve before.
I don't have to dream, DeepMind literally won the Nobel prize last year. My best friend did his PhD in protein crystallography and it took him 6 years to predict the structure of a single protein underlying legionnaires disease. He's now at MIT and just watched DeepMind predict hundreds of thousands of them in a year.
If you vet your news sources by only listening to ones that are anti-AI then you're going to miss the actual exciting advancements lurking beneath the oceans of tech bro hype.
You need to take a step back and realize how warped your perception of reality has gotten.
Sure LLMs and other forms of automation, artificial intelligence and brute forcing of scientific problems will continute to grow.
What you are talking about though is extrapolating from that to a massive shift that just isn't on the horizon. You are delusional, you have read too many scifi books about AI and can't get your brain off of that way of thinking being the future no matter how dystopian it is.
The value to AI just simply isn't there, and that is before you even include the context of the ecological holocaust it is causing and enabling by getting countries all over the world to abandon critical carbon footprint reduction goals.
Don't come at me like you are being logical here, at least admit that this is the cool scifi tech dystopia you wanted and have been obsessed with. This is the only way you get to this point of delusion since the rest of us see these technologies and go "huh, that looks like it has some use" whereas people like you have what is essentially a religious view towards AI and it is pathetic and offensive towards religions that actually have substance to their philosophy and beliefs from my perspective.
The rich are using the gullibility of people like you to pump and dump entire economies you fool.
Edit I am not sure why I wrote this like you might actually take a step back, you won't, this message is really for everyone else to help emphasize how we are having the interests of the entire earth derailed by the advent of a shitty religion and its mindless disciples. The sooner the rest of us get on the same page, the sooner we can resist people like you and keep your rigid broken worldviews from destroying our futures.
You seem to be projecting about warped perspective.
Sure LLMs and other forms of automation, artificial intelligence and brute forcing of scientific problems will continute to grow.
That's not brute forcing of a scientific problem, it's literally a new type of algorithm that lets computers solve fuzzy pattern matching problems that they never could before.
What you are talking about though is extrapolating from that to a massive shift that just isn't on the horizon.
I'm just very aware of the number of problems in society that fall into the category of fuzzy pattern matching / optimization. Quantum computing is also an exciting avenue for solving some of these problems though is incredibly difficult and complicated.
You are delusional, you have read too many scifi books about AI and can't get your brain off of that way of thinking being the future no matter how dystopian it is.
This is just childish name calling.
The value to AI just simply isn't there, and that is before you even include the context of the ecological holocaust it is causing and enabling by getting countries all over the world to abandon critical carbon footprint reduction goals.
Quite frankly, you're conflating the tech bro hype around LLMs with AI more generally. The ecological footprint of Alpha Fold is tiny compared to previous methods of protein analysis that took labs of people years to discover each individual one. On top of the ecological footprint of all of those people and all of their resources for those years, they also have to use high powered equipment like centrifuges and x-ray machines. Alpha fold did that hundreds of thousands of times with some servers in a year.
Don't come at me like you are being logical here, at least admit that this is the cool scifi tech dystopia you wanted and have been obsessed with. This is the only way you get to this point of delusion since the rest of us see these technologies and go "huh, that looks like it has some use" whereas people like you have what is essentially a religious view towards AI and it is pathetic and offensive towards religions that actually have substance to their philosophy and beliefs.
Again, more childish name calling. You don't know me, don't act like you do.
I am treating you like a child because you refuse to use your brain.
You gave me one obscure very early stage example that isn't even connected to the overall rise in value of LLMs and other forms of AI that has created an economic bubble worse than the dotcom bubble. So you are claiming the next real AI revolution is justtttt around the corner with a totally new technology you swear?
Maybe?
What I do know for sure is you are far more interested in that maybe than you are in actually engaging with the existential real world problems we are facing right now...
I am treating you like a child because you refuse to use your brain.
No you're doing so because you started doom scrolling before you had coffee and now you're trying to justify your uncalled for rudeness.
You gave me one obscure
It literally won the nobel prize.
very early stage example
It is not early stage, predicting the structures of those proteins has already actively changed the course of biomedical science. This isn't early stage research that need fleshing out, this is peer reviewed published research that has caused entire labs and teams to completely change what they're doing and how.
that isn't even connected to the overall rise in value of LLMs and other forms of AI
It is in that it uses the same underlying type of algorithms and is literally from the same team that developed the "T" in ChatGPT.
So you are claiming the next real AI revolution is justtttt around the corner with a totally new technology you swear?
I have not claimed that, I said that AI algorithms are likely to be part of our climate solutions and our ability to serve more people with less manual labour. They help to solve entirely new classes of problems and can do so far more efficiently than years of human labour.
Rage out about tech bubbles and hype bros if you want. Last time it was crypto, streaming before that, apps and mobile before that, social before that, the internet before that, etc etc. Hype bubbles come and go, sometimes the underlying technology is actually useful though.
I have not claimed that, I said that AI algorithms are likely to be part of our climate solutions and our ability to serve more people with less manual labour. They help to solve entirely new classes of problems and can do so far more efficiently than years of human labour.
hahaha like AI will be a part of climate solutions are you serious right now?
Y'all are incapable of understanding expertise in your domain does not make you an expert in everything else, there is no way anyone in the industry you are speaking about will listen to climatologists and environmental scientists long enough to even begin to be helpful.
