This is one thing I think about with AI and technological progress. Optimists say that technological advancement could free people up for more creative work, fund UBI, etc.

I think that without a serious overhaul of the legal and societal frameworks of Western countries, jobs that only people can do well or are too costly to automate could become the only way to earn a living for most people.

Like sex work, for instance. The poor underclass would expand, the wealth gap would widen and labor exploitation would become much worse. Voíla, suddenly children seeing prostitution as an aspirational career becomes more common because that may be an increasingly likely eventuality.

Short answer: Many people support those governments critically or uncritically for various reasons.

Long answer:

Russia: Some people who oppose US hegemony support Russia as probably the most effective anti-US actor globally - I mean look at what they’ve managed (in part) to do to the US government over the last 10 years or so. They may also be sympathetic to Russian anti-NATO sentiment. People who support China may also critically support Russia since they are a strategic ally of China. Some people just full-throatedly support Russia uncritically - I don’t know why they’re quite so enthusiastic, but most others who have pro-Russian sentiment are still critical of Russia, but support them as a major power capable of attacking US hegemony.

China: China is the most successful communist country to have ever existed. Many left-leaning people may support China to varying degrees because they are an Actually Existing Socialist country and because their model of Communism with Chinese Characteristics seems to work quite well for them. Due to the West (broadly) attacking Socialist governments in the name of Liberalism & becoming increasingly more fascistic, China could be an important bulwark against fascism. Many people support China uncritically - they genuinely like the Chinese system of government and want their governments to be more like China’s. Other people critically support China - they believe China’s government is problematic in some way(s), but support it anyway as a bastion of socialism and a significant challenger to US economic & political hegemony.

As for support for the governments as opposed to the people: We kind of have to talk about these things at the country level, since governments are the (imperfect) embodiments of political ideologies and collectively act on behalf of the people within their borders, and “the people” aren’t monolithic. We often treat countries as avatars of political ideologies which is inaccurate but is an abstraction that unfortunately often leads to an oversimplification of the ideologies behind & effects of those governments’ actions while allowing us to create a comprehensible narrative.

Beast titan with alopecia lookin mf

It really depends, but ultimately a lot of social interactions can only happen between two people at once. Say you and your wife get into a fight. Instead of fighting it out & making up, she now has the option to stop fighting you and go hang out with your co-husband - and you aren’t invited. She also has the option to emotionally strong arm you to get her way by not only stonewalling you/withholding affection, but also by threatening to push you out of your marriage for another guy who literally lives with you both. Conversely, she does the same thing to the other guy.

Basically, now all those 2-person social interactions that happen in a marriage become much more complicated due to the presence of a 3rd person.

You’d need to have a lot of trust in your wife (and this other guy too) - she’d need to have a tremendous amount of emotional stability and be non-manipulative. She’d suddenly have a lot more power in the relationship in a very inequitable way.

My wife and I are very into monogamy. But she has a serious temper and can be very manipulative when she’s angry (she’s gotten better about this, but it’s a known issue). It’d be very easy for her to do something hurtful. I’m not talking about sex, just the emotional threat of turning to someone else for relief from me - and the implied threat of pushing me out.

There’s a documentary somewhere ( this might be it ) about the town of Asbest, Russia (where like all the asbestos comes from) that interviews people who live there (they mostly mine asbestos). The miners are real macho guys who think asbestos is perfectly safe. The cancer rates in Asbest are really high, unsurprisingly.

@aihorde@lemmy.dbzer0.com draw for me Lemmy user ComradeMiao prompting an ai to create an image of the db0 admin as a power hungry reddit mod

Yep doesn’t work anymore. There’s probably some series of buttons you can push to put it into settings mode, but I imagine it’s different by model.

If you can’t mute it with software, then the only remaining way is via hardware. Carry some packing tape in your car and slap it over the speaker - wipe fingerprints off just in case.

True that. Our tax dollars could be spent much more effectively if our government was more focused on the wellfare of its people.

You get other benefits though. Like the few social safety nets we actually have, public school funding, social security (unless it runs out/gets cut), fire departments, regulatory agencies that keep your food, water, and drugs safe. Etc. It costs a lot of money to have a society. Even if you don’t directly benefit from them, they still make society less shit.

That said, it’d cost a lot less if we didn’t spend so much of it murdering children.

Oh I’m just… a … regular type dude >!.. with a big-ass dick!<

Depends on your goals. I’d say learn the one you have the most use for. If you don’t have a use and are just learning for fun, then pick the most interesting one. If you’re learning intending to acquire the language as quickly as possible, then either Italian or French would be good choices.

