While the West is certainly struggling I fail to see how China is the preferable alternative from a political perspective. Care to enlighten me as to why it is better for its citizens which must be the goal and purpose of government no?
And no helm(et) or lifejacket in sight… Looks like a spectacularly dumb way to die given all the jagged rocks.
Highest among prosperous nations sure, but if we look to the whole world Korea does not have close to the highest rates of suicide.
Policy makers: “Why won’t they have babies?!? We need more babies the whole system will collapse! We must urgently do something! But what? What ever should we do??? We’ve tried EVERYTHING! We even give them straight cash if they have a kid! This is the greatest mystery of our time!”
The population in nearly perfect unanimous voice: “Work life balance is shit and we can’t afford to have kids, neither time wise nor monetarily”
Policy makers: “Such an enigma, truly so mysterious, woe is us, evil evil selfish young people that don’t have kids!”
…
Really cool stuff but I struggle to see what it truly enables to be able to deliver 100 metric tons to low earth orbit “cheaply”? A new cooler space station?
To me the real breakthrough would be in making space travel feasible. As it is now the time it takes and the radiation + small debris out there make it seem very distant.
But maybe this could be a step if they could build a space station so large that you could assemble a space ship there and launch from there with all the benefits of fuel savings that would entail? Realistically though there is no money in it until reaching the asteroid belt and mining there comes into reach. That would truly trigger a space age, if something came around that makes that feel within reach.
All but eliminates would be more accurate but still extremely surprising to me. I can’t say I’m a fan of the rising tension in India between Hindus and Muslims stoked on by Modi but they’re obviously delivering great results in combatting inequality and lifting people of out poverty.
The most encouraging numbers in there were for sure the decline in the Gini coefficient, most countries see worsening inequality so it’s very encouraging to see a nation as large as India being able to combat it.
Sure, but at least they should have chosen a better timing and not call out the increase in admissions to doctors programs. Since they did the government has support in revoking licenses, something they never would have if the protest was only against the working conditions. As it is now they’re protesting something that has been put forth as a solution.
Not arguing against that. But the optics of doing this strike now and dragging in the decision to increase admissions to doctors programs are absolutely horrible and is the reason this protest is so unpopular and the governments very stern reaction accepted.
I just don’t get this protest. It’s so obviously not going to be popular amongst the population and what they’re protesting could very well help solve their grievance. If there are more doctors the need to work 100 hour weeks will drop and then their pay matches the effort again. Sure there might be risk of their wages dropping with more doctors saturating the market but that’s not guaranteed and a good way to combat that is to collectively agree to not accept lowered pay and strike if it becomes reality. That strike would also garner much more sympathy than this one.
Valid, a poor assumption on my part.
Edited because I wrongly assumed the reply was from the person I responded to. Changed subject/pronouns below in response.
What.
They replied to me literally stating that my opinions were flawed from the get go based on very big assumptions. Not only my opinions but everyone calling themselves moderate or centrist, we’re talking millions of people you just said hold an inherently compromised position. That’s some seriously dumb shit. That doesn’t make them dumb, just that opinion and I clearly stated that paragraph was what I called out. I then addressed their other concerns and statements.
It’s them who are shutting down any debate here. Not me. And yeah “enlightened centrist” is for sure a problem, people that think their position is inherently better because it doesn’t adhere to an extreme. But I do not subscribe at all to that line of thinking and hold extreme opinions that I stand by.
And “civil” discussions are impossible over text, It’s literally impossible to read and respond correctly to feelings in text and human beings aren’t, by and large, capable of disconnecting their emotions from discussions, even less when it’s political. And I argue we really shouldn’t either. If we can’t respond to strong emotions then we’re not fit for debate either. Just look at literally any political debate anywhere in a democratic nation, it tends to get pretty heated. I argue more heated than necessary/reasonable right now but that circles back to my point about politics being too tied to morals and identity. But still, emotion is an inevitable and reasonable part of political debate.
That said my intention was never to hurt their feelings, my intent was to strongly reject what they stated, and “I strongly disagree” does not capture even close to how strongly I feel about that statement.
