This whole thing is so weird to me. I did a road trip through Argentina some time ago and every once in a while I’d see a random road sign just saying “Las Malvinas son Argentinas”. They just won’t let it go.

Probably, but then again, that’s never stopped any country from claiming its former territories.

They’ll never get Vietnam.

Having North Korea as their only neighbour doesn’t help though

I don’t know what makes you think South Americans are not under US influence cause I can tell you things in Brazil look exactly the same: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter… well, Whatsapp is also absurdly popular around here but I don’t think it qualifies.

Meanwhile, a couple hundred km down in the south of the country it has been raining non-stop for like two months now, with some small towns in valleys having been completely destroyed by floods. The climate here is all wrong, this is not normal.

Yeah, I think geography is the main point here. As it stands, China’s coast is fully surrounded by American allies in Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines and owning Taiwan could give them control of the surrounding waters allowing their cargo ships to safely pass through if things get ugly with the US.

Correct. A better comparison would be the annexation of Hawaii by the US.

The Lemmy devs have no power over instances they do not run themselves.

It seems to me they’re saying Lemmy needs corporate backing to grow? Cause if they were so bothered by the opinions of the Lemmy devs they could simply use Kbin instead.

That’s probably closer to what they actually try to do, which is much more reasonable but still requires a lot of resources. The problem is, there’s a lot of money behind these criminals and not a lot of political good will towards preservation (right-wingers here basically think the forest stands in the way of our progress, so less environmental protections = more jobs and development, somehow) so getting funds to protect our forests is usually an uphill battle.

As nice as it sounds, I don’t think it’s feasible. The Amazon is absolutely massive and not very populated. The logistics of keeping armed guards all around the protected areas sounds like a nightmare. The only way I can see deforestation actually stopping is if cattle, soy and wood stop being lucrative businesses somehow.

It feels almost surreal to have an environment minister that actually cares about the environment… though truth be told, the previous government lowered the bar so much that doing absolutely nothing would still have been a clear improvement.