I am learning Chinese (mandarin, aka 汉语, aka 普通话) and I personally find it very logical, interesting, and fun as a native english speaker who used to be conversationally fluent in Spanish. There are definite difficulties with the language (soooooo many homonyms, characters (汉子) take some getting used to, tones, etc) but if you learn it, there is a lot of reading material and media that will become accessible to you. Additionally some things about it are easier than other languages - like the grammar is very simple, you don’t have to worry about conjugations and tenses as much. Also, I think that it provides more cognitive benefits because of how different it is to romance languages.

汉语是很酷。我推荐你！

It’s illegal unless there’s a bonafide occupational qualification that your disability prevents you from performing. Like you couldn’t apply for a job as a furniture mover if you’re a quadriplegic and cry discrimination when they don’t select you. And the employer can ask things like “this job requires that you lift heavy objects of up to 600lbs with the assistance of another person and a back brace. Do you have any medical or other reason you could not perform these duties?”.

Now if that weren’t a real occupational qualification, that’d be discriminatory. Like if they said you had to be a man for that moving job - there’s no reason you have to be a man, you just have to be able to move 600lb things.

Learn what you need to do to follow recipes, and then you’ll learn the rest over time. Cook things you like to eat.

Don’t get a bunch of junk for your kitchen. You only need basic things and can buy them as you go.

• Knives - you only need a chef’s knife (8" or 10") for most kitchen tasks and a paring knife for small things. Optional: bread knife (i just use a chef’s knife), filet knife, boning knife, cleaver.

• Pots and Pans - get all stainless steel and/or cast iron/enameled cast iron. Don’t buy aluminum or nonstick. Frying pan. Saucepan. Big pot and/or Dutch oven (can use as a soup pot on the stove or in the oven for other things, enameled recommended). Baking sheet (and a silicone matt for nonstick).

• Other: peeler, box grater, garlic press (way easier than mincing garlic), citrus juicer, steamer insert for a pot, measuring cups and spoons, cutting board (plastic is OK - bamboo is another good budget option, one for meat and one for plants recommended)

• Know what it means to steam, boil, simmer, sautee, bake.

• Keep your knives sharp.

• Learn the basic cuts (dice = .5 - 2cm cubes, mince = very tiny little pieces, julienne/batonnet/chiffonade - strips of stuff of various sizes).

• The key to cutting anything is to break it down into manageable, regular pieces that you can easily turn into cubes or rectangles.

Since you have difficulty tasting:

• Don’t over-salt. You can always add more, but you can’t remove it.

• Acidity and fat are important to make food taste good. Vinegar is often a hack to make food taste better.

• Adding MSG to your food is also a great way to make it taste better.

• Learn what herbs and spices belong in different kinds of food. Some can go in a lot of different cuisines and dishes - like salt, pepper, garlic, onion, parsley, and chives. But others have more niche uses, and some combinations are very typical of specific cuisines. Buy individual spices, not spice mixes. Dry spices are stronger than fresh spices, so if substituting dried for fresh, you will use less than you would use if they were fresh.

The head chef of Alethea (3 star michelin restaurant) totally lost his sense of taste for years and still ran one of the best restaurants in the world.

AFAIK you can literally mail anything (except these things) as long as you pay the right postage and address it.

I largely analyze data and create software to automate business tasks. This allows people in my company to make informed decisions about the business, how money is or should be spent, who & where to hire, helping non-techical people automate repetitive tasks. I also present/interpret data and influence decision-making.

This might mean creating forecasts. Automating data analysis with reports. Building data sources (gathering and manipulating data from different places and compiling it). Building interactive software or excel sheets for non-technical users. Creating white papers or presentations on analysis I’ve done. Etc.

I use excel, google sheets, google app script (basically javascript), tableau, python, and SQL.

The existence of publishers for scientific literature is completely unnecessary in the modern era. They exist only to make profits to continue their existence. They don’t actually provide value anymore when research institutions can just conduct peer review and then let researchers self-publish.

They create negative value (a bottleneck) by limiting who can access research for just… aggregating and hosting articles.

Basically it is a “technical analysis” thing. Which basically means divination based on “shapes stonk line make”.

Death cross scary shape when stonk line cross other line

I agree about windows maintenance. Mint has been easier and more stable than windows for me. The biggest hurdles were getting it set up - partitioning, mounting drives, etc. In windows that just happens.

But, actual day-to-day operation? Much easier in Mint.

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