gljiva
So yeah, money becoming less of a proxy of "how much someone contributed to society" and more "how much someone contributed to the oligarchs' goals", while those goals are for AI and for peoples' detriment, makes the situation actually about AI.
The technology that helps extract wealth improves, while most of the purely consumer-oriented products are becoming a con and a scam, especially if US companies are involved. The Mirabell's "original" recipe turned the best treat in the world into a generic candy, all are just palm oil + sugar + shrinkflation. There is also non-repairable tech with non-standard components, non-removable batteries, meat gets filled with water, washing machines die right after warranty ends, every digital service is trying to steal data instead of taking only the necessary or at least being transparent about what's taken and why, entertainment like Reddit and streaming services also get worse... AI slop is just another example, but a bit more visible and with a bit more side-effects.
Your analogy about guns is irrelevant because all the negative aspects of advocating for guns are missing here, while education is always helpful. I am advocating for the safest and the most efficient option for everyone. And I said why is it so. You only mentioned braking time/distance without any evidence about buses being less lethal in the long run when substituting trams:
The same braking time can be achieved by decreasing the trams' speed (30 km/h to 20 km/h) around pedestrians and cyclists, which is more efficient than removing the tram network, making space for buses, buying and maintaining twice as many buses for the same throughput, and replacing the asphalt quite often. Keeping the trams will decrease the likelihood of pedestrians and bicyclists being clipped by bulky long buses (double the number of encounters compared to trams), while still making it easier for everyone to know where the tram may come from whenever they see the tracks (and it can't swerve, so a person knows exactly how to move in a close encounter), so that they can steer clear of its path and only cross it after they make sure there is no tram passing. Introducing the buses either reintroduces toxic exhaust gases, or buses' weight advantage gets massively decreased by carrying the batteries, while increasing the tires' and asphalt damage and shedding. Also, it doesn't mean that the trend of increasing recklessness won't continue around "safer" vehicles: I bet people were more wary of trams before, just like they are in other cities with trams.
Recklessness and abandonment of personal responsibility for own safety shouldn't be a reason for everyone else to bend over backwards. There is enough of a safety net for the wannabe Darwin award winners as-is, with trams in place. Decreasing speed, moving the stations ahead of intersections, and raising awareness that the trams are still dangerous is a reasonable change of policy. Even a pilot-project driving buses on a dangerous tram lane could be reasonable, to gather data. Blindly overhauling the whole network without a strong indicator that it's even a move in the right direction, just to maybe find a way to prolong the lives of those who themselves don't really care about their lives.
Btw, visually impaired and those of bad hearing generally know very well to use their other senses to stay safe in this as well as even worse conditions. And are better off with rails marking the trams' path (or even other markings, if introduced), than relying on the buses' braking distance.
And please avoid pretending to be dumb and saying that the trams are more deadly than the cars, without taking into account how separated the cars' roads are from pedestrians' and cyclists paths as well as their passenger throughput in Amsterdam and their speed limits. If Amsterdam had the same throughput of passengers in buses instead of trams, with buses equally mixing with pedestrians and cyclists, I bet the situation wouldn't be much different, with you equally fixated only on absolute numbers multiplier, asking for trams.
Btw, why don't you ask for cars to replace the trams? Buses, despite not being as mixed with pedestrians as trams are, racking in kilometers after midnight and between cities like cars do, still cause 15x more deaths per km than cars do.
There are literally marks on every step of their path "tram is going through here, coming from there", so those that die anyway should be the ones at fault. It's horrible that they die, but banning trams is not a valid response to it. After the people have started behaving like that around trams, there isn't really a reason to assume they won't start being (even more) reckless around the less predictable and bulkier busses. You fixed braking time, but cyclists get clipped more often going out of their track as they do already. I mean, look at the description of an accident: allegedly she wore a hoodie with headphones and some stops after the intersections incentivize higher tram speeds.
Start fixing that before banning the safest and the most efficient form of transport (57x more than cars, with the amount of cars they have, number of close interactions with cyclists/pedestrians, and the imposed traffic rules for cars, isn't really a valid multiplier), scrapping all the tram lines and adjusting road tracks widths just to have buses brake harder on asphalt isn't really a fix of the problem, just a reaction to a symptom.
As I said earlier. Everything was fine while he was just "democratically" elected. And when he _started_ eroding democracy. But he took it too far going against the will of the people after being democratically elected, that he was democratically ousted.
> part of a country disagreed
A part of country, militarily supported by neighbouring Russia, took up arms. Started killing. Terrorist separatists.
> As far as russian vs ukranian... It's basically one nation.
I have already heard that kind of fantasy propaganda applied to a similar aggression. Your tricks are old. And the claim is inconsequential for the discussion tbh.
