• 12 Posts
  • 243 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 27th, 2023

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  • They have US military bases there

    There are no US military bases in Cyprus. There are british ones(since Cyprus used to be part of the British Empire).

    And there is 0% chance that Cyprus would let israeli military launch attacks from Cyprus.

    Nor is there much strategic reason to do so, unless Hezbollah has some s-300/400 and Israel needs to go around them and attack from a different direction. But they dont. And even if they had, Cyprus has basically no reason to allow Israel to do that and there is 0 precedent for that either.

    I think it is just Hezbollah being an attention whore.






  • It is chinese owned but Volvo is still a thing in Sweden. Geely bought them(Volvo Cars), gave them infinite money, so that Volvo could design and make cars like the 2nd gen xc90. In return Geely acquired the technology and know how on how to make quality cars.

    Nowadays, Volvo can combine their world leading car design with Geely’s electric vehicle platforms. Thats how you get a car like upcoming volvo ex30, that is cheap and (probably) good.

    When Volvo was owned by Ford, it was about to go the way of the Dodo(aka Saab). Geely saved it and made it a competitive car brand.



  • No, it isnt anything like that. The EU elections are different than the national ones and they arent explicitly connected in any way.

    But they are implicitly connected. His party just did very badly in the EU elections. He could technically continue to govern till the next national elections or he could go to early national elections and ask the voters “hey, you didnt vote for me in the EU elections, do you still want me to rule this country or not? Please confirm that you still continue to support me”.

    Basically Macron is saying “You just saw how fucked things are, with the far right getting over 30% of the votes in the EU elections. Vote for me or the fascists will win”. It is a move intended to rally the voters to his party but he also risks losing the elections(resulting in a fascist government).


    As a general rule, in many countries the governing party does worse in the EU elections, because the EU elections are often used as an opportunity to vote for small/minor political parties or protest vote. The EU parliament isnt as legislatively relevant. They dont make laws, they just approve/reject laws proposed by the EU Commision.

    The EU Commision isnt directly elected by the voters. The european country governments appoint EU Commission members(one from each country) and the EU parliament votes for the EU Commission leader. This is a point of contention.

    Technically it is “democratic” because eventually everything comes down to either national european governments(who are democratically elected) or the EU parliament(which is also democratically elected). But many people think it is weird to have the most powerful EU institution appointed instead of directly elected. The procedure isnt as transparent as people would like and it involves a lot of backdoor “politicking”.

    PS On the other hand, directly electing the EU Commission would give its members a lot more political power, basically on par or higher with the elected country leaders. Being directly elected greatly increases your political power.


  • Reminder that Mirage 2000 is the only plane to have shot down an F-16. A greek Mirage 2000 shot down a turkish F-16. The event was kept secret in both countries for almost 20 years, to avoid escalation. Greece still today denies that it shot down the F-16. From wikipedia

    On the eighth of October 1996, seven months after the escalation of the Imia/Kardak crisis, a Greek Mirage 2000 reportedly fired an R.550 Magic II missile and shot down a Turkish F-16D over the Aegean Sea near Chios island. The Turkish pilot died, while the co-pilot ejected and was rescued by Greek forces. In August 2012, after the downing of a RF-4E on the Syrian Coast, Turkish Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz confirmed that the Turkish F-16D was shot down by a Greek Mirage 2000 with an R.550 Magic II in 1996 after allegedly violating Greek airspace near Chios island. Greece denies that the F-16 was shot down. Both Mirage 2000 pilots reported that the F-16 caught fire and they saw one parachute.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Turkish_F-16_shootdown

    The turks had almost certainly shot down a greek military helicopter earlier and that was also kept a secret/both sides claim it was an accidental crash.

    PS The surviving turkish F-16 pilot was immediately returned to Turkey after the rescue.



  • Swish is partly owned by the Central Bank of Sweden(which is 100% state owned) so it is basically state owned. But as with the digital euro, the private banks play a big part and atm are needed in order to facilitate the digital transactions. This could change in the future.

    Your points are societal points and not currency related points. You are right, there are significant issues with swish, you basically need to be a swedish citizen(have a “personal number”). A lot of things in Sweden are gatekeeped by needing a “personal number”. This is an obstacle even for other EU(Schengen) europeans.

    Societies are built with the majority in mind. There are holes that need to be fixed. But the existence of holes does not mean that they cant be fixed.

