Oh. It would go about 4.45x worse (ignoring Alaska). And russia can’t even properly protect their border and prevent Ukrainian strike teams from crossing it.

You are taking the position right now that America’s descent into fascism can be attributed to Muslim and Arab Americans in Dearborn who decided not to vote for Kamala after she promised to kill their brothers and sisters in Palestine and Lebanon with an extraordinarily “lethal military”. These people are the true fascists, according to you.

As opposed to trump who outright called Biden a “Palestinian” as an insult and accused other ethnic groups of “eating cats”?

But hey, sure. They hated Kamala because she was associated with Biden who “good Palestinian” aside, has always been a racist asshole across his entire political career.

Can you, or anyone else, say that they honestly expected trump to be better for the Palestinian people than Kamala and Biden (who wasn’t even running…)? Again, he outright called Biden a “Palestinian” as an insult.

So, at the VERY best, you are looking at two candidates who are equally horrible for one group. And then you look at anything else and realize trump is MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH worse for basically everyone else on top of that.

So… yeah. I do fucking blame the Arab Americans and anyone else who decided to sit out the election (and effectively give trump their votes). Because, at the very best, they were doing the same knee jerk “someone else” voting that got trump elected in 2016.

And, in the process, they actively harmed the people they claim to care about. Let alone everyone else.

And I’ll ignore the rest that mostly makes it clear you don’t give a fuck about Palestine and are just puppeting tankie talking points where “accelerationism is good because Reasons”

I’m… “optimistic” is not at all the right word considering how depressing all of this is.

But I’m Something that the US has no intentions of using military force against Canada (so just economic and political…). trump can demand whatever he wants but even the lowly colonels will soil themselves at the thought and find ways to refuse.

Because starting a war in The Middle East or Venezuela or even Europe is one thing. Pretty much nothing can actually hurt the continental US without fighting through a fleet of aircraft carriers and all our airbases.

Whereas Canada and Mexico share pretty massive borders with us. If they want to retaliate, they will.

Of course… its trump so he might very well just tell people on twitter to go throw pipe bombs across the border to get the war he wants.

Why do democrats need to earn your fucking vote against a rapist who led a violent insurrection against the us government? Because clearly trump already did. I mean, sure, he TOTALLY had a much better platform for how to minimize the harm to the Palestinian people. He’ll give them jobs in his hotel!

Really showing your ass there. What next. Is it Hilary Clinton’s fault you didn’t vote? Could she have done better to make you care about a rapist warmonger?

A few reasonAs the polar ice caps melt even more and war likely ramps up, having a very large base of operations in the North Atlantic has a lot of strategic value. That makes the generals like it.

The oligarchs like it because, as global warming intensifies, Greenland will likely be prime real estate. It is similar to why they want to annex Canada.

And putin wants it because it will likely kill NATO and the EU. Because Greenland is… weird. It is technically part of Denmark but also isn’t. It is an ally of the EU but it isn’t actually IN the EU. So it will be very easy for the EU to basically say “We don’t want a war. Whatever. Take one for the team Denmark” which will pretty much guarantee its death because no nation will trust any other nation to “have their back” in the event of a war.

I mean… there is a shitty golf course he loves a lot more than anything outside of his daughter’s snatch.

Yeah. I don’t give a shit.

trump was a known evil. This wasn’t 2016 with “ha ha ha, maybe the reality tv star will be fun”. He led a fucking violent insurrection and was campaigning on hate.

I don’t fucking care how sad folk were that they didn’t get the candidate they wanted. By not voting they effectively voted for trump and the entire fucking world is suffering for it.

Own up to it.

Friendly reminder that Denmark is about 44 km^2. For context, the UK is 244 km^2

Which matters a lot. Because the various postal services around the globe? Letters are petty much a side benefit. What they are really for is delivery of important packages (e.g. medicine). Particularly to rural underserviced areas. And when you have routes that head out to the boonies 3-7 times a week, carrying a sack of letters is “free”

This? I don’t know all the details and don’t have enough of a basis to gather them from a short article. But this definitely feels like it is going to be depending on third parties for package delivery and so forth… which is what certain, really fucking stupid, countries are trying to do by privatizing/defunding their postal service.

Like I said, Denmark is tiny. They will probably be fine. But this… feels like the kind of thing that will bite people in the butt a decade or so down the line.

Skimmed the abstract and couldn’t see how they define “salt water”. Did not see it.

