Seems like a good question for Randall Monroe, if he hasn’t already done something similar.

Space is militarised, sadly.

Think about the devastation shooting/dropping a m³ of heatproof metal from a high orbit satellite at a target on Earth.

And how we can already do that.

The UK.

I am fluent in English and good enough in Mandarin to get by.

Earlier in life I was passable at French in France, but I have lost that now. It’s been overwritten by the Mandarin from having spent a few years in the PRC teaching English.

It’s social ossification, an inevitable part of the systemic cycle.

The people at the top have wealth to enable all the best opportunities go to their children and friends’ children.

So all the plebs are left struggling for scraps.

There are more children of mega-rich than mega rich, and even accounting for portion who flaunt off or abandon family path, than there are mega-top positions, so most of the second tier positions go to them too.

Then, of course, neoliberal policies have made things less equal so that the poorer you are you now need to work even harder and be even more exception than you did before.

Edit: am British. See it here, seen it over the pond and in (the PR of) China, too.

More complex than just that, don’t forget:

Massively competitive education-work culture, where everyone is regularly publically ranked against each other.

Sudden doubling of house prices over the last 15 years.

Schools and work places making perpetual crunch a thing and hiring in intrepid young go-getters to replace burn out.

Wages stagnating for first time since Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms.

That user is saying it in a more conspiracy sounding way, but isn’t factually wrong as long as you replace “given” with “sold”.

The publicly built and operated Internet infrastructure was cut up and sold off in 94 by Clinton to telephone companies at very friendly rates.

Governments send money to their fellow top people, by accident if not design.

The person you’re replying to may be much further to the left than you give them credit for.

The lesser of two evils is still evil and deserves to be called such. The US is not a benevolent nation.

You’re right as far as road fatalities weren’t systematically collected by the Yank government until 1960, 7 years after the last state made driving licences mandatory. But, we have material such as this 1930s Reader’s Digest on road accidents and safety, and if I thought you were much more than a troll I might see if anyone’s done an obituary analysis for the 1920s - 1950s on road deaths… But:

😘

Unshockingly I have found that it’s very hard to make an LLM be critical of LLM and AI in general.

That means no big platforms, but instead smaller niche sites.

If big US tech companies exist, we can’t have a wild and free web.

Two points:

• Can you unban abortion and harder drugs then please?
• Gun/ammunition banning/control has been shown to drastically reduce mass murders and shootings. Similar to how needing a license to drive a car has dramatically increased road safety.

The US has shown itself to be a bad faith actor, and support misinformation and propaganda over reality.

Letting that run wild is not healthy for society.

Musk having a platform to spout lies and slander against the UK and the EU demands a response.

I agree with everything you said except this bit:

China banned that shit, and China has been successful partly for its detachment from US far-right propaganda.

China loves US far right propaganda, the amount of Chinese people reeeeing about DEI or wokeism or the LGBTs, and fellating the South African Nazi who inherited wealth from an apartheid labour emerald mine and (for some reason, still) J. Lopsterson is kind boggling.

The common view in China is that the US is too progressive and needs to clamp down on minority rights and immigration… The mind boggles.

But yes, also fully fuck US social media and tech monopolies.

But the EU had taken risks so far as we think when push comes to shove we’ll be on the same side as the US, ignoring that the US still seems to think realpolitik is an appropriate course of action. Never trust a realpoliker to have your back.

You’re right in saying 汉语 and 粤语 are different.

But then, when I lived in China I had teachers tell me Japanese and Korean were really dialects of Chinese because they used to be written with 汉字… 🙄 Imperialism gonna imperial…
Though due to that cultural imperialism lots of Cantonese’s unique vocabulary is being replaced by the Chinese equivalent, and even the grammar is changing to fit more closely. =(

Various 粤语 speech is still just about the norm in the UK amongst the Chinese diaspora, though more the 粤海 variant of Hong Kong, due to our own imperialist history. But that is changing with more recent waves of PRC migrants.

Thanks for sending me on the deep dive on 粤语, 广东话，台山话 and finding out about 粤海, and the ambiguity in the meaning of Cantonese.

Edit: what language would you prefer to use with someone who spoke both Mandarin and English fluently as second languages?

• The UK
• The Netherlands
• Germany
• Ireland
• New Zealand
• The USA
• Canada
• The People’s Republic of China
• Chile
• The Republic of China

That’s quite a few places.

Danger 5 - A Gerry Anderson-esque team of soldiers works to stop the reich’s escapades and kill Hitler.

Getting strong Sealab 2021 but live action vibes here.

Less common anglicisation of Samyaza, first amongst the nephilim; a group of Angels that fell by marrying human women and teaching them knowledge.

Yes I am clearly a bit pretentious.

Basic Mandarin is actually pretty easy.

Becoming even day to day fine doesn’t take long and has fewer tricks.

Getting good enough to read literate classics, or use 成语 in your speech though takes a long time and effort.

That reading and speaking are basically independent skills though is odd to folks used to Alphabetic languages.