If I had to choose between global high speed internet access, and ground based astronomy, I’d pick the Internet every time. I’d completely blot out the sky forever if that’s what it took.

We don’t need ground-based astronomy to learn about the universe, I’d rather encourage more space-based astronomy. Or build some observatories on the moon if you really want to build on a solid space body.

However, Starlink is a for profit company run by Elon Musk. I don’t really want them doing it, because they’re not going to provide unlimited global Internet to everyone. So as the guy said, the idea is good, but Starlink is bad, although it is currently the only such option.

No, but they should be public to everyone, and not hidden unless you jump through hoops.

That would be hilarious if someone prepared a bunch of little clips of things Hitler said that Trump also says very similar things to, and then anytime he says one, just respond by playing a clip of Hitler saying basically the same thing, and giving a ‘Do I need to say more?’ look.

I bet some people flashed that one and such too, but I could find no indication that it was shut down because of that.

It feels like society has backslid tremendously on some freedoms in the past 15 years, particularly where it comes to prudishness.

These days we even have otherwise progressive people jumping on the prude bandwagon along with hyper religious controlling anti feminists and it just makes for such strange bedfellows.

If it is solved it will definitely be through technology of some sort. While I agree it will not be one brilliant scientist, technology will be the solution.

That technology may come in the form of a way to produce more energy without fucking up the climate, and the engineering and logistical capacity to roll out the change at a breakneck pace.

It may come in the form of simply developing a way to control the global climate directly.

It might come in the form of some technology to control the behavior of humans so that we can actually respond appropriately.

Or it might come in the form of the singularity, when self improving machines grow so far beyond us so fast that they can just do what is needed whether we like it or not.

But one way or another I guarantee that if it’s solved, it’ll largely be a technological solution, because getting humanity to just…stop using energy at our current rate…is just not going to happen.

More like 1997, or even 1983, when the UK handed them back to China, or the earlier date, when they decided to prevent them from having British citizenship.

If everyone in Hong Kong had the right to emigrate to any British territory, China would have to be a lot lighter touched there, or there might be a mass exodus.

I’d say I need to know enough to play a character that grew up in that world. Which means I need to understand the things that a person who grew up in the world would know. That includes things like:

• The biome and general weather conditions of the region I grew up in.
• Any particularly notable features of my region and its society.
• The local laws, structure of government, how much respect or obedience I must pay to my betters.
• General history of the last 25-45 years that affected my region of the world (increase timespan by 50 to 100 years if I am an elf or other long-lived race). This need only be the highlights and things that directly affected my people, not all minutiae.
• What gods are worshipped, and how are they worshipped. For example, does an average farmer pray exclusively to the god of farming, or do they pray to whichever God is appropriate for the situation they’re praying about?
• Who are the most famous people in the world and why are they famous?
• Who are the most powerful known people in my region and how powerful are they?
• What kind of creatures are considered common annoyances, and what kinds are considered serious threats, to villages, towns, and cities respectively?
• Demographics of my region - what percentage of the population is demihuman, what percentage is of the monstrous humanoid races, etc.
• What races are considered normal in my region, and which are tolerated, which are reviled, which are kill-on-sight: basically, who are the people of my region racist against?

However, there are things people commonly write in homebrew world documents that I do not need to know. These include:

• Creation of the world and its gods.
• History of godly struggles.
• History of kingdoms and empires that existed more than a couple elven lifetimes ago.
• Geography of regions not immediately adjacent to my home region.
• Lineage of Queens and nobles, etc.
• Cosmology of the planes.

Some of these may be needed for specific characters, but most characters don’t need this information because they would not know it.

If it was me in their place, I’d try giving up as little as possible then seek some sort of binding defense agreement, whether NATO or something else. And if necessary do it in secrecy so Russia doesn’t hear about it until the agreement is fully in force.

Honestly I just think the US is simply not reliable, and with Ukraine seemingly relying heavily on the US, they need to be looking for the quickest exit strategy they can come up with at a moment of strength.

Hopefully, if Republicans prevent continued US support, other countries will still provide enough…I just fear it may not be, and that seems like a worse outcome for Ukraine’s people.

I hope they do, but this is why I’ve always thought Ukraine needed to be a little less hard-line on not giving up any territory. Because I figured it was only a matter of time before the Republicans (and other similar parties/groups in other countries) ratfucked the support away from them.

I don’t know if Russia was ever open to negotiating, but if they were, Ukraine may find themselves wishing they had negotiated at a high point, instead of their support being pulled out from under them.

Sadly, the US is simply not a reliable ally or source of support right now, and probably won’t be until getting the internal insanity under control. Until there are two parties actually willing to govern instead of one party trying to govern and the other acting like a deranged shit-flinging baboon, the US will be unreliable.

That, if accurate, is some damning poll results. 75% of them support the attacks on October 7, and an additional 11% are fine enough with them to have no strong opinion. That’s 86% of the population.

If 75% of the population supports the attacks, and 86% at least had no problem with them, then I can’t agree when people say things like most of the Palestinians just want to live their lives in peace.

Well if one of the forms is going to become the neutral, how about making the feminine form the default neutral instead, eh?

Yep. This post is largely mixing up cause and effect. The popular programs are like that not as the cause of people not learning underlying logic and such, but as the effect of it.

The only thing that would happen if popular GUI based interfaces had never come along would be that computers in general would still be something only a tiny amount of people use.

Most companies are doing this, sticking arbitration agreements in their user agreements. Most of the time it benefits them hugely since arbitration is typically much more favorable to them than court (which is already incredibly favorable to them).

Once in a while it bites them; I recall reading some company where thousands of users started going to arbitration, and that costs them cause they pay the arbitration fees. In that case they tried to weasel out of the arbitration agreement, but last I heard a judge made them stick to it, forcing them to pay arbitration fees for every user that was asking for it.

It is interesting, but it’s also frustrating, and forced, effectively uncompensated work. I say ‘effectively’ uncompensated because they pay you a token amount that may have been adequate 100 years ago but now is not. Indeed, many people wind up making negative money when taking in the cost of travel and food, to say nothing of actual missed pay from their normal job.

That said it is actually kind of easy to get out of it if you really want to most of the time. When I served, the judge accepted any reasonable excuse from those who needed to leave. The most annoying part though was that it felt like the attorneys liked wasting time on irrelevant bullshit.

Additionally, when the judge asks if there’s any reason you can’t serve you can state you will never vote against your conscience regardless of the law, and that if you don’t believe a person should be punished you will not vote them guilty no matter what the law says. They do not want and will not take someone who votes their conscience above all else.