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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • Well, by that established-powers created definition every single act of war meant to cower civilians or other states is terrorism unless in committed in one’s own homeland (this latter exception because governments can make sure it’s “lawful” where they are soverign, but their law does not extend outside their borders)

    There are international laws, however unenforced, that so called terrorist states regularly violate.

    Bombing of Dresden during WWII: terrorism

    I think the intent was to target factories which are considered part of the military establishment, but probably.

    What Israel is doing right now in Gaza and all pretty much every single action of Israel in Palestine, outside it’s UN approved borders: terrorism

    Is that even in question? Obviously indiscriminat bombing of a civilian population to drive them to migrate as refugees is terrorism.

    Almost every single United States military operation, cover and overt outside it’s own borders: terrorism

    When the USA invaded Iraq everyone around me was calling the US a terrorist state and there were mass protests in my country, Australia, at the our governments choice to be complicit in that. I would say that western countries tend to use more targeted attacks so they don’t usually meet their own definition of terrorist, but the USA nuclear bombs example as an example of terrorism is far from the only case.

    I guess when Australia. Soldier Ben Roberts-Smith was found to be guilty of specific war crimes in Afghanistan they didn’t use the blanket term “terrorism”, but the guy is clearly a terrorist despite being a white Westerner.

    By your very own statement (unproven, I might add) that an organization that commits acts of terrorism per that definition is a “terrorist movement”, then the US is a “terrorist movement”, as is Israel and for example just about every nation that invaded Iraq (as there was no UN mandate, hence it wasn’t lawful and a lot of actions done there were definitelly “use of violence and intimidation” for the most definitelly “political” aim of changing the government there).

    What do mean unproven? I’ve quoted the dictionary definition from Google. You’re welcome to define terrorism however you want, but the most widely used definition, per most English language dictionaries, is to the effect of the use of violence against civilians or other non combatants to further political or social change.

    Interestingly enough by your definition what Nazi Germany did to the Jews inside its own borders was not terrorism, because it was “lawful” in Germany at the time.

    What the Nazis did is why we now have the Geneva convention and international laws around human rights. While those laws may not have existed at the time, plenty of Germans were tried and found guilty of them afterwards.

    Most of what follows you seem to be arguing on what I consider to be the mistaken belief that there is no such thing as international law.

    Israel as it exists right now is a terrorist state. I’m not stating that meaning I, in any way, agree with those who are calling for the obliteration of the state of Israel, but prior to Oct 7 the authorities were clearly selectively enforcing laws that allowed for violence and other acts of terror against Palestinians, both by the state itself and by private citizens. They clearly have been acting in violation of international law for a long time.


  • By your definition there is no such thing as a “terrorist movement”. Outside of lone Wolf insane people, no terrorists objective is to create terror purely for terrorsnsake. Terrorism is the tool they use to pursue their objectives. It’s right there in the definition of terrorism.

    the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

    The IRA bombings of London were because they wanted the UK to leave northern Ireland, Al Quieda orchestrated September 11th to scare Americans out of supporting their agenda in the middle east. The US nukes in japan were to force Japan’s surrender in world war 2. Every major act of terrorism has a specific goal. Hamas is no different, their goal is to destroy the state of Israel. Israel being invaders, terrorists, thieves etc doesn’t change that Hamas is a terrorist organization.


  • I used to have a pebble back in the day, and then later a pebble steel. I’ve not found a modern smartwatch that is as good for my needs (partially because it doesn’t look like a smartwatch).

    I use a Samsung Galaxy wear, which also looks like a normal watch. I’m sure competing products are used a lot and you just don’t notice them because their styling is modelled off of dumb watches.


  • If people wanted them, they’d sell them here.

    Yeah depending on where “here” is different things are available. If people don’t buy them or if dealers make more money off SUVs, then they will be gone.

    Also seems they have bigger engines and clearly a larger physical footprint than my wife’s CUV, so that argument is gone as well.

    Size and fuel economy weren’t things I mentioned above, but yeah I agree with you. Usually station wagons, like SUVs, have different engine configurations which dictates fuel economy more than ride height. The fuel efficiency argument against SUVs is a little out of date, the smaller ones are shared chassis with passenger cars often with the same engine, so fuel economy is more or less unchanged (the aero is worse on an SUV, but the kind we are discussing it’s not really significant). By footprint I guess you mean length, which in the example I have is right, obviously height goes the other way. Smaller SUVs are more comparable to hatchbacks (eg Mazda 3 is the same as CX-30), I don’t think the mid sized car platform is as directly comparable to the mid sized CUV/SUV.





