There might be one party looking from the outside, but on the inside there are many currents, and as soon as there’s a power vacuum, those currents will infight to gain power.

Thing is, we don’t really know what’s the reason for the current worldwide trend in much, much lower natality rate. We’ve observed in rich countries and poor countries, religious and atheist countries, capitalist and communist countries (both USSR and PRC, who have had very different economic systems), in countries with no safety nets but also in countries with large social programs, in western countries, but also in eastern countries.

The only thing I can think of these days is education level. Is it possible that education is inversely correlated with natality rates? Or maybe women in the workforce. I’m not arguing for either point, I’m just thinking about what the cause of a world-wide issue might be, because it’s happening everywhere and seemingly without any clear common cause.

It’s not that they will run out of people. They have people, but to keep recruitment levels so high and equipment manufacturing so high they are overcharging their economy. Right now in Russia there are three types of jobs if you want to make money afaik, work in the military complex (arms manufacturing), in the gas extraction industry or directly in the military.

It’s Dutch disease x100, if the state at some point stops being able to fund the war machine, their economy collapses.

Arabia went from being under Ottoman rule to being under the house of Al Saud, it’s never been colonized by a western “liberal” country.

Their rules are still insane.

Here goes to hoping that EU massages Whatsapp third party compatibility actually works. It would be great if Signal decided to enter the program, so that I could start recommending it to friends and family as a full on replacement, while not losing the ability to communicate with those who use WhatsApp.

I understand Signal stance, but it would honestly be better to have a mainstream alternative to Whatsapp that actually cares about privacy, rather than a niche product nobody uses

You’re meant to break ziti or candele, you don’t cook them as if they were spaghetti

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Why do you need guns in schools? Even if it’s just to teach about them, it’s not the place to bring guns into, and giving them to kids creates this expectation that they should own one, and it’s normal to own one. It’s kind of fucked up. You can have a class discussing them, but they should be expected to handle one. Nobody in the world does that.

The government should just mandate that, to own a firearm, you need a license. This license can be obtained like a car license, after attending a number of classes, passing a written test and a practice test, where you show the examiner you know about gun safety. Then you have to renew every two years or how long it is, pass a medical exam and on you go. If you get caught intoxicated while holding or near an unsafe firearm, your license is taken away from you, with all your firearms, for a period of time, or permanently for repeat offenses, like with cars.

Just make guns act like cars, if it’s fine one way, it’s fine the other too. Putting restrictions instead of giving guns away like you’re Brian from Family Guy trying to buy a carton of milk in Texas will drastically reduce the number of people who even want one. If it’s too much of a hassle to own one, most people will just do without.

Depends on the conventions used in your country, there’s no real reason for using a comma instead of a dot, or vice versa.

In Italy this is a decimal number: 3,45 and this is a big number: 6’000’870

Every country has its own convention

It’s why there are words for hearing and listening. Yeah, I heard you, but I wasn’t listening

If someone from the UK is saying this, my god it must be bad.

we do not have small cars with diesel engines, which sucks

Trust me, it doesn’t

He did find Jesus and then realized it to be a bit problematic that he couldn’t fully control it, so he put his KGB friend at the head of the Russian Orthodoxy so now Jesus says what Putin wants him to say

Then the kid just goes by a nickname…

Viper?

Can we at least stop allowing people to use ‘of’ instead of ‘have’?

It doesn’t make any sense and I need to read the sentence twice to understand what they’re saying.

It is a fact that natural gas (read methane) infrastructure and power generation has a greater heating impact than coal.

Source?

I’m loyal and respectful enough with the people I care. Isn’t that enough?

Nope, you need to actually meet people, do stuff, talk, go places etc. Simply existing and “being nice” is not enough.

Then you need some friends. On the how to acquire one, there are a few ways. One of the most effective outside of school or work is to join some club, some class or some sport activity. For instance, I joined a latin dance class lately (salsa, bachata) and I’ve met lots of very friendly people. Every Friday they also organize a night out to some local clubs to dance, and there you can meet lots of other people with a similar interest. It’s just an example though, pick something interesting, join a group of people etc.

You just need to be proactive. Staying all day in your room commiserating yourself is definitely not sexy

So you spend your entire day either working/studying or staring at a blank wall?

Btw, it doesn’t really matter if you do something actually interesting, it’s the attitude that counts. I’ve tried doing the same thing/going to the same event with different people, some very positive and outgoing, and some very negative, and the experience has been very very different.

If your attitude is “I’m not interesting, and I don’t do anything interesting” then guess what, you won’t be interesting to anyone around you. Btw, going to the pub for a beer can be very interesting. Walking somewhere can be interesting.

Maybe ¯\_(ツ)_/¯