PonyOfWar

Political division, erosion of democracy and the continuous movement towards fascism.

It’s a thing in the UK.

I wear a helmet when riding my bicycle.

I’m child-free by choice and I think there are a lot of good reasons not to have kids that I would probably share with antinatalists. I think there should be less population growth. But radical “no-one should be born ever” antinatalism goes to far I think. IMO the whole “being born without their consent” argument doesn’t work, as the whole concept of consent doesn’t exist for a nonexistant being. In order to make any kind of choice on whether you want to exist, you need to exist first. If you make the argument that not having kids is sparing them from suffering, then you can just as easily make the argument that you’re depriving them from ever feeling love or happiness, which they “didn’t consent” to either.

That’s the original meaning of a blog. I guess platforms like Tumblr and Wordpress would qualify and can still be used for that. But the way they’re actually used by most users has shifted quite a bit from their original intention. On the fediverse, something like friendica or even mastodon could work.

As long as it’s not an insane NK-level dictatorship, yes I personally would. I’ve been to China before and talked to a few people there who were more critical about their regime than you might think and didn’t hesitate to talk about it. Of course you need to read the room and maybe not go shouting “Free Tibet” on Tiananmen square. And I wouldn’t pick any fights with nationalists either. In many countries, democratic or otherwise, there are certain topics that you probably shouldn’t bring up with strangers. But I think that it’s ultimately a beneficial thing for people from democratic countries to visit countries like China and vice versa. It contributes to mutual understanding. I personally wouldn’t hesitate to visit China again.

I totally get why the situation would be more difficult for you as a Taiwanese though. If you can’t smile and walk away if someone tries to provoke you, maybe it’s not a good idea to go.

For the kinds of gene therapy we currently have, it wouldn’t make that much of a difference for society, but could have a positive effect for people affected by conditions that can be treated with it. Although as I understand it, those treatments are far from perfect and do frequently have adverse effects as well.

If we’re talking the sci-fi kind of gene therapy that could stop aging, make people more intelligent etc, that would be an entirely different story. It would have massive societal ramifications and I think especially under capitalism, they wouldn’t be good. It would increase inequality by massive amounts and basically turn the rich elites into their own, genetically-superior species.

It’s probably 80-90% of what AI image generation is used for TBH. Reddit, Deviantart and any art platform that hasn’t explicitely banned it are filled with it. Even Lemmy has quite a lot.

I don’t know if it’s mostly my own biases against AI, but I feel similarly. These images often have an odd sense of emptiness to them. Something I’ve noticed with more recent AI-generated images is that while the hands etc are now more often than not perfect, characters often have a strange sort of stare, where instead of looking at something or at each other, they look at nothing in particular. A lot of AI images are also overly shiny and glossy, which gives them an unnatural look.

I trust them to generally do their due diligence and report the truth. As with all press agencies, there will be exceptions to this and instances where journalists spread false information. In those instances, I expect them to correct their errors, which I believe they usually do. There will also always be some level of bias with any journalism, at the very least in choosing what to report on and what not to.

House you gain money

*Horse. Don’t think she’ll gain money with it, unless it’ll become like a price-winning race horse or something.

Also consider the child’s life and future. Will they have a realistic chance of leading a good adult life? With how the world is going it’s something I feel quite uncertain about, which is one reason why I personally won’t have kids.

Coyotes are only a thing in the Americas, I’m pretty sure.

Yeah, I could do without it. When it’s really empty, it can be nice to go 180 for a bit, but more often than not, it causes the kind of problems you mentioned.

Now those wouldn’t actually be exciting to me as a German, that’s the type of bus I rode to school on. :)

The lack of a speed limit on our highways. Some people come here just to drive on a boring frigging highway.

Bonus question to anyone who visited the UK - was there anything that fascinated you but I’d be taking for granted?

Double decker buses maybe. I found them pretty cool compared to the boring buses we usually have here.

Edit: Also, urban foxes. I saw foxes maybe three times in my life before going to London, where they’re basically seen as a nuisance.

In that case I’d personally take the lump sum and invest as much as possible of it into something like an ETF.

Their advantage is/was cheap access to fossil fuels.

“people take REALLY seriously what God considers and fear His judgment” would only be a positive thing

That would depend on the god I’d say and what people think that god says.

I guess I’d choose greed, as not having that would quickly lead to a society with more equality and justice. That would have the positive side effect of reducing religious extremism as well, since that is often (but not always) the product of people living in desparate situations.