normalnorm

I doubt the EU will survive in its current state.

A lot of people desire this to be true, but that does not mean that it is. It is a particularly weird opinion to hold in the wake of the most recent challenge to its continuity -- the Brexit fiasco, with the EU having maintained a united front for more than 4 years, while the UK emerges out of it in a terrible state -- and the worst is yet to come.

The EU is not perfect by any means (what is?), but it is a terribly ambitious project that has been painstakingly built over decades. Every step of the way, someone like you was claiming that it was impossible, that it was surely about to collapse. Well, we are 27 member states strong and we are dealing with the economic challenged posed by COVID better than most of the rest of the world.

If we look at objective measures, such as economic inequality, political polarization or civil unrest, we are perhaps forced to conclude that the US are closer to collapse than the EU. To be clear, I do not desire the collapse of the US. I think that that US and the EU are natural friends, in a world where they have much more in common than what separates them.

You are looking for meaning. That is a normal human instinct. I am talking about power structures. They should be examined. Most people here are not willing to do that, because they figure they will soon be the top dogs. They are wrong, and this expectation is being exploiting by less naive actors.

I agree, but avoided the term precisely for the reason you cite.

Big corporations like Amazon are part of the dominating class. Me (and probably you, since you need to ask the question -- no offense intended) are part of the dominated class. Two different sets of rules apply here, it's not a matter of the products themselves being different.

Pointing out that it is becoming a common mistake to confuse the verb "to have" with the preposition "of" -> pedantic!

Failing to capitalize "Nazi" according to what the Oxford dictionary thinks is best for a contraction of two German words -> HAHAHAH! You were being a grammar nazi, but ironically you failed to capitalize Nazi correctly.

Ok. You win. I should of known better!

Yes, but this means that you don't understand the meaning of simple words. Doesn't that bother you?

Regarding the capitalization of "N/nazi" People seem to disagree with you: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/73948/grammar-na...

Regarding being pedantic: well, I'm not sure what to say. I think confusing "could of" with "could have" is a fundamental, terrible mistake. I guess one person's permissiveness is another's idiocracy?

could of

I am not a grammar nazi. I am not even a fucking native English speaker, but what the fuck??? Why is this mistake so prevalent these days?

I've been noticing this "meme" recently on HN: that since company X (any one of the FAANGs) is American, it is not subject to European law. If it operated in Europe, it absolutely is. Believe it or not, the EU is also a sovereign territory with its own laws.

Can you imagine arguing that American law does not apply to some company operating in the US, because said company was founded in some other country?

and get an authentic

Man, the "silicon valley" writers are crushing it today!

The barriers are (1) tech stack, (2) use case, and (3) ethics, in that order.

This sounds like a line that some good writer trying to make fun of silicon valley would come up with. If that's the case, good job!

What? How on earth would you conclude this from that I wrote?

I was replying to the idea that it is the "naturalist fallacy" to say that it is better to be develop good habits (in this case, eat better), than to just take some drugs and maintain the bad habits. Obese people should take the drugs, I don't wish for anyone to die. Even better for them would be to lose the weight.

The US has a huge (pun intended) obesity problem, and it seems related to worse health outcomes across several dimensions. This is just a fact.

Normalizing obesity because you can take some drugs to stay alive (artificially lowering your cholesterol, blood pressure, etc) might not be the smartest idea ever. But yeah, maybe it's the naturalist fallacy. To each their own.

The European Council is made of the democratically elected Heads of State of each Member State. The European Council nominates the president of the European Comission, which again has one member per Member State. The European Parliament, which is composed of MEPs directly elected by the citizens of each member state, must ratify all nominations. The directly elected European Parliament has veto power on European Comission decisions, and so has every Member State.

A state can only join the EU by virtue of a democratic decision according to the constitution of the Member State itself, and there are strong requirements on prospective Member States to be themselves proper democracies with separation of powers in order to be allowed to join.

Granted, these requirements have been slightly overlooked when it came to the UK: the House of Lords is undemocratic, one could say outdated, and would almost certainly not be tolerated in any other candidate state.

So, the EU might be complex, but in what sense exactly is it undemocratic?

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound aggressive against you, even if you were of a different opinion. I am a bit tired of all the disinformation on this topic, I highly value the European project -- it is not perfect but my life would be so much poorer without it -- so I can get a bit emotional.

I have also been an anglophile since I can remember, so I am quite disappointed with the UK. I think I'm not alone in this.

Regarding the budget round: my impression is that the struggle comes from the situation caused by covid more than anything else. Brexit became a niche interest in the EU, most people are not paying attention or really care about it anymore.