You keep talking about technology, when this is really a discussion about the catastrophic myopia of the tech industry of which you are making yourself a perfect example of.
To some biologists, that approach leaves the protein folding problem incomplete. From the earliest days of structural biology, researchers hoped to learn the rules of how an amino acid string folds into a protein. With AlphaFold2, most biologists agree that the structure prediction problem is solved. However, the protein folding problem is not. “Right now, you just have this black box that can somehow tell you the folded states, but not actually how you get there,” Zhong said.
“It’s not solved the way a scientist would solve it,” said Littman, the Brown University computer scientist.
This might sound like “semantic quibbling,” said George Rose, the biophysics professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins. “But of course it isn’t.” AlphaFold2 can recognize patterns in how a given amino acid sequence might fold up based on its analysis of hundreds of thousands of protein structures. But it can’t tell scientists anything about the protein folding process.
...
AlphaFold2’s success was founded on the availability of training data — hundreds of thousands of protein structures meticulously determined by the hands of patient experimentalists. While AlphaFold3 and related algorithms have shown some success in determining the structures of molecular compounds, their accuracy lags behind that of their single-protein predecessors. That’s in part because there is significantly less training data available.
The protein folding problem was “almost a perfect example for an AI solution,” Thornton said, because the algorithm could train on hundreds of thousands of protein structures collected in a uniform way. However, the Protein Data Bank may be an unusual example of organized data sharing in biology. Without high-quality data to train algorithms, they won’t make accurate predictions.
“We got lucky,” Jumper said. “We met the problem at the time it was ready to be solved.”
However, it should be noted that due to the intrinsic nature of AI, its success is not due to conceptual advancement and has not hitherto provided new intellectual interpretive models for the scientific community. If these considerations are placed in Kuhn’s framework of scientific revolution [68], AF release is a revolution without any paradigm change. Instead of “providing model problems and solutions for a community of practitioners” [68], it is a rather effective tool for solving a fundamental scientific problem.
This is because scientists working on AI (myself included) often work backwards. Instead of identifying a problem and then trying to find a solution, we start by assuming that AI will be the solution and then looking for problems to solve. But because it’s difficult to identify open scientific challenges that can be solved using AI, this “hammer in search of a nail” style of science means that researchers will often tackle problems which are suitable for using AI but which either have already been solved or don't create new scientific knowledge.
^ this is NOT the scientific method and it undermines the scientific integrity of the entire process
AI has not revolutionized biology research at all, its not complex enough, to come up with new experimentation methods, or manage the current ones, they maybe used to write AI slop papers thats about it.
Bro grow up. The world is not black and white. Literally not a single award on the planet is meritocratic if you insist on dealing in absolutes. Every award is awarded by some committee and there is some room left for human judgement, which leaves room for human bias, which makes it not perfectly meritocratic.
If you want to go an unhinged rant that no one wants to listen to then email the nobel association directly, don't waste federated server time.
no, because it's literally what it is, words have meaning. that's quite a lot of mental gymnastics and insults to defend the legitimacy of a prize that goes to war hawks and fascists for a while now.
it's being used to push for pretty evil politics right now and should not be taken seriously for that reason. however the fuck you want to define the words i'm trying to use to describe it.
Thank you for finally spewing out the point you wanted to make from the jump. It's irrelevant in the context of the original discussion, but you got to hear yourself talk.
that's literally my point the entire time. it's not meritocratic, it's political. bother to understand next time. unless you somehow think that these folks deserve any prize.
And your point is wrong because you keep boiling it down to simple black and white.
The Nobel prize is not purely political and is not devoid of merit.
The world is not full of binary systems. It's made of multi variable systems where multiple influences can be true at the same time.
If you want to make a point about why accurately predicting the structure of hundreds of thousands of proteins doesn't deserve the Nobel in chemistry then I'm all ears. Please tell us all exactly why you think their prize was political and not meritocratic, and why predicting protein structures automatically is not important?
Because if you can't answer that very specific question, then you weren't making a point relevant to the conversation, you were making a snide generalization to hear yourself speak.
Most people are cool with some AI when you show the small, non-plagarative stuff. It sucks that "AI" is such a big umbrella term, but the truth is that the majority of AI (measured in model size, usage, and output volume) is bad and should stop.
Neural Network technology should not progress at the cost of our environment, short term or long term, and shouldn't be used to dilute our collective culture and intelligence. Let's not pretend that the dangers aren't obvious and push for regulation.
LLM is what usually sold as AI nowadays. Convential ML is boring and too normal, not as exciting as a thing that processes your words and gives some responses, almost as if it's sentient. Nvidia couldn't come to it's current capitalization if we defaulted to useful models that can speed up technical process after some fine tuning by data scientists, like shaving off another 0.1% on Kaggle or IRL in a classification task. It usually causes big but still incremental changes. What is sold as AI and in what quality it fits into your original comment as a lifesaver is nothing short of reinvention of one's workplace or completely replacing the worker. That's hardly hapening anytime soon.
LLM is what usually sold as AI nowadays. Convential ML is boring and too normal, not as exciting as a thing that processes your words and gives some responses, almost as if it's sentient.
