dagenleg

not including geeks

Sir, this is Hackernews

edit: Sorry, I could not resist. Just does not feel like arguments to the tune of "my consumption habits do not require X, so who even needs X" really work well at the discussion forum for, ostensibly, geeks and hackers

Not the best success story, granted, but socialist revolutions in China and Russian Empire had definitely hurt the rich as a class. Definitively even.

Why is everyone on social media talking about Midea? I never see any other brand mentioned. Is this a coordinated marketing campaign?

Why Cantonese?

Are you familiar with the "proofster" concept? It's funny how poignantly on the nose some memes can be.

Why? Because killing serial killers is good, and having war is bad?

I think the person you were responding to had a more utilitarian view. When war happens, the death of conscripted young people is unavoidable. It's kill or be killed. We prefer wars not to happen, and people not to die, but it's not a choice.

Killing a serial killer who has already been apprehended is a choice. And it's here that we can actually start weighting options and see what is better for the society, bringing up possibilities of wrongful convictions, Blackstone's ratios and second order effects of the death penalty.

I can't help but notice that your definition of "utopia" includes people never disagreeing with you.

And no, you can't justify death penalty because some people "get out on a technicality". Innocent people end up in jail on technicality too.

No, where are you getting this from? His value proposal was that he was a) an outsider in politics, b) russian speaking ukranian. He was elected on on the platform of reducing corruption and negotiating the end to the Donbas conflict.

30% of the population protesting - that would be absolutely enormous! Revolutions are made by single digit numbers

Second time? More like fourth time. First there was Crimea, then Donbas, then the current invasion.

I suspect a large part of that 110K would be the government's cut. Again, coming back to the french system, an employee getting 40K after taxes costs ~80K to the institution there. I didn't think of the salary taxes as overheads, we count them as direct costs.

Well, no. That money is the total grant sum, to be spent over multiple years, and PhDs are usually funded in full - in Germany a PhD takes around 5 years. Moreover, the money a PhD student gets after tax, is not the same as the money spent overall from the grant, see my other comment below.

In Europe a PhD student is a multiyear commitment, with a bunch of externalities, they are much simpler to manage as discrete units, and thus are funded as such.

This sounds like quite an outlandish figure, could you please elaborate? For example, an ERC grant would allow for a maximum of 25% of the so called "indirect costs", that is, one fourths of all the the direct costs (gross salaries, materiel, travel, etc) gets paid as a lump sum, and this usually goes to the institution. How do you end up with over 100% overheads?

These are gross overall costs for the full PhD, not yearly salary.

At least in France, where they have PhDs which last only 3 years, a years of PhD would cost ~45K EUR in gross salary (granted the student gets around half of that after tax), then let's say ~10K travel and consumables costs, then add up the inevitable 20% overhead costs and now you're looking at around 200K for the shortest possible frugal 3 year PhD.

Same. Feels like we exist in a very small bubble doesn't it?

There are many good Chinese language films, not all of them Cantonese. You're forgetting about Taiwanese directors (Edward Yang, Tsai Ming-liang, Hou Hsiao-Hsien) and mainland sixth generation directors (Jia Zhangke, Lou Ye). There are also works by less known authors such as Bi Gan, Hu Bo, Xinyuan Zheng Lu - very unique and impressive.

One should not throw around ignorant blanket statements. There's a wealth of amazing Chinese language movie made outside of Hong-Kong, and yes, good artists can exist under authoritarian regimes, a prominent example of which would be Soviet cinema and literature.

"We have evidence but it's secret". Hey, we've seen this one before, it's a classic!

At this point, the credibility of the trust-me-bro evidence can fall anywhere on the scale between "Iraqi WMDs" to "Imminent invasion of Ukraine", and there is just no way to know.

I think if you wanted to bring up meaningful words, those were not the best examples to give. In the recent years, somewhere amongst the endless nuclear threat screeching and the ignored ICC arrest warrants, they have lost a lot of meaning. The declaration of war is a pretty good example of that, actually, being an outdated and withered concept.

I'm simply pointing out that words do not matter as much, willingness to do something, to respond, to defend yourself, that's what matters. I'm not ignoring the value of laws, and rules, and regulations, but they clearly are not an ironclad defense. Just like Article 5 isn't.

Who cares? It's just words. It's better than getting attacked while being paralyzed with indecision.

I think the poster refers to NATO countries. Considering you are a Russian citizen, it's safe to say you're not included in this "we". Although frankly I think you would also benefit in the end.

I don't think there are many penalties for breaking the international law. Clearly, in the environment where Europe's adversaries are flagrantly breaking it on the daily basis, keeping to it meticulously would be foolish and dangerous.

Just like pacifism, abiding by the international law in this case will only serve to embolden the totalitarian regimes, which neither desire peace, nor obey the law.

A few months ago I had a long layover in Hong Kong, so I did a quick visit - it looked a bit emptyish, though there was still a bunch of budget hostels, food joints and some touting going on. The rats are pretty gigantic though.

And I'm sure you see that there might me somewhat of a slight issue with calling Ukrainian cities in Russian, considering the political situation.

You are purposely ignoring the point I am making - the suffering WILL NOT end if the war ends. It will become much worse in fact. The only outcome of the aid stopping is the complete conquest of the country, one has to be completely blind or a shill to trust any treaty at this point.

I think the current anemic levels of support are insufficient, and the restrictions imposed on Ukraine in the name of "escalation management" are outright criminal, but even this level support is better than nothing. We are talking about war of extermination here.

The war is not going well and I could see how cutting the western support could force the Ukrainian loss. We have seen that when the front started crumbling during the period when the ammunition supply from the US was interrupted for half a year.

The west can definitely force Ukraine to sign a humiliating treaty, ceding land and freezing the conflict, there's plenty of leverage for that. If that happens, the days of Ukraine as an independent state are numbered - a new invasion will happen as soon as russians rebuild their forces, and this time it will be done right. People will continue to die even if the country gets erased from the map, just maybe not in the trenches, but in the torture chambers and prisons instead.

Yes, I'm definitely not following your argument. You're claiming that keeping the war going is extending the human suffering, while pushing Ukraine towards losing it would somehow end the suffering. That's false. Ukraine under russian occupation would be hell, and Ukrainians know it very well - that's why they are still fighting for survival.

How can people keep repeating the russian talking point that equates helping Ukraine resist the invasion with "extending the suffering". Don't they know what kind of hell the occupied regions have become? One can't pretend not to understand that the ultimate russian goal is complete annexation and assimilation, which by the way will provide ample cannon fodder for the next war of conquest.

I can't take in good faith this whole "suffering" rhetorics -- not containing the imperialistic expansionist nuclear-armed empire is sure to bring more suffering to the world.

This is straight up the official CCP party line you're repeating here. How Chinese people are somehow uniquely unsuited for democracy.

The "multiparty democracy system in Taiwan is not seen as a positive thing" by whom? The Taiwanese? The election results from that country have shown quite the opposite.

The problem that the western countries face is that there is no "West", nor is there any sort of western strategy or longterm planning going beyond the horizont of the next elections/next financial quarter.

Yet, the countries that do not belong to this increasingly obsolete club of waning colonial powers certainly do consider the West an adversary and a hegemon to be displaced.