And it should end with “without the US”. Fuck the US and their center of the world bullshit, there are a lot of beautiful countries in the Americas

Where is “libshit” written?

Why jump to tankie here?

Would they? Didn’t they splinter from the same party? They seem better, but what gives you faith they would reduce their power like that?

Ha, I missed that you were referencing operation paperclip

That’s a broken link for me. Here are two others:

https://thewest.com.au/politics/state-politics/state-of-emergency-declared-in-wa-after-fuel-suppliers-reject-roger-cooks-demand-for-information-c-22080606

A state of emergency is being declared in WA in a bid to pressure fuel companies to divert supplies where they’re needed, but Roger Cook says the target is suppliers and public consumption won’t be restricted — yet.

Parliament will be recalled on April 14 to table the orders, but they will come into effect at midnight on Thursday.

It’s the first time those powers have been used and comes after three out of six fuel companies snubbed the Premier’s request to reveal commercially sensitive information, so urgently needed supplies can be re-directed to the Goldfields and Wheatbelt.

“The Emergency Management Act has very broad powers to direct individual behaviour. What we are doing today is targeting specific emergency responses to understand our full supply chain much better.”

He’s previously said rationing will only become an option under stage four of the national plan, agreed by the Prime Minister and state and territory leaders this week.

“We remain at level two of the national fuel security plan, which is designed to keep Australia moving,” Mr Cook said.

WA state of emergency: Here’s what it means and the six powers now available to Government:

https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/wa-state-of-emergency-heres-what-it-means-and-the-six-powers-now-available-to-government-c-22082566

Both can be true?

At least I’d argue US cultural exports and social media is more dominant than, say, Germany’s.

But the US has had the right attacking democracy for longer than people are probably assuming too. I’m sure there is a better example than Newton Gingrich (anything goes, lying is fine, undermining the house) be he was 1995 and the Tea Party kind of grew from there and helped give the political space for Trumpism. McCarthyism is probably not too reasonable since there was a period in the middle but thats the mid-1950s and admittedly if you’re going back that far then its only a decade after fascism was in Europe

The humour? Before I read your first message I already had the account blocked. What’s the point of arguing with me?

Bot or not, the response was very unhinged and went from persuading to basically talking about brimstone and ashes. The effort in the poke was almost worth it

There were comments in place with some justifications when you wrote this and you just ignored them?

😂🤦‍♂️

Mate, looks like you can’t read my last paragraph and are repeating dogma

You rewrote my first paragraph by using four paragraphs but largely talked around the fact that the geographical region that we call Taiwan has a government that doesn’t fold into the PRC

Agreed that the way both governments claim to control both the mainland and Taiwan complicates things. If you want to simplify that complication take a flight from the mainland to Taiwan and if you actually go to the domestic airport and don’t pass through immigration and customs then let me know. It’s pretty direct messaging from both that they’re independent of each other. (Admittedly as I remember it, the Chinese side had a sign saying something like “International flights and Taiwan” when I was there and thats a pretty weak way to save face.)

Agreed though that your view is one way of interpreting these documents and generally agreed upon history. Strongly disagree that it’s the only interpretation or that there was anything you said that strongly prohibits (not some weak implication from a quirk of history) a faction in the PRC interpreting the geographical region of Taiwan as being too independent. That interpretation is clearly a risk to a lot of people

You’re also using circular logic: Everything you said holds because Taiwan hasn’t formally declared independence but everything you said prohibits Taiwan from declaring independence due to the risk of military force.

But lastly, I’m no longer going to be charitable: you’re defending threatening military force on a geographic region thats been functionally autonomous for 70 years if it has the audacity to formally declare itself independent and regardless of if there are political movements with momentum to do that its fucked up! There are so many bug tickets for services online from individuals that want to identify and being from Taiwan but they can’t because the PRC strong armed in ISO 3166-1. The world is fucked up and complicated so there are many disagreements but stop jamming your very one-sided view that aligns very heavily with the PRC down other people’s throats

To my understanding Taiwan has been governed by the Republic of China since 1949 and they’re independent of the People’s Republic of China (although the People’s Republic of China claims Taiwan). Since the Republic of China also claims mainland China this independence isn’t codified formally but the government is functioning autonomous and independent.

That seems like more than enough for the document to be used as a threat since your argument seems to precariously sit on one pedantic reading that is hasn’t “formally” happened yet and any group in the People’s Republic of China could at any time take the different reading that this already happened in 1949 and they were just being kind by not invading.

Declares independence?

Isn’t that a threat of military violence today?

I think I remember a good SMBC comic that had some commentary about how when we started the internet it seemed like free and open information would build a better world but sadly it hasn’t gone that way. I couldn’t find it though.

This is slightly relevant though:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/words-3

I found the study a but confusing at first

What they seem to have done is taken population data for humans (some of the early data has larger error bars) and mapped two population models to them:

• the Rickler model - used by fisheries to predict stock
• the Gompertz curve that is used for quite a few things

Both of these models have a carrying capacity that can be calculated.

I’m not sure how they took into account technological jumps that changed carrying capacity. They seem to have ignored that but I’d assume it would at the very least make the fit harder and I’m suspicious that either model can account for it.

Their conclusion actually both notes that technology can be important and that carrying capacity is tough to estimate:

A meta-analysis by van den Bergh and Rietveld examined 51 studies that produced 94 estimates of a limit to the global human population. Their median meta-prediction from these 51 studies was 7.7 billion people, but ranged from 650 million assuming a low-technology future where water availability is the main limiting factor, to 288 billion under the assumption of the ‘best’ future technology for all countries (with most estimates well above currently projected future global population sizes).

But I think it then goes on to overstate their contribution:

The uncertainty stems mainly from the many different assumptions and dimensions considered in the projections, a problem we avoided by basing our estimates of maximum and sustainable carrying capacity on the population data alone

This isn’t my field though, I just struggled to understand what they were actually basing this claim on and figured I may as well share it.

Where are you getting 70 year cycles from? This is showing something a bit different:

Source:

https://www.v-dem.net/documents/75/V-Dem_Institute_Democracy_Report_2026_lowres.pdf

Its a bit more than just an EU thing

Source:

https://www.v-dem.net/documents/75/V-Dem_Institute_Democracy_Report_2026_lowres.pdf

If you were FIFA, what are your options? I hate the award but I can see it as one of their few options to try to lean him away from ICE operations effecting the teams or fans

Protesters transformed a major Mexico City highway into a makeshift football ​pitch on Saturday, playing impromptu matches to denounce World Cup preparation which they said is overshadowing ‌the capital’s pressing needs

The protest was intended to ​denounce what organizers termed the “World Cup of Dispossession” and to draw attention to shortages of housing, water, ​transport and electricity.