It has gotten worse since trump showed that the truth is optional for politics.

But yes, still better.

Looking from the outside, what the US has lacked is the “strong regulation” part.

In my opinion the US is way too far on the capitalist side of the slider, you are not at “pure capitalism” yet. But sometimes it doesn’t seem like you have far to go.

Private prisons are just a ridiculous, over reach of profit making into what is at its core a social problem that requires social solutions.

The communism / capitalism debate is an interesting one. Each system has its advantages, and I am a strong believer in a strong compromise between the two extremes.

I don’t think that workplaces should be collectivized as a default. I also think that strong regulation and “big” government is a positive thing. The government should set the rules, for the benefit of all, but the game should be open to all players.

I am also a very strong believer that there are some activities that are far too important to leave up to the market.

• Health care
• Education
• Infrastructure
  • Water
  • Waste
  • Roading
  • Public transport
  • Communications
• Social welfare

For everything else, let the market decide. Collective ownership of cafes and hardware stores isn’t really something that needs to happen. But I would also be happy if a collectively owned cafe opened up nearby, I would give them the same weight as all other cafes (how good is your coffee).

Agreed, if you have a billion in cash sitting around, then do something with it.

But in this specific example, and really any example where someone gains their wealth from “doing stuff”. It is not liquid, sitting around in cash to hand out. It is usually in stock of the company they found.

While they are “young” and energetic making the world a better place, then keep on doing what you are doing. Once you “retire” from that then it is the time to donate.

There are different ways to accumulate wealth.

In an example from my country, Sir Peter Beck, is only a billionaire because the stock value of RocketLab has rocketed up (pun intended). His total compensation for the 2023 year was just under $1M. Source

I would rather that he concentrate his efforts to making the best rocket possible; he could in theory split his time and work to reduce poverty…but I believe that the rocket building would suffer.

There are a lot of other people working to reduce poverty.

I agree with your point that in general, most billionaires are shitty people who could do a lot more. But some people are billionaires because they are doing cool shit.

Will Sir Peter become a cunt in the future, who knows. In 10 years will we look back and see the decline to Musk levels of cuntishness?

There is a lot more nuance than is explained or even hinted at in the article.

There are a bunch of biased comments in the article.

• It paints the Maori as a consistent group.
  • Before the arrival of the British and for a long time after, the Maori were similar to the Greek city states; alliances, wars, betrayals and friendships.
  • Their culture was just as fragmented.
• It says in the article that Maori speak te Reo.
  • This is unfortunately not true, it is changing and there is more te Reo being spoken “in the wild”; but walking down the street, it is not often I hear te Reo being spoken.
  • te Reo is an amalgamation. The Maori were a diverse group, each had their own dialect, at some point in the recent past te Reo was “standardized”. There was a bunch of contention around some words that were pronounced and spelt differently by different Iwi.
• The land grabs and persecution parts are true.
  • Some Iwi did a lot better than others.
  • Some Iwi didn’t sign the treaty at all.
  • Some tribes “sold” their land, when they thought differently.
• The part about Te Pati Maori only holding 6 out of 123 seats is funny.
  • There are 7 Maori electorates, TPM won a bunch of these. Labour won some.
  • Every party has Moari MP’s, TPM is not the only Maori voice in parliament. Implying TPM is the only voice for Maori is demeaning. The Maori people are not a monolithic group; their politics is as varied as any other group.

The main issue is that the two treaties, the English language version and the version written in “Maori” are not the same. Te Triti (the Maori version) grants rangatiratanga; or self determination to the Iwi; whilst the English version grants sovereignty to the crown. There are a bunch of other differences, but this is the main one.

Contract law has the doctrine of Contra Proferentem; or against the drafter. Since the British crown wrote the treaties; as at the time there was no Maori written language; the interpretation of the contract should be read as to benefit the non-drafting party, in this case Te Triti should be taken as the “correct” one.

Now to the issue with the proposed bill.

• It sets out to “equalise” all peoples, which on the surface sounds really good. Why wouldn’t you want to treat people equally?
• Under NZ law, all peoples are already equal!
• There are specific carve outs, to allow for the closing of historic inequities suffered by Maori. The bill seeks to remove or reduce these.
• There is also culture war bullshit, around dual names for government departments etc.
• Treaty negotiations have been ongoing for decades at this point. They look set to continue for many decades to come. The ACT party wants this to stop.

Some say that ACT are hiding their racism behind the guise of equality. My opinion is that they are not specifically being racist. ACT is the libertarian party here; I think this is a long game to transfer more power to the corporates and private sector. This kind of culture war crap is a great smoke screen to transfer more power away from the people.

How to cover up leaving 10 minutes late!

That is honestly insane.

In NZ the sticker price is what you pay, if the price on the sticker doesn’t include tax, it is false advertising and you pay what is on the sticker.

It is entirely up to the retailer to ensure that the price is correct. The only exception to this, is if the price is obviously wrong e.g. $5.00 rather than $500.

Random ass-memory; donkey walks past and remembers something random.

Another take:

The happy rider, is a conspiracy theory enjoyer. Happy in the “knowledge” that someone (anyone) is at the controls of the world, it gives comfort in a perverse way. Even though they know that the “controllers” are doing bad things.
The sad rider, is a realist. Can see that they are stuck on a trolley that is currently plowing through people, their personal actions mean nothing in the aggregate of all other actions in the world. They saw that the person at the leaver chose to keep themselves pure, rather than reduce the suffering in the world and taint themselves in the process.

Legend.

Always found that strangely motivating.

Weird pic to post in spring.

Just over the ditch… I’ll stay in NZ, too many things that try to kill you in Oz

This map is missing all of the rivers etc… the freshies will get you there.

When playing games with the kids, we start at 0 being the position you are currently in, then count from there.

e.g. in snakes and ladders, if you are on spot 30 and roll a 5, tap spot 30 and say “zero”, then spot 31 is “one” etc… till you are at spot 35 saying “five”.

Teaches the kids about zero and avoids miss counts from the younger ones counting their current position as “one”

You are applying too much classical thinking.

Something in superposition isn’t in some unknowable but definite position before measurement.

It is all possible states, at the same time.

Einstein famously did not like the implications of QM, saying “god does not play dice with the universe”, though his work on the photo electric effect helped pave the way for QM.

No worries, I don’t expect many people have an understanding of what superposition actually means.

The Lemmy crowd probably skews towards those that are likely to understand it, but you never know.

This is just a misunderstanding of superposition.

A superposition is being in all possible states before “collapsing” into a defined state, after interacting with something (a measuring device).

So Schrodinger’s immigrant will be in all possible states; they are obviously lazy welfare bums; whilst simultaneously taking all the jobs; and being so poor that they eat your pets; and having the time to organize groups to go raping; whilst also being trustworthy enough to be a housekeeper or nanny

Source and sink (source and drain) are commonly used to describe the movement of fluids / electricity.

Chapter One

Pippin commits a preemptive strike against a low grade threat. Thus becoming war criminal; the international community turns against The Shire as the dangerous loose cannons they have shown themselves to be.

The fact they are nuclear armed leads to years of protracted negotiations; extremely harsh sanctions and the economic ruin of The Shire.

The remains of Mordor; rise up and become far more important on the international stage. As the injured party they telegraph this into a much louder voice than they should command. They oppose the Elves but have similar goals, the control and subjugation of the humans.