being completely useless

Can’t it help with getting treatment for it? At least here in the US you have to justify everything as medically necessary or your insurance won’t cover it.

Anecdotally my mom is obese and was getting glp 1 for a while but she doesn’t any more because the insurance said it wasn’t necessary to treat her borderline diabetes and they stopped covering it.

Usually walk once a week to a grocery store 2.25 km away to stock up, but I’ll supplement that with a trip every other day to the smaller grocery store 0.5 km away. I don’t own a car and walk/scooter most places and I’d say that’s a decent trek. I mostly walk it instead of taking my scooter because I go with my girlfriend and we’ll talk, also can carry more back, and it gets us our steps which we like to track.

If it was just me and it was 30C I’d probably just take my scooter or the bus which is decent for getting there most times.

What is this Justinian slander?, my man Belisarius didn’t hold Rome and the 50 or so people inside it who hadn’t died of plague for a good 5 minutes for you to diss his empire.

I always thought england was pacific north west levels of dreary, didn’t know it was that bad. How are the English not more depressed?

The title is misleading, the study doesn’t say they’re a myth, just not the norm. This would be like saying, “Marine mammals are a myth.”

The study isn’t saying “alpha males don’t exist”. It’s saying not all primates have clear dominance across gender lines, ie. Males always dominating females. Some species like chimps and baboons do have male dominated social structures, while others have female dominated social structures like bonobos and lemur. Though for the majority, 70%, there is no clear gender that is dominant.

It doesn’t say anything about hierarchy within gender though. As far as I know chimps do have a hierarchy within the males and there is an “alpha” at the top. That’s not a myth and since the article does say chimps are male dominated it can be said that the troops has an alpha male who is at the top of the hierarchy.

This doesn’t mean humans naturally have alpha males, as the article shows there is a lot of variance within primates, but alpha males are a real part of that variety, not a myth.

Do you mean the oceanic climate of France and England, because the ocean moderates the temperatures so winters aren’t as cold and summers not as hot as the continental climates in the rest of northern europe.

Speaking as someone who grew up in a continental climate i would not say they’re the best. Winters can be horrible and make you it so it’s unbearable to be outside for more then 5 minutes.

In general ocean moderated climates are the best because they’re much more moderate. Mediterranean climate is the best because of this.

Judging by the downvotes people really underestimate how much emissions come from heating and how intolerable temperate continental winters are without it.

Yeah, but it was miserable for 90% of the population during winter. If you were a peasant that ran out of fuel in the winter you were likely to die of hypothermia back in the day if you werent in top health.

What period of time?

Per year. At least in America if someone asks you how much you make you’ll either give hourly or yearly.

I’m not much of a doomer on the tarriffs. The US is already pretty self sufficient, more so then a lot of other developed nations, i think trade is around 17% of the economy, whereas in a lot of other countries it’s more like 30%. We make most of our own necessities here like food, gas etc.

Vietnam is mostly making cheap clothes, shoes and electronics and I don’t think the world’s gonna end if those cost 20% more. I’m more of the mind that the world’s going to end if we keep making more fast fashion and e waste but thats a different subject. It could cause larger appliances and vehicles downstream of the electronics to also cost more which are more on the necessity side.

Even if it may be better for the planet it’s still not gonna be good for the economy. UPS just announced 20,000 people are getting layed off because Amazon is expecting lower orders due to tarriffs.

I don’t think this is going to be made up for by American industry. People were buying $20 pants because they are $20, if it costs $50 to make them in America then people just won’t buy them. We also probably won’t increase exports much because American labor costs, especially after these deportation, are too high to compete

So at best, assuming this is the deal that the rest of the developing world will get, this will slow down the US economy and probably stall it, sort of where we’re at right now. At worst it will cause a slight contraction.

At its most basic, and the way 90% of people interact with the medium, that is it.

Yes you can control settings on the camera and change the angle etc. Just like with ai image generators you can change the settings, prompt etc. To get your desired output.

You can put in effort and take creative license with both photography and ai image generation, most people don’t though. But if what makes a medium valid is the ability to configure and adjust it to fit an aesthetic then both photography and image generation allow that.

I don’t think i follow your logic, theoretically this would reduce the trade deficit. The US would be importing less from Vietnam because the people in the US have to pay 20% more, and the US would be exporting more to Vietnam as the price of the US good would be cheaper then they were before with no duties.

The US would be exporting more and importing less so the trade deficit will go down.

I don’t think that’s how it will work on reality as even with that 20% goods produced in Vietnam will still be cheaper then those made in the US. Same with US goods in Vietnam, where even if they don’t cost any more then the equivalent Vietnamese good due to tarrifs, they’ll still cost a lot more due to labor and shipping costs.

No i don’t know this? Explain how they’re different

The argument the post is making is that making “real art” requires effort, practice, technical skill and talent and that ai art is too easy and thus is not art. The same can be said of taking a photograph of a landscape vs painting that same landscape. The painter might say that there technical ability and effort makes there rendering art, while the photographers isn’t. Therefore anything that makes creating art easier makes that art less valid, which is a very tired old man yelling at clouds argument.

I’m not saying photography and ai image generation are the same, there are other arguments you could make against it like it “stealing” work from other artists, or the environmental cost etc. But on the “its too easy argument” they’re both just pushing a button to make an image at this point.

Replace “AI bro” with photographer and “AI art” with photographs here and you have a very tired argument more than a century old at this point. Same with drum kits, autotune and production software in music, any time a technology comes along that makes making art easier a lot of “OG” artists will say it’s the “blood sweat and tears” that make art.

