Even with civilisation or society, there’s always been a subset of people looking to exploit whatever facet of existence they can, whether it be religion, politics, crimes of opportunity, weaknesses in social systems, or even the justice systems that are supposedly meant to deal with those flaws.

And to add even more complexity, other people who aren’t pieces of shit looking to exploit others form emotional attachments to those who are and are fooled by their lies and will defend them. Others don’t have attachments but see parallels to themselves and worry that attempts to deal with the problematic ones will result in the same treatment being applied to them (and aren’t necessarily wrong because even justice trying to act in good faith can get it wrong).

It’s all a complex web of power struggles and religion is just one set of stands.

Tesla and DJT have lost similar amounts in the last month.

Even if the original question was asked in bad faith (not that I think this was the case here, but to address what you’re implying with this comment), responding with “go look it up elsewhere” doesn’t negate its effect for anyone reading. I believe it plays into those bad faith hands because it looks like you don’t want the question answered here to anyone already suspicious of the situation.

Which is kinda funny because I’ve recently started getting my old files off of burnt CDs older than that and was surprised to find that (so far) there haven’t been any noticeable degradation issues.

The pressed discs are supposed to be longer lasting than burned discs but evidently WB just went really cheap with their discs. Kinda makes me wonder if they didn’t just cheap out but deliberately did this to fuel a future format upgrade cycle or drive people to streaming even after purchasing their movies legally.

Though at least they didn’t make them install rootkits to try to prevent any disc ripping, whether it was related to piracy or not.

The problem with imperialists is that they might say they are happy with whatever the current concession is on the table today but will still want to expand their power beyond whatever limits it currently has tomorrow.

The avatar bit is kinda funny because, if anything, between Ang and Korra, I (male) find Korra more relatable. Their ages had a bigger impact on that than their genders.

Neither do the two gravity wells the stick spans. And the earth and moon are moving relative to each other, someone would probably get their head knocked off by that stick. Before it eventually falls to the earth with quite a bit of force because earth’s gravity well will win. Then it’ll eventually settle into a giant teeter totter, assuming it is rigid enough to survive the impact.

From what I recall about the reasoning behind abandoning the idea of closing Guantanamo Bay, the only options were releasing them in central park or keeping them in Guantanamo Bay.

Whatever way you go with, if it pops up a “THIS MIGHT BRICK YOUR COMPUTER” kind of warning, maybe consider one of the other options instead of ignoring it and then complaining about how nothing in Linux works.

I don’t think there are any good guys at the top of any international power pyramids.

Was doing some woodworking with the big power tools my dad had set up in the basement. First time using the table saw, I start my cut and realize the blade wasn’t high enough and wasn’t cutting through the whole piece of wood. I knew that I couldn’t let go of the wood while the machine was running, or it would become a projectile.

So I turned it off and immediately let it go, turning it into a projectile because the blade was still spinning. Luckily it only caught the back of my finger, though it left a scar.

I’ve always interpreted the other thing coming as a threat or an unpleasant surprise. Ie, the consequences of thinking the thing they think.

Shouldn’t that be semi-monthly? Rounding months to 4 weeks, of course.

Or maybe that’s just me wanting bi and semi to have consistent meanings. Bi is two, semi is a half.

No, you must go back and tell him that the moon moves at a very predictable rate and once you get close enough it will even pull you in.

Also I’m pretty sure the ISS moves a lot faster than the moon but we still manage to dock spacecraft with it. I’m pretty sure it’s a bit smaller than the moon and docking can require higher precision than landing on a surface. Even Boeing managed to do it.

Though even in that case, I’d consider water consumed to be covered under “food”.

The only exceptions I can think of are from gaining mass from things other than what you eat. Like tar buildup from smoking, snorting or injecting various substances, boffing something (I think that’s what it’s called… Up the butt instead of out the butt), things sticking to your skin, absorbing through the skin, or bugs/aliens laying eggs inside you. Maybe getting possessed by a ghost, if ghosts have mass. But I don’t think all of those combined would even come close to a single meal, other than extreme cases.

I was curious and looked into how much mass the average adult loses through breathing, and apparently it’s at least about 69g (at rest, if you are metabolizing fat).

Move the battlefield to one where the outcome doesn’t affect you and you’ll never really lose.

Plus, while you’re winning, it being a normal thing will mean you’ll get plenty of blackmail material on those who it does affect but who also prefer the connections that staying on your side gives. And you can prosecute your opponents that openly defy the ban.

Or even from the same post. I’d frequently see replies that were so obviously out of context and would usually find the source when just doing a text search on part of that comment. Some bots were sophisticated enough to adjust the wording a bit (those might have been using earlier LLMs that weren’t very successful at conversations but could handle a bit of editing).

Though if it just means it costs the cigarette companies a bit more to produce each cigarette and makes it harder for them to divert inventory for one market to another if their predictions turn out not so good, that’s still a win.

Though, now I’m suddenly wondering why cigarette company profits aren’t taxed at like 90%.