Good point - but that will only happen when vandalism/protest matures to militarised political resistance so people understand strategic targets and US seems months if not years away from that. It will happen if/when military-trained people get involved in resisting the coup.
That would look good on a t-shirt...
In my head Discord = toxicity. Not sure how it got that rep for me but it has gotten it. Thus, wont lose sleep if it dies out. Perhaps I am wrong. Reviewing rationality of this prejudice is on my ToDo List after a million other things...
Discord was never 'user-friendly'. It always gave me nerd, incel, neurodiverse, or weirdo vibes so not something I would miss much although I probably qualify as nerd, neurodiverse, and weirdo (but not incel, never that).
It sounds good in principle but would be hard to do in practice because everyone would have to do a lot of work negotiating 'standards' (technical stuff and editorial principles like how to handle NSFW content etc) that would apply universally across the federation of forums and as this is all voluntary work it is asking a lot of people.
Whoa! You paint a vivid picture, I feel I'm there!
Reminds me of my grandparent's County Durham 'pit village'. I think the difference in the UK is that we would have signalled interest by twitching net curtains (no one but the priest, bookie, or police seargent had access to a fancy stuff like a telephone) as the stranger passed and afterwards gathering in scandalised huddles, we would be talking in loud whispers about 'whae's yhe when ee's yem?' (or in posher English, 'Prithee good neighbour, verily, knowest thou ought of whom this stranger shalt be, whither he cometh, and whence he goeth?')
Oh, boy! We've come a long way - thank goodness!
I think we have to explore moral questions. I think it immoral to just refuse to think. It is wrong to simply assert 'killing people is wrong' instead of arguing a case. Games, imaginary scenarios, give us laboratories in which to test out our ideas without hurting anyone.
Like you, I am very reluctant to harm any sentient being. But is it always wrong? Example of a thought experiment: you are passenger on an airplane, a terrorist hijacks the plane, says he is going to fly it into a hospital and kill thousands of people. You just came out of the rest room and are behind him, he has not realised you are there, you could jump him but he has a gun, you might have to wrestle for the gun, and he, or you, or a bystander might get killed. What do you do? If you must never kill, then you must not take the risk of killing him, or yourself, or a bystander while you wrestle so you just have to let him fly the plane into the hospital and kill thousands. Or you might argue it is morally better to act, risk killing someone rather than do nothing, and as a result thousands die.
For thousands of years (probably far longer) humans have asked themselves 'what if...?' questions. We did this with stories around the camp fire, with theatre, with novels, with radio, movies, t.v., cartoons, comic books. Now we do it with video games. Speculating and questioning and debating is how we develop moral views. This is how humans do human. This is the way we got to having courts of law to argue cases, democratic institutions to argue over what is best government. Asking a question is not immoral. Refusing to ask questions is - those who do not think for themselves, often have their thinking done for them by others, and that is at best infantalising, a refusal to do adult, and at worst a form of willing slavery. That's my view.
Yeah, I reckon 60 is the new 40. And I don't even feel 40. I still feel like I felt when I was 16 and at punk rock concerts so in my head I am a baby still but if people call me old, I'll play along just for the giggles. I fancy being a grumpy old timer like grandpa in the Simpsons - 'I wore a 40lb beard of bees' style. Ha!
Appalachians - am I right to be thinking about that movie with the banjo music right now? Deliverance, or some such title?
Ooh boy! My family were coal miners and railway workers, life was pretty tough in remote rural mining villages. I think I can guess what sorta childhood you had. Been there, done that, we got the same t-shirt?
That reminds me of a news story from a few years back: a series of bank robberies in Germany, Holland, Denmark - all the same modus operandi and all done by white-haired robbers. Interpol (international police force) said they thought it was elderly members of 1970s terrorist organisations like Bader-Meinhoff gang stealing money because they had no retirement pensions as they destroyed their state records when young/had no savings accounts/criminal records etc and had to find some way to pay for elder care. It just paints an hilarious picture in my mind: Zimmer-frame Zapatas!
I hope. Maybe Euro, maybe PRC's renminbi. We'll see.
I just wondered, give how US dollars is world's 'reserve currency' (since 1944 Bretton Woods pact), how its crash might affect the whole of global trade (it must hurt more than failure of a national currency like Zimbabwe's since it is a reserve currency and has a special role in the world). Will we get another reserve currency or has the world economy changed so much that we will get a new way of doing business with no reserve currency or multiple competing reserve currencies? I think we are in uncharted territory so its hard to predict...
Big, open country and very few people - perfect! I live in a city centre flat (appartment). I guess that explains my misanthropy, if it needs explaining ;-)
Ublock Origin does not work on my main browser Librewolf (based on Firefox, runs on linux) - its currently disabled (last time I checked was last week) as are all ad-blockers on Mozilla add-ons page. On android stuff I use Vivaldi browser (based on chromium?). I add vpn, use dns redirects, and similar stuff to anonymise/block ads and trackers. Usually stops this kinda thing but occasionally something gets through like this Guardian pop-up.