The simulated conflicts are run against an adversary that is perfect. No logistic errors, no maintenance issues, no communication issues, no human error. They are a teaching tool, not a crystal ball. In reality, in the event of a conflict there are plenty of areas where China would struggle.

My previous job didn’t have a ticket tracker for my team. It was my first real job, so I didn’t realize how far we were straying from best practices. If I had some more experience, I would have pushed hard for ticket tracking. I was constantly disorganized, and my manager blamed me for not keeping track of everything. He was probably in his 50’s, he should have known better.

Every single person on the planet is aware of climate change

I’m still trying to get my husband’s uncle to get off his easy out of “well I guess it’s happening, but humans didn’t cause it.” He, along with a lot of other people, are in an echo chamber. Obviously plopping pigment on monuments isn’t going to do shit to convince them, but I don’t know what will.

In my previous job, I was asked to break focus every 15 minutes to check my email and see if one of my coworkers was falling behind on dealing with a queue of tasks, then pitch in if he was. I hated the job in general, but that in particular just ruined any possibility of productivity. Hard for anyone, near impossible for someone with ADHD. Then I got blamed for falling behind on my work. And for being disorganized (we didn’t have a ticket tracker, hmmm).

Putin, as part of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, said that if any countries tried to stop Russia, they would face “such consequences that you have never encountered in your history”. It’s hard to take that two ways.

Also, much of the point isn’t who has threatened to use them. The more nuclear weapons material floating around, the more chance that it lands in the hands of someone with no compunctions about actually using it. The Doomsday Clock gets closer to midnight every time another country gets nukes.

Every country that has nukes means more risk that some loose cannon sets off a nuke. That is why nuclear non-proliferation agreements are so important.

To demonstrate, what if Saddam and Iran had had nukes during the Iran-Iraq War? Saddam used chemical weapons against the Kurds. Would he use nukes? I genuinely don’t know, the man was apparently a psychopath. Would you actually want someone like that to have nukes?

Not really, there is no basis to revive the JCPOA. Iran doesn’t show any interest in holding up its part of the agreement, even if a president reentered the JCPOA. The problem is that the next president could just come along and pull another Trump. And the sanctions regime that brought Iran to the table in the first place was very difficult to forge, so that won’t be duplicated ever again.

Yes, that was an incredibly foolish and dishonest action by Trump.

If Iran gets nukes, there will be pressure on rival countries in the region to develop nuclear weapons. Nuclear proliferation is always bad news. This is nothing to cheer on, no matter who you side with.

Then there are the rotting watermelons over in corner, expensive books that a professor in college required and then almost never used. And now they sit, unlovable and difficult to resell because a new edition has come out with the problems at the back of the chapter rearranged.

I loved that one so much! The only flaw really was that the tech tree is incredibly massive. It’s feels unnecessarily difficult to learn.

The CCCP? Yeah, English speakers don’t usually refer to it by that acronym. It’s almost universally referred to as the USSR. I’m reasonably well informed on history and I had to look it up.

This article goes over a history. The difference is so inconsequential in practice that the Party itself can’t keep itself straight 100% of the time, with one cited 2016 official translation of a Xi Jinping speech including over 100 references to the “C.C.P.”

The battery issue isn’t just in devices that go obsolete. It is also in devices like bike lights where the original functionality never changes. And even in devices like a smartphone, phone battery life often drops off far before the useful life ends.

Sure, but poverty is also generational. The type of poverty that Palestinians have been experiencing won’t be shaken off quickly, even under the best of circumstances. I’m just not sure what circumstances Israeli Jews would consent to a single state solution unless they’re guaranteed to stay in power. Many Israeli Jews came from majority Muslim countries where antisemitism drove them out. Their descendants are unlikely to forget that in any discussion.

This is so hard to answer because so many of these things you don’t miss it until it’s gone. I’m going to say physical keyboards. Like, not that physical keyboards will disappear entirely, but I think they will continue to get much, much less common. I think a lot of people will miss the tactile advantage of a good keyboard, though.

One thing I think we’re in for a rebound on is how we deal with batteries. Currently, the paradigm for many devices is that manufacturers put a rechargeable battery in and that’s it. When the battery wears down or breaks, the device is done too. This can’t go on forever. It’s creating too much e-waste, expense, and pollution.

I think the deal that customers are getting from streaming services is probably too good to last, in general. It’s already starting to degrade, with companies all going to start their own streaming platforms with smaller and smaller catalogs. You have to really plan for what you want to see. The rise of exclusive shows really damaged things. Vertical integration like that hurts competition.

You have to have very up-to-date information to see this. Muslims in Israel-Palestine have a higher birth rate than Jews and are much younger. This article is from 2022, when Muslims became a majority. The difference is only expected to grow larger.

The Palestinian Authority has no claim to any mandate from the Palestinian people.

Same for Hamas. The last election was held so long ago that the majority of Palestinians were not born yet and the vast majority could not vote. There simply is no remaining democratic mandate.

bi-religious or secular successor state

There are currently more Muslims in the borders of Israel-Palestine, and I doubt they’re in a forgiving mood. I think there is a good chance that a unified state would turn into a Muslim state. I don’t think it’s unfounded to say that the current situation of a large Muslim population that is essentially disenfranchised is entirely to the liking of Israel’s leaders.

I figured it was something like that. :)

Probably at the dot marked “Broccoli”

Some of the Portland parking garages downtown have them as well.