Theoretically, this has utility for shipping. So let’s say you have a pallet of water bottles. The bottles themselves will likely stay more traditional plastics. The plastic wrapping the 32 pack’s cardboard could potentially be this. The plastic wrap around the entire pallet of a bunch of stacks of those 32 packs? I… would probably still go traditional plastic, honestly.

Because a LOT of beverages are shockingly salty when you look at them (because salt is good and helps us retain water). If that is enough to even come close to triggering degradation then you lose the ability to store those bottles “indefinitely” and you drastically increase the risk that someone’s bottle breaks in their hand while they are leaving the 7-11. Which… defeats the purpose of WHY we use plastic for all this. And… it is a lot cheaper to have “one” bottle factory rather than one for each type of beverage.

As for that outermost layer? I would honestly just be terrified of a loading dock in the winter. Salt the ever loving hell out of that to minimize ice growth. And then suddenly you have pallets falling apart because of “quick” degradation.

It still does make sense considering that russia is literally invading Ukraine (at least once a decade…) and continue to probe NATO nations. Because, in that regard, it is less a “military base on foreign soil” and more just a NATO base on NATO soil. And, in theory, it is a good idea to let the country dumb enough to spend most of their GDP on a massive standing military to foot the bill.

But considering that the US is just as likely to be on russia’s side in WW3…

That ship sailed closer to decades ago than not.

Spend some time with ER workers (and pay for their damned drinks) and you will learn just how toned down The Pitt actually was.

There are layers to this.

Yes, there is zero chance any of these investments are going to turn a profit.

But research and technology is fundamentally built around developing capabilities for long term power (soft or hard). That is WHY governments invest so much into university groups and research divisions at companies to develop features of interest. You are never going to make back the money that funded hundreds of PhD students to develop a slightly more durable polymer compound. But you will benefit because you now have hundreds of new graduates aligned with fields of interest AND a slightly better grip on your military grade sybian.

And, regardless of what people want to believe, AI genuinely does have some great uses (primarily pattern matching and human interfaces). And… those have very big implications both in terms of military capability and soft power where the entire world is dependent on one nation’s companies for basic functionality.

Of course, the problem is that the “AI craze” isn’t really being driven by state governments at this point. It is being driven by the tech companies themselves and the politicians who profit off of them. Hence why we are so focused on insanely expensive search engine replacements and “AI powered toaster ovens” rather than developing the core technologies and capabilities that will make this more power efficient and more feasible for edge computing.

And… when one of (if not ) the super powers is actively divesting itself of all soft power at an alarming rate… yeah.

That is a distinction without difference. It doesn’t matter what mechanism is used to collect those metrics. The fact is they are there

And, at a glance: Forgejo/Codeberg definitely has stars and watches and fork tracking as well

Which is all fundamentally the supply and demand aspects of consumerism. It is the idea that people can identify what there is a high demand for and work to provide a supply. Which is not at all a bad thing and extends far beyond capitalism.

But it goes back to the previous poster’s comments about how they don’t like that netflix analyzes everything they do and greenlights projects based on that. That extends FAR beyond netflix and well into even open source projects.

Open source/selfhost projects 100% keep track of how many people star a repo, what MRs are submitted, and even usage/install data. And many of them are specifically designed to fulfill a role that industry standard tools aren’t (or are too expensive for) and… guess where the data on that comes from?

The reality is that you cannot escape consumerism in the modern world. You can pretend you are but… you aren’t. What you CAN do is focus on supporting tools and media that you want/approve of and making your own life better as a result.

And a big chunk of that involves actually thinking through consequences.

I mean… depending on how new an item is and what “tier” the restaurant is? They are 100% watching for stuff like that and probably making a note that you got up after eating only a quarter of your burger. Because if the burger were good, you would want to finish it. Is it too sloppy? Did you feel the need to wash your hands mid bite? Did it make you nauseous?

Same with taking out your phone. Does it look like you are telling a friend what a great burger you had? Or are you feeling bloated and trying to digest a bit before you eat more?

This level of market analysis is not at all new. Streaming services just have a much easier time automating it but… give it time until startups are selling cameras to monitor the dining area and automate analytics based on who ordered what and did what.

I mean… that IS how restaurants work. If people don’t order the fish of the day then they buy fewer and fewer fishes until it is no longer a thing. Even the speed people eat DOES matter since restaraunts tend to be designed around each customer spending a certain amount of time dining. Too short and they will never order a dessert. Too long and they are costing you money while they nurse that coffee.