To be fair, that's because there are a lot of automation situations where having semantic understanding of a situation can be extremely helpful in guiding action over a ML model that is not semantically aware.
The reason that AI video generation and out painting is so good for instance it that it's analyzing a picture and dividing it into human concepts using language and then using language to guide how those things can realistically move and change, and then applying actual image generation. Stuff like Waymo's self driving systems aren't being run through LLMs but they are machine learning models operating on extremely similar principles to build a semantic understanding of the driving world.
I'd argue, that it sometimes adds complexity to an already fragile system. Like when we implement touchscreens instead of buttons in cars. It's akin to how Tesla, unlike Waymo, dropped LIDAR to depend on regular videoinputs alone. Direct control over systems without unreliable interfaces, semantic translation layer, computer vision dependancy etc serves the same tasks without additional risks and computational overheads.
I'd argue, that it sometimes adds complexity to an already fragile system.
You don't have to argue that, I think thats inarguably true. But more complexity doesn't inherently mean worse.
Automatic braking and collision avoidance systems in cars add complexity, but they also objectively make cars safer. Same with controls on the steering wheel, they add complexity because you now often have two places for things to be controlled and increasingly have to rely on drive by wire systems, but HOTAS interfaces (Hands On Throttle And Stick) help to keep you focused on the road and make the overall system of driving safer. While semantic modelling and control systems absolutely can make things less safe, if done well they can also actually let a robot or machine act in more human ways (like detecting that they're injuring someone and stopping for instance).
Direct control over systems without unreliable interfaces, semantic translation layer, computer vision dependancy etc serves the same tasks without additional risks and computational overheads.
But in this case, Waymo is still having to do that. They're still running their sensor data through incredibly complex machine learning models that are somewhat black boxes and producing semantic understandings of the world around it, and then act on those models of the world. The primary difference with Waymo and Tesla isn't about complexity or direct control of systems, but that Tesla is relying on camera data which is significantly worse than the human eye / brain, whereas Waymo and everyone else is supplementing their limited camera data with sensors like Lidar and Sonar that can see in ways and situations humans can't and that lets them compensate.
That and that Waymo is actually a serious engineering company that takes responsibility seriously, takes far fewer risks, and is far more thorough about failure analysis, redundancy, etc.
The ones advocating for corporate greed and AI are the same ones talking about a birth rate crisis. I guess they just want more proles to slave for them and damn the ones who die young in the process.
i see some state universities around saying the same, thing trying to blame the low enrollment crisis, to low birth rates, and not because COVID exposed the low-no job prospects and HCOL of post graduation. if your universities obscures/obfuscate the most important part of your DEGREE: labwork, or internships/ experience its only going to end one way.
Lol. I thought the "crash can't come soon enough" line was hilariously close to Dwight's line. It was a joke. I guess everybody missed it. Fair enough, too, it was a joke from a comedy program... Why would anyone think that was supposed to be funny.
and only keep around a couple senior engineers, employees to manage those outsourced people, since the outsourced people may not be on par with stateside employees.
It's doing a shit job at replacing people, it's still too prone to hallucinating for the vast majority of its applications.
In many of the applications where AI has replaced people the promised performance gains never materialized because of the insane amount of babysitting a LLM agent requires.
Doesn't matter if it can write 10 hours of code in 5 minutes if you still need a software dev to troubleshoot the output for 25 hours.
They have like 90% reliability (figure pulled directly from my ass) but they need 99.99% reliability to actually be effectively reliable.
They've burned through all their hype and still haven't made it reliable yet. I think they're not going to get it done before the bubble collapses.
It'll be similar to the dotcom boom, infinite hype implosion collapses the market to a few core players and then those core players will get there over the next 15 years.
Isn't going to disappear but it's absolutely going to fade into the background of day to day life.
If humanity's energy requirements without AI are x, and AI's requirements are an additional y, then AI is reponsible for the worst energy sources up to the value of y.
I live in a country that produces 70+% of its energy through nuclear reactors.
Sure we are definitely an exception but turning off datacenters where I live wouldn't change anything about coal.
To be clear I'm not advocating for nuclear energy nor am I saying it's a bad option.
Every country has a different energy mix, some more "carbon efficient" than others let's say but it is not only revolving about coal and renewables.
Anyway, I think it's fairly clear to me the datacenters won't shutdown anytime soon even without AI it's gonna be a major consumption of energy in any country. So I think nuclear should definitely at least considered as an option and to some extent be part of any energy mix. I think everyone knows that only renewables is not really a realistic scenario. Coal obviously is the worst option in any amount. So yeah, I was surprised that you didn't mention it that's it. I do think it's very much relevant to the topic of the ever increasing energy consumption we are all gonna face in the future. This post would probably not even exist if we shutdown datacenters but I suppose you meant it as shutting down only processing power toward AI. But still we will need more datacenters in the future no matter what.
Exactly, people don't seem to realise that higher demand for energy means higher demand for all sources of energy including fussil fuels.
If doesn't matter if this datacenter runs 100% on renewables if that means that the overall demand on the powergrid increases and now other clients that used to get (a higher percentage of) their power from renewable are getting it from coal, it's just a green washing shift blame technique.
