Lizzardspawn
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User ID: 594
Lizzardspawn
1mo ago
Xi's reluctance to facilitate greater consumer spending on goods like healthcare in China is not a good sign for China in this regard
Healthcare is unsolved problem in all of the world right now. I don't think that there exist a system in the world that is affordable, immune to brain drain, sustainable and high quality. So there doesn't seem to be obviously wrong policies there. His management of real estate and banking sector is probably more worrying.
Lizzardspawn
1mo ago
No they won't. Choose the decline of different empire. You may be right that Kamala Harris presidency may be the beginning of the end of US, but it is not because she was chosen as a nominee by the democratic politburo.
I don't think that you fundamentally understand the challenges in front of the Eastern bloc and USSR. If the Soviet Union had figured out how to make a washing machine, color tv and a car as cheap, affordable and abundant as the west, we would have been communist. (But we did make damn fine hand mixer - nothing the world has ever produced can compare to the RG28 - this thing is immortal and the best piece of consumer good in its class ever created). Because that was people wanted - the standard of living the western Germans had - nothing more nothing less. Because communist didn't allow failure of state enterprise there was no feedback to push them to be better. And because all enterprise were state there was no innovation at all. So the soviet union fell behind technologically (not scientifically, we just couldn't convert science into consumer technology). And with this technology fail came diplomatic isolation.
The US have strong economy and it's biggest potential problem - the debt is not really a problem. They can just refuse to pay. Here is prediction what will happen - one party will cut SS, medicaid and medicare, the other will come to power from the backlash and fiddle their thumbs to do nothing because the math will still not work. Or they may start putting printed money into the programs and cause inflation that will dwindle the external debt away. In 10 years people will grudgingly accept it.
The other problem is that if Xi doesn't wreck china's economy (on the fence, but probably will, he has some soviet vibes) he offers a very alluring model for the authoritarians - democracy is optional as long as you make sure that people can buy a car, washing machine and color tv. And top it with AI powered surveillance state. A carrot and stick - forever. I think that O'Brien would find it amusing how this strain of Angsoc works. Which will lead to waning US influence - or turn US towards authoritarianism - it is not as if the culture war has not eroded people's beliefs in the democratic system. Everyone wants to be on top and impose their values on the others right now.
Lizzardspawn
1mo ago
The grandchildren of the people given amnesty are already out there voting.
The majority of children and 100% of the grandchildren were always going to be citizens.
Lizzardspawn
1mo ago
Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. Due to the almighty youtube algorithm I have watched somewhat more astronomy videos than usual.
Tabby's Star - 1,470 light years from the sun, dimming from time to time. Have some decent explanations involving exomoons and some indecent involving alien dyson sphere.
Przybylski's Star - 356 light years away from us, very unusual composition. It is full of short half life elements - so either something produces them or something put insane quantities of them there. Or it is aliens dumping ground.
Methuselah star - 200 light years away from us, at a time thought to be older than the universe, but now is revised down, still one of the oldest stars found. Probably not that noteworthy because due to the exponential change in main sequence life with linear change of the mass.
The sun - 8 light minutes aways from us. Notable with being the only place we know that has life (my opinion whether the life is intelligent or not depends if I have visited twitter yet or not any given day). And Venus - I think it is the most interesting place in the solar system right now after earth.
So do you think that our neighborhood is somewhat unusual, or there are huge gaps in our knowledge?
Any other interesting thing in the space close to us?
Lizzardspawn
1mo ago
My experience with 12 gauge shotgun shells - probably not, but don't do experiments on the topic, unless it is remotely operated and you are behind bullet proof glass.
Munitions are generally designed to be able to withstand some rough handling and you have to have some stars aligned to explode - hitting it hard enough, having irregularities in the surface to damage the primer, but stars do align and people win the lottery.
Keep in mind that exploding shell in your palm means 3 fingers torn off or maimed (depends what fraction of the gun power decides to explode vs burn, smokeless gunpowder is quite slow) one of them the opposing thumb. So unless you are big game of thrones and really really want the Littlefinger nickname or Darwin Award - don't.