  • bigschnitz@lemmy.worldtoAndroid@lemmy.worldShould I buy a Pixel or a Samsung?
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    1 year ago

    I went from Samsung S10+ to a pixel 5 which was a huge upgrade. Pixel 5 to pixel 7 pro was a considerably bigger downgrade. After my experience, I’m at least a few generations and a lot of reviews between my next pixel or tensor phone.

    P7P:

    • overheats with light use

    • between 1/2 and 1 days battery life

    • persistent screen glare

    • worst android UI I’ve seen since maybe my galaxy s3? Genuinely so long I can’t even really be sure.

    • terrible build materials. Mad slippy and will break if dropped even a small distance

    • worst fingerprint sensor I’ve used.

    • most limited customization of any android in recent memory, combined with awful stock ux


  • Mid 30s Aussie living the the US. Yes I can drive a manual, yes I do drive a manual and yes I think it should be mandatory for 100% of learning drivers regardless of whether they plan to daily drive an automatic or manual when licensed.

    The quality of driving here is considerably worse here than what I’ve experienced in Australia or Europe and I’m convinced requiring people to drive in a machine that forces them to consider the next ~100m leads to higher quality, more mindful drivers.


  • Which… gets back to cable. A decade or so ago? Pretty much everything WAS in one spot for about a hundred bucks a month. Get premium cable to get most channels and then spend extra for HBO or sports or whatever. And comcast and verizon both had a lot of VODs available too. Many of which didn’t even have ads. And the rest? you DVR it and then fast forward through the ads when they show up (… which is better than hulu). REALLY like movies? Get cinemax too.

    You’re projecting an American perspective, but I suspect you’re talking to an Australian.

    Cable in Australia has always been considerably more expensive than in the USA, and includes considerably less content. Except for movies, it was also never available adfree. It was changing in the last 5 years when I left the country, but it wasn’t even close to competing with the likes of Netflix on price or service and I don’t think there was any ad free option (despite the dramatically higher cost to consumer) - there was a whole media oligarch conspiracy to sink the national broadband upgrade because they knew they had the market cornered with their monopoly and streaming would disrupt that.



  • Money isn’t an investment, it’s a currency. Of course it’s a bad investment and investing in forex is barely a better investment than crypto (purely because there’s less risk of a sovereign currency devaluing to 0).

    Investing in capital, like stocks, property, equipment etc does not require someone to lose money for the capital owner to profit. If I invest in a stock, each year I’m paid a dividend based on the profits of that organisation - no losers required. I could later sell that stock at the exact price I paid for it and come away with profit from those dividends. What determines whether it’s a good or bad investment, is the ratio of profit to the capital owner compared to cost of the asset. Crypto generates 0 profit, so it has 0 value as a capital investment.


  • Money has value insofar as governments use it to collect tax - so long as there’s a tax obligation, there’s a mandated demand for that currency and it has some value. Between different currencies, the value is determined based upon the demand for that currency, which is essentially tied to how much business is done in that currency (eg if a country sells goods in its own currency, demand for that currency goes up and so does it’s value).

    This is not the same for crypto, there are no governments collecting tax with it so it does not have induced demand. The value of crypto is 100% speculative, which is fine for something that is used as currency, but imo a terrible vehicle for investment.


  • The reason I asked was because I think there’s a fundamental disagreement between what it actually is that people disagree about.

    Your earlier post suggests that your stance on abortion is different than that of the mainstream conservative narrative. This seems normal, based on how every vote on that issue seems to be playing out, there is a disconnect between the ideology that conservative leaders are pushing and what their supporters actually think. The exact same situation is true with affirmation action on the left - voters consistently reject it regardless of party affiliation or self identified political leaning.

    I’d hear people identify CRT as being closely related to affirmative action, in that it’s an actual policy that gives out some advantage (or seeks to remove some other existing advantage, if you have a different perspective) vs being some purely academic case study more like what a other response to your response described.

    Where I’m going with this is that depending on what you’re describing when you say CRT, it’s very easily possible that your position of opposing it is consistent with a clear majority of people who identify as “left”. The disagreement isn’t about ideology, but about semantics that is being exploited by a political class to drive support.