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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • Not a lawyer, so I’m not sure about the law, but generally speaking the perception I get (ie what people say) is that “it’s always your fault” when speaking to drivers. Btw, this doesn’t mean that streets are any safer for cyclists or people walking or that people driver any better. This is why I’m not always in favor of laws that just add more penalties, but fail to do any structural changes.

    As for alcohol level, the law says under 0.5 g/l is fine, between 0.5 and 0.8 it’s a minor infraction (fine and possible license suspension), between 0.8 and 1.5 it becomes a criminal offense, with bigger fine, longer license suspension and jail up to 6 months, and over 1.5 g/l it’s still bigger fine, longer suspension, up to a year of jail etc. Then there are the aggravating circumstances, like if you also cause an accident, it’s doubled, if it’s a repeat offender there’s the revocation of the license etc.


  • Generally speaking, here it’s often presumed that it’s the car’s fault, or at least that’s how I feel it’s perceived.

    Still, negligent driving includes DUI, driving while on the phone, driving too fast, driving in the opposite lane, not stopping to a red light or yield, illegal passing of another car and failing to stop after the incident occurred.

    Moreover, the law now specifies that DUI is a criminal offense even when no incident occurred and blood level of alcohol is above 0.8 g/l, with possible jail time from 6 months to a year.

    It’s become quite strict. Although I’m not sure how much it will actually affect the number of incidents, I’m not always very pro to “just increase the penalties” kind of laws. We need a more comprehensive plan to reduce the likelihood of incidents as much as possible, especially deadly incidents.


  • In Italy there’s been a big push against this in the last decade.

    There’s now a law called “road murder” (omicidio stradale) which makes the penalties for killing someone while driving, especially if intoxicated, more similar to intentional murder (rather than manslaughter). It’s essentially aggravated manslaughter, when you cause the death of someone while driving recklessly.





  • It’s definitely dangerous if you don’t know what you are doing. As in, “you can die” kind of dangerous.

    But if you know what you are doing, nah, it’s perfectly safe, and kind of easy to do too.

    Probably most definitely illegal in most places too, but if you just shut the f up and don’t blabber about it to everyone you meet or try to sell or give it away, there’s pretty much nothing they can do about it, cause they don’t know about it, and neither does anyone else.


  • It was a fully unified country way before 1929, unless you are counting Alto Adige and Trieste as conditio sine qua non to have a fully unified Italy, which I wouldn’t.

    As for the Vatican situation, the Italian kingdom completely conquered and annexed the papal state in 1870 (Breccia di Porta Pia).

    In 1929 the Pope formed an alliance with Mussolini to get a state in exchange for the approval of the fascist government from the Church (and other stuff, but that’s the gist of it)




  • I’m like, wait, what happened in the 1930s that meant the wipeout of the republicans and what happened in the next 60 years?

    Oh yes, an overinflated market crashed during the republican presidency, the burst ignited by the proposal of a tariff increase law, made to shield American industries and that was actually signed into law and significantly worsened the great depression. This pretty much caused the rise of Nazism in Germany and WW2

    What happened then in the next 60 years? Oh yeah, the US won the war and became the biggest world superpower, the economy boomed and you had pretty much the most prosperous time in America’s history.

    Maaaaybe a republican wipeout isn’t that bad now, is it?



  • Thing is, we don’t really know what’s the reason for the current worldwide trend in much, much lower natality rate. We’ve observed in rich countries and poor countries, religious and atheist countries, capitalist and communist countries (both USSR and PRC, who have had very different economic systems), in countries with no safety nets but also in countries with large social programs, in western countries, but also in eastern countries.

    The only thing I can think of these days is education level. Is it possible that education is inversely correlated with natality rates? Or maybe women in the workforce. I’m not arguing for either point, I’m just thinking about what the cause of a world-wide issue might be, because it’s happening everywhere and seemingly without any clear common cause.






  • European workers didn’t get their rights from being imperialist, they fought hard against the imperialist elites to get where they are now, and China’s elites are being just as imperialist today as any European or American elite has been since forever.

    China and India is apples to oranges. There are a myriad of reasons why their paths diverged. There are other East Asian countries that did better than China way before China, while starting from a much more similar point (or even a worse point).


  • You could say the same about every developed nation. It took a bit more for most nations, but these nations had to literally invent concepts like public health and education, welfare and even socialism.

    But yeah, every western European country has already eliminated the worst kind of poverty and on average European citizens are better off than Chinese citizens. Working conditions, working hours and safety laws in Europe are much better than the Chinese average.

    The US is doing its own thing with extreme capitalism, and I’m against that, but let’s not kid ourselves, China has taken a lot of pages from the US’s economic model