Nationalism? You’re really stretching there. I don’t really get how that comes into here either. More ad hominem arguments, this time against me, won’t convince me either.

Ultimately it’s really simple to convince me. There is data. You want this data to not be true and you want to convince me that this data is not true. To convince me that this data is not true, your options are:
A) showing that the institution has on other occasions fabricated data. B) or showing that that report has been shown to contain fabricated data or used a flawed methodology.

You can do neither. All your arguments against it are purely ad hominem, against aspi, against the entirety of Australia, against the evil west with their freedom of expression, with also some whataboutism about Israel thrown in. But you have no actual arguments or any kind of proof whatsoever that that data is not real. You may not want it to be real, but it apparently is. Your unwillingness to accept facts that do not align with your beliefs is a you problem.

Whataboutism? I’m not going there. All your arguments against the data that you don’t like were ad hominem. You have no objective basis for your narrative other than your personal beliefs.

The report is 4 years old and as far as I can find, since then there have been no retractions of anything in it, nor has anyone shown that their were flaws with their methodology. You may not want to acknowledge it, but that data is real. This is something that has really happened.

It’s a report that has been widely reported on in the media at the time. They could not just “craft data” and get away with it. Forging verifiable data is the stupidest thing that a think tank could do if they want their future reports to also be picked up by mainstream media. They can be creative with their conclusions or accusations, but claiming that official government data says X, while it doesn’t, that’s not going to fly and they know it.

I assume that when they claim that the official Chinese county data is showing certain things, that that county data is indeed showing those things. Otherwise they would have no credibility and their propaganda efforts would be wasted.

There was also per county data available, showing a correlation between the size of the decline and the ethnic makeup of the county: “The largest declines have been in counties where Uyghurs and other indigenous communities are concentrated. Across counties that are majority-indigenous the birth-rate fell, on average, by 43.7 percent in a single year between 2017 and 2018. The birth-rate in counties with a 90 percent or greater indigenous population declined by 56.5 percent, on average, in that same year.” https://www.aspi.org.au/report/family-deplanning-birthrates-xinjiang/

The meme checks out: https://www.ceicdata.com/en/china/population-birth-rate-by-region/cn-population-birth-rate-xinjiang . Birth rate was 1.588 in 2017 and at a similar level in the years before that, 1.069 in 2018, 0.814 in 2019 and so on.

Extra surveillance and repression reportedly started in 2014, mass incarceration in 2017.

A non exhaustive list of what makes them awful: https://expertbeacon.com/why-is-paypal-so-bad/

Afaik, the issue that was making the most victims, was that they were facilitating scammers that targeted sellers:
5. Good Luck Recouping Losses as a Seller in Disputes.
89% of sellers experienced dispute resolution problems with PayPal in 2021 surveys. Despite providing evidence the item shipped or service rendered, they lost cases and sums averaging $622.
This is driven by PayPal‘s buyer-favored review round taking 1-2 weeks. This favors scamming buyers at the expense of legitimate businesses.

Iirc, there was a time when Paypal always sided with the buyer, irregardless of evidence or past track record, the review process was useless. Once scammers picked up on this and began scamming sellers en masse, Paypal still kept their policy unchanged for years and sellers started to raise their prices on platforms that forced them to accept Paypal (ebay used to do this). Ebay has since tossed Paypal off their platform. I don’t know if Paypal ever improved.

The setup of this movie reminds me of Locke with Tom Hardy. That’s also basically a movie where you watch 1 person in a static situation (in a car in Locke) conducting remote project management. I’d have never expected a full movie to work with that setup, but Locke pulls it off imo.

It probably has to be pedophilic instead of pedophile to be correct.

When calling that number, the caller will need somekind of proof that they are in control of the car that they are trying to opt out of ads. Afaik, the easiest way to accomplish that when requiring a phonecall, would be pairing phone and car. But obviously Stellantis is not going for easy with this setup, so this is purely speculation on my part.

? Where did I say it was about cost? I don’t live in the usa. The 3 hospitals that I could potentially pick from are public hospitals and their cost for the same procedures would be exactly the same, since they have to stick to a government price list. But between those 3, I still have a preference.

Some people will already have a preference and not need to look up anything. I would have if the accident happened near where I live. Imo it’s not a bad question at all.

Apart from how insane it is to put obtrusive ads on a car dashboard, having to link your phone to your car and then call a phone number to opt out of touchscreen display ads is 🤯

There is going to be a reason that they’ve set it up like that.

In my region, it seems that expensive stolen bikes mostly go to eastern Europe, Ukraine and Romania in particular.

Locks will only ever be a minor deterrent imo. The problem is that police in most places don’t even try to go after bicycle thefts and the would be criminals know that.

If governments took bicycle theft as seriously as they did horse theft in the 19th century, then few criminals would even attempt to steal a bicycle if it had some basic protection like a cheap lock + a camera pointed at the bicycle rack.

It appears that in the future, Itch will allow creators to opt out of payment providers, meaning that it’s probably on a per game basis, not per platform. That Itch and Steam are not making a per game solution now, is most likely because their current software doesn’t allow it and they need time to rework it. Itch has promised various changes already, Steam has been mum afaik.

Source for Itch: “For NSFW pages, this will include a new step where creators must confirm that their content is allowable under the policies of the respective payment processors linked to their account.”. https://itch.io/updates/update-on-nsfw-content

I only use Steam myself, so I hadn’t checked Itch Io’s communication yet. I don’t know the platform myself so it’s quite possible that I’m misinterpreting this, but to me it appears that Itch Io will allow creators to delist payment options that they are not compliant with: “For NSFW pages, this will include a new step where creators must confirm that their content is allowable under the policies of the respective payment processors linked to their account.”.

Source: https://itch.io/updates/update-on-nsfw-content

Do you have a source of where they are saying that?

I have seen an article about the Australian political action group that was claiming credit for getting the games banned. The story behind the start of the controversy.

And I have seen an article about the communication from Steam that they were banning games which were in conflict with the rules of their payment providers. The result basically.

But I’ve only seen conjecture and speculation about what went on to get from the start to the result. I haven’t seen any article that spelled out exactly what the different payment providers demanded from the gaming platforms, nor anything about what they discussed in between them.

Edit: after 12 hours there’s 4 downvoters and 0 sources. Another victory for vibes over facts.

I don’t get why the gaming platforms are removing games instead of removing the objecting payment providers as a payment option for purchasing those particular games.

If visa doesn’t want people to purchase game X with Visa, then remove Visa as payment option for buying game X.