GlobalFrog

Several comments here mention that nothings goes faster than light in a vacuum, which is right. But... Putting aside all considerations of causality, if a particle was to go faster than light, it would also emit a vacuum Cherenkov radiation, as this particle would go faster than light. That would be a kind of supersonic bang. Some theories about this say that when a particle going faster than light, it loses its energy and emits photons. IANAP (yes, I am not a physicist), but I would love to hear a theory about how those FTL particles could be detected if they were to exist, and what could be the observation, probably coming the this vacuum Cherenkov effect. Again, I know this is against all physics, but the theory would be cool!

And there are no sex scene in the original tale. Sex is slightly evocated by two mentions of Ulysses sharing the bed or Circe and Calypso, but without any depiction of sex.

The core issue here, as often, is that it pits ethical and economic concerns against one another. There has been a systemic choice by web/tech companies to prioritize maximum profit, often at the expense of necessary user support and compliance. Because of that, user support/relations are deficient and there is little accountability for what they're doing, even if, as we often read here, a tech company cancels user accounts, projects, or monetary accounts, without anyone or anywhere to appeal. Age verification presents the same problem. If companies maintained a professional, human-centered user relations function, they could implement a non-intrusive, real-time validation process. If we were in the real world, with for example a barman needing an ID, that single person could confirm the age without copying or indefinitely keeping the ID card. The digital equivalent would be a decent support representative who could conduct a live brief video interaction to confirm a user's age, without even storing a copy of the ID, and who could even require the parents to be there with the minors signing in. That would address both the need for verification and the data minimization problem. Yes, that would cost the companies a lot of money, but that would solve both problems at the same time: verifying the user's age and ensuring privacy. And guess what, the same person could also serve as an entry point for other issues that no one can really appeal against now, like the frozen accounts and other horror stories mentioned above. Yes, parental control is necessary, but it is insufficient. Zero-Knowledge Proof thingies could allow a device to validate parts of the process, but the possibilities of circumventing this are so enormous and endless that they look to me as completely insecure (and using a third party validating this adds another layer of trouble). The most effective way would be to reintroduce a human element in the process, but we have already given up, because we are at the mercy of the web companies due to their free tools. The governments trying to introduce some ethics to those processes are not the problem at all, they should be commended for that. We are the problem because we accept that what should be the web companies' responsibilities is not being fulfilled because we don't want them to make less money as we would lose some freebies. That's on us, not on the laws. So the answer to "Why isn't online age verification just like showing your ID in person?" is : because we collectively accept it is not exactly showing our ID in person.

Actually, it is not quite the case: the most warmongering country in Europe was the UK since the 1600s (between 16 and 18 times depending on the criterias you use, a war declaration is way less a clear cut decision than you might think). They most often declared war to France, whereas during the same time, France declared war about 13 times (mostly to Spain, Prussia and Austria). There is no single source for those numbers, because some count invasions as war declarations, and some others don't, and some count wars against coalitions as 1 and some detail the exact number of countries involved. If you want to compare that with Germany/Prussia, they declared war about 10 times during the same time. And if you want to know which country was the most declared war upon, it was France (about 20 times), whereas England/UK was declared war to only 10 times. So it would not be far fetched to argue that it was mostly England/UK that was the biggest warmonger of the past.

I don't understand your issue between gram and kilo gram: gram is the base unit and the prefix kilo, meaning one thousand just says that 1 kg = 1000 grams. It is exactly the same as meters and kilometers: meters is the base unit and 1 km = 1000 meters.

Basically, he didn't say anything. At the entry point, he was asked to show his phone (unlocked) and computer. On one of them, in some messages he exchanged with a colleague, he was criticizing the politics of Trump in research and science. Then, he was threatened to be charged with terrorism, because his exchange with his colleague was 'hainous against Trump' and 'conspiracy ridden'. Charges were dropped after he was denied entry and his computed and phone confiscated.

Maybe, but our tech advancement could only happen because of our acceptance of others and of cooperation. And I have not seen any evidence that neandertals and sapiens considered themselves that different, this is just an assumed thing from our limited knowledge.

Maybe... but probably not. Having to divert investments from one part of the economy to another is not that much a big problem: Russia has been doing the same and they have an economy of war that works more or less (some say they are on the brink of collapse and yet, they are still there). So, Europe can totally rely way less on the US, they just have to change their priorities, and they'll adapt just as Russia has adapted. Thinking they cannot is really presumptuous, or even comptemptuous (and a lot of people have made the same mistake with Russia by the way). And yet, at the moment, the US think that way, not believing in soft power any more, but only in pure pressure or even blackmail. If history teaches one thing, it is that you always create your own ennemies (Versailles treaty comes to mind).

Exactly. Î really don’t understand that some take issue of verifying ages. IRL, you can be asked your ID to buy porn magazines, drink alcohol… Why would it be a nuisance to verify the same things online? Is it because you would be asked every time as your data wouldnt be stored for privacy issues? So, people are realizing that automating everything has drawbacks and that interacting with real humans directly has also advantages? Societies have evolved over hundreds of years and that has resulted in sets of rules to organize them. Would you really prefer the real life to have the rules of the internet replace what we have IRL?

My take is that it doesn’t even matter if Taipei has any card: this is not an economical/technological issue, it is an ideological one. China won’t blink an eye to invade if the conditions are right, because they want to unite their country, it is part of their identity. That might happen if anywhere else, there is a land grab. That won’t be Ukraine, because the US are not involved there, but if the US try to follow up on their claims about Greenland or Panama, Taipei is doomed within a month. As Trump is an adept of quid pro quo, that would mean a good deal for him, so the goal is to extract as much value from Taipei before letting them dead in the water.

And there are others, but not ultra young ones actually. But why would it be bad if the goal of a country is to raise a little the wealth of everyone instead of a lot the wealth of very few ? A country is succesful not by the number of billionaires but by quite a lot of other criterias.

Well, if you remember the 2016 elections, Trump was saying that the economy was extremely bad and disastrous. Then, within his first month of presidency, suddenly, the same numbers were extremely good because of him. During the Obama presidency, there had been a growth of 227000 jobs per month which became a growth of only 36000 jobs during the Trump years. During the last two years of Obama, the annual median household increased $4800, but only $1400 during the first two years of Trump. And then, under Biden the same annual median income was of $3250. And I could go on like that, except on the house prices which is the area where the pattern does not stand. So there are two things here: - Even if has been saying for the last months/years that the economy was a disaster,Trump will say within the first month of his presidency that the economy is already doing better immediately, while the numbers will be the very same at first. And when the economy will falter later on just like during his first term, his supporters won't mind because... - This election was not at all about the economy. This argument is an excuse for the real reasons why many Americans vote: more and more are susceptible to the cult of personality and to the progression of the most radical right-wing extremism ideas.

I am always wondering why the animal market hypothesis is always criticized by saying the proofs are not convincing enough, whereas the lab hypothesis is favored by the same ones while there is zero proof. I am quite an atheist there, both are possible for me, but if i were to bet my money, the animal market is the option with some scientific research and not speculations.