redial

Which is why christianity didn't find many followers among the Jews.

No one expect it. But that doesn't mean the opposite; that there is nothing about Jesus doesn't become somehow a proof of his existence.

The first step must be to acknowledge that there is nothing about Jesus up until around the years 80~120. That simple FACT is uncontested by everybody, and it is also the only fact uncontested by everybody. That is nothing controversial, yet somehow here everyone that brings it up gets downvoted.

Most of the "evidence" is from the second century onwards and written only by christians. You would need to go a couple of centuries forward to find real third-party references about him. Most historians consider this as proof of existence of a person 100 years earlier, that is also true. But I don't know why christians clench so tightly around historians on this issue, when it is also the opinion of most historians that the accounts about Jesus are not historical, and that most of the events told about him historically never happened.

So, if we are gonna go with historians on this, then:

1) Jesus was a real person.

2) Nothing in the new testament about Jesus can be said to have happened except that he was born, that he was poor, and that he was crucified.

1) Nobody really thinks any system is perfect.

You should have stopped there.

Basic democracy is so ambiguous really anything qualifies, and by all accounts, China has basic democracy. In fact, they have infinitely more democracy pre-revolution France did.

And the fact that even in the world of today, more than 2000 years after the Greeks, democracy is not universal prove your second point is not such a sure thing as you wanted it to be.

A system wherein there is 'no way out' i.e. they will punish anyone who leave (i.e. Brexit).

Cry me a river. The EU has been nothing but patient with the clusterf*ck that has been UK's leadership trying to both leave the EU and take all it can from the EU, and actually due to pure incompetence, doing neither.

Do you want to know what punishment for leaving a union really is? You should maybe ask the south and the confederates how their secession went down.

... a completely unelected Executive making laws for one. A completely unresponsive government - they do make some neat laws, but they are fully elitist, they have a total disdain for anything populist.

You mean like a QUEEN?

Sometimes is almost too sad the level of pro-brexit "arguments" thrown around.

There is no system in the world where all the decisions are made by "elected executives". There is nothing more elitist than a monarchy.

You are missing my point.

Every company does this, even Apple. Every company outsources designs to third parties or buys the rights to an already made product to sell as their own. Apple does it with cables and maybe most famously the Apple branded iMac vesa mount. I'm sure they do it with other non core stuff too.

Entire car companies are nothing but rebadged models from another sister/partner brand. And oh boy you should read the heritage stories of those ghost brands. Audi takes a Porsche SUV, makes a few tweaks and boom, new Q7. Do they say that on their marketing or do they talk about how they spent years studying the needs of a family to be able to balance it with the desire for power and performance? Or how they finally achieved the perfect balance of sportiness and practicality?

Hasselblad and Leica, renowned for their photographic history and iconic designs sell nothing but rebadged cameras at the low end, at double the price of their counterparts of course. Do they redirect to Sony or Panasonic on their marketing pages?

Almost the entire fashion and makeup industries are like this.

These guys have bad quality control, ok, I'll give you that, but that just means they are bad at business. And It is not like their watches were such a fire hazard that all had to be banned from even entering an airplane.

What do you think Apple does every time someone buys from their online store? They even give you a tracking number where you can follow the item in real time all the way from the FoxConn factory in CHINA directly to your door. It never even flys over Cupertino. I think you are gonna be very surprised when you find out how the commodities trade actually work.

Walmart sells the exact same watches. So does Amazon. Do you think they are a not-quite-scam too?

Keep in mind people are actually getting real watches. I don't know in what world that wouldn't make it a legitimate enterprise. And if you say it's because of their marketing, then you should really take a look at the copy on some car ads one day. Preferably Tesla.

Apple/microsoft sell you a hypothetical future, while these watch "brands" sell a made-up past.

You must be in marketing as that made absolutely no sense.

Do you think Apple's usb-c charging cable, which is currently listed on their site[1] for $19.99 costs them anywhere close to that to source? and at the same time tries to sell you a hypothetical future? wow, they do have good marketing.

If anything these watch brands, and I don't know why you put it in quotes as if to take legitimacy away from them but whatever, have more things in common with Apple than with someone selling the same watches such as "Walmart", as they are both trying to decouple the object from the sale and make it about the experience.

They all make stuff up, and when they don't they hide the information so you don't find out. That is why Apple will never say the price they pay for the leather Macbook sleeve they are currently charging $199 for[2]. I suspect very few people will buy it if they advertise right next to the price the 12 dollars it is actually costing them.

To be clear, I am not against any of this, anyone can charge whatever they want. Apple is certainly doing very well charging the prices they do. I am just impressed that people, most of all here, where people that actually build and sell products, actually price and order components and actually manage a supply chain, hang act so surprised to the fact that markup exists and that marketing is used to justify it.

