I got made fun of for crying when my grandfather died. Over 30 years ago. So I stopped.

Logistics at a certain point does not care what economic model you follow. Someone has to plant the crops and do all the other work that leads to people being fed, clothed, and housed under any system.

If your demographics are such that there are not enough people of working age to take care of those too old to work, you’re going to have the kind of problems that led other human societies to kill their elders.

It’d be great if we could automate our way out of this, but I don’t see that happening soon enough.

NATO is pushing a commitment to a minimum of 5% of GDP on defense.

Which, admittedly even the USA does not do. But in the 60s it was north of 9%.

Most of the cost of things is the embedded cost of labor. Even minerals in a lot of cases. There are a lot of deposits of pretty much everything we could be mining but aren’t because of the cost.

One business may only have 25% labor costs, but the suppliers also have labor costs, and their suppliers, all the way down the line. And 25% is on the low side. Even rent has labor costs embedded.

You may just be having trouble with the idea that people can reasonably and seriously see the world from a point of view other than your own.

Or it’s all a bit!

Who can say? No matter how I answer it’s not really evidence, you can draw a 2x2 decision matrix here for both answers and both possibilities. All four outcomes are plausible. Choose the answer that makes you happiest.

People make real friends online. Who they don’t know in person. You’d be telling your child to toughen up and get new friends.

If I included a self destruct button beside the AC controls and claimed that it was driver error that was the problem, how credible would that be?

Bad drivers and shitty “self driving” are how the cars are unsafe.

No matter how it happens if they crash more often or have worse outcomes when they do, then they’re less safe.

… Why would I care if they miss me?

Why would I care about their opinions at all? I’m pretty sure we care about each other’s opinions about equally as is.

It might make more sense to just not elect judges.

I think they’re being disingenuous, because the government has been spying on all of us via end runs around the rules like “five eyes” for decades. If they want to go all CIA on you they just ask an ally to do it, then return the favor and spy on the people of other governments for them. All legal and above board, it’s just “intelligence sharing”.

And the NSA isn’t even barred from monitoring you in the fist place.

I think it’s somewhat naive to assume anything isn’t being spied on by the NSA. They don’t have a history of being picky.

No means no, Microsoft.

If we’re discussing what’s legal it’s 100% relevant. DMCA makes circumventing a digital lock a crime in the USA.

If we’re discussing what’s moral, then talk less. Nothing about the DMCA was moral.

What Federation is being Federal to you? If it’s the USA, overriding your property rights was the whole purpose of the DMCA.

Dead bodies are not people and don’t have rights. If there’s a harm done, it has to be to someone else. Like surviving relatives or something.

It also has a 0% failure rate in live strikes on targets.

Legally, technically: no.

Philosophically, practically: if you believe it’s murder when you do it, you are a murderer mentally. You decided to kill a person, then followed through with it. And the first time is always the hardest.

I left as soon as I saw something asking for age verification in the client.