As such I’m sorry and I understand if they have no wish to engage in any debate. I really don’t even see anything to really debate here either. Unless they want to defend their first paragraph I guess.
Removed by mod
I gotta love that even US hegemony is challenged on Lemmy, here not even Western superiority is a given which is at least something the vast majority on Reddit can agree on.
That said nuanced discussions seem impossible still, it’s less a balanced mix where every spot on the scale is represented and more a fairly even balance of two extremes.
My current theory is that the majority of actual moderates (not US politics moderates) between two extremes just aren’t interested in the debate, whereas the extremes very much are. I do gotta say that I too generally want to weigh in on things I either agree on completely or things I vehemently oppose, so I guess that kinda helps me understand how and why this is… But it makes everything seem like the extremes are the only two choices, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
“shot in the head” that’s misrepresentation big time. He shoots a gun towards the clowns head but it’s one of those gag guns with a flag coming out with the word “bang” on it… Which rhymes with Trump being depicted as a clown. It’s far more metaphorical than the other examples and you need to be pretty fucking dense to see it as a call for violence against Trump or anyone else.
The Israeli one and the South African ones are in my opinion comparable in that they both call for explicit violence and their only defense is basically “it’s art, I can do what I want”
Yes, but I’m pointing out how the cable is part of it in ways that wasn’t true for many older standards. So if I plug a non-data cable into a data USB-c port (say a digital camera with AAA / LR6 batteries) into a computers USB-C port then nothing happens. Same if I try to charge the camera by plugging it into a USB-c wall plug. Or if try to plug my phone into the USB-c charging port on my laptop, no matter the cable since neither phone nor laptop has the function to charge other devices. Etc etc.
I work IT and while I don’t work directly in support anymore I still get people at the office coming to me for support because I used to and we’ve outsourced it now. So I know first hand how confusing USB-C is to average users.
More like do nothing. Sure if everyone follows spec nothing will break from using the wrong usb-c cable in the wrong usb-c port but it’s common to end in a situation were literally nothing happens.
What would you recommend then in the countryside for a family of 5 or more with ample snow in the winter and lots of gravel roads? That can accommodate taking the kids to soccer and to/from school no matter the road conditions? As well as be used to go ski and other car based vacations like going to a beach resort/camping for a week. All of the above being very normal requirements for a family car in at least the Nordics.
A normal station wagon type generally has too low ground clearance but there are exceptions like the cross country models of Volvos. They also only have 5 seats so they just barely fit the family with no additional friends tagging along, and very few can handle double child seats without dropping down to max 4 people. For older kids then yeah it works well, if you don’t need the ground clearance, and you can pack on the roof if the trunk isn’t big enough.
A large pickup truck has issues with being usable for the vacation stuff. Sure you can pack on the flatbed and there are “houses” to give it cover but it’s hardly smooth, and they’re even larger and more expensive than a SUV.
Amen, can’t fix everything or one.
As a sales guy myself by training and tech sales by profession that sounds very much like there are some very fucked incentive structures at play that need to be addressed. If they’re only monitored on number of deals closed then you get shit like that trying to meet targets and get the bonus that is extremely standard in the sales profession and account for a large share of the yearly salary. If they’re measured on profitability then you wouldn’t see that, they’d drop stingy clients themselves for wasting their time. Another solution I’ve seen is having a larger bonus for customer satisfaction and renewals / growing the contract but that only really works out if your sales also doubles as account managers.
So with that data point you’re saying China is the country to be born in 2024? Because while I’m not at all discrediting their incredible pace in improving the life of their citizens from an economic perspective.
But I’m personally far more concerned about questions about freedom of expression and of opportunities and as such would prefer to be born in any Nordic country as an example, or Switzerland as another. Sure you could argue the Nordic model doesn’t scale because a population of 10 mil is not the same as more than 1 billion. But that wasn’t really a part of the question here. To me economic growth is just one dimension, an important one but not the only one to judge a country against. So once again, from a political perspective, which is what we’re talking about here when we’re saying that the West is failing, how is China better? I mainly see the mainstream outlets and they show a bleak state of affairs from that perspective, can you counter that?