It’s the fourth largest economy in the world, and 11th in population, and is a major cultural exporter. If not Japan then what countries are important enough to invest time in?

Another thing people don’t realize is they’re not in a rush, although this could change if google thinks they can make more money by reducing travel times… But they don’t speed, they don’t roll through stop signs, they don’t try and beat stop lights. Humans maturely want to get to a place as fast as possible, even if it only saves them 10 seconds on a light cycle they’ll go for it. This also plays into road rage, the waymo isn’t going to get frustrated by the guy going 10 under in the left lane, but that can drive some people crazy.

They have to report any accidents to the authorities. They tend to be very diligent on this as cruise, another former autonomous vehicle company, went under after it lied about how an accident happened.

So every other child rapist’s name gets redacted but they can’t even do a scan for passwords?

The tourists need to be stopped though, they’re coming over and kicking the sacred deer

Gotta get those birth rates up, don’t want any sexual energy going into anything but making a baby. If they could get away with banning porn they probably would, especially with this new far right government.

Looks like the paper is one of Japan’s biggest, on the level of NYT in the US so it makes sense. If they have very large circulation the domain is probably worth more for them to distribute content then it is to a beer company where the website matters far less. Like unless there’s some promotion going on why would you go to a beer companies website?

He’s just mad the church of shrimp Jesus is leaving him in the dust.

They stopped apartheid south Africa from conquering Angola, so they aren’t completely innocent in the eyes of racists.

Can slacktivism work

IMO no, You’re way less likely to reach anyone outside your bubble online unless you have a large broad following , and even then you’re mostly broadcasting to an echo chamber. The algorithms are working against you, they don’t want to show you nuanced takes from the other side that’ll make you think and stop scrolling for a second, if they do show you takes from the other side they’re going to show you extremist rage bait that is easily dismissed by a funny caption.

That’s why I think phone banking , which can be done through software too even if you don’t have a phone, is better. You’re calling random people, and more of them are less into politics than the people on social media who are seeing political content, so they are less entrenched and more open. I guess you could also get to these people through social media but you’d have to fight against the algorithm to get out of the echo chambers and into the more moderate general spaces.

In general I think you need to focus on and put energy into things you can change for the good. If you are unable to change others minds then you can still focus and put energy into changing yourself for the better. You can focus on changing your mind for the better, learn an instrument, a new skill hobby etc. that you can see yourself getting better at. Or you can focus on changing your body for the better through exercise and diet.

For example if you want to fight climate change and probably improve your health with more fiber and can control your diet then switching to a vegetarian diet can be a way to change your body for the better. You can also learn to cook vegetarian food which will build a new skill and improve your mind, a skill you can clearly see / taste you getting better at.

Tough spot, but some suggestions I can think off the top of my head:

for organizing: come election time you can phone bank from home. Find a progressive cause or candidate you believe in and they’ll usually have a system set up and script for you to call or text and a list of phone numbers. This can also be an entry point into the campaign to volunteer to do other things and you can explain your situation

For exercise:

• you can buy some weights online and use those along with body weight exercise to work out. I mostly do cardio so I’m not too familiar but I’m sure there are plenty of guides online

• walk a dog. If you don’t have a dog you can probably find a neighbor near you who would be happy to have there dog walked. Idk how restrictive your living situation is but I’d hope that walking the neighbor’s dog would get you permission.

• try vr if you can afford it, some of the games will get you moving and sweating and are pretty fun, there are also guided workouts as well.

Whatever you do just start a regiment that you can do and keep to it. You probably won’t see progress for a while but if you do keep on it and make it a habit you should start to notice your mood improve.

Organizing for the things you can change, which isn’t much in this “democracy”, exercise for the things you can’t. Doomerism and anxiety tend to go away if you spend 30 minutes a day running instead of doom scrolling.

Surprised grok hasn’t been tied to any deaths yet. I guess that’s one good thing about attaching it to a social media, someone can see your chat and tell you that drinking Clorox isn’t going to teleport you to an alien paradise.

Is this anything like og cube world, before the official release?

Yeah, this is why every article that mentions Venezuelas huge oil reserves needs to also mention it is the costliest/ lowest margin oil too. Not all oil reserves are the same, the Saudis being able to pull a barrel out for $15 and sell it for $80 is a way different position then Venezuela pulling a barrel out for $60 and selling it for $70.

It is probably just part of the media manufacturing consent for regime change: “look how resource rich Venezuela is and how poor the people are, it must be because the evil Maduro regime” completely ignoring sanctions. Yeah mismanagement is part of the reason Venezuela is doing poorly but even if they were run perfectly with no corruption they still wouldn’t be living like the Saudis.

Trump’s just trying to juice the betting markets on whether we’ll bomb Iran or Mexico next.

This won’t solve that though, “strategic” bombing campaigns never work. The best they can do is occasionally knock out a leader which causes more immediate violence as the underlings fight for control afterward. This will only cause more chaos and violence.

The only thing that will stop the cartels is getting rid of the constant flow of money and guns flowing south from the US for drugs. Until that happens there will always be someone willing to perpetrate violence if the money is good enough.

Wasnt even that adversarial, rumor is that Maduro was willing to take a deal to leave with some guarantees but Rubio shot it down because he wanted Maduros head to show all his rabid anti-communist constituents in south florida.

So the U.S. government telling the U.S. population they can’t do dealings with Cuba

That is not what the embargo on Cuba is, the embargo on Cuba is the US telling the world population that they can’t deal with Cuba. The US embargo says not only that we won’t trade with Cuba, we won’t trade with anyone who trades with Cuba. The US uses extraterritorial means to force third parties to stop trade with Cuba.

Don’t take my word for it take it from the UN general assembly, in the resolution GA/12650 in 2024:

Concerned about the continued promulgation and application by Member States of laws and regulations, such as that promulgated on 12 March 1996 known as “the Helms-Burton Act”, the extraterritorial effects of which affect the sovereignty of other States, the legitimate interests of entities or persons under their jurisdiction and the freedom of trade and navigation,

This resolution was passed with 187 in favour and 2 against ( US and Israel) and a resolution like this has been passed by nearly every UN session in the past couple decades . Everyone voted yes not because they necessarily want to trade with Cuba but because they don’t want to set the precedent that the US can unilaterally blockade a country from the global economy. A precedent that is being exercised now to say Venezuela can’t sell its own oil. They’ll probably even cite the Cuba embargo laws as justification for this when/if they ever get dragged into court for this.

This is what we get for normalizing the blatantly illegal embargo of Cuba. Now the US thinks it can say who can trade in the Caribbean.