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WoodScientist

@ WoodScientist @lemmy.world

Posts
6
Comments
2081
Joined
1 yr. ago

  • Students in Iran hold anti-government protests as US forces gather for possible strikes

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  • The Iranian government killed 30,000 Iranian protesters, according to the US government. The US government will punish the Iranian government by vaporizing several millions Iranians.

  • Newsom’s message to the Democratic Party: Be more ‘culturally normal’

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  • If he's the candidate, I'm sitting the election out. Look, my community is under an attempted genocide right now. And as we've seen from the Starmer government in the UK, a nominally liberal government can be just as bad for trans rights as any Republican government. When Newsom says "be more culturally normal," that is a dogwhistle for "take away the human rights of trans people."

    If the party isn't willing to fight for my civil rights, sorry, I don't owe you shit. You chose to do nothing after they first came for me, so I will laugh when they come for you.

  • Mar-a-Lago gunman was scarred by Epstein Files, hurt to see 'elite get away with it': 'Evil is real'

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  • I would not vote to convict this man if I were on the jury.

  • Greenland does not need US hospital boat sent by Trump, says Denmark

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  • Seriously. And if Denmark did anything to intercept it, he could use that as casus belli to start a war. Remember the USS Maine? Of To Hell with Spain, Remember the Maine? Seizing or sinking a hospital ship is still an attack against a US Navy vessel, and it would be played in the media as an act of utter barbarity.

    On the other hand, the ship could be used as a tool for war even if Denmark lets it dock. How hard do you think it would be for the CIA to arrange some false-flag or instigated terrorist attack against the hospital ship? Imagine if the hospital ship is docked and stormed by a bunch of armed gunmen, dubbed in the media as "radical Danish nationalists." The US could then use that as justification to start "anti-terrorism activities," which gradually grow into an outright occupation of the island. No clean formal start to war that would serve as as source of international outrage and could fracture NATO like a gunshot. The US already has large military presence in Greenland, but this would represent a massive expansion of that. And, over time, an ever-increasing US military presence and control over civilian areas. Think less Spanish American War and more of how Russia slowly occupied vast areas of Eastern Ukraine in the years before the breakout of the major overt war.

  • What do you think is a realistic peaceful solution to the China-Taiwan issue?

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  • If North Korea could do it, so can Taiwan.

  • What do you think is a realistic peaceful solution to the China-Taiwan issue?

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  • North Korea did it, and it had the United States, the nation with the most powerful surveillance capabilities in the world looking right over its shoulder. And keep in mind, we're still technically at war with North Korea. And North Korea might as well be an island. But really, the island part is irrelevant here, as Taiwan already possesses all the nuclear material it would need. It has a well developed nuclear power sector. The island gets half its electricity from nuclear power. And they have several research reactors. It already has all the fissile material it needs to build a bomb.

  • What do you think is a realistic peaceful solution to the China-Taiwan issue?

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  • Taiwan doesn't need thousands of nuclear weapons to be a credible threat to China. A dozen bombs with delivery systems would be more than enough to make a credible deterrent. The goal isn't to be able to wipe out the entire population of mainland China. The goal would simply be to make any invasion so costly that the cost would vastly outweigh any potential gains. I don't know what all Xi hopes to gain by conquering Taiwan, but whatever it is, it's not worth losing the dozen largest Chinese cities in a series of mushroom clouds. To the Chinese leadership, the conquest of Taiwan is not worth getting Beijing nuked. Maybe Mao would have made that trade, back when China was a rural peasant nation. But now? China is the workshop of the world. The entire economy and China's place in the world are utterly dependent on its megacities.

  • What do you think is a realistic peaceful solution to the China-Taiwan issue?

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  • And yet, plenty of other countries have managed to do it...

  • What do you think is a realistic peaceful solution to the China-Taiwan issue?

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  • A peaceful and realistic solution? Taiwan develops a strategic nuclear deterrent. They're already a near-nuclear country and an industrial and technological powerhouse. A nuclear bomb is fully within their capability, and they already have abundant supplies of all the precursor materials in their possession. The most realistic solution to the Taiwan crisis is that Taiwan obtains nuclear weapons, and China is never able to threaten them with invasion again.

  • Most Americans disapprove of Trump on issues; Americans don’t trust Dems in Congress more to handle problems: Poll

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  • Except that attitude pretends that the election in front of you is the only election that will ever happen ever again. It's a short-sighted view that leads us to exactly where we are now. We've had 30 years of Democrats telling everyone "don't boycott this election. This is the most important one in history. If you don't vote for us, democracy is dead forever. I know we're not really going to do anything to change things, but what choice do you have?"

    In retrospect, we would have been a lot better off today if in 2016 the entire left wing of the Democratic party just boycotted the election entirely. The fact that Hillary came close to winning is the only reason the neoliberal wing was able to retain any credibility.

  • I think Lemmy in general is very against AI. I'm rather new here, is it like a fediverse group thing or is this even based on reality?