There's one exception - when they are self-sufficient, or even net positive, with renewables. One example is the Google datacenter in Hamina, Finland. They build it in an old unused paper mill, built their own renewables (3/4ths of their required at this point), and they use the cooling loop for district heating for the city. That extra heat provides around 75% of the required heating, meaning the city could stop relying on their old natural gas heaters so now the district heating runs on renewables as well.
It's easy to be an energy neutral datacenter, simply pour enough money to building new renewables that wouldn't have been built without your contributions, and you don't tax the power grid.
I'll begrudgingly concede that this is a good point.
Part of me wants to say "just force these assholes to build renewables without the datacentres" but I know that's nonsensical.
I guess this is how carbon credit schemes are intended to work, but I'm aware that aside from a few specific cases carbon trading has just been a way to obfuscate carbon emissions.
I’m not into gold panning… though it’s not like all companies are using AI so much that it will transpire in their ESG. Now I now a couple that were so far very happily ignoring this source of carbon and, as far as I remember, it was not reported by the cloud providers either.
It's fucking insane how much is invested (both money and natural resources) in the emperor's new clothes. Let's scorch the planet because every idiot out there buys into the marketing and hype. We are utterly and truly doomed because of ourselves.
AI and the investment around it are literally the only thing holding up America’s economy right now. If you take the artificial growth and the vast amounts of investment that are being pumped in AI development data centers, the US economy has barely grown half percentage point.
No surprise that they are going to power this beast at all costs until it falls apart along with the US economy.
No surprise that they are going to power this beast at all costs
I mean, they could use their fascist power grab to drive through the infrastructure work to expand power transmission lines needed to support a modern economy, renewables, and yes more datacenters
Additional coal is just the easiest way since we already have century old power lines bringing that power where it’s needed
Yes, in this case, coal might be easiest, cheapest, fastest because we can continue to neglect infrastructure. It’ll fall apart on someone else’s administration
Typical. So basically, they’re gonna turn America into Texas. Their power grid is famously shitty and has been neglected for decades due to Republican control of the government. They are constantly kicking the can down the road for some other administration to deal with it.
Everyone time there’s even a slight dusting of snow anywhere in Texas the power grid shuts off and people freeze to death. But Texas refuses to fix the power grid and nationalize because it would mean investing and bringing their shitty substandard power grid up to modern standards.
Future generations will look back on the pre apocalypse population and call us sleep walkers. I know, as I'm one of them. Life is difficult enough already without jeopardising my freedom as the only way to change our course is violence at this point.
All of these problems are caused by a remarkably small network of people. I'm not even necessarily talking about the CEOs. It's the boards of directors. This is also the pool from which CEOs are drawn one and the pool to which CEOs return after their golden parachute. They function as a living repository of evil. A warehouse of criminals and nepo-babies. (Ex: Airbnb guy joined DOGE and is on teslas board. So first he destroys the housing market for a generation, and then destroys the government, and he is the person who directs Tesla.)
Like, the network is so small it could fit in one big room.
There's still time for a general strike. The country would be brought to its knees if suddenly deprived of profit and labor. That tactic , and had they not fallen for the trick of liberal reform, they would've had a successful revolution on their hands with virtually no bloodshed.
If you aren't in a union (or even if you are, it's worth dual-carding), please consider joining the IWW to unionize your workplace (bonus: you'll get higher wages, better benefits, and more time off if you succeed!) to strengthen a general strike if we manage to enact one.
And for our international friends, you should join one as well, as fascism is gaining momentum globally. If your country isn't listed below, just contact the IWW directly in the link above.
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If you are using the internet for anything with cloud storage, you are contributing to datacenter growth. And that includes nearly everyone using social media.
Yes but data center growth prior to AI was manageable. There isn't a grid on the planet (except maybe china?) which can support the growth of AI data centers.
These people have to plan energy needs on a 10-20 year life cycle, not 2. It's the 2 that's the problem.
I thought they were totally just using flare gas and renewables ;) 🙄
But my understanding for real is that ai data centers are just the same hardware as buttcoin but more of it and organized. The venture capitalists finally got what they wanted, blowing their wad on Nvidia.
China already has 200% the capacity relative to their demand. They've been growing solar fast enough to beat very high 8%+ electricity consumption growth last year, and can probably keep the pace.
Every company uses storage, and every growing company needs more.
You're comparing mountains to molehills. That's before you consider improvements in storage and compression relative to demands for space, or the degree to which our storage capacity "needs" are predicated on the voracious appetite of AI models and their unwanted output. Or, for that matter, the inefficient distribution of data and proliferation of spam data that predates it.
Here is a fact: an authoritarian non-democracy is doing a lot for securing the future of humanity, while the "leader of the free world" are vandalizing the climate and accelerating apocalyptic climate catastrophe.
In 2025, China is a net positive for the future of humanity, while the USA is a net negative.
If that makes you uncomfortable about what our political and economic systems in the West that brought us here, well, you know the meme: "facts don't care about your feelings".
If you, like me, care about the future of democracy, we have to do a LOT of digging.
If that makes you uncomfortable about what our political and economic systems in the West that brought us here, well, you know the meme: “facts don’t care about your feelings”.
It might be cold comfort, but none of these business models have the liquidity behind them to build out coal power at the levels they claim they'll need.
Nevermind that solar/wind would be cheaper. Or that the raw manpower to yield coal in quantity no longer exists. So much of these proposals are - at their heart - the same vaporware that promised waves of new nuclear construction and hydro-power and geothermal.
