Their government has been trying to keep the issue of aid in the public interest for a reason. Sometimes they might go too far, but I think people underestimate the fear a country would experience if they were highly dependent on outside help. Especially if it wasn’t guaranteed to continue due to changes in the political leadership in the other countries.
As always the headline is somewhat misleading.
This was well put and a good summary of the situation!
In a less resilient democracy attempts of interference in the election process might not cause the same uproar it has in the US.
This also works the other way. The prosecution of Trump seems to be handled with care to ensure that the charges are justifiable. In non democratic countries a political opponent would first go to jail and then the prosecutors would try to invent some kind of corruption charge.
Congress members and senators still showed up to work, and the decisions they took still mattered, even if some of the Republicans were constantly violating precedents and norms. The judicial system still kept churning and mostly following the laws and precedents, even if Trump appointed a lot of unqualified partisan judges.
From an outside perspective this is a good demonstration that while your system is somewhat flawed, it’s still resilient. By flawed I mean mainly the two party system and stuff like judges being appointed by politicians. However if your system didn’t have some builtin failsafes, it would have been much more vulnerable to influence from unwanted sources.
Even if most trump voters wanted to turn the US into a proper aristocracy, (some right wingers actually do*), the process would have been much more complicated in comparison to countries that have become dictatorships in the past decades.
*I’m referring to a somewhat new trend, where influential people are claiming that the US is suffering from a dumb population, and that experts should be given more power.
When I did play foss games, I played battle for wesnoth, teeworlds, minetest, super tux csrt and openarena. Lsst one might be dead due to being a mainly multiplayer game.
I like his approach of stating that these are big claims, but cannot be really evaluated in any meaningful way, as there is no useful public data to look at.
In my opinion this is the main crux of the whole topic. One party (the US government) has a boatload of various quality sensor data that could be studied, but it’s classified. As a result nobody can believe anyone’s statements as they aren’t supported by anything.
What happens, when the non smart microwave finally breaks and only smart ones are being sold? You could buy used, but what happens when that used inventory is used up?
Fortunately in case of microwaves, the simpler ones have the same internal parts as smart ones, and as such some supply is most likely going to be available.
The situation in the article is for sure unique, as replacing implants with a newer version is probably not feasible. Many other simpler medical devices are different, as they could be replaced as needed.
Going bankrupt is not the only potential issue. There can also be situations, where a company makes several generations of a product, and abandons support for the old ones.
This is already a serious concern with eg. older gen chip fabrication. The machinery required for each generation was built when that gen was new, and when that machinery breaks down, it might not be economical to rebuild that capability.
Is this really a year old post? It was a good read regardless.
To comment on the topic, this is going to happen more and more, especially as proprietary stuff becomes more and more complex. With implants it’s obviously more serious, but this also applies to anything from cars to game consoles.
I’m no stranger to scrounging junkyards for car parts or ebay to replace components from an old console. However that cannot go on forever, as parts get more rare. This is somewhat remedied with eg. nintendo consoles, where some reproduction parts are available (cartridges, screens etc.). With more niche and increasingly complex products this option is often not available.
An alternative browser based approach would be:
Mobile firefox + ublock + a video background play fix addon
Obviously you lose out on privacy unless using incognito mode.
Because what can I do?
I try to focus on being happy and living my own life. These things are civilization level issues, and last 50 years have shown the civilization’s fundamental incapability to face the issue, let alone attempt to solve it at any meaningful scale.
IMO there is nothing wrong with attempting to minimize one’s own carbon footprint, but the futile attempt to push for more significant changes will just lead to disappointment
Has meta given any indication that they want to federate with other instances?
Couldn’t it be argued that it’s a mistake from reddit to think of themselves as being comparable to platforms that make more money per user?
For example reddit and youtube are completely different in terms of the nature of the platform. Could attempting to monetize an average reddit user to the level of those using youtube might be a mistake? Keep in mind that reddit has much lower overhead for keeping the service running.
The mental image I’m going after is a country that exports mainly wheat arguing that its’ exports should be valued the same as a country that produces complex electronics. The products are at a different realm of complexity. Commodities should be valued for what they are and not be confused with higly refined products.
Very happy to see that such a strong migration is actually happening.
Irc + mumble used to be my goto 15 years ago. It would still work, but understandably a bit less refined
The decade of work is starting to show for real. Many other tech companies have tried to break into new market “segments”, but often pull the plug after the product isn’t an instant hit. Valve had similar stumbles at first, but took what worked and tried to make that useful for as many people as possible.
Complete opposite of stadia, etc. which didn’t really amount to anything after the initial failure.
To me it seems that the same “carefulness” is being exercised in the counteroffensive. AFAIK majority of the reserves aren’t being used. Maybe the government is concerned about the repercussions that a failed counteroffensive could have in terms of the long term support from western countries. In such case they would have every reason to be conservative when doing maneuvers and letting information go public.
What I’m saying that in our world appearances matter (arguably too much), and Ukraine is stuck playing a game to keep foreigners happy. Also note that I have no merits to back up any of these thoughts and I’m pulling them out of my behind.
Low pay, bad working condition, no sense of accomplishment, hardly any upwards mobility. Why would I do that, if I have better options?
I kind of agree with the lack of career options for factory workers, but in many factory jobs there are several upsides.
For example many places allow you to listen to music/podcasts all day, while you are working. The work itself is often not mentally taxing and it doesn’t follow you home when you leave. Also there is no reason not to feel pride in being able to complete relatively complex tasks with care and speed.
There goes another “red line” without any meaningful response from russia.