We can agree that China is a more stable partner than the US. My point is that party leadership can also change there, leading to policy changes - it just doesn’t happen as often and there’s usually no dramatic swings when it does. It’s a scale, not a binary thing.

Nah, if the US starts a world war it will suck for literally everyone, not just those voters. You’re likely to be drafted too, regardless of where you live.

In a sense that’s true for any country, though. The only differences are (1) how often the policy changes and (2) by how much. US used to have a 4-year cycle and much less variance in the policies and so it made some sense to get into long-term agreements. Even in the last 8 years, agreements reached by Trump were continued by Biden (e.g. NAFTA). Now though the cycle is like 4 days and the policy swings are 180°, so it only makes sense to enter into extremely short-term, transactional agreements, or if you have no other choice (like Ukraine).

self defense acts are not homicides

They absolutely are. There’s even a term for it - justifiable homicide.

Now I said let’s murder them?

You’re advocating for death penalty.

In countries that abolished it, if someone was executed it would be considered murder. So yes, you are advocating for murder.

Interestingly you still only talk about the perpetrators and not the victims.

What do victims have to do with this? I’m not proposing we kill them.

Surviving victims should of course be offered treatment, both physical and mental, as well as fair compensation. It is irrelevant to the question of the death penalty.

Hm, I don’t think the “gravitational force” (as in the thing that pulls you towards the Earth) is a result of a gravitational wave; rather it is a result of you being in a static vector field. Gravitational waves are waves that travel through that field, e.g. the stuff that LIGO is measuring.

I’ve tried thinking about how it would work with portals. The problem is that the definition for gravitational field is g = -∇Φ where gravitational potential Φ(x) = ∑_i(-G·m_i)/||x - x_i||, which depends on there being a single unambiguous “distance between two points” (x and x_i in this case). But think about two points on the opposite sides of one “portal entrance” (e.g. imagine a portal entrance on a wall in front of you, with your friend on the other side of that wall). What is the distance between you and your friend now? If we’re to say it’s the same as it was without a portal, then (1) we get straight back to our problems with energy conservation, (2) there is no physical path between you and your friend that matches this distance as there’s a rift in space on that path. It would also be weird to conclude that it’s infinity - you can just go around the wall in our example and be right next to your friend. So we almost have to conclude that the shortest path would have to go around the portal somehow. Let’s just say that it would be the length of the shortest path around the portal. By the formulae for the gravitational field, this means that the gravity will pull you towards the shortest path to Earth’s center. If you placed one portal on the surface of Earth (let’s assume that the center of Earth is sufficiently far away that the gravitational field can be approximated as uniform in direction and magnitude) and another one somewhere far-far away in deep space (where let’s say that gravitational field is 0 for simplicity) it would look something like this:

Note how while the gravitational potential (Φ) is defined along the red line, the gravitational field would be undefined as there would be no gradient in the gravitational potential.

Now let’s try thinking what would happen on the other side. I’ll assume that our portals are just flattened wormholes with short throats. Thus we’ll just assume that portal entrances are actually “two-sided” (e.g. if they are just floating in your room, you can walk around them and see whatever is around the other portal at all times), and that the distance between them is 0 (let’s not think about how that works for now). Now the distance between an object on “one side” of first portal entrance and “the other side” of another portal entrance is even more messed up - I think the shortest path would technically be one that travels from first object to one of the “edges” of the first portal entrance and then from the corresponding edge of the second portal entrance to the second object. Thus the gravitational field around the other portal would look like this (I’ve added eyes to clarify how I’ve linked up portal sides):

The red line once again means that the gravitational field there is undefined.

Whew, it’s complicated, right?

Now, let’s put the second portal close to the first one. Note that I’m assuming here that only the shortest distance to the center of the earth matters.

The two red lines from before now overlap, and there’s another one - there’s no gradient when the distance to the blue portal and to the earth is the same. It’d actually be longer than what I’ve drawn, and some sort of parabola in those areas, but I’m too lazy to do that. Hanging in the middle of that red cross would be a weird feeling - your top half would feel as though you’re hanging upside down, while your bottom half would feel normal, and your arms and legs would be pulled in slightly different directions.

Although, I think that Newtonian definitions of gravity are playing tricks on us here. We should probably try using general relativity instead, but I am too tired to even attempt that right now, and I’d probably fail given that the fields involved there are a lot more complicated.

It already is in all modern societies except like the USA.

Given the original commenter was talking about “the left”, I’m critiquing AES countries (e.g. China) here. USA is a lost cause when it comes to human rights anyways.

You seems to root awfully much for these bad people

That’s just basic human empathy combined with practicality. They are still human and deserve humane treatment, and also most of them (like 80% if we look at Scandinavia) can be reintegrated into the society in some way.

I’d say let’s help them when we have helped all their victims

You won’t be able to help them if you murder them

I think they’ve majorly underestimated how much the world is going to condemn this. It was one thing to “protect it’s citizens”, it’s another thing entirely to outright invade another nation.

I think you’re majorly overestimating how much the world cares.

Israel has been invading other nations literally continuously throughout its existence. You can debate that it is to “protect it’s citizens”, and there may even be some truth to that sometimes, but it’s clearly generally been the aggressor since its founding. And (almost) nobody cared.

I’d be shocked if Europe doesn’t sanction Israel

Some strong-worded letters will surely be sent, and politicians will call on “all sides to stop the hostilities”, which in practice means Israel gets to keep whatever it could occupy. Maybe a couple of somewhat left-leaning countries (Spain, Sweden, Norway, etc) will sanction Israel individually, but then they don’t have much trade by this point anyway so they have no negotiating power. As for the rest, trading (including trading weapons) with Israel is profitable monetarily and beneficial politically, so not much will really change.