Don’t get me wrong, the VAST majority of ai images are slop, just like the vast majority of photographs are shit. When you make creating images that easy and accessible a lot of people with no concept of aesthetics or creativity will make garbage, but that doesn’t mean that some can be good and true expressions of creativity.

So fox is doing the same thing liberal media did to trump… hopefully it ends the same way.

I don’t think your understanding how this works, the loan is on the co-op as an entity, not the individuals. A single person or group of people can form a co-op, just like how they form an LLC. That co-op can then take out a loan just like a company can take out a loan. That loan is the co-ops liability, not any of the members. If any or all of the original members leave that loan will still be on the co-op, the original members will not be responsible.

I think you have a misunderstanding of limited liability in general, per wikipedia:

Limited liability is a legal status in which a person’s financial liability is limited to a fixed sum, most commonly the value of a person’s investment in a corporation, company, or joint venture. … A shareholder in a corporation or limited liability company is not personally liable for any of the debts of the company, other than for the amount already invested in the company and for any unpaid amount on the shares in the company, if any—except under special and rare circumstances that permit “piercing the corporate veil.”

So yes you can just make an LLC , take out a huge business loan then leave and wipe your hands of it. The bank knows this and that’s why when they give out loans they evaluate whether the company can pay it back, not an individual. The loan will also probably come with stipulations ensuring some sort of corporate governance so you personally can’t just drain the company account and walk off with the money. Doing that would be embezzlement.

As for the communist question, were soviet style communist countries perfectly equal, no, but the situation your describing of a poor underclass and super rich upper class rulers is way more reflective of capitalist countries then communist ones. Yes there were high ranking beuracrats at the top but they weren’t living in the lap of luxury, the highest ranking soviet officials lived in the house on the embankment where the largest sized unit was 3,200 square feet and the average unit was 2,000 square feet. Compare that to a millionaires mansion in the u.s. Communist societies were far more equal then capitalist societies and the idea that there’s some gang of rich exploiters at the top hoarding all the resources is your projection.

only one person takes out the loan

No, a group of people would form a co-op, just like how people form a company, and the co-op would take out the loan. Entities can take out loans just like people can

but this is the same as all of the employees having stock in the business

No, stock is transferable and sellable, and not equal. If every employee got stock then one of them could / would sell it to someone with cash upfront. Now that new person is now getting money from the business without contributing any labor. They can then use that money to buy more stocks and make a passive income off the company. This leads to capital accumulation and a class of people making money off other people’s labor just because they have more money, or had more money at the start.

As for Amazon the average employee would be making a lot more then they are right now but they wouldn’t be billionaires. Billionaires never make there billions off working, they make it off capital gains, and since the shares aren’t sellable, and thus have no monetary value, there’d be no idea of capital gains for a worker in a co-op.

For the restaurant example I agree they may want to start a business for economic security, but thats not the same as getting rich. Economic security can be provided by a social safety net.

I also agree they may want to start one because they lack autonomy, but I’d say that’s largely the result of the alienation of working in normal stock owned companies where the owners make the decisions. If you are working in a co-op and get to have a say in all the decisions that alienation is partly ameliorated. If you want a hand in more decisions then you can “run” for a managerial position and get elected, administrative work would still be necessary in a co-op.

For the communist question most communist countries were more equal then the capitalist countries before the cold war ended. They were poorer, that’s partially due to inefficiency, but also due to the fact that most of them developed later then the capitalist countries there often compared to. If you look at one of the last hold puts in Cuba it could be argued that the quality of life for the poorest there is better then the poorest in the u.s. as they have better access to food, housing and healthcare. I’m not going to defend the oppressive political regimes of those countries, but the standard of living wasn’t as bad as a lot of people make it out to be.

Could you explain what financial risk is still there if you make an LLC? My understanding was the whole point of an LLC was to guard someone’s personal assets from risk if the company goes under.

why would anyone take out loans to start a business if there’s no way to pay the loan back?

The co-op would pay the loan back and treat it like any other cost of doing business, like buying components / ingredients or paying rent.

where is any profit from the business going

It would go to the employees. There would be no profit in the typical sense of revenue - costs - payroll, any excess after costs just goes to payroll

without ownership of the company there’s no reason for anyone to start a company and take on all the risk.

People start companies / organizations all the time where there main motivation isn’t profit. Your average restauranter is not doing it for the money, if they are they’re delusional. They do it because they like cooking / food or want to create a space for people to gather. Sure some people are motivated by making a profit and we’d miss out on there businesses, that’s the cost of a more equitable society. Marx himself praised the dynamism and creativity of capitalism but didn’t think it was worth it for the working class who could get far more of the pie if they weren’t giving a cut to the owners. This is becoming more true as that dynamism and creativity is going towards AI garbage and crypto and financial schemes

As for the risk, most of the financial risk of owning a business is shed when you create an LLC. The other risk of making no income while the business is getting off the ground can be mitigated by a social safety net that allows people to pursue these enterprises without worrying how they’re gonna eat or pay rent.

if they went underwater

Bankruptcy would work the same as it does with a stock company. Since Bankruptcy is just liquidating all a companies assets then forming a queue of people with claims to that money, with secured debt holders at the front of the line and stock holders at the back, you’d just remove the stock holders at the back, maybe replace them with the employees to give them a sort of “severance”

Good now the yimbys and the “abundance” guys can shut up. Hopefully now they’ll see any of these quick fixes and “cutting the red tape” won’t meaningfully effect the housing supply and we can start to realize letting the developers do whatever they want won’t solve this crisis.