> The divide was engineered from outside and it was well engineered. Divide and concur is an old strategy and the west is very-very good at it.
I like how you, after all this, decided it's the west that is the only one to be named as the perpetrator of divide and conquer. I'd be surprised if "the west" didn't have its influence, but the fast deterioration happening under Yanukovych didn't really need outside influence to gain opposition because it's not at all logical Ukrainians would want it. Russians would because his policies were very pro-Russian. But they have Russia for that—killing Ukrainians to secede from Ukraine makes them wrong.
The rest isn't worth replying to.
..whose forces killed unarmed protestors, and who abandoned the country (after the forces under his chain of command killed protestors, so he can mostly thank himself and his goons for "fearing for his life", don't try that "argument" on me). After years of straying Ukraine away from democracy, after democratically elected parliament decided "enough is enough" and even broke ranks to oust him, you dare to speak about democracy?
Some people "disagreed"? They took up arms. Terrorists. I would say the same about the Euromaidan protestors who killed the police, had the police not killed first. Again pro-russians are the ones to escalate violence.
I already said what Minsk "agreement" is. A capitulation to Russia, not a just solution. Of course Ukraine would arm itself to reclaim its borders from the aggressor. You also missed a keyword here: _defensive_ war against Russia.
https://theintercept.com/2022/03/17/russia-ukraine-bioweapon...
Ukraine needed to arm itself for protecting its borders and reclaiming its territory taken by Russian separatists. Decide whether you want to play the "Russia's captured territory" or "Lugansk and Donbas Republic" that were no Russian business card. Btw, you keep acting as if it all started in 2022. Since 2014. Russia has been the aggressor, and I won't waste any more time on your manipulative time-wasting, "both sides" rethoric that's frankly disgusting when I remember that you well know what it supports
As someone living in a country with a hostile neighbour, I'm glad the governments currently continue to coexist, even if mine could get an economic advantage or "a safety buffer" by invading the other. NATO's peaceful expansion towards east is not just, but it isn't a sufficient cause of war either, far from it.
No, Russia isn't the only one, but _is_ a cause of a lot of suffering and resources wasted.
Seeing my dad, who grew up on these actors' action flicks, laugh himself to tears when Chuck Norris appears is one of my favourite memories.
Let's not downplay it as "strategic partnerships" and "armed resistance". It is terrorism. Both sides perpetrate it.
a) are aware that their smoke isn't dispersed enough by the breeze / open space to be unnoticeable.
b) know there is someone close enough who isn't like them and other smokers, and is really bothered by the smoke.
They do, however, go smoke on their balconies since they were made aware smoking inside is bad for their roommates/family.
So, many of them are more likely than not reasonable people. They _could be_. While you _proved_ that you aren't, by not communicating it (or at least not mentioning it as if it isn't the most important reason why they are "awful people"), just judging them and holding a grudge.
In this very comment you again showed that you don't care enough to understand others who you might disagree with, because I am just rephrasing what I already wrote, since you replied like I didn't.
Tbh, I'd rather live with most of them than with you. Since they smoke on the balcony, rather than near roommates/family, many are likely more mindful and pleasant to coexist with than what you displayed.
Their terrorism looks a bit less barbaric than what Hamas did, but the scale on which it's perpetrated is much larger and the dead babies don't care how it looked when they died.
Hamas barbaric terrorist attack shouldn't give carte blanche for an even worse response
This study's whole analysis, including comparison of toxicity in misandrist and misogynist subreddits, is based on an output of a model fine-tuned on hate speech, annotated in the following manner:
> Some identities were considered out-of-scope for Hate, including men, white people, and heterosexuals
- Improves the society in general - Having a well-educated society able to think critically would make further improvements easier (tackling corruption, inefficient healthcare system and justice system as well as political discourse...) - Having an educated workforce should draw in more investors and foreign companies, making it a critical resource, especially in my country whose industry... could be better
I already have a general idea about the mechanics of a system that would make it easy for teachers to enter (parameterized) exercises, solutions, course material, tips for effective learning and other LPTs in a central database, where students can easily practice and that supports a national league "played" as exams in all schools across the country at the same time. It would need to be recorded to avoid cheating (and the recordings should be securely transferred and stored, ofc). It would include a tier system to motivate those who fall behind, on individual, class and school based levels (to support teamwork) with a reasonable rewards system ("drip" acting like irl "skins", gadgets, etc. for the best).
This would significantly boost motivation through competition and gamification, while enabling a better way of evaluating and rewarding teachers' work, which would be based on both improving the absolute amount of well taught course material and relative rank as well as popularity of entered exercises.
As a recent graduate, I currently don't have spare time nor money to invest in this project, but at some point I'll start working towards it.