"Nearly 200,000 litres of water stolen from Adelaide Hills tanks"

Far out, I didn't think this sort of thing would be happening until later this century

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-29/water-thefts-reported-in-adelaide-hills-dry-period/105229760

@skinnylatte the other lie that’s told is that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I’m in my mid 40s and took up sax last year. Never played a wind instrument before.

It’s totally doable and lots of fun

A priest, a pastor, and a rabbit entered a clinic to donate blood.

The nurse asked the rabbit "what's your blood type?"

"I'm probably a type O", said the rabbit.

#joke

@Radical_EgoCom he didn’t eliminate the problems, agreed, but he did make for two generations of egalitarian prosperity. I think that’s a considerably better record than any non-democratic state in modern times @kcarruthers

@kcarruthers I hope the US can find a peaceful way to redistribute wealth. A 21st century “terror” and Napoleon/war would be terrible. I hope you can find another FDR instead…

@Radical_EgoCom, the problem with Socialism is that it requires that the Party administer the means of production, their authority comes to be based on violence, and you get a ruling elite in a different way. I think it's possible to create a movement similar to DFR's, that redistributes the wealth throughout society. I think that could be called Social Democracy @n_dimension

@n_dimension I'd argue for "Social Democracy" (eg. 1950s USA) instead of "Socialism" (eg. 1950s USSR).
I think two important things are:
1. redistributionist economics that provide a robust welfare state while not disincentivising private effort, and
2. individual liberty, including movement, ideas, assembly, and money (as long as the needs of point 1 are met)

I recently learned something about selective breeding of chickens:

If you repeatedly select for the individual chicken that lays the most eggs, generation after generation, then egg production goes _down_. This is because the chook that lays the most eggs is the dominant chook, and selecting for dominance results in a flock of chickens that are hyper-aggressive and waste a lot of energy fighting.

Conversely, if you selectively breed chickens at the level of the flock, selecting for flocks that have overall better egg production, then you select for _cooperative_ flocks of chickens and this is the best way to optimise overall egg production*.

I think that humans have been selected-for at the group level more than the individual level, and this is why it's so critical to preserve tolerance and teamwork at the societal level. Groups of humans that can't cooperate are out-competed by groups that can.

* I'm not advocating for chicken factory farming 🙂

#teamwork #evolution #society

@bmacDonald94 coyote-over-the-cliff moment coming soon

We can see this playing out in real time around the world

@gwynnion I'm def not an expert, but I do wonder if this is a bit like describing Shakespeare as "one cliche after another"? ;-)

(In the sense that Chomsky has done a lot to shift the conversation)
@AnarchoNinaWrites

@kopio @liztai that's pretty funny! Shows the danger of the vernacular!

So, 他妈 can add emphasis, and be a borderline curse, but only in some circumstances?

@liztai thanks for sharing this -- I'm a beginner, so getting insight into how the language works is great - a quick play with google translate suggests that 他妈好吃 means "bloody delicious" or similar

From a net search, I see that 他妈 is short for a pretty rude saying (not one I'll be trying to reproduce any time soon!):
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/%E9%92%B1%E4%BB%96%E5%A6%88%E6%98%AF%E6%88%91%E7%9A%84.2256368/

For now, I'll focus on learning how to say 我会坐火车去北京 and similar 🙂

Housing is the economy
https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/housing-is-the-economy

@bmacDonald94 I guess this is an example of how the opposite of one bad idea (overemphasis on the self) is another bad idea (disregarding the self)

Integrity feels orthogonal to me though, but I wonder - can a selfless being exhibit integrity?

@Suiseiseki

You said "Linux is proprietary software". I said it's not proprietary.

The fact that you've cited some very minor binary blobs (seriously, is that the best evidence you have to support your argument?!?) doesn't change the fact that Linux is open source.

Your original comment is simply not true, and no amount of hand-waving about a few binary blobs changes that.

@Suiseiseki

you: the kernel, Linux is proprietary software

me: the Linux kernel is GPL open source

you: (100 lines of irrelevant BS about the Linux kernel vs userland processes, and the distinctions between different types of open source licences that have nothing to do what I'm talking about)

@Suiseiseki did an llm generate this BS reply?

@Suiseiseki the Linux kernel is not proprietary, it is licensed under the GPL open source licence @libreoffice