Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), starring Alec Guiness

But don’t you see? It’s a matter of principle.
If we give in now, there’ll be no end to it. No.
We’re under the heel of a man who’ll stop at nothing to get his way.
[…] Here is where we must win through

Would be very sad if the license plates led to doxxing agents and their managers

Would be even sadder if those agents and managers were unable to lead normal lives ever again

Loudly say what I really think of certain people.

My God, the one time I wasn’t on mute almost ended my career

I think Putin getting the Qaddafi treatment will be a pretty clear moment in history

It’s the very best of Clarke’s work: when he lets a good writer do the storytelling, and sticks himself to figuring out the logical conclusion of new technology

I don’t know jack about economics or finance. But perplexity is pretty good about sticking to academic research when instructed to. Answers condensed for brevity; I also bolded the final conclusion.

me: is the united states is presently supporting the Argentine currency?

Yes, the United States is currently supporting the Argentine currency (the peso) through various measures […]

me: give historical examples where similar currency supports have achieved their objective

Mexican Peso Crisis (The “Tequila Crisis”) in 1994-1995 […] Asian Financial Crisis (South Korea) in 1997-1998
Key Takeaway success was largely due to:
Massive Scale: The bailouts were large enough to overwhelm speculative attacks and restore market confidence.
Strict Conditions/Reforms: The funding was tied to the recipient country agreeing to and implementing serious, politically difficult, and far-reaching structural and fiscal reforms that addressed the root causes of the crisis.

me: is the current $20 billion US bailout for Argentina sufficient in scale?

The current consensus among many analysts is that the $20 billion U.S. financial support package (primarily a currency swap line and potential bond purchases) is a strong political signal and a crucial temporary lifeline, but is unlikely to be sufficient on its own to resolve Argentina’s deep-seated structural and currency crisis in the long term.

One of the plot points is that in response to panopticon-style surveillance, an underground counterculture emerges of people who become invisible – hiding under camo, blankets, etc. And never speaking; only using sign language directly touching another person’s hands to keep communication private.

https://briarproject.org/

No but sell me

I’m on the planet where these things happened.

Don’t shoot the messenger

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/why-egypt-and-other-arab-nations-are-hesitant-to-take-in-palestinian-refugees

https://apnews.com/article/palestinian-jordan-egypt-israel-refugee-502c06d004767d4b64848d878b66bd3d

All those leaders saw what happened when Palestinian refugees entered their countries previously. They are also slowly becoming less theistic and more secular – less immediate about getting their Reward in the Afterlife, and a little more concerned with the real world

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It’s part of their Sky Daddy culture

If she splits the Vance vote then she will be doing the Lord’s Work

Tou spelled “Medvedev” wrong

His support was quickly bleeding away

Don’t hate people.

Hate the perverse, uncivic, inherently tribalistic ideas of “belief without evidence”, “felt truth”, and “chosen people”

They are all toxic memes antithetical to a modern inclusive pluralistic society.

Somehow it also feels like patriotic anti-government resistance

Censoring

This right here.

Listen, Trump, if you’re going to start wars with allies over made-up shit, at least threaten Japan unless & until they fix their anti-social censorship laws.

Japan would dominate the whole world if they unleashed the Pr0n Freedom

Fun fact:

Back during the dotcom boom I met a guy in San Francisco who worked fixing bugs in Netscape’s rendering engine.

He said ~80% of the problem reports were from porn sites complaining that their page didn’t work properly in NS but worked fine in IE.

So yeah he spent all day on porn sites, making them better for the rest of us.

True hero.