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  • People come to Lemmy precisely because they're tired of big algorithmic corporate platforms. They come here precisely to get away from AI slop on platforms like Facebook. Hell, half the people here have been banned from reddit based on comically flawed algorithmic AI moderation tools. This platform is heavily selected for people who dislike AI and AI content.

  • everyone hates AI

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  • Why would I hold Canadian dollar or Pesos if their inflation target is 2% versus say the Swiss 1%?No. No it wouldn't.

    Because ultimately you (assuming you're in the US), have to pay your taxes in USD. People say that fiat currencies aren't backed by anything, but that isn't true. They're backed by the fact that every single US citizen and resident has to gather up thousands of dollars every year and pay them to the government. Even if you could convince your employer to pay you in Euros, the IRS will still demand you pay whatever taxes you would owe if you were paid in an equivalent amount of dollars.

  • everyone hates AI

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  • But by doing so, you've surrendered your voice. You say it makes things clearer, but sometimes ambiguity is good. You say it makes quicker and punchier phrasing, but some writing is best done low and slow. LLMs are by their nature the least common denominator, all the color of the creative world melted down and blended into a uniform grey. By relying on the LLM to alter your writing style, you're making your writing more bland, generic, and indistinguishable from everyone else. You're giving up what makes your writing you're writing. You're just another hand for the machine.

    I do not consider it a positive use, as I would rather read imperfect human writing than grammatically perfect machine drivel. Imperfections are not a reason to enjoy human-created works. They're the only thing that makes the works worth appreciating.

  • Most Americans disapprove of Trump on issues; Americans don’t trust Dems in Congress more to handle problems: Poll

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  • Exactly. Could one of the blue MAGA folks let me know when Newsom publicly announces he supports completely dismantling DHS and rolling back the post-9/11 surveillance state? You cannot seriously pretend to want to fight fascism if dismantling the tools of the fascists isn't the first thing you intend to do when in power.

    It has some serious Lord of the Rings vibes. The surveillance state and the unconstitutional powers created after 9/11 are this immensely powerful tool created for evil ends. But after the evil is defeated, the nominally good guys choose to not to dismantle the evil tools, but to keep them, telling themselves that they will be used for good. Except they cannot be used for good, as they are fundamentally evil. Meanwhile I'm over here shouting, "cast it into the fire!" But they decide to keep it every time.

  • Is this even possible for the midterms?

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  • You ignored what I wrote and wandered off on a tangent. No, I'm talking about the actual formal dissolution of the Untied States. States literally seceding from the union. When the federal government starts invalidating elections, that's when you need to be contacting your state representatives formally demanding that your state secede from the union. I am literally talking about second civil war, with the US military breaking apart into opposing sides, just like it did in the first civil war.

  • Most Americans disapprove of Trump on issues; Americans don’t trust Dems in Congress more to handle problems: Poll

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  • Nah, you're arguing in bad faith.

  • Is this even possible for the midterms?

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  • No, you just don't understand how serious this is. If the federal government starts outright cancelling or invalidating elections, we are officially in civil war territory. That is the time for states to start seceding from the union. Democracy is worth fighting for. Democracy is worth dying for. Again, if the federal government really wants to force a civil war, it can do so. But that's always something the federal government can do.

  • Factory-built housing hasn't taken off in California

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  • Part of the problem with wood construction is that wood is a biological material. It's never going to be perfect. It's going to warp, twist, and bend. When carpenters build a house, they can work around this irregularity and fit pieces together one at a time as they go. But a factory robot needs to operate with every piece having the same predictable geometry. Even if you mill all of your lumber up perfectly square, it will warp a bit sitting in your warehouse as hygroscopic changes and retained stresses subtly change each piece's geometry.

    If you're building with wood, you're always going to need some manual hand-fitup to make all everything fit together nice. And if you have to do that anyway, you lose a lot of the efficiencies that come with manufactured homes. If your giant robot assembly line still has a bunch of carpenters at the end of it fitting everything together, you might as well skip the robots and just have the carpenters build the house.

    There is still room for automation in home construction, but it's most useful for the efficient production of individual components. Look how we mass-produce roof trusses in factories. That's a great application. Or you can automate the production of things like cabinets, which then in turn will be installed and fitted by actual human carpenters.

  • Most Americans disapprove of Trump on issues; Americans don’t trust Dems in Congress more to handle problems: Poll

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  • YOU have chosen to ignore history. And how typically in authoritarian takeovers, the first step to fighting the takeover is to abandon the captured opposition party and to start fresh with something new. A popular front is usually needed to defeat them. Authoritarians often let toothless opposition parties continue to operate. And there are always blind fools like yourself who insist that they must be supported, though they are just another tool of the autocrat.

    The only way you’ll get any change under the current system is to elect a Dem super majority in every election for the next fifty years.

    This shows you are not a serious person. If that is your solution, then I can only conclude that you actually support Trump and the Fascist party.

    Democrats are not a real opposition party. They are the potemkin opposition, fully captured by the Fascists.