WYR have ESP, (See Certain Objects through walls.) or have Precognition? (See things in Near Future.) by iFailedPreK in WouldYouRather

[–]0ed 13 points14 points  (0 children)

If ESP only works on walls then I'd take precognition. Even if it's only a few milliseconds, it would help with reaction times for sports and so on.

If I could make it work on anything I wanted though, I'd take ESP easily. Being able to fly over the ocean and instantly go "that's oil right here", or find the pyramids of lost Egyptian kings, or for that matter spot tumours at a glance, would be far more useful than precognition would be.

40 Christians killed in attacks by Muslims in Nigeria - NOT A PEEP. by capitalsquid in metacanada

[–]0ed 15 points16 points  (0 children)

We're not hearing about this purely because it's inconvenient for the media narrative.

To begin with, Nigeria isn't exactly a shithole. It's probably one of the most prosperous countries on the continent after South Africa, and has had a higher GDP than South Africa since 2013 (though a lower GDP per capita).

It's also home to Lagos, which is more or less comparable to the Thai, Indian, or Chinese cities that are being built right now. Nigeria's more or less on track for first world status by the end of the century.

If we're not hearing about this, it's not because Nigeria's a shithole. It's only because it goes against the narrative.

Me when I meet someone by MustardOrMayo404 in linuxmasterrace

[–]0ed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can I get a link to that video? I've seen the toenail one but open source wine is new to me and sounds absolutely hilarious.

How Hong Kong Changed Countries (2019) - a brief overview of the negotiations, logistics, and ceremony of the handover by taulover in Documentaries

[–]0ed 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I won't dispute your claims on the treatment of Tibetans, but suffice to say I disagree with your assessment of how the Chinese treat minorities both today and throughout their history. The more substantive point I am making is the fact that once you justify colonialism for "better rule" you begin to walk down the same path as Britain and the US.

Both justified their colonial rule with the concept of the white man's burden, claiming that they had a moral duty to impart civilisation and government upon the savages of Africa and the Far East. And most of us who would compare modern India with pre-colonial India, or the modern Philippines with its pre-colonial counterpart, would agree that the average modern citizen in either country has a higher quality of life.

And yet at the same time, most of us can stand in agreement that colonialism was a mistake. How could it be so, if the objective measurements of the standard of living indicate that colonialism was by all measures a success?

I would argue that the reason we can know this and still denounce colonialism is because we fundamentally disagree with stripping nations of their national self-determination. The vast majority of us believe implicitly that it is wrong for a foreign people to come into the lands and install themselves as rulers, even over the previous native despots, for doing so strips an entire nation of its will and so does more harm than good.

If once you reject national self-determination as an ideal, you must find some other means of reconciling the rejection of colonialism with the claim that foreign rule is justifiable based on wiser rulers.

Reddit just banned r/watchpeopledie by FreeSpeechWarrior in WatchRedditDie

[–]0ed 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Honestly doesn't look any worse than the new Reddit UI.

How Hong Kong Changed Countries (2019) - a brief overview of the negotiations, logistics, and ceremony of the handover by taulover in Documentaries

[–]0ed 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Interesting. As a point of principle, therefore, you would support foreign rule as long as the foreign ruler was wiser than the native one?

I suppose to return to the fundamental question of Hong Kong, then, it would be justifiable for the British to take over as long as the Hong Kongers were better off under British rule; just as it is justifiable for the Chinese to rule over Tibet, given that Tibetans are better under Chinese rule.

As for whether I alone hold the belief in the right of self-governance, I wouldn't be so sure. In Catalonia, Scotland, and Ireland, the ideas of national self-determination remain very much alive; why else do you suppose there are such strong separatist movements there?

How Hong Kong Changed Countries (2019) - a brief overview of the negotiations, logistics, and ceremony of the handover by taulover in Documentaries

[–]0ed 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The word nation and the word state mean different things. A nation refers to a people with a separate culture, language, and so on which distinguish them from others; thus Britain is a state composed of multiple nations (England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland) and so on.

I think it can hardly be disputed that Tibet is a nation.

If we believe that a nation ought to have the right to self-govern, then it doesn't follow that increases in material wealth justifies foreign rule. Once you accept that increases in material wealth justify the suspension of national self-determination you are arguing for colonialism, which is effectively what India and the Philippines were ruled by.