Bottom line is that GenAI's primary revenue comes from dumb VC and bad debt. They can't build, much less operate, any of this shit.
Our current system is going about how Marx predicted it would. The course correction that occurred after the Great Depression has been now completely reversed and we're back staring at its approaching collapse. I don't think we can escape that long term, and we'll lose democracy in the process, unless we start moving away from capitalism. We gotta attack private firm ownership. Otherwise we'll keep getting people accumulate enough capital to buy the rest of the system and steamroll the rest of us for profit.
capitalism was kind of never democratic i think, considering so much is basically dictated by the people who "own" it, which feels more like a dictatorship/ feudalism
Oh for sure. There's however a higher degree of democracy than feudalism, mostly stemming one way or another from the newly developed labour power under capitalism. Power that labour has slowly ceded over the last 50-70 years or so, but it can still regain when pressed. The system still contains this vulnerability (from the point of view of the capitalist) and it seems impossible to eradicate.
Fuck AI and these energy guzzling data centers. For decades we were told to conserve power and such and now all of those savings are being sucked up, and more, by these centers.
Yep. People are charged the marginal cost of power generation. Everyone pays the price of the most expensive source of electricity. The market is rigged.
The capitalist class loves the idea and rewards companies with investment money. They think it could be the ultimate tool to snuff out any power the working class still has; making many employees optional, total surveillance of the population, etc. I think it will be a long time until it can do many jobs, but the surveillance tech seems to be coming along pretty well (with "AI" cameras recording license plates and biometric identifiers being put up everywhere).
Wish my coworkers would get the memo. Constantly trying to shove AI videos in my face like "haha look at MLK Jr and Tupac as pro wrestling announcers haha"
As an artist I am deeply repulsed by AI. But other people around me? They love it for some reason.
How many of the AI companies that chose coal actually produce something worthwhile? Seems like the first the these nuScience fuckers should do with their digital overmind is create clean power.
People get distracted over the fate of the pure speculative frenzy could be an AI bubble, and the harm to the hapless speculators and banksters could have a minor impact on the rest of the economy.
Reality is far worse than an AI bubble. It is a US mission for a fossil fueled powered Skynet for Israel that is too big to fail. Bubble in AI investments becomes unlikely, but total destruction of rest of US economy/prosperity becomes assured when the "plebs able to eat in America bubble" bursts is a sacrifice that a fossil fueled powered Skynet for Israel is willing to make.
If Americans are still able to afford to eat, then China or Iran wins.
Marineland was a hellhole and I'm glad they're dying, but those whales are caught in a battle between people and there isn't a good way out.
Marineland doesn't have the money to continue to take care of them and the government has refused to help.
Marineland tried to offload them to a center in China, but that would mean they are almost certainly misused as an attraction again, so the government said they can't do that either.
Basically, these whales will either be euthanized, or live with increasingly neglectful care as Marineland continues to bleed money unless someone else with the capability of caring for captive whales is willing to take them.
Marineland should declare bankruptcy if they have legal obligations for animal care that they no longer have the funding to satisfy. Then the government can liquidate the (substantial) remaining assets and use that to find the animals a good home, instead of letting the company tell us what it decides it can and can't afford to do for the animals because they'd rather put that money in their own pockets and let the animals die.
But we never hold companies to such standards. We let them get away with literal murder when they later cry about how they had to, until we shrug it off as just "companies being companies".
I think we need better standards. Don't give them an inch. Hold them responsible. Hold their feet to the fucking fire. They bought these animals. They used them. They monetized them. They made their owners rich. Their (intentional) lack of planning for what to do when the animals were no longer profitable anymore should not be rewarded by letting them continue to pour the rest of their coins out of their piggy bank while the animals die.
Their (intentional) lack of planning for what to do when the animals were no longer profitable anymore should not be rewarded by letting them continue to pour the rest of their coins out of their piggy bank while the animals die.
They had a plan to ensure the animals had a home before the sale of the land was complete. It wasn't guaranteed utopia but it wasn't a guaranteed hellhole either.
When choosing between euthanasia and re-homing, the park chose life. Instead, now it's Whale Stew for weeks.
Vague corporate apologism and casual implications of edibility don't do anything to convince me Marineland did, or do, or ever will have any particular interest in finding better facilities for any of their animals.
I get that you don't see it this way, but from the perspective of the law they're just livestock.
I do very strongly agree that they never should have been allowed to be held captive, but that can't be undone.
I don't know anything at all about this company but I very much doubt that their assets are sufficient for them indefinitely. They may have assets but they almost certainly have debts. Caring for these whales would be a huge financial undertaking. Almost all the same costs the park has had while it's been entertaining guests.
I don't really have any solutions I'm sorry, I'm just opining that using the parks remaining assets to care for them isn't viable.
from the perspective of the law they’re just livestock.
Yeah that's a problem. That's why I make an effort to let people know how unacceptable the situation is. Because we need better laws. It is our government's responsibility to write better laws, and maybe if we continue highlighting and criticizing the issues being raised here, they will.
I don’t know anything at all about this company
Well there's your problem. I do. There's an awful lot of speculation in your post for someone who doesn't know anything at all about this company. They own a thousand acres of prime land in the tourist area of Niagara Falls, within sight of a world-renowned natural tourist attraction that is basically a license to print money and they've been operating on the backs of their animals for many profitable decades.
