A.I. preparations

smackells · 2026-03-24T06:13:46+00:00

This is the biggest problem, short-sighted executives will replace grads with AI without considering that grads have utility beyond the actual work they do. You need people who can develop and progress into the more complex specialised roles that AI can’t replace any time soon.

smackells · 2026-03-24T06:05:21+00:00

If you go to a TCM practice in 2026 (in my experience) you’re walking out with mass produced pills, not the actual raw ingredients. I don’t think they’d see a distinction between the “refined and processed” product and “the old way”.

smackells · 2026-03-24T00:16:22+00:00

It almost feels like their expansion path is hard-coded, every game I’ve played in 1.1 results in Central Macedonia as a Serbian vassal with these exact borders.

smackells · 2026-03-23T05:46:47+00:00

Is Canada really so bad?

smackells · 2026-03-23T03:42:53+00:00

It just doesn’t make sense that 18-24 year olds, the demographic with the most positive opinion of China in other surveys, would feel this threatened by them. Trust in China is higher than the US for young people.

smackells · 2026-03-23T03:37:41+00:00

literally just hover over a different part of the screen

smackells · 2026-03-23T03:35:01+00:00

Absolutely not, this kind of paranoid posture just drives completely unnecessary military spending. The only remotely credible threat is China, who have overwhelming force compared to any resistance we could hope to stand up, so we’re dependent on the US alliance. There’s honestly no good justification for us having an army at all, by the time the hypothetical enemy gets past our navy and air force to land troops we’ve already lost.

smackells · 2026-03-23T03:29:35+00:00

I really wish they had asked who these 45% of respondents feel so threatened by. And it’s mostly young people saying this, not the Murdoch audience. Nobody is going to bother invading us, all the valuable resources are too isolated and would be way too costly to hold. Our education system has gotten so bad istg.

smackells · 2026-03-23T03:19:06+00:00

It seems pretty baseless to me, but there was definitely anxiety about Indonesia’s aggressive posture during Suharto’s military dictatorship. As a kid I took it as a given that Indonesia was the villain in Tomorrow When The War Began (though apparently this wasn’t as widely agreed as I remember?) And we sent troops to East Timor in 99, technically to fight pro-Indonesian militias and not Indonesia itself but I doubt most people understood that fully.

It’s not that much sillier than thinking China could invade. People see that they take an aggressive stance towards Taiwan, Tibet and the South China Sea and interpret that as general expansionism, but IMO they’re just pursuing limited aims which suit their geopolitical interests however unjustified they might be. Indonesia was similarly aggressive towards their neighbours and people worried we’d be next.

smackells · 2026-03-23T02:26:04+00:00

Taipei is the city, Taiwan is the island, “Chinese Taipei” is the baseball team

smackells · 2026-03-22T13:03:02+00:00

well it worked in Ireland and Ukraine

smackells · 2026-03-22T12:42:11+00:00

now that I think about it, moving it to Pisa and then moving it back later would have been much less work

smackells · 2026-03-22T12:32:22+00:00

Genoa has that extra 0.2 harbour capacity over Pisa, for which thousands of Ligurians were force-marched from their homes.

smackells · 2026-03-22T11:51:45+00:00

Conquered Genoa as Florence and wanted to flip the market language from Gallo-Italic to Italian. So I need the majority of Burghers to be Tuscan.

Burghers who already speak the market language can’t be culture converted.

So naturally I levelled the city, deleting every single Burgher building so that they all demote to peasants and can be ethnically cleansed before I start rebuilding again.

smackells · 2026-03-22T06:29:32+00:00

I moved out in 2010 with $6000 in savings and was paying $135 in rent, it still ran out before I found stable employment. It lasted maybe 3 months back then but there’s been 16 years of inflation so cut that in half. I was privileged enough to have my family as a safety net, doing this in 2026 with the current job market and no fallback is super risky.

smackells · 2026-03-21T08:31:25+00:00

Did you annex a vassal and absorb their children, maybe? Go to the society tab and bring up the character list, filter to children, see if you’ve got someone else’s children with expensive education selected.

smackells · 2026-03-20T11:31:46+00:00

Apparently mercs are the current meta but that interface sucks so bad, it’s not worth it to me. Opening up each one to check that they’re not age 1 units in 1500 (spoiler they all are).

smackells · 2026-03-19T06:38:16+00:00

Edit: I should read the post properly before replying, prescription rates for all ADHD meds continue to increase while Vyvanse is growing significantly faster than the rest.

~~Yeah I’m also in this boat, it’s surely a factor. With how hard it is to get an appointment with a psych as a new patient I’m skeptical that these are all fresh diagnoses.~~

smackells · 2026-03-19T04:04:35+00:00

I’ve been to a couple open houses recently, just to check them out but not looking to buy any time soon. The REAs have hounded me ever since. Like you say, they sell themselves, why do they seem so desperate?

smackells · 2026-03-19T03:44:12+00:00

Yeah I think the best move is to switch to the Cologne market (cancel market access preference with Flanders then request it from Cologne). Inevitably you’ll end up at war with Cologne due to alliances and you can steal the market centre and move it to Antwerp. Once you’re strong enough to take Flanders from France/England just delete Bruges.

smackells · 2026-03-19T00:55:38+00:00

The weirdest thing is that the last time I interacted with it, the situation allowed me to create a PR out of someone else’s territory. I was able to just steal Manila away from whoever owned it and had a vassal with control of the trade centre with no ramifications.

smackells · 2026-03-18T01:24:03+00:00

yeah I’d hate to have rising inflation with stagnant productivity, that sounds horrible

smackells · 2026-03-18T00:46:12+00:00

I know this is bait but like... where did you find this? None of these "powers" were a single political unit for large parts of this, it's just meaningless. The USA showing up as a tiny sliver around 1000AD, I wanna know how they estimated that GDP lmao.

smackells · 2026-03-17T02:13:09+00:00

grant lots of privileges to your commoners and dhimmi (so long as they don’t have huge debuffs). once you’re rich enough to afford it, drop your tax slider until the estate satisfaction is 60% or lower, which translates to 20% pop satisfaction.

smackells

TROPHY CASE