functor
23d ago
The difference being Israels exceptional brutality, their politicians using references to biblical genocides and the high civilian death toll.
functor
24d ago
A private system could work as well. Holland, Switzerland and Japan also have private systems. The difference is that their prices aren't abhorrent. Regardless of who pays the US medical system has a cost problem. This problem will not get solved because the vested interests want delivering a baby to cost 40000 dollars.
functor
1mo ago
Most likely Elon came in with incredible energy and his typical spirit of wanting radical change in a pace that leads to cities on mars with autonomous cars and humanoid robots in 10 years. He then comes into government and has to act with mainstream republicans that are tugging on Trump in the opposite direction.
functor
1mo ago
The perception of Israel across the world has been in steady decline for the past 1.5 years. More Israeli warmongering and bombing just makes people dislike them more.
functor
1mo ago
Could AI be the next big thing without impacting the economy and labour market?
Computers revolutionized the construction industry. CAD software makes it far easier to draw buildings and share the drawings. Phones makes communications vastly easier. Instead of a worker getting stuck or having to physically find someone they can make a video call. Manuals and documents are freely available online. Online shopping makes order parts cheaper and easier while allowing builders to press prices. Accounting, scheduling, recruiting sales and other supporting activities are easier with computers. Even on the construction site computers control machines. A modern truck is full of software.
Yet the productivity in the construction industry has flat lined and is if anything declining. Land prices can take some blame but renovating a building has not become cheaper.
Could we see similar effects with AI? A company in 2035 has completely automated customer service, AI drafts contracts, does sales and codes. We may have self driving cars and humanoid robots. Yet we might see barely 2% GDP growth and no real boom in productivity. Why has the tech sector revolutionized work without dramatical increases in productivity and can the results be better in the coming 20 years?
functor
2mo ago
Is it so much crippling fear and social anxiety as much as it is not socially acceptable? It isn't anxiety that prevents people from eating pasta with their hands in a restaurant as much as it is simply not how it is done and people would think you had an episode if you did. Most people wouldn't even consider the option of enjoying a carbonara with their hands a restaurant because that is not how it is done.
Social etiquette has been changed to the point where hitting on women isn't socially acceptable. So people don't do it. Just like people don't wear bathrobes at work or listen to music without headphones in an airport.
Very likely these men aren't standing there trembling with fear, they are simply not even considering the option of wandering way outside the realm of the socially acceptable. They are sticking with convention and the standards of behaviour their society set.
Online dating is popular because it is the socially acceptable way of interacting with the opposite sex. Mutually matching on an app is the HR approved way of initializing an interaction with both parties consenting by swiping right on each other.
functor
10d ago
Have you really missed naval remote-controlled boats that resulted in Russia losing naval war to navy that has no active traditional surface vessels?
The Starlink ones developed by the US for the defence of Taiwan that are sent to targets located by US surveillance? The Ukrainian naval projects also have a strong British component.
Ukraine's main arms production is assembling Chinese drone components. This is mainly a cottage industry of building parts made to fit together into a small plastic drone. That is fairly far from large scale industry.
functor
1mo ago
Virtues are dead so there is no point in up holding them. In Rome during Caesar's time the system was broken and people knew it. The same is true in modern day America.
When the system is broken and dysfunctional you need someone who doesn't care about the rules but instead can fix things. Trump and Caesar are both less focused on formalities and more focused and doing. The current system consists of people like the people in Versailles who were more concerned with trivialities at dinner parties than the national budget.
Trump's biggest issue is that he is far older than Caesar was when Caesar was in power and the US has far more institutional inertia than Rome had. Trump can't get nearly as much done even if he blatantly disregards the rules.
functor
1mo ago
The desire for another Iraq war fiasco is extremely low. More war mongering in the middle east, more refugees to Europe, surging oil prices and another forever war was not what Trump campaigned on for a reason. All these wars have been disasters and there is no reason to think the next war won't be as bad as Libya, Iraq, Syria or Yemen.
It is unpopular now and it will be as unpopular as Iraq war 2.0 was once this fiasco has ended.
functor
27d ago
It is the ISIS ideology of building a caliphate and invoking the return of Jesus. The idea of commanding god and ordering Jesus back to Earth is an antithesis to what pretty much 99% of Christians throughout history have believed. It is a big part of the rift between Al Qaeda and ISIS in which Al Qaeda considered ISIS to be completely out of control.
functor
14d ago
Israel killed as many civilians in two months as Russians killed in 3.5 years of fighting against a far more competent opponent.
functor
3mo ago
That is because it doesn't resonate with you. The story does resonate for young, attractive women. Young attractive women face a lot of bitterness and resentment from older, less attractive women. The story is effectively a warning to young women and a lesson for them. If you are being backstabbed by other women, withdraw from social games and wait until you snag a high quality man.
It also teaches be humble, be kind to those around you etc even if you are an attractive women. Don't let that attractiveness turn you into a monster.
functor
1mo ago
As a startup founder LLMs are enormously useful but not primarily for coding.