Notice that the contribution of the UK after rebates amounted to 9 billion euros, in comparison to a yearly EU budget of about 165 billion euros, which is in itself 1% of the EU's GDP. While I am sure that the EU misses that contribution, I find it hard to believe that it is a huge problem.

realpolitik always wins

The Brexit project placed a huge bet on that, and it seems they are losing.

this is news to me, and I can't find any evidence of it either

It was widely reported at the time. Here you go:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/07/norwegian-p...

the UK government has never had any interest in remaining in the EEA, which the EFTA requires

Perhaps, but nevertheless they were preemptively rejected, as you can read in the above article.

when future treaty modifications occurred the UK did not veto the changes (its right), and permitted the changes, remaining under the rules the members had previously agreed

They did not only "permit the changes", they signed the treaties. Including the obligation to join the Euro, something that the UK never intended to do and everyone overlooked because they were the UK. That kind of special privilege is gone. By the way, the initial treaty that the UK signed already spelled out the goal of an "ever closer union", but then the UK politicians and media make Pikachu face when they rediscover this goal, and claim that they were deceived and that "it was just a trade agreement, never a political project".

And the rebates also existed, and had nothing to do with vetoes or treaties. It was outright special treatment. And still the UK kept complaining about its "contributions".

Nah, they'll want the budget contributions back.

Also: "The German car industry will demand it", "The EU needs the UK more than the UK needs the EU", etc. All of this has been falsified in the last four years. The integrity of the single market and of the European project is turning out to be much more valuable to EU member states than the highly rebated UK contributions.

The baggage caused by the UK will dissipate in 5-10 years or so

This is quite optimistic. I'm not sure if you live in the EU, but the UK severely tainted its image and destroyed all good-will with most powerful EU member states. In less than 5 years, it went from being a highly respected member and culture, with a reputation for pragmatism and seriousness, to a sad joke and an object of scorn with a bad after-taste of good old-fashioned xenophobia.

More objectively: if you study the history of the EU, you will see that this "baggage" is quite old. For quite some time in the 70s vetoed UK's accession (to the then EEC), precisely because it feared that the UK was only interested in economic benefits and would sabotage any other aspect of the European project. That is more or less what happened when the UK eventually joined, and the EU had to build around the UK (Schengen, Euro, etc.). It is true that the EU likes rich countries, but it is also true that things are far from being as simple as you describe.

Interesting detail: you mention Switzerland, Norway and Iceland. They are members of EFTA. EFTA was created by the UK during the time that they were not able to join the EEC. After Brexit was decided, the UK tried to rejoin EFTA, and they were refused. So being rich is not enough once you become sufficiently toxic.

Due to the situation after WWII, the UK was given special treatment. It was allowed to opt-out of most things, and it was given extraordinary rebates for its contributions to the EU budget. Should the UK wish to rejoin, it would have to accept Schengen, the Euro, no more rebates and the "ever closer union" political commitment spelled out in the treaties. I find it very hard to believe that the UK would accept such things in our lifetimes, and I find it very hard to believe that the EU would be willing to put up with the current circus that is UK politics and media in the forseable future.

The UK government is now talking about not honoring the Withdrawal Agreement if there is no Free Trade Deal. Well, this means a border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This means the return of violence to that region. Even if the UK honors the WA, it is quite likely that the situation will degrade to a point that this border comes back. That was the crux of the negotiations for the last 4 years between the EU and the UK, that everyone is now forgetting about. There are also other issues, like Gibraltar. I am afraid that heavier baggage will necessarily accumulate before it can even start to dissipate.

As it is right now it's dead in the water for any commercial usage

So what? If companies need a certain software, they can pay for it. I remember a time when FOSS was not about providing companies with free work, quite the opposite indeed.

We can fight it by electing the correct people.

Can you? There are a few problems: firstly, the primaries are controlled by the parties, so you have a very limited menu to choose from when it comes to the actual elections. Secondly, the media is no longer independent. If you are not aligned with the status quo, you will get no exposure, or only very negative exposure. Finally, politicians consistently do the opposite of what they promise on such matters. Take Obama: a lot of people believed that he was the way to fight, that he was the "correct person". He promised to encourage whistle-blowing, and then he did the opposite. This is not a partisan observation, I pick this example because it is the most recent disappointment on such matters.

But more importantly, I won't be spirited away to a black site by speaking ill about the president.

It is happening right now in Oregon.

Nor can the government decide it doesn't want me as CEO of my company anymore.

Are you sure?

Or prevent me from funding the opposition party.

Try funding a radical party and see what happens.

There's an enormous difference between the West and totalitarian dystopia China.

I agree that there is, but it is scary to see that the difference is becoming smaller and most people seem ok with that. I worry that the future will not be a place worth living in.

Saying you were fired could be considered disparaging.

I'm sorry, but I highly doubt that this is the case.

Interesting point, but in most cases people say it when talking about themselves (I was let go) or in the hypothetical, as was the case here with OP: "When you get let go". So no risk of liability, there must be some other explanation.