Lizzardspawn
1mo ago
Does every virtuous cycle turns automatically into vicious when conditions reverse? I was thinking that a lot of our society is based on the assumptions of ever growing virtuous cycle - more growth -> higher salaries -> higher consumptions -> more growth for example, that make the whole thing quite fragile when the music slows down or stop.
Lizzardspawn
1mo ago
Not if the oven has pyrolytic cleaning. It requires some tinkering with thermostats though.
Lizzardspawn
1mo ago
https://x.com/TheDailyShow/status/1839636694376583296
A rare funny daily show segment
Lizzardspawn
1mo ago
Unfortunately for the nerds out there - no it is not.
Lizzardspawn
1mo ago
Why?
Lizzardspawn
1mo ago
This is why for lower level crimes I support public flogging. I think you get probably more disincentive without the deleterious impact of jail.
We as society will eventually admit that Heinlein was right for everything in Starship troopers. Unfortunately misunderstanding the book and decrying it as fascism is prerequisite of one's ascension to the IYI class.
Lizzardspawn
1mo ago
And it wastes an entire human being
It's not as if we are running out of them. They are renewable resourse.
They're the same, terrible, revenge-driven idiots as the pro-death-penalty people
Revenge is a nice meal, when restoration is impossible.
The resources spending raising a child are not that much. And are sunk anyway. The whole theater of appeals and waiting is expensive. It should be more expeditive. And cut the exotic execution methods. Bullet to the back of the head is fast, efficient, and cheap.
Lizzardspawn
1mo ago
safely and temporarily reduce or eliminate male libido
Masturbation
Lizzardspawn
1mo ago
Also, I don't think getting the citizenship after five years (subject to other conditions, such as being in the country legally and passing a language and civic knowledge test) is totally unreasonable.
There shouldn't be a way to obtain citizenship in etnostate other than blood. I don't see any benefit for the state and the citizens from it being otherwise. It works well in the gulf. And the people there aren't even refugees - and refugees will be ready for worse bargain.
Lizzardspawn
1mo ago
My line of thought was that is mostly a tragedy. It is just 400 pages of the elves getting their asses handed to them (not entirely without their own cooperation in that)
Lizzardspawn
1mo ago
Do you think that Silmarillion will ever be put to screen? It is just too depressing with few bright spots.
Lizzardspawn
1mo ago
- What shall we do about RFK affair with 30 years old?
- We shall envy him.
Lizzardspawn
1mo ago
Why do people find mental retardation repulsive?
Because it is subset of illnesses in general. People generally speaking dislike ill people.
Lizzardspawn
2mo ago
Catholic church online presence in the form of social network is pretty modest.
Lizzardspawn
2mo ago
I assume that it require a lot of stars to align together in a bad way. There no way to receive the signal while at cruising height. 20 grams of petn is not that much - I doubt it could cause decompression even on a window seat. Let alone serious structural damage. Also it is explosive - there doesn't seems to be reports about it bringing fire. I think that there may be one critical moment if this happened in just the right time during takeoff, in just the right seat. And they may have just excluded the airport cell from firing the command.
Lizzardspawn
2mo ago
Stolen from Twitter
Lizzardspawn
2mo ago
Do you think that Grim Beeper (the attack on Hezbollah pagers) puts us in uncharted waters - war crimes law wise. Usually the assumption is that the location attacked is well defined whereas who is inside is fuzzier. Here we have the opposite - who is attacked is extremely precisely defined, but when they pressed the make go boom button they had no idea where the booms would be.
Lizzardspawn
2mo ago
The only solution is congress to declare that all kind of communities above in which above x% of US citizens participates are public foras with some congress mandated minimum and maximum user rights in relation to 1A. Internet gravitates to winner takes all - it is so far impossible to prevent it, so we should to protect the ability of the people to participate.
Lizzardspawn
2mo ago
Right now I am using some blue clicky mechanical chinesium made keyboard. It cost 15 euro. Not the best I have had but get's the job done. Trying to figure out how to obtain unicomp. I love buckle springs.
I just love that style of self flagellation before getting to the point. What is the point of repeating the laundry list of Trump, GOP etc complains as a preface?
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