Tell me you’re a foreign intelligence agent without saying you’re a foreign intelligence agent.

Tomato, to-illegal.

Nope, we are commemorating it.

I’m sure that’s what these people got together to commemorate and no other events at all.

Remind me again how that started?

I have encountered more lunatics on Lemmy than I have in any other place in my entire life. It’s fucking astounding.

Yeah, that was my take, too.

I’m a man who was sexually abused by a woman when I was a child. If I point out that the sign in the thumbnail is both untrue and is a dangerous oversimplification am I a rape apologist?

If that’s the case, holy shit does that need to be specified.

The whole “people can’t be illegal” thing is an attempt to bypass negative attitudes people have towards people who - ya know - break the law and violate the sovereignty of the country they’re in. It’s what dovetails with rebranding to saying “migrants”, it’s a bald-faced attempt to manipulate the public and get them to accept people jumping borders and overstaying visas.

Christ, I hate Lemmy.

I’ll take “no shit, Sherlock” for 500, Alex.

The worst part is that the article says that Wilson took the sequel trilogy on a sudden left turn, but then blames Abrams for not playing nice when he tried to clean up the mess. That’s like blaming the EMTs for a car accident.

Think of foreign policy as a ladder, and you are the person in charge of your country (or at least their foreign relations). Each rung is a new action you can take to influence the behavior of other countries.

The first step is formal communications. That’s easy, you’re probably on that step with just about every other nation. The next few rings are all other friendly diplomatic steps, things like opening embassies, making trade agreements, non-aggression pacts, etc.

Now let’s say a neighboring country is doing something you don’t like. Your nation’s grievance with them will fall into one of a few broad categories: they are a threat to your security, they are a threat to your interests, or they are a threat to your honor (meaning your international reputation). Whatever the reason, your job is to change their behavior and none of the previous steps on the ladder have worked, so now you climb higher.

The next rungs are less friendly, but are still diplomatic. These are things like denouncements, cessation of trade, tariffs, and sanctions. At the very top of this set of rungs, you close your embassy and demand they close theirs. You break off most communication. Finally, you tell the whole world why they have wronged you.

Now you’ve done everything you can diplomatically, but their behavior is still a threat to your security, interest, or honor. How do you change their behavior? There are more rungs on the ladder.

Going all the way back to Sun Tzu, generals have known that their job was to take over when the diplomats failed. This doesn’t mean that total war is immediate or inevitable. The military could conduct raids, surgical strikes, or enforce an embargo. Warfare is simply the top rungs of the ladder of foreign policy. Some nations climb it more quickly or willingly than others, but war exists on the same spectrum as diplomacy.

How the fuck do you think gas pumps work?

I’m done feeding the trolls.

Sure, but it’s on the list.

If it saves even one human life it’s worth switching to an alarm instead of immobilization, even if that means hundreds of breakaway cables get snapped by morons driving away from chargers.

1. It’s about hitting electric cars, self driving or otherwise.

2. Cars can still move with punctured tires, at least far enough that a would-be robber or carjacker could get dragged a good distance.

3. You smash the window and open the door. Now the panicked driver is speeding away, leaving you high and dry or dragging you along.

Being able to completely immobilize a vehicle while keeping it intact is a criminal’s wet dream. It’s incumbent on car manufacturers to consider that while implementing safety features.

Pry bar to open the hatch, like I said.

And yes, today people are walking around with angle grinders to chop off catalytic converters.

The difference being that not being able to start the motor with the door open is only a problem if the driver was being attacked in a parking lot.

It’s not too big of a leap to imagine a world where a person could immobilize a car at a red light with the plug cut off from a public charger. Wall up to a stopped car, open the hatch (maybe it needs a pry bar) and put the dummy plug in. Now the car is immobilized. Smash the driver side window and they’re in business.

Sure, there are some safeguards that can be added like requiring a current to immobilize the vehicle, but it’s far from the simplest or safest answer. Car manufacturers need to stop putting in hard limits and just use alarms instead. I bought a new Subaru that has collision detection standard. The hedge next to my driveway was overgrown, but I drove right through it. The car sounded an alarm and flashed a bunch of lights, but it didn’t engage the brakes, I was able to blast through an obstacle that I knew was minor even though the car thought it was a threat. If a manufacturer feels compelled to add a safety system, it’s possible to do so without taking control away from the driver.

That level of change took centuries and I still understand it.

The internet speeds up change to the point where we’ll lose intelligibility.

Yep, real childish of me to insist that our goddamned primary communication protocols remain consistent because it would cut down on fun improvisation.