    As far as privacy is concerned, you are right, this is a big attack on privacy. But it doesnt have to be, it is just that the governments want it to be. Not because of some megalomaniacal genocidal plan but for tax and criminal issues. Could it be used for more nefarious plans in the future? Sure. You can always use a cryptocurrency like monero though.


  • Sweden is a mostly cashless society. Let me try to respond to those points

    1. In case of domestic violence, you go to the police.

    2. You can still give individual people money with things like Swish. Yes, even “homeless” people have swish and they use it. Kids of all ages can have swish.

    3. It costs 0(for individuals) or 10-30 cents(for companies) to transact on swish and minimum transaction is basically 10cents(1sek).

    There are privacy issues and it is kinda controlled by banks. Maybe eventually things like digital euro can improve on that in the future. You can have an anonymous digital payment system with near 0 fees, it is just that the governments arent incentivized to do it. Thats where cryptocurrency could fit, if it wasnt a pump and dump, to the moon hellhole.




  • Trump is charismatic and funny, thats why he was on tv. If only people didnt take him seriously or give him actual power. Let me remind you that /r/the_donald was a joke subreddit.

    Hillary has no charisma. Also her campaign literally promoted Trump, because she thought he would have been an easier opponent. She is smart and capable(or was, she is kinda getting older nowadays) but her political positions are abhorrent. She could have been the perfect “reasonable republican” candidate.


  • Construction finally recommenced in 1881 but was hampered by geological and financial problems that bankrupted the original builders. It was completed in 1893, but, due to the canal’s narrowness, navigational problems, and periodic closures to repair landslides from its steep walls, it failed to attract the level of traffic expected by its operators.

    So it only became a thing somewhat recently.

    It connects the Aegean Sea with the Ionian sea and it bypasses the Peloponnese peninsula, which is a relatively significant landmass. I guess the cost and the time/fuel savings might not be significant enough to modernize it. I wouldnt be surprised if they make it wider in the future.



  • This looks awful. The rifle keeps going up and down while it is walking, no stabilization and they didnt show any accuracy data. You might as well ducktape a rifle to a roomba.

    Aiming at targets far away is very hard. Even if it has to stop to shoot, how does it aim? By moving the body of a giant robot dog? That doesnt seem it has the sensitivity it needs. If the rifle is moving that much during walking, how can you accurately aim at anything, since you dont know where the rifle will be aiming when you stop? The camera seems to be on the robot and not on the rifle and everything is jiggling.

    Also why even use a full goddamn rifle? You wont have a human holding it, you can just use a modified barrel basically. Are they not embarrassed by how bad this looks? Are they so clueless?



  • NIB@lemmy.worldtoNonCredibleDefense@sh.itjust.worksWho do you choose?
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    26 days ago

    Ah yeah, Greece totally fought against communism /s

    During WW2, the defacto resistance group was the communists, so most people joined them(even if they werent really communist). There was a right wing resistance group but it was much smaller and less relevant. After WW2, the communist resistance group had literally millions of members and obviously wanted to be part of the government.

    That was not desirable by the british(and the americans) for obvious reasons. They demanded the disarmament of the communist group in exchange for some minor role in the new government. Eventually the deal broke down and the communist group protested. Then things turned to violence, leading to the greek civil war.

    The greek civil war was the bloodiest conflict in Europe after WW2, till the war in Ukraine, with over 150k dead, most of them civilians. And because the right wing was outnumbered, they freed and armed the nazi collaborators. If you are wondering why a literal neonazi party was polling 15% at some point in Greece, was because the nazi collaborators were not only never punished but actually rewarded.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekemvriana

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Civil_War

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_Battalions

    From the Security Battalions wikipedia article

    After the liberation, the groups were only temporarily disbanded, and were recruited into the Gendarmerie to fight alongside the British and government forces against the EAM/ELAS in the battle of Dekemvriana in Athens. The Security Battalions always surrendered to the British, who usually let them keep the weapons the Germans had supplied them with.[24] General Ronald Scobie, who commanded the British forces in Greece, in contrast to his attitude towards EAM, whom he dismissed as mere “bandits”, treated the Security Battalions as a legitimate military force.[25] The British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had a very favorable view of the Security Battalions, saying, “It seems to me that the collaborators in Greece in many cases did the best they could to shelter the Greek population from German oppression”

    The greek civil war still remains a taboo subject in Greece and it isnt taught in schools(because how do you teach that “the bad guys won” to kids). Remember, throughout history, the good guys always win eventually. Winners write the history and they are always the good guys.

    PS Stalin didnt help the greek communists because he had agreed with Churchil that Greece would be part of the “West”.