And I am not defending this crappy watches or this shady company; I wouldn't buy a needle from them. All I am saying is that they are not any more shady than 95% of the "brands" out there that are actually owned by a mega conglomerate and never disclose it anywhere when trying to sell purified water to hipster college students on their way to protests against capitalism or whatever.

[1] https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MUF72AM/A/usb-c-charge-ca...

[2] https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MRQU2ZM/A/leather-sleeve-...

People who don't trust each other don't engage in trade.

Yes, that is why banks don't require any collateral for anything, after all if you are doing trade you are trustworthy right?

This companies are no different than any other company in the history of business.

The only thing I can think of is the fact that in this case you can easily track the supplier and find out the "original price" of the item in a way that is very hard to do for let's say a pair of Nike shoes, but that's about it. Walmart is also full of these watches and you can believe they don't sell them for $5.

Or do you really think it costs Dell exactly $679,95 to build a laptop on one of their entirely owned factories where they manufacture and store every single component that goes into it? And, if you call them now they even give you a $200 discount because wouldn't you know it they just happened to have a "promotion" just for you?

There is no such thing as a free anything, yet when Apple offers FREE BEATS WITH EVERY MAC PURCHASE no magazine would dare to call them out on the obvious fact that both of these items are so "overpriced" that they can even afford to give one away "for free" and still come out ahead. They instead run "articles" praising what a great value the offer is and also you should act now before the sale is over.

This "article" could be written about any company, literally any company.

iOS, macOS, iCloud, the App Store, iTunes are made 100% in the US.

Live by the sword...cry injustice of the 'less-principled' when everybody else gets swords.

But everyone is right when quoting one's self.

The irony is just too much.

Are you really complaining about a breach of 'trust' when data in possession of one entity ended up in the hands of another without the subject's permission?

In a thread about Facebook?

They are also exporting more electric vehicles than ever before.

For now.

0-confirmation seems to be just a placeholder, so I do not think it is comparable at all to a credit card verification.

I do not want to nitpick but credit cards validate, that is to say they verify the parts in a transaction and resolve instantly if it can or cannot take place, and then it does take place instantly. That you can "take it back" is a feature independent of the actual operation. The settlement period is not a technological imposition but a human one; it is in place because humans are not trustworthy.

On Bitcoin on the other hand, the limitation is inherently technical. The protocol verification methods are slow by design.

The transaction may not be truly completed, but it was validated instantly.

Sure, but that is not controlling your own money.

I do not know much about Bitcoin or other crypto coins, but how can it be more efficient if it takes on average[1] almost an hour for a transaction to be validated? Credit card, Apple Pay, Ali Pay, etc. are instant.

[1] https://coincentral.com/how-long-do-bitcoin-transfers-take/

All I know is that if we're going to locate or communicate with any other advanced civilization out there, it's sure not going to be with radio waves.

Never say never, indeed.

Sadly most people don't realize what they see is 'radio waves', hence OP's misguided comment.

How can someone claim to not know and yet be so, so sure and arrogant?

Yes, the US leveled an entire country and has been occupying it for almost 20 years just out of the goodness of their heart, grandma must be so proud, no economic interest whatsoever!

What confuses people like you is that you think selling the oil is the only way the US has to benefit from the war. The US most of all, like all superpowers before it, wants control of the market.

And what currency are all those exports in?

And all those 'reconstruction' billions and decades long military contracts don't benefit anyone I'm sure.

As long as those countries play fair.

And what a coincidence, the US decides what fair is. Bombing other countries and occupying them for their oil and other resources is totally fair.

What game? they already won. The US makes nothing and now it is isolating itself, great move.

In Ecuador the temperature ranges from ~60 to ~90F, but I'm sure for them is a great relief to know people of New York have a temperature unit that perfectly matches their climate as neatly as going from 0 to 100.

but for a meter it requires either going two orders of magnitude (25/100ths for a quarter) or simply cannot perfectly represent the amount (1/3).

What? you switch to metric and suddenly fractions are not a thing any more?

1/3 m is just that, one third of a meter, perfectly. How is that so complicated? It can also be 333.3mm. And no one would write it as 333/1000 to make it seem more complicated than it is.

I won't disagree with you on this because you'll always feel more comfortable with something if you've been using your whole life. For example, I would never understand why you think 1/2ft = 6in is simpler when you have to know in advance that 1ft = 12in. It could be because I'm not used to it.

Using the metric system you'll rarely write 1/2m, as fractions are not what a person used to metric would default to. That is why 1/6m looks so weird as no one would use it like that, but if you write it 0.5m now it's obvious we are talking about 50cm, or 500mm.

BUT,

In those examples you are not using the system, you are just using one unit. If the question were, for example, what is the mass of the water contained in a 1m x 1m x 1m box, then the answer is obvious which system is by far the most sane one.

The went to great lengths working on this announcement.

I've never heard anyone claim that as the reason for its superiority. Metric is superior because it makes sense as a system.