This is a case where you have to be careful about cause-effect order. I assume that Tiwanese people that are heavily opposed to China are more likely to avoid tiktok. But of course, it’s been shown that tiktok tends to show more pro-China “content” as well, and likely influences the opinions of its users.
To be fair, this was originally the point of plastic. The primary point of plastic today is that it is an extremely cheap material that you can mould into pretty much any shape.
Need a bag to carry stuff? Plastic.
Packaging for toothpicks? Plastic.
Spacers inside an electric circuit? Plastic.
Packaging for clothes? Plastic.
Fake plant? Plastic.
Part of the problem is that we’re using a wonder-material that lasts forever (plastic) for a bunch of mundane shit where we don’t need it, because that wonder-material turns out to be the cheapest material around as well.
If you read the article, you’ll find that they claim it’s broken down into something which is processed by naturally occurring bacteria. I would have preferred that they linked to an actual research article for details, but this is explicitly not one of these “degradable” plastics that just dissolves into microplastic.
Without checking out the details, I can say with fairly high confidence that a material that will be degraded by a sodium chloride solution will most likely also be degraded by other electrolytes as well.
However, the electrolyte-concentration in drinks is much, much lower than that in seawater. And if it can’t be used for electrolyte-containing drinks, it could be used for water bottles.
Maybe we could use this stuff for umbrellas too? My major concern is what this new material is broken down into.
I’m unable to fathom how someone is able to harm or kill their children or family. I literally cannot comprehend how someone has that in them.
That’s not the point though. The point is that this isn’t a one-off occurrence. It’s terrifying how often people end up murdering their spouse and/or children, it happens somewhere in the world every day, and has been documented to happen throughout history. Thus, it’s clear that even though most of us can’t even comprehend how anyone could do something like this, it’s reductionist to write it off as “inhuman”. It’s very clear that a terrifying amount of people have it in them to do something like this under the correct circumstances. Most of those people probably couldn’t even imagine how anyone could commit a crime like this before they themselves do it.
It’s sickening, and it’s evil, but it’s very clearly a human behaviour. I still have an urge to call it “inhuman” because the behaviour is so unimaginable to me, as it is for most people.
And the glory of the interwebz is that those 5000 people are bound to find each other and start a movement around it, where just 25 years ago they would have been laughed out of the local pub as a raving idiot…
Oh, they’re absolutely selling weapons to war criminals that use them to commit crimes, I 100 % agree.
Just wanted to clarify that “persuing fleeing targets” isn’t a war crime, it’s the targeting of civilians itself that is. Your statement,
It’s unreal that they can just say “We design war crimes”
Made it sound like you thought chasing down fleeing targets was itself a war crime, regardless who the target was.
I can see there being some changes to laws of war, or at least interpretation in response to drone warfare. Specifically, there’s a law against “causing unnecessary suffering” which prevents the use of weapons designed with the intent to maim rather than kill. Most countries have banned anti-personnel mines, and use this as part of the reasoning (another being the non-directed nature of the weapons, and long-term effects after the war is over).
Drone-dropped grenades have a clear tendency to wound rather than kill, and I can see an argument that when infantry throw grenades they usually follow up with gunfire rather than leaving the enemy in a field. With this in mind, I can see an argument against drone-dropped light grenades. Then again, drone-dropped grenades give such a massively asymmetric advantage that I have a hard time seeing any army giving them up.
There is a whole lot of terrible shit going on in Gaza, and Israel is committing war crimes all over the place.
However, chasing down and shooting a fleeing enemy combatant is not a war crime. If a russian soldier tries to flee from a failed assault, Ukrainian troops are free to shoot them in the back. The same applies to troops fleeing a position that is being attacked or encircled. They can be hunted down and shot unless they surrender.
I’m pointing it out because it’s a common misconception the enemies that are unarmed, wounded or fleeing are “out of bounds”, but that’s not the case. It’s perfectly legal to bomb an enemy camp full of sleeping soldiers, or shoot an unarmed or wounded enemy that hasn’t surrendered.
The absolutely horrifying thing with Israel is that they treat starving civilians as if they were soldiers, and shoot unarmed civilian kids in the back.
I’ll answer this even though the user got banned, in case anyone else is reading.
First of all: All honour to every Ukrainian for fighting this fight. I can only hope that my countrymen and I would show a fraction of the spirit and resilience that the Ukrainian people have shown in standing up to the invader if our country is attacked.
To address the point: I would support a joint European volunteer force assisting Ukraine on the ground. However, I’ll be completely honest, I’m not personally willing to risk my life for Ukraine. I think we should massively increase our support, and I’m willing to accept heavy economic hardships, but I haven’t signed up to the foreign legion.