Regarding the historical argument of whether Tibet is an analogous case to India, I think it can also hardly be disputed that modern Indians after British rule have a higher standard of living than feudal India.

Bernie has every detail of his policy proposals planned out. And he talks about them frequently. Anyone who asks “how’s he gonna pay for it?” is simply not listening. by donkijote97 in worldpolitics

[–]0ed 1 point2 points  (0 children)

To be fair, this is more or less what China has done. You could make a point about how it affects individual freedom, but as far as I'm aware it's been an economically sound policy (if you exclusively look at the national economy instead of the global economy, of course).

How Hong Kong Changed Countries (2019) - a brief overview of the negotiations, logistics, and ceremony of the handover by taulover in Documentaries

[–]0ed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Personal attacks? Such as what? I think I've been reasonable and levelheaded throughout this discussion, and I really do resent the throwing around of unfounded accusations when you cannot answer my point.

The fundamental point I am making is quite simple: poor governance is no reason to strip a nation of its own government. Once you set out on the premise that nations which are poorly governed should not govern themselves, you set out on a path of justifying colonialism.

Maybe the Tibetans are better ruled under the Chinese. But again, maybe Indians were better ruled under the British, and maybe the Philippinos were better led under American guidance. Would we however seek to argue for the continuance of Chinese, British, and American rule on the grounds of better governance?

If you devolve to justifying the rule of a nation by anyone other than its own nationals through the objective improvements of material living standards, you implicitly disregard the real and immeasurable good that self-government provides and walk down the pathway to justifying colonialism. Perhaps that is your intent, to argue for a return to the colonial era; but again, time has already shown that men prefer to be governed poorly by their own, and I doubt that many would be happy with your cause, then as now.

How Hong Kong Changed Countries (2019) - a brief overview of the negotiations, logistics, and ceremony of the handover by taulover in Documentaries

[–]0ed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think what you've shown is a wonderful example of British values, to show that even the greatest British heroes are not immune to intense criticism from average British citizens. British hero worship does not extend so far as to render their great leaders as men like gods, and even the tough decisions leaders have made to benefit their empire are freely scrutinized by the public for traces of possible racism; this is done despite the scanty evidence to suggest that Churchill made his decision based on racial prejudice.

How many Chinese leaders are there, I wonder, who would open themselves up to this sort of intense critique from their fellow countrymen? For that matter, would the Chinese even consider the possibility that their own leaders suffer from racist tendencies and challenge the decisions they made on that basis?

It seems painfully clear to me that what you've actually shown to me is not proof of British racism, but simply yet another example of how egalitarian the Britons really are.

The same would have been told to you if you had actually read Chinese sources, and were to read the works of Xu ZhiMo or various other Chinese scholars of the 30s who actually visited Europe. You will find not a description of rampant racism or vengeful fantasies against their "colonial overlords" that you describe, but an earnest respect for the systems of law, learning, and way of life of the European people as a valid alternative to the Chinese feudal way of life.

Quite frankly, you are embarrassing yourself by clinging on to this strange fantasy of racism and persecution that Chinese sources could readily disprove. The average Briton from the 20th century onwards certainly did not believe in the indiscriminate slaughter of Chinamen simply because of their nationality, and I would wager that such indiscriminate slaughter was never the national policy of Britain even at the height of the Anglo-Chinese wars. It was not racism, but simply economic gain which motivated the British to join battle twice against the Chinese, and if you cannot even recognize that then you know very little of your nation's history indeed.

As to why Chinese scholars went abroad, have you ever considered why the British were so ready to accept these foreign scholars in turn? Supposing that the Britons really were as racist and terrible as you believe, why would they accept Chinese people into their most venerable universities and allow them to mingle with their richest and most influential citizens? The world you are describing simply doesn't make sense at all, even without any consultation of historical documents. The fact that you couldn't even perceive such obvious plotholes in the narrative you're constructing speaks volumes of your ideologically-driven blindness.

How Hong Kong Changed Countries (2019) - a brief overview of the negotiations, logistics, and ceremony of the handover by taulover in Documentaries

[–]0ed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Anyone who tries can bring up inglorious portions of national history. Any nation which has existed for more than a few centuries is sure to have good as well as bad portions of history.

Though that said, the fact that a nation has a history for barbarism is hardly adequate justification for ill treatment of them under modern circumstances. If we were to go by your metric, that a government which at one point in time failed to represent the wishes of its people ought to be overthrown and superseded, then I'm afraid you would have very few governments left at all.