Yeah, of course, death penalty is never acceptable and must be abolished entirely. Even setting aside that no proof of a physical event can be 100% solid, or all the other practicality arguments; even the worst rapists, murderers, terrorists and billionaires are still humans and do not deserve death when they present no danger anymore due to being apprehended.

A lifetime imprisonment is more inhumane than a death sentence.

Change my mind.jpg

Most death row inmates fight for their life all the way until execution. That’s proof enough.

(If there is enough solid proof ofc. You can’t roll back a death penalty)

How is the verity of the conviction related to how humane the punishment is?

Well, the videogame kind are definitely impossible, but if the gravitational field could travel through the portal then it would probably still conserve energy. The gravitational interactions around vertical portals would be exceptionally weird. If they were close enough, you’d probably experience weightlessness while in between them, but I can’t wrap my head around what would happen as they move further apart. That makes me hope someone tries to make a mod that models that in Portal…

It is a valid defense, but it is not a part of the definition of defamation. I think it’s similar to how “self-defense” is a valid defense for homicide.

If we’re also talking about vehicles… I’m about average height (~180 cm) but have long-ish legs, and this means that I simply don’t fit well into the driver’s seat of most cars. Even with the steering wheel adjusted all the way up, seat slid all the way back and reclined all the way forward, my legs are hitting the steering wheel and yet I can barely reach it with my hands. Because of this, I sometimes have to take my shoes off while driving.

Also, almost every car has some annoying things like your oil plug; simply because a modern combustion engine is really quite complicated and there’s not enough space under the hood to give every component a convenient place. E.g. my Delica has the starter located below the engine and quite far back, so it’s mostly covered by the engine protection plate. Good luck banging on that starter relay if it sticks in the off position and refuses to start, while you’re stuck in the mud! However I do agree that making periodic maintenance painful, like in your case, is way worse.

I was also surprised about this, but I took this quote directly from the judgement in question. As I think about it, it starts to make more sense - literally, defamation is dis (break into pieces/remove/…) + famo (fame/reputation). The word itself only conveys that someone’s reputation was injured, not that it was injured unjustly. IIUC the words for “unjust defamation” are specifically libel and slander, under common law. I think it’s similar to how there’s “homicide” (the act of one person killing another) which can be legal (e.g. self-defense) or criminal (e.g. murder). At least that’s my understanding of it.

I think the headline is incorrect - it didn’t win the lawsuit, it just got past the preliminary hearing and to substantive arguments (https://caseboard.io/cases/75bb8071-86c7-4032-bd34-e9d66eed1249). AFAIU now both parties will argue whether the contents of the report are true.

I don’t think it does necessarily,

Meanings will be considered defamatory at common law if they “substantially affect in an adverse manner the attitude of other people towards a Claimant, or have a tendency to do so”

This definition doesn’t consider the truth of the statement or even whether it is provable, merely whether it affects opinion.

AFAIU this ruling just means that the lawsuit can carry forward to substantive arguments.

I’ve found the entire text of the judgement here: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/KB/2024/3276.html

It’s also full of legalese, but as far as I understand the court did not rule on the verity of the statements, only on whether they are defamatory:

14. Meanings will be considered defamatory at common law if they “substantially affect in an adverse manner the attitude of other people towards a Claimant, or have a tendency to do so”

…

Conclusion:

…

54. The meanings of both publications are of fact and both are defamatory at common law with a Chase level 2 meaning.

This just means that a lawsuit can move on to factual arguments (i.e. arguments about the truth of those statements). Whoever is more convincing to the judge will win. So IIUC at least, the headline of this post is incorrect.

Alec from Technology Connections is known for his extensive rants about household appliances: https://www.youtube.com/@TechnologyConnections

As for me, I’m just trying to avoid things in general, and things I don’t enjoy in particular. Perhaps the only things that I find annoying at my home are:

• An awful flow-through gas water heater, which requires me to wait for like a minute before water gets up to temperature every time I need hot water (I’d go with an electric one myself, but unfortunately I’m a renter for now). It’s also a poor design because it’s going to fuck over humanity in a couple decades via climate change.
• Packaging on almost all processed food. I don’t need everything I buy to be in a plastic bag. It’s an incredibly poor design because it is almost always non-recyleable, either because it has a thin foil layer or it’s a mix of plastics or both, filling the landfills forever and contaminating everything with microplastics.
• Poor window frame design, combined with inevitable building settling, has resulted in a cracked window twice within the last year.

I have many more gripes about things, some of the most prominent:

• Most modern smartphones just suck. Gimme back the headphone jack, an SD card slot, and a back that I can open with my fingernails! (thankfully my current phone has all of those despite being only a couple years old and very cheap)
• Generally everything that has a battery which I can’t replace
• Bluetooth headphones without a headphone jack or at least audio-over-USB are an awful design, it would cost the manufacturer like a dollar do add that functionality that can come in really handy and yet they don’t
• Fuck clothes without pockets!
• Cheap plastic crap from wish.com or similar that’s designed to fail after one use, it just shouldn’t exist. I hope CPC bans this shit soon. (although I find it fun to pull out broken christmas lights from recycling, fix them and then get free christmas lights for every New Year’s)
• “Teflon” or similar frying pans. Just get a cast iron one. Lasts forever, doesn’t poison you, also allegedly enriches your food with iron

Since this actually sounds like a good decision… Over/under on Trump promising to double the amount of nukes and turn China into a nuclear wasteland unless they do something for him, by the end of next week?

Given the rate of executions during Trump’s last tenure, I think it’s feasible he would’ve crucified Jesus for the crime of existing while brown, if given the chance