The simple truth is that we don’t have a defence alliance, and I wouldn’t expect any Ukrainian to risk their life in defence of my country either. Some would argue that they’re doing just that right now, and there would be some truth to it, but until I see a direct threat to my country or another that I have an obligation to defend, I’m not willing to put my life on the line.
To re-emphasise though, I’m willing to go very far until that point. In the upcoming elections my vote is going to whatever party pushes for the most support to Ukraine. I’ll happily eat higher taxes, more inflation, and less government services. I’ve donated most of my best personal winter gear, as well as cash, to the AFU. I think we should do a lot more to help the heroes on the ground fighting off the russian horde.
Glory to Ukraine.
Well, every russian invader that is killed in Ukraine is a russian invader I don’t have to shoot in my own country if they come for us. Since every missile, gun, shell and round of ammo has the potential to kill a russian invader… yes it does change something: It helps reduce the number of russian invaders that survive to be killed in the future. That’s change!
A rather direct consequence of this is that it also helps reduce the number of living russian invaders that can inflict harm on others.
I don’t need any authority to say something can or can’t be an addiction in order to recognise when someone has an unhealthy addiction to something (is unable to regulate their consumption of said thing to the point where it significantly negatively impacts their life).
Just like you can recognise that alcoholism can be a problem without being a complete prohibitionist nutjob, it’s possible to recognise porn addiction for what it is when you see it without being a puritanical nutjob. I don’t have any intention of shaming anyone for watching porn, I’m just pointing out that I’ve seen for myself that it’s possible to develop an unhealthy relationship to porn. As with any other addiction, there’s usually an underlying problem that has nothing to do with the subject of the addiction.
While I’m aware that pretty much everything I do online is tracked, the stuff that’s shoved at me the rare times I open instagram or facebook indicate that they are clueless about how to get me to stick around. They throw a bunch of shit at the wall (mostly soft-porn or comic strips), but never anything that makes me look twice.
Porn addiction can be an actual problem though. Not to downplay that puritanical shitstains should shut up about porn, but I know someone who had actual problems with porn addiction.
As with all other addictions, it becomes a problem when it starts taking over your life. If you start missing out on things (dropping plans with friends/family, etc.) and/or develop economic problems because you can’t regulate your consumption, it’s becoming an unhealthy addiction.
I pretty much never use instagram, but I follow a shitposting channel there, and every now and then I go into instagram to show someone some old shitpost.
I’ve concluded that the instagram algorithm is frustrated as fuck from not understanding anything about me, because I never click or hover on anything it shoves in my face. However, it’s concluded that I’m a horny dude.
The result is that it floods my feed with a bunch of soft-porn. I have no idea where this all comes from, or who is spending their time uploading a bunch of soft-porn to instagram, but there’s an absolute shitload of it.
They’re getting downvoted because they’re missing the point. It’s not about whether or not I can choose to do things the way I prefer. It’s about how newcomers exposure, and thus opportunity to get into these things, is limited. The arguments about cars or calculators don’t hold up for that exact reason: The existence of cars and calculators does not severely limit people’s exposure to the experience of walking or doing arithmetic.
I would absolutely be happy to have a feature where an LLM could read previous issues, the docpage, and the FAQ/wiki, then you could query it regarding your issue to (a) see if it is a legitimate issue, (b) check that the issue you submit contains the info you need, and c) help you link in previous issues/PR’s referring to relevant stuff.
Never in hell do I want an LLM to be generating issues by itself.
So it’s not that her family won a court case or anything? The government just decided to give them compensation?
There’s a paywall on the article, but how the fuck is the woman who attempted to breach a door against armed security and got shot for it entitled to compensation???
I would say that the “bad part of town” usually has overlap with the poorer part of town, regardless of what skin colour people have there. Of course, especially in the US, there’s significant overlap between economic status and skin colour. I just hate how the typical American view on “race” is projected onto other countries.
Americans typically have this hang-up on “race” that you really don’t find anywhere else. A lot of places you have talk about “ethnicity” or similar, but the American fascination with categorising people by their skin colour and then using that to make generalisations is pretty unique.
Whatever anyone China-affiliated says they’re not doing, it’s a safe bet that’s exactly what they’re doing.
I’m not going to push any conspiracy theories, but I believe the strongest evidence pointing towards Covid-19 originating in a lab is the Chinese government insisting that it didn’t, while prohibiting anyone not under their control from investigating. That doesn’t mean it did originate from a lab, but if anything, that’s what it points to. To be explicit: My impression is that, currently, most available evidence points towards natural origins. However the Chinese government has done its best to convince me otherwise.