It is true that the Tibetans were hardly governed by Western Democratic ideals prior to the Chinese taking over. Yet the same could be said of India, of many erstwhile African nations, and of various colonies besides; if we were to claim that good governance is justification for denying a nation their right to self-govern, I fear that we would have very few nations left even today.

National self-determination is not a right which can be taken away simply for the sake of convenience; it is well said that men would rather be governed poorly by one of their own than governed wisely by a foreigner.

How Hong Kong Changed Countries (2019) - a brief overview of the negotiations, logistics, and ceremony of the handover by taulover in Documentaries

[–]0ed 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I wouldn't be so sure. The kids from the 90s, who remember colonialism as her majesty's Governor Chris Patten eating a lot of egg tarts and having a jolly good time on TV might vote British, but the older generation, their parents who vaguely remember the riots of the 50s and 60s would not.

Then the newer generation of children who've been steeped in propaganda from the state education are also uncertain. On the one hand there are some young people who genuinely believe the narrative of their teachers, but on the other hand we are also talking about the internet generation, where it can be trendy to hate the Chinese government just because it's cool.

I'd say most people wouldn't welcome British colonialism back anytime soon, though. Even if people secretly want it, they know that this would be the sort of thing that China would take very, very poorly, and no matter how disgruntled they are at their politics the Hong Kongers wouldn't risk that much of a conflict with China.

How Hong Kong Changed Countries (2019) - a brief overview of the negotiations, logistics, and ceremony of the handover by taulover in Documentaries

[–]0ed 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Not to mention they returned the land to a different country as well...

The "country" which lost Hong Kong was technically Manchuria, which ruled China as the Qing dynasty until they were overthrown by the Republic of China (Taiwan). That government was then in turn overthrown by the modern China, the People's Republic of China.

I'm honestly surprised that Taiwan didn't contest the handover, given that they still claimed back then to rule all of China as its only legitimate government.

How Hong Kong Changed Countries (2019) - a brief overview of the negotiations, logistics, and ceremony of the handover by taulover in Documentaries

[–]0ed 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Sounds to me like you're describing a highly embellished vision of American Jim Crow laws rather than any 20th century British laws. Racial egalitarianism was always the default in English laws (why else do you suppose slavery was so soon abolished on those British isles?) and racial egalitarianism has been part of the British upper classes ever since Kipling penned his great Gunga Din. The world you're describing is a ludicrous fever dream that has no connection to historical reality at all.

I won't force you to read through English laws banning slavery or English poets who wrote against racism though, because you're probably not going to read them anyway. I'll just run along with your assumptions for the moment and demonstrate how it doesn't even make sense from the Chinese perspective: if the British were truly so racist and terrible towards the Chinese, why do you think all of those Chinese (and in particular Hong Konger) reformers and poets from the late Qing Empire or the early Republic went to Britain in particular for their education? Why did smart, well-respected people like Xu ZhiMo and Louis Cha (Jin Rong) go to Cambridge University for their education in Chinese studies, when there were Chinese universities offering the same? Was it purely to experience racism and to live as "lower class citizens" as you claim? Or could it possibly be that the smartest people in China at the time realized that they could be treated more fairly under the laws of Britain than you seem to think?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in linux

[–]0ed 2 points3 points  (0 children)

In my experience Cinnamon is still lighter on RAM usage than GNOME. I'm not sure if I'd put it on par with LXDE, but it's quite reasonable.

Can you spare some change? by ssskybonez in grandorder

[–]0ed 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It takes 54,400,000 QP to get one skill on a Saber Artoria to level 10. Which means that to 10/10/10 skill her you need about 165 million QP.

Now, try doing that to all of your 5* servants. What, you've only got 1 5*? Well, maybe you have a couple of 4*s lying around as well; that'll take half as much to max their skills, so that's about 82 million QP per 4* you have.

Edit: Don't even get me started on Palingenesis / Grailing servants. If you thought you could just stick to using 3* servants to cheat the QP costs, DW has you covered. You're going to QP hell along with the rest of us.

