Imperialism is cool as long as the people doing the imperialism call themselves socialists or communists 🙂‍↕️

FCAS is a multinational project with pillars, or work packages, distributed among the three partners France, Germany and Spain. This division among national lines takes precedence over the division among company lines, as the project deals with national classified data which may only be handled by citizens of the corresponding nation.

So while Airbus is an international company, it has German and Spanish work packages that only German and Spanish nationals are allowed to see/work on.

French Dassault was responsible for Pillar one, the core of the project, which was the development of the “New Generation Fighter”.

Dassault/France decided to pull out of FCAS and develop their “New Generation Fighter” entirely on their own.

Now German and Spanish partners are left with an FCAS project without its centerpiece, and they are mad.

Anger is mostly directed at Dassault, which is refusing to work with its supposed partners, turning a tri-national project into a national with no regard for the effect this has on German and Spanish counterparts.

But the French Government also has a part in this. Dassault is their contractor, but they allow this to happen.

It’s really more of a contract, “I promise to carry and raise your children, you promise to provide the money” That’s why throughout much of history, you couldn’t get divorced, it wasn’t about love, it was about security.

Nowadays marriage isn’t really as important as before, but still relevant. For women, having a child usually still means making career sacrifices.

no condoms 5000 years ago, so good luck

We shouldn’t confuse the effectiveness of these protests with their legality. Yes, the protests moved the government to change its approach to prevent even more unrest. Still, the CCP considered them to be illegal and reacted with force, arresting participants or those that spread information about the protests.

Of course, that is also not what I would consider ‘publicly or vocally’.

I have a Taiwanese friend who is very much anti-CCP, but he does go to china for vacation every now and then.

Yes, you need to be in the right headspace, you cannot expect to vocally or publicly criticize the government and go unpunished. But politics are not everything. China is beautiful in many ways and has many great people. I think it would be a good idea to take the opportunity and make this experience. And afterwards, your opinions on china and the CCP will have a stronger foundation than they do now.

edit: you say you are politically active: is this evident from your social media accounts? That might be problematic.

I say that because Lukashenko is Putin’s puppy:

https://youtu.be/1JNtiO7nhmo

Luckily Belarus is completely sovereign 👍

bath towels: weekly

bedding: every 2 or 3 weeks, depending on the season

Olives

Training good models requires lots of training data and computational resources, so the only ones who can afford to train them are big corporations with access to both. And the only objective they have is to increase their profit.

Donating blood plasma is good as it helps people in need. Sure, it sucks that there is a company in the middle making a profit, but not donating is not the solution to that problem, as it hurts the people in need more than the corporation in the middle.

I think its kinda similar to the tipping situation. Yes it sucks that restaurants don’t pay their employees properly and that you have to tip to support the employees. But not tipping hurts the employees rather than the restaurant owner.

In both cases, if we want change, we need to change the legislation.

1.4% (I live in Germany)

Departing Scene in my ass

It sure is easy to portray your country as successful, clean and beautiful if you don’t allow any free press to contradict you.

42 is from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, 69 is a sex position, 420 refers to weed

It’s not like I hate other operating systems, I just really like the idea of FOSS and try to use it whenever possible.

Humans have other senses besides sight you know? Taste, touch, smell and sound are all heavily involved in sex. And if you can sense them, you can imagine them. Do you need to see your partner to get aroused?

(Also, a majority of blind people have not always been blind, so I imagine many of them still also imagine what someone looks like)

No, I just have very different ideas what progress is.

Progress in my eyes is made when a society becomes more democratic, and when we solve conflicts without bloodshed.

In that sense, sure, the GDR was a step in the right direction, but nazi germany didn’t exactly set the bar very high.

The idea of socialism is nice, but you hardly have any progress if the system (be it built on free markets or planned economies) doesn’t work to improve ordinary citizens’ lives, but only to keep the powerful in power.

Personaly, I don’t care much about free markets or planned economies. I think the best approach, as so often, is a kind of blend, a social market economy that allows independent companies in a framework that protects workers, consumers and the environment.

Thing is, the specifics of the economic system aren’t important. What matters is that the people are the ones who decide them.

There is nothing wrong with pursuing a utopian society, but ultimatly you have no control over what happens in the far future (neither should you, future societies need to be ruled by future people).

The only thing you can control is the present and the near future, so what really matters aren’t the ends you strive for, but the means you employ while doing so.