431–440 of 899 posts
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Do you not get access to the response code as well? That would be simpler.
off the top of my head, the response code from cache is simply 200 OK, is it not?
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Zero sum doesn’t mean there is a loser to every transaction. It just means that the net total change is zero. You buy a friend a beer, and you get a beers worth of camaraderie.
What remains constant when I give my son a hug? Or I say, “thank you?” The zero-sum game is life stuff is nonsense.
Even if it was a vegetarian meal, it got transported to you and dumped CO2 into the atmosphere. The truck probably hit bugs and maybe ran over some small wildlife.
If you didn't exist, there would be slightly less demand. If 300 million of you didn't exist, there would be a whole lot less demand. The world would be noticeably different.
Everything is energy expenditure and reallocation. Even hugging your son expends ATP that could have been used elsewhere. Hug him a million times and you will be very tired.
I'm not arguing that you shouldn't love your son. I'm saying that the world, at the most fundamental level, revolves around the availability of energy and resources. All of these things in the micro add up in the macro. And even if you aren't concerned about it, your government likely is.
Every single choice has some quantum of opportunity cost and will play out in butterfly effect fashion.
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Do you understand that your own government has even more power over you than a foreign one? It's in your best interest that no government collects this kind of data about you.
The country that you reside in has the most power over you simply by virtue of having an active police force and/or military. No need for any data collection whatsoever.
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The world map has been mostly frozen the last few decades precisely because USA is the global hegemon and world police. Regional powers (which is what we would devolve to) are demonstrating exactly what the world would look like without America running the show: conquest and genocide in Ukraine, saber rattling in the south china sea, genocide of the Kurds. We don't have an interest in solving for all the world's ills…
It's sad but not surprising that you think that the US did not promote, finance, or execute dictatorships and all kinds of destabilizing tactics against democratically elected governments for the sole reason of not agreeing with their policies. They even sent agents to my country to teach the military how to torture civilians. The only difference is that they were careful to not do it directly, or do it in secret. Ex…
Promoting a better way for countries to adopt, partnering with them in economic activity and education, and helping them to defend themselves when neighbors try to use aggression to oppose that partnership is a much better mechanism for bettering the world than outright war and conquering other nations.
Does the US do shady stuff that bites them later? Yes. Is the world overall better with the US as one of the biggest out there for now? Also yes. Both things can be true.
By all means shine a light on, and oppose the shady stuff but don't make the mistake of thinking that the world doesn't need a strong entity who can both promote and also defend better ways to govern.
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Its exactly in line with what I said. End of the day, we're all on teams whether or not you like it. And every single country on this planet has baggage. I have people in my family who are living who remember what it feels like to be considered sub-human by British imperialists as they allowed famines. On the grand scheme of things, if we add up the sins and good deeds, the USA has done more to improve the lives of p…
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In the US, you are expected to uphold the line that brings you donors. That makes leftist parties non-viable. That’s not such a big difference from the Chinese situation as you’d think, except in direction.
The CCP: -- Put a million Uighurs in camps -- Persecutes followers of pretty much all religions --- Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Falun Gong, etc -- Flat-out censors anything that offends them in the slightest -- Puts whoever they want into detention with no kind of due process, from small-time activists to billionaires -- Harvests the organs of (not previously dead) prisoners -- Had drones peering into apartment w…
(Though viewing China as a full autocracy with absolute power of a single individual is extremely simplistic)
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The poverty rate in US is ~14%, that's tens of millions of Americans living in poverty. Comparing incomes directly doesn't help, how much can $5k buy you in China vs how much can the poverty level income buy you in US?
You're not arguing that poverty in the US is comparable to poverty in China are you?
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Sadly none of this is doable in the current version of capitalism (and in pretty much every country that is drinking from it). Corporation interests, especially those of large corporations, override pretty much everything else.
Please elaborate on what other "version of capitalism" is necessary. Hope we are not advocating that everything be owned by the state, as if that would allow more competition.
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Sorry if other languages aren’t permissible. I can delete it if I need to.
I don't think it's against the rules at all; we had a thread a couple weeks ago which ended up being mostly in German. We native speakers enjoy the privilege of reading English nearly every where we go online, it should be no skin off our back to pop open Google Translate every once in a while.
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> this data collection done by a foreign government and exploited for surveillance or espionage is a national security risk. How were Snowden revelations of USG Bigtech relationship materially different from what's happening here? Maybe it was less transparent? Any "woke" person can see the cognitive dissonance here. It's all fine that you use the geopolitical rivalry argument but not if you try to paint one side of…
The notion which myself and others have problem with is that the US Federal Govt and the CCP are entities which we should be treating with a similar level of trust and care. The CCP has proven time and time again, be it from their refusal to cooperate with studying the source of COVID, or their continued systematic genocide of the Uighur population, that they are not a political institution which can be trusted or re…