We need to enroll this guy in a mentoring program.

OP does not actually read the articles they post. OP simply posts anything and everything that makes China look bad, and nothing else. For accurate coverage of German business ethics (or indeed anything other than the evil doings of the Chinese communist party), you will need to look elsewhere. Alas.

Luigi Mangione.

Personally I agree with this take, but you undermine your own point with the completely gratuitous (and indecorous) “fucking” tossed in there. IMO.

This is what superpower competition should look like.

Sad if true. I don’t see it being practical to tell people to use different apps depending on the number of interlocutors.

Yes, it was called Pidgin. But things become more complex when you add E2E encryption. The ideal destination is a single agreed protocol, just like one exists for things like telephones, the web, and email.

Seems this is the standard response in animals in times of stress and penury, and humans are no exception. The challenge is to find a way to surmount it. Tough times coming.

But possibly not better than 1855, unironically.

Messengers are the archetypal example of software that has to deal with the network effect. IMO we don’t have the luxury of trying and using lots of FOSS messengers and never picking a winner. At some point there has to be only one left if we want anyone to use it.

The frontrunner candidate is Matrix.

Hard truth: In democracy you get the politicians you deserve. It’s right in the name. If you don’t feel represented, it’s not their fault, it’s yours. The politicians are only there because you and your fellow citizens put them there. Rhetoric of “them and us” is irrelevant because they are you. It’s the “self” in “self-government”.

Sure, this won’t be popular. Lots of excuses will be offered as to why voters are responsible for nothing and this alien blob of “politicians” is to blame for everything. It’s always easier to avoid responsibility, and what simpler a target than politicians? But alas the logic is watertight.

Personally I don’t think the problem is a lack of good people. Some people are good, some bad, most are in between (or rather both). The problem is rather that we are, collectively, dumb.

Be the hope. You are not alone. Be loud. Others feel the same way and feel alone.

But this is clearly all true and important.

Symmetrically alternative recipe that I recently heard (from a French academic): “hopeful pessimism”. The idea being, roughly, that while it’s delusional to be optimistic, hopefulness is by definition subjective and therefore valid. And indeed quite sensible given that we can never know the future and therefore it really might turn out to be better than expected.

Surely that’s the point of OP’s question.

Sure, and that’s why this question is unlikely to produce a useful answer.

You’re right, I meant drunk driving, not speeding.

But some countries take speeding pretty seriously too (as they should). In Norway you get a short jail spell for something like a 30kmh excess. In Switzerland the fines are adjusted for income so that rich speeders pay more - one guy paid over €1 million! Same system in Finland too, I believe.

In Estonia, at your second speeding drunk-driving violation they confiscate your vehicle - and if it’s an SUV they send it to Ukraine.

For backstory, see latest episode of the podcast The Urbanist Agenda.

French has a nice neologism for this phenomenon: autobésité

There’s an institutional quirk that protects against that outcome in Paris, and in fact explains the whole success story. It’s that the historical city limits were not expanded in line with urbanisation. This has given the dense city center and its voters - who tend not to own cars - disproportionate political influence over the whole urban area.

In a way it’s an inverse example of the conservative bias of the US political system, which gives disproportionate influence to exurbs and rural areas.

All fair points. There are definitely multiple ways of playing with fire.

I saw that article about illiterate college kids too. Worrying.