Merkel-Raute intensifies

Lots of these predictions were actually quite horrible. e.g. flying cars would be so much worse than regular cars in so many ways.

rare non-horny Extra Fabulous comic

It would still be quite the sensation if we found Manatees in Scotland!

Kind of iffy to post this outside of that context, IMO. Maybe some of the other works from this author are more obvious, but it’s really hard to recognize this one as satire if you don’t already know it.

I wouldn’t be so sure about that. We definitely got a lot of social progress from technology, but it’s plain to see that social media gets massively abused for reactionary propaganda (not entirely unlike radio and print have been abused to further authoritarian ideologies in early 20th century). IME, in recent years people have been getting MORE cold and brutal, more willing to assault random people for being the wrong sexual orientation, they started assaulting EMTs, firefighters and train employees in significant numbers, and people have been outright murdered for telling them that they should wear a mask.

And every appliance becoming “smart” seems to further the corporate desire for planned obsolescence and making people unable to repair their belongings, along with massively increasing security risks and possibilities for mass surveillance.

IMO, we’re moving backwards right now, with significant risk of losing the progress of the last 50 years.

Good luck ignoring social media nowadays. Whether you use them or not, you live in a society that does use them and you are impacted by its consequences.

And good luck trying to buy a new television that isn’t “smart”. Even cars are getting like that.

Yeah, and the amish aren’t exactly a positive example in terms of personal freedom, especially for women and queer people. Though those were never their goals anyway, so a more modern luddite community might be nicer to live in.

Cyberpunk authors have been introducing progress-hostile/‘go back to the past’ movements and factions since the 80s, arguably it’s older than cyberpunk-style technology itself (cyberpunk-style technology definitely being a thing that already exists, arguably since the www-internet but nowadays with VR, AI and electronically enhanced prostetics we’re definitely getting into the flashier stuff). And remember that the cyberpunk genre paints the future as bleak, in terms of how the common people live most cyberpunk worlds are clear downgrades compared to the actual 1980s.

And e.g. the amish rejected the industrial revolution.

Gotta switch it up sometimes.

It’s not that they " can sort of smell drugs", they are extremely sensitive to any trace smell of drug. Your linked article confirms that:

Dog-handling officers and trainers argue the canine teams’ accuracy shouldn’t be measured in the number of alerts that turn up drugs. They said the scent of drugs or paraphernalia can linger in a car after drugs are used or sold, and the dogs’ noses are so sensitive they can pick up residue from drugs that can no longer be found in a car.

Search so thoroughly that you would even find the tiniest crumbs left on someone’s shoe sole and that 44% “success” rate would probaby jump up considerably.

Though the false positives that are mentioned in the article are also an issue, but probably less so if you’re regularly doing the rounds at airport waiting queues.

I’d assume they’re just doing the rounds with drug sniffer dogs. Those dogs have crazy sensitivity.

If you’re traveling somewhere with extremely restrictive drug laws (e.g. Singapore), you can be sentenced to prison for drug particles on your shoes. i.e. you can accidentally have forbidden substances on you.

Sounds more like Monopoly: Social Democracy edition to me. Though either way, you’d need to add a tax for the rich to explain the $300.

Be the change you want to see.

Why are you censoring “jerkoff”?

Düsseldorf could be translated as “Idiots Village”

It cannot. While “Dussel” is roughly “dumbass”, “Düssel” is an entirely different word (apparently an outdated term for the ‘roar’ of water). “u” and “ü” are different vowels in German.

I don’t expect people even in border villages of Czechia, Slovakia or Hungary to speak German

German is actually a fairly popular foreign language in countries east of Germany: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Foreign_language_learning_statistics#Upper_secondary_education

Though learning a second or third language in school is probably not quite what OP envisions here, and there’s a big difference between getting language lessons in school and actually being able to speak that language (shoutout to my Spanish lessons in school, I should probably have picked French instead).

Or is it more if you lived even like 500 meters of a border do you learn the language of the country your in?

That tends to be how it’s done. States tend to be rather protective of their official language, and it’s generally impractical to send your children to school in a different country. Being somewhat proficient in the other country’s language is quite common, but to truly be bilingual you pretty much need to be some kind of ethnic or religious minority.

Also depends a lot on the relationship between the countries and languages; some borders are easier to cross, and some languages easier to learn.

oof.

I had to stop consuming caffeine for health reasons (exacerbates my digestive issues). I found that it actually makes a fairly big difference, depression tends to sap your energy and caffeine counteracts that somewhat.