Somewhat unfair judgement against emails IMO, especially cause it’s the “trust list” that’s in the control of a few, with no open manner to add more people to the trust list. The protocol isn’t at fault for failing to prevent problems; it’s the ability for corporations to gain significant market share without control, before they are then allowed to put barriers down to disallow or discourage interaction between those in and out, forcing those within to stay in, while those outside to give up on others in order to gain usability.

I wasn’t saying that my reasonings are exactly it, and hence the “plausible”. But fair.

Sorry, I just didn’t really understand what your point was, at least not from reading your reply.

I believe I’m confused by where your understanding is.

Apart from Xi beginning this shit before Covid and the economic slowdown, I agree completely.

This replied led me to believe that you don’t think the CCP has been ramping up their military pre-COVID, and hence my reply.

But you’re now telling me that what I said was exactly your point? I’m confused.

My point about the economy slowing down was that it has led to Xi / CCP being unable to further stomach the current situation, and thus they’ve gotten much more aggressive post-COVID. That, of course, I should preface, is just one plausible reason. Others may include general weakness in alliances across the globe, especially amongst NATO members, especially with Trump going back into the WH, and for the years where Trump will be in office, China is expected by many to reach peak population growth and start seeing a collapse at the level of that of Japan.

To clarify, the economic slowdown is not dissuading the CCP from becoming more aggressive; it’s doing the opposite.

You don’t believe Xi’s been sharpening his claws even before Covid? I find that misinformed or under-informed. The Taiwan Problem has been ongoing for decades at this point, and the drills didn’t just start recently. There were drills from at least 2016 from a preliminary search, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find more earlier than that.

China has been known to have invested heavily in their military capabilities over many years at this point, growing at near linear pace from 2005 and only slowing down last year or so (likely due to economic pressures), at least according to World Bank, which is likely taken from official figures, and many countries have estimates that the actual spending is far higher than reported (though take those with consideration of their relationship with China). You can certainly chalk it up to their somewhat unfriendly relationship with many of their neighbours: they have territorial disputes with Japan, India, Russia, and almost all of the South East Asian countries, but a figure triple that of Russia against Russia and India (who’s also increased spending to currently at around 80Bn) just for territorial disputes is too much of an overkill.

China’s patience isn’t based just on personal virtues. Their at-the-moment economic standing and population trend plays into them being able to tell themselves that a conflict is better played out at a later time. However, signs are now showing that the waiting time is almost over. Their economy has slowed down for various reasons (both external and at home), domestic economy has been stagnant at low levels without signs of growth despite government intervention, and their population growth is showing signs of decline, if not already declining.

I’ve not seen other more practical reasons for wanting to take Taiwan other than to show off their potential for imperialism. The TSMC may be valuable to the world, which, if taken, would further enrich the Chinese elites, but both the Taiwanese government and TSMC have signalled that they will willingly destroy their fabs to render the Chinese takeover meaningless economically and financially.

If the Chinese government has no intention to play as an imperial force, or to just show off their ability to be a superpower, more peaceful options definitely seem like the wiser choices: build those relationships and it’ll be stable, if not stabler than you taking full control of that supply chain, and will possibly outlive the lives whatever power there can be controlling it. But that is not the option they chose. The short-term benefits for a few people wins over the long term ones for literally everyone here.

Zuckerberg said Meta’s “factcheckers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created”.

Well which side of the political spectrum’s just been spewing bullshit after bullshit to make fact checkers look like they are acting more heavy-handedly towards one side?

Not that logic matters to these people anyways. The idea has always been “I don’t like what these people are saying”, and they’ve now reached a point where they don’t even care if people call em out.

Sounds like a classic case of early onset yak-shaving. But given that I too get bitten by this bug from time to time, I approve.

If you meant another Bullet Heaven, Halls of Torment is pretty good. It’s Bullet Heaven with a giant slather of Diablo gameplay-wise, without the build complexity.

This is the weirdest timeline

The version that’s stuck in my head is Japanese so this is a translation.

