prebrov

This is exactly the argument propaganda in Russia and Belarus brings forward again and again — that it’s bystanders and outsiders that attempt to shame people into violence and grave risk to their lives.

Historically, majority of popular armed revolts were followed by bloodbaths, and years of economic dismay. Falling of Eastern bloc was a major exception, because USSR, the primary sponsor, crumbled itself. And even then there was Yugoslavia.

Dying in the name of freedom is just too much to ask of a normal person. Moving and freeing yourself is a more pragmatic move. Its not that hard to uphold your ethnic identity outside of arbitrarily defined borders, anyway.

Foreign invasion, on the other hand, has a much higher potential to galvanise all sorts of radicalists, as it has done every single time, everywhere.

So, please, be mindful of your call to arms to people in the faraway lands.

There are multiple creationist theories. The one you described is close to sanctioned Roman Catholic view, for example.

Since _Humani Generis_ by Pope Pius XII, the accepted view is that evolution, indeed, goes as it does, under divine supervision, and then when bodies reached a form fitting the pinnacle of creation (human), another act of creation occurred - that of human soul. And that miracle of creation keeps happening daily for every human born (or conceived?).

So, definitely not a Darwinian materialist view, but certainly evolution-friendly.

Generally, largest blocker to marrying salvation religions and materialist worldview is with a human. Salvation only concerns humans, and that implies that humans are very special in the Universe. Paganism wasn’t that arrogant, so might be more compatible with scientific method, funnily enough.

I’m an atheist, so this, naturally, this is my interpretation of other interpretations I’ve read and heard here and there.

I don’t argue that it happened the same way. Impact sure took longer than what we can achieve with modern technology, but the fact remains. Humans arrived into the last jungles of Pangea, and by the time of European colonisation, Australia was a Red Continent, with Eucalyptus being the dominant large plant.

There seems to be a strong indication that human activity contributed significantly to the climate change in Australia.

Not belittling the choices humans make to opt-out of the modern civilisation, but romanticising and mythologising “closeness to nature” just isn’t productive. Profound effect on the environment is a feature of all life forms, and sustainability isn’t really on any life form’s agenda.

Who’s to say that Cyanobacteria aren’t “close to nature”? Yet buggers were so successful, and polluted atmosphere with oxygen so badly, nearly all life went extinct. Even that worked quite well in the end.

They still ate all the megafauna within a couple thousand years of their arrival, and, arguably, significantly contributed to deforestation of the continent.

So, not that different from the Homo Sapiens anywhere else.

Genre-binding naming conventions are exactly the problem.

"Blog" originally stood for "web log", and as such didn't put any constraints or expectations on the media format, length, or quality. At some point format-specific platforms came in, artificially fragmented self-publishing into "microblogging", "photoblogging", "videoblogging", and took it over.

Not everything has to be a well written article, but blogging relinquished "just thinking out loud" type of publishing to mobile-first social networking walled gardens, and it's a real shame and a loss.

Shift to mobile is a massive contributor. Many newcomers to the internet are mobile first, and either don't have permanent access to desktop computers at all, or just couldn't be bothered.

And I don't see many blogging platforms that take this audience seriously. Wordpress seems to be the only one that has a mobile app at all.

Missing the Mobile boat is a major blow to blogging, the way I see it.

Self-hosted blogging had passed on the format of ad-hoc notes while on the move, and basically ignored the entire category of mobile content creation.

It’s odd and sad to see that the desktop-first authoring trend is actually getting re-enforced these days in indie blogging community, as the tools are getting less and less mobile-friendly (another git-driven file-based Markdown static site generator, anyone?)

If anything, armed conflict in space will likely play out with autonomous and remotely controlled weaponry and might as well be death-less.

There’s absolutely no reason to launch humans to space for the purpose of operating space-based machinery.

Why not? Markets are interested in capital gains and profit sharing, not necessarily steering the wheel directly.

How is it wrong for a founder to take a smaller cut of the profit in exchange for more power?

Founders (individuals) want a voice in their companies, and how much money does one need anyway? Investors (usually institutions) want to make money, and they need lots of it.

Seems like a fair trade.

Not if it’s your ride waiting for you in short-term parking space, or a food delivery person at your doorstep.

“Always been a better experience” is just a personal experience.

Uber launched in SG before Grab did. Many drivers preferred Uber - they’re payout schedule and incentive structure was more favourable. Many riders, both locals and expats, including myself, preferred Uber. Grab undercutting Uber’s pricing was a tactic, just like GoJek is trying to chew off a market share by underpricing Grab today.

Mediation is exercise for the mind. One exercises the body to better control their bodily functions, like movements, breathing, heartbeat, etc. One meditates to develop better control of their thinking processes.

Mindfulness, concentration - these are just techniques to help you focus for extended periods of time, and make better decisions.

You can meditate to understand your way to escape samsara, to build a better software architecture, or to kill all humans.

Given enough practice, your mind functions in a permanently altered state, becoming more alert, focused, open, and elastic whenever you’re awake (though lucid dreaming is another potential kick some people chase). Now you can set goals, prioritise better, procrastinate less, rather than just cruising along. This gives you significant competitive edge over the rest of the population.

That’s what all the fuss is about.

Meditation can be exhausting, especially at the beginning - steering your thoughts is hard. So, importance of sleep is often one of the first things people very clearly realise when they try to consciously control their thought process.

Compelling telcos to do that is the regulator's job.

Not sure about the US, but in most of the rest of the world regulators come up with new rules and regulations requiring some form of network upgrade all the time – SLAs, connectivity and routing requirements, legal interception, data residency, etc.

And telcos have no other way but to spend billions to protect some monopoly or enable more surveillance power for the governments. It's a matter of priorities, really.