They have only recently started subdividing and mortgaging this incredible piece of land as they move towards the inevitable shutdown and sale. This is what I refer to as "letting them continue to pour the rest of their coins out of their piggy bank while the animals die". The original and former owner of Marineland, John Holer, was a real uniquely offensive piece of work and if you don't know anything about him you don't know anything about the context of this park. He only died less than a decade ago, and in the care of the family, the park's business has been (thankfully) winding down since then. One of the most important tricks businessmen love to use is to cry poor and talk about their debts. When they do that, you have to remember that their single largest and most important debt a business always has, is to their owners. This is a family owned business. It is usually the owner themselves crying about their "debt" but most of that debt is inevitably to themselves. What they really mean is that they want to squeeze out every last drop of "equity" they feel entitled to. They take on new debt specifically to do that, to keep the lights on and the doors open while they're hauling away bags of money. Then for a huge suitcase of cash, they sell the ownership forward to someone willing to dismantle things further and the cycle of looting accelerates.
Finally, when there is nothing left to take they tell us a sad story about how the business was not successful (ignoring the chain of owners who walked away with millions upon millions for their brief efforts) and maybe they'll grudgingly admit that one or more of those looting owners "mismanaged" some things, and they'll tell you that's why they simply won't be able to follow through on all their debts and obligations and responsibilities at this point. And they'll leave people they don't give a shit about holding the largest amounts of debt they are suddenly unable to repay. Sometimes it's some foolish lenders they were sneaky enough to con into funding the ends of their adventure who were told they had a healthy operating business that was going to be ongoing for years. More often, it is the employees who are intended to be left holding the bag. Suddenly "discovering" you are bankrupt allows you to avoid paying employees what they are owed in wages and severance and benefits and pensions, which can add up to many millions of dollars. But that's only the easiest option. The highest and most cherished possibility though, is to arrange the finances in such a way that it's the government who is left with the responsibility, so the cleanup is left to all the people of the regional tax base, or the provincial one, or if possible even the national one. That's the holy grail. Make society pay what the market won't so they can make sure they get every last cent they possibly can out of their business now that they don't want to do it anymore. Socialize the costs, privatize the profits.
Doing these things can be risky, if they do it wrong, they can get accused of fraud and even may end up in jail. Do you think that will stop them from trying to do it though, if they think they can cover their ass and have plausible deniability about what they've done and why they've done it? Shutting down a large and profitable business before it actually becomes unprofitable, by making it unprofitable, is an art form and is a process executed with calculated expertise. Don't let them convince you they haven't thought of or planned for this.
Successful businessmen are really great at pretending to be failing businessmen whenever it suits them, and it always suits them to do so when somebody wants money out of them. In the words of Bill Gates on the Simpsons, "You don't think I got rich by writing checks, do you?"
People have been protesting this company for decades. "The Walrus and the Whistleblower" is a great documentary on Marineland, following the story of a local activist who spent years in legal battles against Marineland. Nobody is going to stop fighting while there is still any opportunity to pursue justice for those animals.
It's too bad you feel like the battle is already lost, but I don't think that's any reason to stop fighting and surrender to something you know is wrong.
This was 30+ years ago, when I was a wee lad. There was a fair visiting my town and they gave goldfish to to children in a certain attraction. Literally a plastic bag with the goldfish.
Somebody for the city hall came and forbid them, because children can't take case of little fish (and, I guess, they were all living with no adults /s).
Short story, they just stopped feeding the fish and a few days later they just dumped them somewhere.
They created the cost with their actions. The government should take every penny of value down to the CEOS kids toys and then foot any costs not paid for.
animals born in capitivity often cant survive in the wild, and plus theres also potential inbreeding that they dont want to introduce into a wild population. they dont have the same survival skills as a wild cetecean. thats why there so many tigers in capitivity, they were inbred
Is that a problem to stop hand feeding them and just release a fish into the pool they live in? Basic hunting shouldn't be that difficult to learn especially in safety and when you're hungry.
Regardless of the potential risk, this option is the only one that gives them a chance of living a meaningful life when the other options are: - A zoo in china - Literal euthanasia
But it's not really a chance at life and cruel. Starving to death is not a nice way to go. And I can't believe people are suggesting it. As good as people feel about releasing the whales the survival rate is not good.
Euthanize means lethal injection. It's a common way to kill animals for various reasons (too sick, too violent...), obviously it's never voluntary on the part of the animal.
Is letting them go not an option here? How is it either they kill them or they send them to China? Like I realize that releasing captive animals isn't always ideal, but considering the alternative here.
i had this idea that a program can edit files in an encrypted environment. WinRaR with higher level of encryption would be the best way to describe it. but i was wonder if the files on a linux HDD or SDD are encrypted.
I do have this idea that you can save encrypted files to a cloud server and pull it out and unencrypted by a light weight program
Storing files encrypted and decrypting them on-demand is called "encryption at rest". Linux supports it but is not enabled by default. You can also encrypt /boot to get FDE (Full Disk Encryption) to ensure that the kernel or bootloader is not tampered with. Look into LUKS
This is not entirely correct. Many distributions do enable encryption by default. Also, encrypting the /boot partition does not guarantee the integrity of the boot sequence, you need to enable and correctly configure Secure Boot for that.