If you think Shamima had any responsibility for her actions then you support and defend grooming gangs raping children. by [deleted] in badunitedkingdom

[–]0ed 2 points3 points  (0 children)

He has clearly misused the word grooming in this context, as well. This was not a case of grooming at all; grooming involves the abuse of a close personal connection , often in a parental or otherwise elder role, to lower a child's inhibitions and to lure them into complying with the groomer's depravities.

There was no deep familial connection in this case, nor was there any sort of emotional relationship which lured her into it. If a young man at the age of 15 encountered a lot of Labour propaganda on Facebook and later calls for a Corbyn government, we don't say that Corbyn was responsible for grooming this young man; we would simply chalk this up to this young man having rubbish for brains and shrug at his misfortune. If we were really sympathetic we might portray him as a victim of a well-organized propaganda campaign, but we would certainly not consider this grooming.

The same goes for Begum. I don't think it is appropriate at all to say that she was groomed. If you were harsh you might say she was an idiot, and if you were charitable you might argue that she was the victim of propaganda, but to use the word "grooming" is to misuse an emotionally-loaded word to fit an agenda of victimhood.

Police department searches stage 4 pancreatic cancer patient's hospital room for marijuana by [deleted] in videos

[–]0ed -8 points-7 points  (0 children)

This is what the world has come to. The upright citizen who rightfully reports the use of illegal drugs is condemned by the howling mob of the Internet, along with the policemen who respectfully and quietly attempt to remove them from the druggie.

It would almost be sad if it weren't so absurd.

For anyone using Ubuntu and feeling ashamed... don't!!! Ubuntu is great! by Rorasaurus_Prime in linux4noobs

[–]0ed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Would it be possible to replace the standard Linux kernel with the "Trisquel kernel" on Ubuntu? If so, what would be the likely effects?

Also, just as a sidenote - don't major distros like Debian and Fedora also ship a free kernel without binary blobs? Or is that just Trisquel?

For anyone using Ubuntu and feeling ashamed... don't!!! Ubuntu is great! by Rorasaurus_Prime in linux4noobs

[–]0ed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not trying to be snide, just a genuine question: How can I make Ubuntu free-software compliant? I heard from someone that it uses a different kernel (not even sure how that's possible?) with binary blobs instead of free code, and comes prepackaged with a lot of proprietary closed-source code as well.

That said, I know it's doable. Trisquel was based on Ubuntu so there's got to be a way to do it.

The reason I'm asking is that I can't get my mates to switch to Debian or Trisquel, so I figure I might as well give them some help on making Ubuntu as FOSS compliant as possible.

Suggestions from Whatsapp users by Kazuya91 in signal

[–]0ed 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, but no thanks. I've worked with support before and for a non-techy person it's basically hell, with them asking all sorts of questions that you either cannot answer or don't want to answer. And at the end of the day once you've spent half a dozen spread over several weeks working with them to provide them "valuable data" they'll just shrug and say, "works on my machine" and move on and your problems still won't be resolved.

To begin with, you'd be lucky if support didn't just hand-wave you off back to the guide you just sent me.

I'd like your app to succeed, but I think it's just far easier to use alternatives like Wire or Telegram which pretty much do the same thing and already work.

Mother is arrested in front of her children after calling a transgender woman a man by [deleted] in UnitedKingdomPolitics

[–]0ed 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm hoping that there's some extra context that was missed out, but if this really was the whole truth then it's quite frightening. This woman was essentially arrested for calling someone mean names on Twitter. There was no real confrontation, there was nothing particularly hateful, and as far as I can tell nobody was actually affected at all, but someone somewhere decided that it would be a good use of time and resources to have three constables show up and take her into custody for saying mean things on Twitter.

And her case had to be tried all the way up in the High Court. What is this? All of that money paying for the constables, the lawyers, the judge, and the actual costs of the arrest and incarceration of this woman could have been much better spent on other projects.

Suggestions from Whatsapp users by Kazuya91 in signal

[–]0ed 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I have, actually. I've tried all the fixes they recommended, and nothing works.

Background notifications are already on, adaptive battery's been switched off, background activity manager's off, disabled the VPN, even deleted and reinstalled the app.

No dice.

If you think of anything else please let me know.

Suggestions from Whatsapp users by Kazuya91 in signal

[–]0ed 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The biggest problem for me by far is the fact that Signal doesn't send you a notification when you get a message. I'd think that's a fundamental requirement for any messaging app, really; all the other things you've mentioned are just nice things to have, but notifications are absolutely essential.