yrdmb

> I know, I live in one such apartment. I have a very good relationship with my landlord. I'd be among the first to profit if NYC decided to force landlords to lower rent. It still does not feel right.

Then leave your rent stabilized apartment. What do you think rent stabilized apartments are? They are apartments with legally and artificially lowered rents. Would you feel better if they called it stabilizing rent rather than lowering rent?

> The cell is a living organism because we have largely defined the cutoff for living organisms at the cell;

Isn't that because all living organisms are composed of one or more cells ( cell theory )? It isn't an arbitrary cutoff but rather a result of observation that the smallest thing we can confidently called a living organism is a cell and all organisms are composed of cells.

> it's much more interesting to consider if viruses are machines or not and that really is a hot-topic in the biology community.

They are not self-contained self-replicating machines. But are they machines nonetheless? I'd say they are non-self-replicating machines. But I guess it all depends on how you define machine. Just like how do you define life or living determines whether viruses are alive or not.

pwsh never took off because it doesn't fit the spirit of unix system administration. pwsh is object based while on unix systems, it's all about shredding text. If you are on windows, use powershell as it makes your life easier. But I don't think anyone wants to use powershell on unix, linux, etc.

> But this just does not feel right. It feels like tyranny of the majority.

It's not tyranny. It's just democracy. Asset owners get lots of tax deductions, capital gains benefits and other goodies because they are the majority who voted it for themselves.

> Ordering them to decrease the rents is not that different from confiscating part of their property.

There have been rent stabilized apartments in new york for decades now. It's nothing new and it's nothing like confiscating property.

Think it had more to do with Intel partnering with Microsoft and Windows taking over the PC market in the 90s.

> I hope the US takes the EU approach and regulates what data is collected

The US and the EU have different goals. EU's goal is to protect their control of propaganda within their borders. Ours is to control propaganda within our borders and protect our social media companies from foreign competitors. There is a reason why the government attacks on tiktok coincides with youtube shorts, facebook reels, instagram reels, etc. EU doesn't have a social media company to champion so they don't have that extra burden of protecting market share.

> I've been living in Turkey for some years now and I promise you, it's not fun.

Tiktok isn't going to go away. Too many companies have invested in tiktok for it to be simply banned. Tiktok is most likely going to be "confiscated". Tiktok parent will most likely be forced to sell tiktok to a US based company.

No country should allow foreign social media to spread propaganda within their borders. Every country should nationalize social media within their borders. It's insane that only the US, China and Russia seem to be protecting their social media space. I just don't get it. Social media can be used to brainwash, divide and destroy any country. It's almost like most of the world's leaders are incompetent.

Yet you fail to name a single one. No revolution in history was by the populace. All revolutions in history have been a group of elites trying to pry power away from another group of elites. From the american revolution to the french to the bolshevik all the way to the "color revolutions", it's always one group of elites leading the charge.

> Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous.

It also democratizes the clout, power and protection that the hollywood famous have. Without social media harvey weinstein would not be in jail. A "relative nobody" wouldn't have been able to "out shout" and expose a media mogul like weinstein.

As with everything, there are positive and negative aspects.

> The world needs basic income

That's all we need. Basic income will allow people to get housing, internet and food.

> I find interesting that HBO, a US TV network, has become a worldwide brand name in a way that CBS,[1] NBC, and ABC didn't;

That's because CBS, NBC and ABC are national broadcast networks while HBO is a cable network, like CNN. CNN is broadcast internationlly.

> only BBC has also transcended its home country this way,

That's only because of the british empire. Who but their former slave colonies watches BBC?

> None except Netflix has yet gained worldwide recognition for their shows and brands, yet, though (not even Disney and The Mandalorian).

Isn't Friends the most popular tv show worldwide? People may watch it on Netflix but it was originally broadcast on NBC as part of the "Must see tv" thursdays.