It takes the files that you want to store in the cloud and encrypts them into a bunch of individual files (like encrypted archives) and uploads them to the server. When you access the files it automatically pulls down the archives that contain the files that you want.
You just see a regular directory that's being synced with the cloud, but the cloud service provider only sees you uploading a bunch of encrypted files with nonsense filenames.
Cryptomator for Windows, macOS, and Linux: Secure client-side encryption for your cloud storage, ensuring privacy and control over your data. - cryptomator/cryptomator
La prova versio de la nova Plena Ilustrita Vortaro nun estas libere alirebla en la reto. Bertilo Wennergren okupiĝas pri la renovigo de la plej grava Esperanta vortaro preskaŭ plentempe ekde 2020. Ni petis lin rakonti, kiel la nova vortaro diferencas de la antaŭaj versioj, kaj kiam la prova versio iĝos definitiva.
Not necessarily. It would provide an attack vectore for sure, that being the data connection between profiles, but if it is implemented in a controllable manner (See qubes os), it's fine. The only issue I see with GrapheneOS in this scenario is: There is no uncompromised host for verification, so I don't really know myself how something safe could be implemented, however I would also think devs don't really want to, since there are ways which OP has already described some of.
Sorry, my point was when you have control over what gets shared and you basically decide the files yourself, you can also control what kind of data gets shared, so theres not just a straight up hole.
Not specific to grapheneos, and also battery friendly on LOS is localsend, and on gnu+linux I use instead localsend-go since it offers a CLI (what I use) and a rudimentary TUI which is missing some functionality but good enough (I prefer using it as CLI). But localsend also includes a windows app BTW. On gnu+linux some prefer kdeconnect, but I find it more battery intensive than localsend on the phone, and the extra functionality is not what I expected, like I originally guessed I could write sms from a gnu+linux box, or read past one, and that's not what sms control means.
Don't these alternatives work on grapheneos for some reason?
crandlecan
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •A_norny_mousse
in reply to crandlecan • • •Not the adjective I would choose. He has good reason to be fearful - both personally and for his country, which makes it personal again. That has nothing to do with intelligence, it's a lizard brain thing.
It also isn't like he had a wise premonition here; many convicts already returned and they are already "destabilising society".
like this
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48954246
in reply to A_norny_mousse • • •ViatorOmnium
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •like this
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SatansMaggotyCumFart
in reply to ViatorOmnium • • •ripcord
in reply to SatansMaggotyCumFart • • •A_norny_mousse
in reply to ViatorOmnium • • •Pre war or post war? Probably both.
Jaysyn
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •ɯᴉuoʇuɐ
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •jagermo
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •A_norny_mousse
in reply to jagermo • • •FaceDeer
in reply to A_norny_mousse • • •At least Ukraine can show that some positives have come out of the war for them, too. Their bonds with Europe have strengthened, their national identity has been forged in fire. I'm not saying it wouldn't have been awesome if the war had never happened, or that it was a net benefit, but at least they are coming out of this with some real tangible benefits in addition to the tragic losses.
Russia gets nothing and loses everything.
hunnybubny
in reply to FaceDeer • • •Ukraine is a strong runner up for hating russia. Poles can almost see them over the horizon behind them.
Stamau123
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •like this
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Steve
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •like this
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massive_bereavement
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •like this
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A_norny_mousse
in reply to massive_bereavement • • •like this
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massive_bereavement
in reply to A_norny_mousse • • •A_norny_mousse
in reply to massive_bereavement • • •like this
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IndustryStandard
in reply to A_norny_mousse • • •rustyfish
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •Russia about to perform the miracle of becoming an even shittier place.
Klear
in reply to rustyfish • • •peopleproblems
in reply to Klear • • •It's like their thing.
It's actually kind of mind boggling. Lenin knew this was a thing and took all sorts of steps to correct it, but his mistake was demanding it to improve by force. "We're making your lives better now, or else."
I mean, shit, a big ass group of armed dudes on horses show up in my cold ass disconnected village and they say we need to do x, y, and z to improve our lives or else? Yeah that's sus.
whiwake
in reply to peopleproblems • • •It’s almost like all authoritarian government is actually a bad thing
Looking at you, China, USA
blindbunny
in reply to whiwake • • •chaogomu
in reply to blindbunny • • •Not really. Actual democracies have incentives to make things better for the majority of people. And the easiest way to do that is to break up monopolies (especially in media), tax the rich, and then invest heavily in education.
Coincidentally, the way to kill a democracy is to do the exact opposite.
blindbunny
in reply to chaogomu • • •Show me a state that has done any of this to great sucess? Even democracies don't seem to have much stay past two hundred and fifty years.
A state always ends as authoritarian tool used against the people it persecutes the most. Very snow ball effect like.
MrFinnbean
in reply to blindbunny • • •blindbunny
in reply to MrFinnbean • • •confederacy of northeast Native American people
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)MrFinnbean
in reply to blindbunny • • •So your example is coalation of 50 tripes with council who decites major decitions? Wow. That really sound ground breaking and unique way to govern people.
