• 7 Posts
  • 141 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 4th, 2023






  • I know, but why should someone other than Jones pay up? He has obviously put aside a lot of money that is due to those affected - he will make even more in the next trump turn. If he gets away with that and shows that it’s worthwhile to run a business as immoral as his, others will do exactly the same.

    Edit: nvm, I forgot that Trump still owes the state of New York half a billion dollars for massive financial fraud that he will never pay because the US citizens elected him the next president. Well, too bad the US legal system doesn’t prosecute anyone personally - especially not with criminal charges. Sorry, I always wrongly assume that the US has a semi-functioning legal system. My bad.



  • Yes, and fuck this shit in particular:

    A resolution adopted by the German Bundestag last week on curbing antisemitism and protecting Jewish life could negatively impact civil society and free expression in the country. (…) There are major concerns in Germany about the resolution, including from civil society, academics, Jewish artists and intellectuals, and lawyers. There are fears it will open up new avenues for abusive enforcement, further chill free expression, peaceful assembly, and free association, and risk stigmatizing migrant communities, while downplaying homegrown antisemitism in German society including from the far right. Source

    Sincerely, another German.


  • It’s probably just a simple HTML tel link that is supposed to open a phone app so that you don’t need to dial. But macOS and iOS opens these links with FaceTime if that is configured as your standard “phone” app. So it’s not the website that opens an app with camera permission, it’s the OS.

    This can be quite annoying for web developers because HTML alone cannot prevent FaceTime from being opened instead of a normal phone app, as the OS dictates what happens when a tel link is clicked. This can easily give the impression that the camera is being accessed illegitimately, even if this is not actually intended. That’s probably the case here. I can’t imagine anyone expecting their customers to book a table in a restaurant via video call - that would be stupid on many levels.









  • Europe is increasingly losing influence in the global economy, which is why I do not think that the euro is a likely candidate for an alternative reserve currency. If at all, it is more likely to be a dispute between the US and China or an eastern bloc imo. Or perhaps a system that is more decentralized and no longer requires a central trading currency in the sence of a national currency. Either way, I think an attack by the USA on Europe is out of the question - for many reasons, but if only because the US benefits from NATO and France is also a nuclear power.


  • What I mean is unbridled self-enrichment, corruption, greed, hubris and hedonism (in the negative, not the philosophical sense) of the elites of a given empire, which often had a certain share in the decline of formerly effective administrative and economic structures, legal systems etc. The excessive abuse of power by the powerful for selfish purposes. For a long time the ancient Romans were very aware of the creeping danger that came with considerable power in the hands of just a few. For example the expression “memento mori” (remember that you will die) likely comes from this context: The Romans used to say that to generals when they returned from a successful campaign as to remind them that they are not almighty gods but just mortals like everyone else. The late Roman elite however seems to have forgotten this as they became more greedy and selfish instead of being somewhat humble servants of their empire - they became decadent. But yes, if anything, that was of course just one factor among many in the decline of former empires. My point is just that even today, the excessive greed of a few very powerful people threatens not only their own power base, but even the survival of humanity as a whole. I simply think that we need to change fundamentally and urgently if we want to mitigate the foreseeable consequences of climate change to some extent - Trump is not going to do that at all.


  • Yes, most empires have perished because of their decadence. This is certainly also a danger for the USA, especially under Trump. If it comes to that, we can only hope that the US will not drag us all into the abyss with them. They will certainly use all means at their disposal to maintain the status quo - even with nuclear weapons, which the Romans, for example, did not have. I hope it goes well. In any case, the world would be better off if we did not continue to destroy our common habitat with our eyes open because of the excessive neoliberalism of the US.