The EU is not some weird hive-mind, it has separation of powers just like the US. It is the European Court of Justice's job to overturn executive decisions that trample on the constitutional rights of its citizens, same as the Supreme Court in the US.

When you get let go

I'm sorry for going a bit offtopic, but I have noticed this weird linguistic contortion "get let go" often. Why the euphemisms? You get fired. It doesn't hurt to speak plainly. This "let go" expression seems weirdly childish, like how people say that someone "passed on" to avoid confronting the hard reality of death.

And I'm not picking on you, I know that almost everyone talks like this now.

Here we go. The obligatory "you don't understand Gödel" post.

Ever since Gödel proved his theorem, people have used it as a metaphor for all kinds of things, from new age mysticism to psychology, biology, quantum physics, AI etc.

Including Gödel himself, who was a mystic. It is true that people make all sorts of silly claims vaguely based Gödel and other famous results, but it is also true that there are indeed deep philosophical insight to gain from Gödel's theorems, which are also dismissed without a proper argument.

I start to appreciate the rigid form of scientific articles more and more.

I always appreciated it, but notice that what Gödel did is not science. He obtained a deep insight about reality that was not based on the scientific method or on empiricism.

Democracy is more of a principle (is just means that legitimacy of government comes from some aggregate choice of the governed), than a political system. Radically different political systems can be classified as democracies, all the way from direct vote (self-organized communes, also Switzerland) to complex federations with layers of indirect representation, such as the USA or the EU -- with a lot of other interesting alternatives such as sortition.

By eating food that is more unhealthy for you in order to save the planet, it means that you have valued the planet's health above your own. I find this to be irrational.

I find it more irrational to believe that one can be healthy in an unhealthy environment.

I am all for finding the cleanest, most environmentally friendly way of feeding humans. But if the result is less good for human consumption, then I am simply substituting one evil for another, and nobody can take any moral high ground over it.

The article is about flimsy speculation on one extreme situation (vegan junk food vs. regular junk food). Nutrition science offers us precious little certainties, one of the few being that processed food is less healthy than food cooked by humans with a few simple ingredients. An healthy and balanced vegan diet would be fantastically more healthy than the choices of at least 90% of americans.

Can you create some optimally-healthy diet for a small group of priviliged people at the expense of fucking the environment and resources for everyone else? Probably. Should you? I guess it depends on how you see your relation with the rest of humanity.

In any case, this is all theoretical. I bet most people gasping about this are going to down some pizza & beer within the next 24 hours.

The author seems to make a circular argument: foundational languages look like C++/Java, Python doesn't look like C++/Java, ergo Python is not a foundational language.

There are no foundational languages, what is foundational is CS theory itself. C++ and Java are just part of the ALGOL tradition, which syntactically relies on a bunch of arbitrary choices (curly braces vs indentation is an arbitrary symbolic choice and any preference is personal and subjective), and furthermore were highly influenced by 70s computer architecture that doesn't really exist anymore. In other words: just a bunch of legacy choices.

Python is the best general-purpose language there is at the moment, because of its popularity, ubiquity, actual use in a wide diversity of domains and availability of libraries for almost anything you can think of. Furthermore, the syntax is simple enough for one to be able to keep it all in one's head and not having to constantly refer to documentation. If you learn Python today, it will likely be useful to you for the rest of your life in a variety of situations.

Getting used to curly braces in ALGOL-like languages is a minor intellectual challenge compared to what awaits someone taking a Computer Science or Engineering degree.

Disengaging based on an N=1 is not the type of individual action that improves our society.

Statistical significance is not the only epistemological tool around. I would even argue that, outside of some scientific fields, it is really not that important (and might even lead to a lot of wrong conclusions in the context that is used nowadays, but that is a different discussion altogether).

We are not some dumb statistical machine. We have an entire model of the world in our heads, and one single observation can have profound implications on it. The journalist reports to an editor, who maintains a system of job promotions, and all of this is connected to an institution that holds very real power. The OP observed this journalist manipulating the story, not in a random direction, but in their view in a direction that would appeal to the status quo. It is normal to update one's map of reality when confronted with first-person experience of an event that goes against what you've been told, and when the simplest explanation for how the world works changes in light of this direct observation.

And this is also how your mind works, and this is also how you formed your views on reality, including repeating the "N=1" cliché. None of it has anything to do with p-values.

How is this conclusion different than saying that, say, reading anything in any magazine is a waste of time because the magazine sells advertising space?

It is different because the business model of the magazine is to create some content that people enjoy, so that they will tolerate the ads that come with it.

Here, the content itself is an ad in disguise. That is the business model of SEO, "content marketing" etc, and this is why it keeps flooding the web with mediocrity.