And similar happens with even buying blu-rays. If nobody bought Master and Commander in 4k then you can be sure that experiment would be over. Instead? That thing sold like toiler paper during COVID and we’ll likely see more “prestige” releases with a huge dose of FOMO.

As for up fronts versus long tails? Guess what is motivating all those revivals “nobody asked for”?

Don’t get me wrong. I vastly prefer to rip blu rays to my NAS and watch via plex. But the idea that you are somehow no longer part of the marketing cycle is just… wrong.

Being drafted is different than doing chores or working in care roles. Everyone capable should be responsible for the defense of those who are not in times of war regardless of sex.

And working in factories, taking care of kids, and just existing are very much part of the war effort. And their lives are very much at risk during a war. Just ask Ukraine.

It is one of those knock-ons from (especially) WW1 and 2 where draft dodging and “conscientious objectors” were such a risk as more and more people came back from the front with grotesque wounds and mental trauma. A culture of “only cowards don’t go to war” was built up VERY rapidly… and caused immense issues as young men were unable to fight due to physical ailments or mental trauma so bad that even the 1910s/40s cared.

Except also Rosie the Riveter and all that.

It all ties into the “myth” of “civilian targets” during a full scale war. EVERYONE can agree that blowing up a hospital is evil. What about a factory that makes shoes? What about one that makes boots? Shells? Similarly, EVERYONE can agree that blowing up a residential area is how you go to hell. Now about about a residential area on a military base? Now what about the barracks on a base? Are you only allowed to attack the enemy once they step foot off base?

And going back to that hospital… what about a power plant? Because a LOT of lives are lost when hospitals have extended outages. But those plants ALSO literally power the war effort.

Which is the reality of things. When you just have a massive global north military destroying a country in the name of “counter-terrorism”? Yes, the reality is that a lot of the terrorist/guerilla cells are going to fundamentally be in residential areas and next to hospitals both for optics and convenience. But there is a LOT of “oh… there were some hamas soldiers in that children’s ward, sure” evil.

But when an entire country is mobilized for war? The distinction between civilian and military becomes INCREDIBLY murky. Which… we can very much see in Ukraine and russia.

Because, yes, you need people on the front line. You also need people on the backlines for logistics and support. And… you need people just living their lives so that there is something worth fighting for. Rotating troops back for leave is immensely important for morale and… if they return to a skeleton crew raising children in abandoned dormitories? They can never recharge from The War and that leave stops mattering. Which leads to rapid desertion and even worse mental trauma.

And… The Enemy is very aware of that.

Sexist is debatable but… yeah

But everyone worshiping the rich? Yeah, that is Switzerland in a nutshell. A decade or so ago I spent a week in Switzerland on holiday and… even the state funded museums kinda felt like “And then so and so developed a really cool technology that saved countless lives. AND THEN THEY GOT RICH!!! FRANCA FRANCA BILS Y’ALL!!! And here is what they bought with it and the house they lived in and how much paper it takes to print out their monthly statement and… Oh, the tech? Whatever, nobody cares about that”

There is also the emprical evidence that women make less over the course of their careers. An extra year or two of work experience can help to offset that.

Obviously not everyone falls into those gender norm buckets. But… they are “gender norms” for a reason. And while I don’t know how our trans friends impact that (or if Switzerland acknowledges their existence…), it isn’t the worst way to break things down to having roughly half the population on the frontlines and the other half keeping the country running.

But this is the kind of thing that brings out the MRA tendencies in everyone as a kneejerk reaction.

Which is why people who actually look at trends tend to compare it more to the Dot-com bubble.

The short version? A few early internet adopting sites (like Amazon…) set up online retail presences. People were ecstatic because you could now do most of the monthly shopping online and even re-buy pants that you know will fit and so forth.

Seeing money, EVERYBODY made an online retailer or service website and EVERYONE wanted to invest in that.

Then the market was oversaturated and companies with no right to exist went bankrupt and it was a bloodbath.

Except… not really. Because while the massively overinflated stock market did indeed “downturn” and a LOT of those scam companies went away, the actual fundamental premise of online first companies was a very sound one. I mean… just look at “Cyber Monday” and so forth.

And “AI” will almost definitely go the same route. Because, yeah, LLMs are HORRIBLE for accounting and finance. But they are actually really good for replacing the early career folk who translate earnings into reports. And ML in general is excellent at detecting patterns which can mean potentially billions of dollars in investing. But, like all things, it is about verification and caution. You actually need a human to read that earnings report before you send it to the investors. And you only give your “AI” a small portion of your portfolio. Same as with any team.