LLMs are great for issues such as: "which AWS service to use", how to make pitch deck, which type of adds should I buy, how do I configure a firewall for my server, how to find a good accountant, how to file taxes, gitlab or github and so on.
I don't have a large team of experts, I don't have a lot of time and I have a multitude of different roles. I am CFO, CTO, CEO, dev ops engineer, lawyer, and HR. AI allows me to be somewhat competent at all these tasks and allows me to solve them quickly. The new paid version of ChatGPT is great at quickly producing mock ups and even suggestions for features and user stories.
LLMs are going to allow far more people to start a company and to be able to launch things. Need a NDA and LLMs will make a professional looking PDFs in a minute or two.
functor
1mo ago
Israel bombed an embassy a few months ago and has a long history of fighting dirty. They shouldn't be surprised that they get the same treatment back. The expectation can't be that they can finance terrorism, assassinate people, and bomb embassies and then not get the same back.
functor
1mo ago
The US and Israel no longer want to do nation building and building friendly regimes. They are going for destruction. The new model is turning countries into Libya or Syria. Wrecked countries controlled by various competing militias. A disaster for the country, an eradication of the local Christians and a refugee crisis or Europe.
functor
1mo ago
Who claimed they were pragmatic? They have an ideology that is completely opposed to the western view of war and ruthlessly commit war crimes.
functor
1mo ago
The fact of the matter is Israels interest is a destablized middle east with weak neighbors. This has caused the to get in conflict with everyone around them and flooded Europe with migrants. It is a problematic country founded on an insane religious doctrine that is heretical to christianity and that is nothing but a headache to us. There is no reason to support them what so ever.
functor
16d ago
Mainstream leftism is just more power to the elites.
Populist leftism isn't. Opposition to the military industrial complex and the surveillance state would increase our freedom.
functor
1mo ago
Not a volunteer firefighter but served a decade in an army reserve unit in a European country.
First off the quality of these types of organizations vary massively depending on the volunteers they get. Volunteering and being active can make a major difference, and that does motivate a lot of people.
Excitement is a motivator. Regular life is boring and many strive for something a bit beyond it. You get interesting experiences, great training, action and some great stories.
It is a way of finding a group of guys on a mission. Usually the quality of men is reasonably high, and the team spirit is good.
Compared to other hobbies it is still financially lucrative. Boating, motorcycles or mountaineering are far worse financial decisions than serving in a volunteer organization yet you still get cool toys. Arguably cooler toys than most hobbyists.
For some there is social prestige, for some they want to show that they are tough and manly and not just weak office workers. Some want to escape their regular lives, others want to break the monotony of 9-5 office work.
functor
1mo ago
As others have stated the bad behavior by ill behaving cyclists is just so so bad.
Funny how this mainly seems to be the case in cities that are extremely poorly designed for bicycles.
Brainless degenerates seem to be a minority of people behind the wheel of a car,
I see speeding cars and wrongly parked cars all the time.
functor
1mo ago
Mass third world immigration. When the US invaded Iraq and opened the flood gates to Europe with migrants Iran helped the Iraqis defend themselves. Iran played a key roll in defeating ISIS. These two wars have been immensely helpful for Europe.
functor
10d ago
Not unlikely. People are going to be more focused on looks if they are choosing a partner for themselves rather than trying to find a partner for someone else.
functor
23d ago
So these Hamas rockets that have barely been able to kill anyone leveled an entire hospital during Israeli bombing. Seems like something AIPAC cooked up.
As for October 7 Israel was engaging in military operations against Gaza, they had murdered hundreds of civilians and taken thousands of hostages.
There war a roughly 50% civilian death rate on the Israeli side. Is 1 civilian death for every military death acceptable or not? Why isn't it terror when Israel kills more than one civilian for each military casualty?
functor
4mo ago
In Sweden we had a mass shooting where a man was kicked off welfare and then decided to kill 10 people at a welfare office before finishing himself. He screamed "not everyone should work" before letting off a few rounds. His energy seems to reflect the European attitude on paying for a military.
Currently the attitude in Sweden is beyond bizarre. John Bolton would be considered a tankie right now. Their, is just fanatical worship of the US military industrial complex combined view of any being in opposition to the US as a fundamentally evil. I have never before seen people justifying the invasion of Iraq and Vietnam at the scale happening now. The average Swede has been turned into a Dick Cheney, except they only see the world as good vs evil.
At the same time as they want complete and utter American domination of every corner of the world they are shitting all over Americans and talking about boycotts. To make matters worse, most people can't give any legitimacy to any other view point. There are true believers in the neo con project, people who are fundamentally evil and those who are brainwashed by Russians.
They have effectively beaten NATO in a conventional land war. They are fighting an enemy in which every operation is run by NATO, the equptment is NATO, thousands of NATO mercs are running things on the ground.
While Israel and the US can't take an area the size of a municipality in Gaza against enemies with no resources Russia took the area the size of Denmark in a week against an enemy with 3x larger force.
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