Watch. See how they’ve lived their lives with pride, and with their lives they’ve sang the ode to civilization. This is the story of those whom people called heroes, the unfinished journey of the 13 who chased the flame. But traveller, your journey continues on, isn’t that right? Then, follow your heart and move on. Follow the footsteps and witness that flame chasing journey to the end. And finally… walk across the graves of those who have fallen. And for that future which “we” could not create… GO CREATE IT!

I can see it being a political calculus for the ICC to garner as much support as possible, and not just from their traditional supporters. The stigma that it’s merely a tool, using justice in selective ways to further Western interest, strongly dissuades many 3rd world countries from seeing it as a force of true justice. If the ICC truly seeks to have justice delivered, they cannot rely on just nations like Germany, France, or the UK for support, and they will be strongly crippled if, say, more than half the countries in the world no longer see it as legitimate. So this could be an attempt at sending a message to all nations of what it’s setting out to do, which is good, since even if, like you said, the masks fall off Western nations, there is an entity that can provide other nations with grounds to enact justice for themselves against these forces.

I know many will see this as a futile gesture but I’ll try to put out some reasonings that it’s may not be all that futile. The warrant may not do what it sets out to do, which is to put Netanyahu and Gallant in trial and prosecuted, but it will serve itself in other indirect ways.

It can be political ammunition in diplomatic talks. Nations in support of the Palestinians, many of which are small, can use this to gain some leverage against countries that give no shits about the ICC like the US, however little that is (though given we’re going to have Trump back in the WH, it’s basically pointless). It’s also useful as another ammo for them to back out of unfavorable deals, citing national opinion on the genocide in Gaza.

Of course, this potentially benefits the ICC as well, though it can certainly go very wrong. Western nations may very well rally behind Israel and pull support off the ICC, further crippling it. So this is hopefully a well-calculated move from the ICC after reading the tea leaves. It can benefit the ICC internationally as it has always been criticized to be pro-Western, and this may help to ease some of their reputation with non-Western nations.

In a world where cooperation and trust between nations is slowly crumbling, and I may just be trying to be optimistic here because hell knows if that cooperation was ever really a thing, this gesture, however overt, isn’t something we shouldn’t welcome.

Not all of us here are from the States buddy.

So I guess you could say

they couldn’t do it without [the] (sic) US

Removed by mod

This seems like a real knee jerk moment here. You aren’t wrong that there are predatory sellers that do exactly that, but it also seems to assume that people do not have the ability to do their own research, which tbf in a society where attention is apparently a rare commodity and heavily capitalized on, it’s not necessarily an unfair assumption. It’s just unhelpful and honestly pretty damn rude to make a blanket comment that seems to assume that people just won’t or will refuse do their research, and should just listen to your authoritative take.

Wouldn’t it be better to just rephrase your comment into something like, “Please remember to keep an eye on price histories to make sure that the displayed prices are discounted as claimed.”?

Or does it feel better to speak as if people are dumber than you are? I mean, if you need to feel smarter and better, there are other healthier avenues for that, and I would suggest that you try looking into those instead.

“Hurdurr there was no war during Trump’s Presidency”

Idk about pre-orders but I’d imagine it’s a combo of many things, from Xiaomi already having the finances, to tax breaks and subsidies from the CCP, and subsidies on the domestic consumer side to encourage adoption to further stabilize the industry, which further encourages investments.

Definitely not within reach physically, but good to see what’s available out there. Thanks for replying!

It did not occur to me that they’d do this with ebikes but now I’m concerned. Would be nice to know what you found for the day when I decide to get one.

As someone who was working really hard trying to get my company to be able use some classical ML (with very limited amounts of data), with some knowledge on how AI works, and just generally want to do some cool math stuff at work, being asked incessantly to shove AI into any problem that our execs think are “good sells” and be pressured to think about how we can “use AI” was a terrible feel. They now think my work is insufficient and has been tightening the noose on my team.