It would mean that whatever the US might hope to gain from invading Canada would be dwarfed by what the US would lose in the conflict.
The problem is this is already the case. Nuclear weapons may make it even more lopsided, but the country is already losing more than it stands to gain from an invasion purely on the economic results.
Something I’ve been thinking a lot lately is that democracy is a process. It is a means by which we attempt to ensure a just and fair government for all. It’s not an end in itself; we don’t want democracy because democracy, at least not once people really think about it.
Which leads me to a saying. “The ends do not justify the means.” This is a commonly held statement. However, it also works the other way:
The means do not justify the ends.
That means it doesn’t matter if something was done by the rules, using the process, it doesn’t matter if we voted for it, it doesn’t matter what process was used to achieve it. If the ends are wrong, going “well, it’s what was decided democratically” isn’t an excuse.
If one person or a few people have a definition wrong, that’s a thing that can be corrected.
If the majority of people think that’s the definition, and it’s been that way for decades, then you have the definition wrong.
Yes. Yes it is, it has been for years and years. They figured out that if they get us to believe violence is inherently bad and should never be resorted to, then they can safely ignore us. It starts early too, with that complete crock of shit about ignoring bullies making them go away.
Violence should never be the first solution, but the threat of it needs to be there if the first attempt fails, and resorting to violence should happen as soon as it becomes apparent that nonviolent methods are not being regarded in good faith.
Depends on what lesson you think they’re trying to teach. “When you know the right thing to do, don’t let people use rules and obstructions to stop you from doing it.” can be a good lesson.
Sam aged, Frodo did not. I recall several mentions throughout the books that Frodo was considered unusually young-looking for a 50-year old hobbit, just as Bilbo himself was very young-looking for 111. Owning the ring seems to basically just pause your aging, even if you’re not using it.
Sam was also twelve years younger than Frodo, but since Frodo stopped aging for 17 years, he wound up effectively older, physically speaking.
Yes, I have always from the first time I saw the movies thought that’s what they needed. A five second clip of that and nothing else about the movie has to change!
If your only source is the movies, one of the annoying gripes about them is they have this deceptive editing that makes it seem like Frodo left the Shire within a relatively short timespan after the birthday party.
Frodo got the ring on the 22nd of September of 3001. He leaves Bag End on the 23rd of September…of 3018.
Things in Russia might not be great, but they’re not on the same level as North Korea by far.
NK is genuinely quite successful at isolating its population, Russia is not. Russian living conditions aren’t horrible, they don’t experience famine and such, etc. They have internet, and many of them that are otherwise not technically inclined seem very well versed in how to evade the state censorship and control of communication. Other day I was playing D&D with some Russian friends when they started blocking Discord in Russia, and we figured out a workaround within the hour and within a day they had Discord working again, and these guys aren’t otherwise heavily inclined to towards computer shit. They’re above average level of user knowledge, but they’ve become knowledgeable in this very specific area.
From what my Russian friends say and I gather from their descriptions, it’s a lot like Republicans here; the ones that support Putin and the current government are doing it in spite of obvious evidence they have no trouble seeing.
Now I would assume they’ll isolate these North Koreans quite a bit, the language barrier will prevent them from talking to the average Russian and so on. The ones they bring home, for domestic propaganda purposes, will be the most loyal, willing to go on with whatever story they’re told to tell about their experiences.
The “pedophile” thing has always been a front for conservatives to wedge in, from what I’ve seen. They saw a real problem and then, as they always do, fearmongered and inflated it way out of proportion to reality, then started to expand the definition.
I’m old enough to remember when pedophile actually meant people trying to engage in sex with children. As in, actual children. The definition began expanding to older and older people, and expanding into fiction, fictional characters, and more.
They also started getting weird about any men being near children. I am also old enough to remember when fathers, uncles, and generally men, could be in public with kids without a woman around and without being looked at with suspicion. These days we hear countless stories of men stalked, harassed, and threatened when they’re out with kids they have every right to be with.
And that’s just the stuff that affects everyone, not just minorities and marginalized people. How the left ever got on board with this pedophile panic I don’t understand, considering conservatives have been equating LGBT with molestation and pedophilia as long as I can recall. Anyone who didn’t see this coming from the beginning is a blind fool.
I think it was the Catholic Church thing. A real case of pedophilia committed by figures generally considered conservative and right wing, which the left rightfully jumped on attacking…but then kept going when conservatives egged them on further instead of stopping. People got tricked into going nuts on it cause the right was all ‘well if that’s bad then you must condemn this…and this…and this…and this…’ with each step being something less and less real, less egregious, less of a true problem. But they’re good at stoking hate, and once the hate was kindled in people it took less and less to spread it just slightly further each time, until now we have people ostensibly on the left calling for censorship of completely fictional works and punishment of people who produce or consume them, despite no actual harm to any actual people being involved.
And that’s exactly the level of unthinking hate they want, for people to not stop and consider whether any actual harm is being caused, just condemn and punish and don’t argue or dispute the severity of what you’re calling for. Just hate, just view them as monsters, deserving of death. Even as the definition keeps expanding.
After all, what group is othered and made the enemy doesn’t matter that much to them, only that some group is hated to the point of an unexamined desire for violence and death. They can work with that, after all.
Norfolk has four carrier strike groups and the entire Atlantic submarine fleet. Even without the ability to repair or resupply, just with what they currently have as far as ordnance goes, that wins the war immediately.
You take a week at most to position submarines in the right spots and then eliminate Axis leadership in a single simultaneous strike.
“AI”, especially art. I’ve spent years trying to learn to draw on and off and have never gotten good at it, but now I can use words to create illustrations I want in a level of quality and detail I could never dream of.
Now I just want the interface to be easier and more able to understand natural language and be capable of making directed changes better.
That would be hilarious if someone prepared a bunch of little clips of things Hitler said that Trump also says very similar things to, and then anytime he says one, just respond by playing a clip of Hitler saying basically the same thing, and giving a ‘Do I need to say more?’ look.
Yeah, Trump is a stupid target and this is bad timing. Now if someone had gone after the Supreme Court a year or three ago, that would’ve been a good thing. Even now it might still be. But Trump? Terrible choice of targets. He’s…his relevance has already happened. It’s too late for his death to be positive in any significant way.
Hell, I suspect that it might boost the Republican candidate, whoever is selected to replace him, unless they wind up having a really nasty fight where various supporters get extremely entrenched against each other. But that’s not likely - Republicans are very tribalist, once they select a candidate, most of them are going to support him, regardless of how badly they were speaking of him five minutes ago when they were in full support of his opponent.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Not ‘to grant them greater control’ or even ownership. To secure exclusive right for a limited time. And this only because it was meant to promote science and art.
Using copyright to prevent a work from spreading is a direct perversion of the intent, it is using it in a manner diametrically opposed to what it is supposed to do.
I’d go the other way, adhering very strictly to the letter of the law without the tiniest bit of wiggle room or interpretation of anything as nebulous as the ‘spirit’ of the law.
Trouble being that natural languages that people use to converse are ill suited for that level of precision and detail. I’ve thought that perhaps a constructed language, something between a language and programming code may be a better way to write laws.
These changes could be applied retroactively; this isn’t like creating an ex post facto law and then jailing people for breaking a law that didn’t exist at the time of the event.
How about reword it slightly: it must be available for purchase if you want to use IP law to prevent others from distributing it.
Too fucking bad? The purpose of IP was to give the public access to novel ideas and art, not to increase the control creators had over it.
There certainly wouldn’t be any regrets (because you would not have time to do so before death).