Didint their end beging when they could not agree how to respond to British Crown request of aid during the American Revolution?
blindbunny
in reply to MrFinnbean • • •MrFinnbean
in reply to blindbunny • • •blindbunny
in reply to MrFinnbean • • •MrFinnbean
in reply to blindbunny • • •No. I asked you to prove your point and like i tought you just wanted to bash common modern ways of ruling without offering any concrete alternative.
The only example you produced was failed coalation of tribes, that was not unique in the eyes of history or especially well functioning alternative to modern goverments.
You just earlier argued that in any state where somebody has power they will use it wrong. How their system was immune to that?
arrow74
in reply to blindbunny • • •Per your source. Also important to note that those that were allowed to sit on the "grand council" were determined through hereditary succession. So if this government had power it would be essentially a confederacy ruled by nobles.
I won't disagree that a nice decentralized democratic society would be pretty awesome, but it's also a lot harder to do with 7 billion people.
In your example each clan would have been no larger than a small town. Less than 1,000 people. Of course, there were towns that used to exist in the Americas that were much larger, but for many we don't know how those were governed. Particularly those in North America. By thr time Europeans began asking the large cities had collapsed due to disease
SpaceCowboy
in reply to blindbunny • • •peopleproblems
in reply to whiwake • • •lepinkainen
in reply to Klear • • •Habahnow
in reply to lepinkainen • • •altkey (he\him)
in reply to rustyfish • • •MeThisGuy
in reply to altkey (he\him) • • •altkey (he\him)
in reply to MeThisGuy • • •Waraugh
in reply to rustyfish • • •bstix
in reply to Waraugh • • •That's the background for the story: Russia sent their convicts to war in trade of a "get out of jail"-card.
The guy was in jail for killing his wife. He took the deal and was sent to war. He got shot, got sent home as a free man, and immediately started killing people again.
It's not a single case. It's likely that convicts are taking the deal, not just to get out of jail, but also so they can go back and get revenge over those that put them in jail in the first place.
blindbunny
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •Eheran
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •HereIAm
in reply to Eheran • • •Eheran
in reply to HereIAm • • •DSN9
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •kat_angstrom
in reply to DSN9 • • •DSN9
in reply to kat_angstrom • • •Broskys about to stroke out from the stress. His own body will kill him if not someone else. When you're responsible for a cumulative 1.5-2.5 million deaths, you're not a person people are sad to let go.
Economy tanking, losing the battle, 1.5 million dead Russians, he's not the mafia-fluencer he was in his youth. Lavrov is a fat slob, dude can't even stop his own drooling.
Modern warfare is entirely non beneficial to huge land masses. Try playing air defense swap-a-roo when the next missile or drone is 1k km away.
Also if Europe decides to ram his ass, they will, that will be his excuse to wind down the war, but to get to that tipping point, is so stress inducing, no amount of drugs will help. The drugs induce a spiral.
kat_angstrom
in reply to DSN9 • • •DSN9
in reply to kat_angstrom • • •Europe's producing more rounds and providing more artillery than Murica. When the Yanks provide some old junk they appraise it at 50X the value then bemoan doing god's work while leaking Intel.
Europe and Ukraine are flexing. They've decimated Russia's military without any European boots on the ground (although they should be in the fight imo, it devalues Ukrainians to let them be the only one taking casualties for defending Europe). Then again, in 20 years, Ukraine will be telling Europe where and how to manage their militaries.
Ukraine was the powerhouse for arms manufacturing during the Soviet Era and they're quickly retaking this position.
SulaymanF
in reply to DSN9 • • •DSN9
in reply to SulaymanF • • •Ilovethebomb
in reply to DSN9 • • •UnderpantsWeevil
in reply to DSN9 • • •period of time to an event that never arrives
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)NotMyOldRedditName
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •I thought the point was to get them killed as fodder before they could return home.
They maybe get a few Ukrainian kills in, and no longer have to pay to incarcerate a person.
They can't even get that right?
IndustryStandard
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •UnfortunateShort
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •TomArrr
in reply to UnfortunateShort • • •UnderpantsWeevil
in reply to UnfortunateShort • • •It's been a joke for years now that if Ukrainian kill counts were accurate, they'd have decimated the entire Russian army multiple times by now. Russian media has made similar claims of Ukrainian armed forces.
Both national media are doing the Vietnam Kill Count rhetoric to say they're winning a fully Pyrrich War.
UnfortunateShort
in reply to UnderpantsWeevil • • •DSN9
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •The cost of war:
10X-15X the battlefield deaths occur after the war is over. When the well cared for soldiers come home in a proper mental state. 10 times! Sustainable?
UnderpantsWeevil
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •A Surplus of Men, A Deficit of Peace: Security and Sex Ratios in Asia's Largest States
Andrea Den Boer (The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs)OsrsNeedsF2P
in reply to UnderpantsWeevil • • •Avid Amoeba
in reply to UnderpantsWeevil • • •This was written in 2002. Seems like the pretictive power of the theory isn't too strong.
Basic Glitch
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •lechekaflan
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •The only thing that he's actually good at is having powerful propaganda machinery that would have left Brezhnev deeply envious of.
Otherwise and outwardly, he looks unfazed at some military setbacks, but he still have legions of Black Hundred fanatics having bought the concept of Russia as the center of the world.
runiq
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •Destide
in reply to Severus_Snape • • •