bigDinosaur

To have had this many incidents compared to other HSR networks around the world gives all the signs of a classic case of normalisation of deviance.

Sadly we'll probably watch a lot of individuals being blamed/scapegoated for systemic issues, but hopefully even Spanish politics can organise a proper investigation after this many deaths in a single year.

80% alike is to my mind dramatically different and would not be a substitute at all. I also don't think 95% cocoa chocolate is a substitute for 80% cocoa chocolate etc. as even the small difference results in a dramatically different product and that's the simplest variation possible for chocolate.

Lowest denominator politics like this is what dominates social media and none of it improves anything. Choosing to focus on publishing objectively rigorous science is inherently speaking truth to power and does far more good than almost anything else. Of course, anyone can see the value science has as a way of providing objective understanding and wants to use it to justify their issue du jour.

Scandinavian countries are the most capitalistic of Europe - and socialists don't like social democrats. The Scandinavian countries are the latter, not the former.

You aren't taking into account that transport agencies can raise a lot of funding based on yearly revenue so multiplying fares out in terms of the debt that can be serviced yearly can easily reach billions which can be used for capital investment.

It's nice to have an opinion but free public transport causes many issues and isn't great policy, it actually means transport agencies have less money to invest and take out debt on as system use increases which is a very bad position financially. The same issues actually apply to roads as well and are a reason things like congestion taxes are a good idea.

Many adults have mutually incompatible ideas of what would make the world better. Many adults are willing to use violence to make their version of the world become a thing. It's not really as simple as saying it doesn't have to be this way.

It's pretty remarkable to see 'I don't like them, therefore their arguments are all terrible' in action, but it's so rampant in this comments section it's genuinely sad. Every single argument against rationalists can be leveraged at academic philosophers too.

I'd expect someone's BFF to call the police if their friend is making credible talk about shooting up a school or whatever. I sometimes feel like privacy talk online can be seriously divorced from how human relationships actually work.

It didn't 'learn' anything in any shape or form at all, it performed an echo <input>.

Siri is highly useful for setting timers and is a solid 9/10 at doing so reliably.

That's not what single payer actually means, since Australia has both a single payer public system and a separate private system. The part that allows these to both exist is that the public system has vast resources (i.e. an entire national/set of state governments) that can act as one for immense negotiating power. This does not preclude a private system from existing.

Iran is the source for the Islamic justification for suicide bombing (suicide is forbidden in the Quran and thus 'innovation' was needed to justify it). That alone puts immense amounts of blood on their hands. They invented this justification for their own religious and geopolitical aims (getting the US out of the ME). They are interventionists who want to be the spiritual centre of Islam, they are the opposite of passive actors in their region.

The bigger question is whether the other Gulf states (that we ally with or support) are any better and whether or not they deserve sanctions too. The West is clearly not in a place within the ME to preach morals, but that doesn't mean countries like Iran don't deserve sanctions.

If someone is supposedly concerned about being recorded, having their privacy invaded etc. but they're too lazy to change the wifi password and deal with the trivial inconvenience of changing it on other household devices then in this case the revealed preference really is that they don't really care.

As a parent you should absolutely think about what kind of expectations and behaviours you're setting up for the future if 'if they enjoy it then it's worth the money' is teaching kids. Sure it's not perfectly clear cut but not thinking about value at all does not end well.