People have talked about this before, but it really does seem like people have forgotten how bad some of these diseases could get and how much vaccines helped us. In 1991 plenty of folk remembered polio, maybe even had a relative who got it. Good number remembered smallpox and/or got that shot themselves. But now less and less people really understand both the scale of devastation those diseases caused and the scale of how many were helped and saved by vaccines.

I find it very promising. As much as I love meat, its pretty undeniable that raising livestock is super inefficient. It takes so much food to raise livestock that, iirc, more farmland in the US is dedicated to growing food for our food than to growing food for us. Lab grown meat doesn’t completely solve this - there are still lost calories in the process to my knowledge - but its way more efficnient. Plus less land usage, less fossil fuel emissions, overall it would be more sustainable.

I see 2 big problems facing it right now:

The first is scale, which is the more significant. We’d need to figure out how to grow meat on a truly massive scale. Definitely doable though, just needs more research.

The second is “realism” or how close it seems to natural meat. Lab grown meat has the advantage over like plant based stuff because it is actually meat. However, ifnits too perfect or uniform, or maybe doesnr have enough fat or variety, it might be seen as unnatural by many (even just subconsciously) and push them away from it.

But yeah, could be awesome.

The middle class still works to make a living. So they are part of the working class.

Yeah this is the thing that makes me really disagree with the whole “landlords are necessarily bad” thing. A lot of them are, to be sure, and there is so much wrong with our housing market, but there should still be a place for those who wish to rent to rent. I mean just speaking for myself right now, I would not want to own a home right now, even if it was affordable. I’d like to some day but where I am at life right now I would rather rent.

his concerns about technology’s potential to enable authoritarian control.

I don’t even know what to say at this point

Or are they so desperate to shoot someone that they just wanna blast some kid and say they feared for their lives?

It is exactly this. These are deeply violent people who are actively seeking any reason to hide behind the excuse of self defense.

Ok, the openAI thing is not great. However…

they advertise themselves as degoogled, but instead let you connect to Google/Microsoft/etc services

What the fuck are you talking about? Degoogled doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be allowed to connect to Google services. It just mean that it doesn’t require Google services to function and that the default configuration shouldn’t include any Google services. If the end user actively wants to use google/microsoft/etc services then they should be able to. It seems as though you are advocating for an open source operating system to lock itself down from allowing the end user to use certain features, which is against the FOSS ethos. Remember, “free” as in “freedom.”

Huh? In the 2024 colorado election there was a ballot measure to retain excess tax from sports betting and it overwhelmingly passed. Year before there was a similar one for excess tax on tobacco, also passed by a ton. Are you referring to something different?

It peaks in yellow/green, but its not a ton more yellow than the rest of the visible spectrum so its still very white, the yellow appearance from earth’s surface is still more due to atmospheric filtering than the actual spectrum its emitting.

In theory thats all well and good, but in practice there is no state which I would trust to decide who does and doesn’t get free speech. If the bourgeosie don’t get free speech, then the state can silence anyone they disagree with by labeling them as part of the bourgeoisie. And while I certainly wish we could just take freedom of speech from nazis - because they absolutely do not deserve it, you’re right about that - in that case the state can silence anyone by labeling them a nazi. Which kinda is happening right now because some will try to silence people who are pro-palestinian by labeling them as anti-semetic and then comparing them to nazis. You also see that with people being labeled as terrorists, or gang affiliated, for example. (Same argument applies to due process, and to a greater extent, but thats not super relevant)

That too, honestly thats the more significant reason. Shaper knives give cleaner cuts which heal easier was the point i was making, but yeah the bigger reason is that you have much better control with a sharp knife and need way less force.

Lot of the DNC is too stupid to realize that. They see missing votes from demographics that normally would and assume it means that theyre too left and need to appeal more to centrists.

one of the reasons why sharp knives are safer than dull knives generally

though that wisdom is more applicable to cooking

I’m not familiar, but it does look useful. Seems to combine the best of both png and jpg, with the power of jpg’s compression with the option of lossless compression + support for transparency or whatever else you might want to have a channel for

Webp is honestly a really good format for what its made to do. That being said, windows support for it is lacking for some reason. I don’t know why as it’s been common for a long time now.

Also, you can always use ffmpeg to convert to png or jpg or whatever you want. Simple file conversions like that are super easy.

I know it’s not static, thats why I said I would support reunification if the people of Taiwan did. You, however, are refusing to acknowledge your own biases and hypocrisy on this matter.

If those complexities were significant enough, then the people of Taiwan would support reunification. Like you said yourself earlier, these people aren’t stupid. If it was best for them to be a part of the PRC they would support that, but they overwhelmingly wouldn’t. And, to be clear, this is not even close. Your own source said it was less than 8% of the population wanted reunification. That’s one of the most overwhelmingly unpopular opinions I’ve ever seen in politics.

This conversation started with you arguing that the PRC was so great because the people of the PRC believed it to be. That the PRC should be the way it is because thats what the people want. And now here we are, talking about a people who overwhelmingly think they should not be a part of the PRC, and now suddenly “what the people want” isn’t valid anymore? Why was that valid when it was in favor of the PRC but is invalid when it isn’t? Maybe you’re right that I have a bias and preconceived notions, but you clearly do too.

As I said, if the opinion of the people of Taiwan change to be in favor of reunification then I will also support it, regardless of what western influences want. I understand the situation is complex but consent and self-determination are not.

Again, my stance on Taiwan is simple: because the people of Taiwan do not wish to be part of the PRC, I do not believe they should be. Do you disagree with me?

I couldn’t care less about what the US government has to say on the matter. As I feel I’ve made abundantly clear, I do not believe Taiwan should be a part of the PRC because the people of Taiwan do not wish to be a part of the PRC. Any other factors are fairly insignificant compared to that. Even your pro-PRC article clearly states the statistics - that reunification is extremely unpopular to the people of Taiwan - so I really doubt that is western propaganda or the US narrative.

Well, as I said, if the people of Taiwan are ever willing to unify with the PRC then I will support it. But they don’t, they never have, and I see no reason to believe they ever will soon. China’s insistence that Taiwan is currently and always has been a part of China does not seem to me like waiting for consent of the people.