Smaller countries seem to be handling it better. New Zealand, for example, seems to still be relatively responsive to the desires of the people. NZ doesn’t have that much power because it’s so small, so it can get bossed around in some ways, but it does seem like it’s not becoming authoritarian in the same way as other places.
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023
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As someone who has travelled to developing countries:
- Journalists who dared to report negative stories on those in power would disappear or be publicly killed
- Much more censorship all around, the Internet as we know it wouldn’t exist. The fediverse wouldn’t exist, all media would be centralized so it was easier to monitor and censor.
- The courts would all be in control of the powerful. Trials would be just for show, because the outcome was already determined. There would be no judicial independence or precedent. In smaller matters where the powerful didn’t really care what the outcome was, bribery of the courts would be rampant.
- The police would be even more brutal, even more unanswerable, and the text of the laws would be even more meaningless. It wouldn’t be unusual at all for cops to just grab anybody off the street for any reason, and nobody would dare object. Sure, ICE is doing that now in the US but people are objecting, and haven’t been gunned down as a result.
- Any attempt to push back against the power of the government would be met by brutal force. You wouldn’t have demonstrations, and if you did the cops / military would shut them down with gunfire, not tear gas.
The US is well on the path to this kind of place, but it definitely isn’t there yet. The mainstream press is a bit cowardly, but there are still independent journalists who are digging into stories and they’re not being disappeared or murdered. There’s a fair amount of self-censorship, especially at big tech companies, but that’s more about keeping advertisers happy than keeping the government happy. There’s virtually no true Internet censorship or legal speech. The US supreme court is highly biased, but many lower courts are doing fine, and plenty of judges are ruling against the president. The ICE crackdowns are awful, and they are grabbing people off the street and throwing them into unmarked vans while wearing masks. But… at least they’re still more or less focusing on illegal immigrants. There have been military and police in the streets, but the haven’t been killing protesters, and when a guy recently threw a sandwich at a cop they tried to put him away for assault, but the grand jury laughed at them and they weren’t able to move ahead with that case.
Things are getting worse and worse in the US, and I wouldn’t want to have to live there, but it’s still a long way from an authoritarian state.
Because of things like the North Hollywood Shootout. People don’t want a situation where the criminals have much better weapons than the police. It doesn’t matter that that kind of a situation is incredibly rare. People are scared and want police to never be outgunned.
Of course, that results in a bad situation where the cops in say Fluffy Landing, Florida have an armoured personnel carrier and don’t need one. And, they get to train SWAT tactics just in case, but they never need those skills. And eventually when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, so they use their APC for a regular arrest just because they want to justify having it, and they want to use their cool new toy.
It does vaguely make sense to have a SWAT team, especially in a big city in the USA. A sovereign state is basically defined by having a monopoly on the use of force within its own borders. If the bad guys (ACAB, but you know what I mean) can outgun the cops, then it can lead to chaos.
Also, politicians need to be seen as tough on crime to get elected. If you increase police funding, you’re safe. If you cut police funding and there’s some kind of incident, you can easily lose your next election.
In the US, there’s no effective civilian control over police. Sure, theoretically the cops answer to the mayor or something. But, police unions are extremely powerful, and so mostly the cops get to do whatever they want.
Or you could use a console-friendly editor like Emacs, then when you wanted a GUI-friendly editor you could switch to Emacs.
Text editors should be simple and approachable above all.
Why? I’d say they should edit text well above all.
Sure, tailors are affordable, but can anybody really justify spending $80 for a tailored T-shirt? If you’re a multi-millionaire maybe you can, and maybe your T-shirts feel absolutely great as a result.
We all know that the rich wear personally tailored suits and so-on. But, what I think would be amazing is to be rich enough to wear a personally tailored t-shirt, or personally tailored socks. For women, I can’t imagine the joy of having a personally tailored bra that was built precisely to fit their exact body. That must exist at some level of wealth, but I just wonder how rich you have to be to justify that kind of spending.
For most people, even when you find something that fits well, there are going to be compromises, like the shoulders might fit perfectly, but it’s just a bit too long, or a bit too tight. But, just imagine something simple like a T-shirt where instead of “medium” you get something that takes into account your torso’s length, your ribcage’s size, your shoulder’s width, your arm’s circumference, the size of your neck, and so-on.
You might want to look into barefoot shoes. They’re designed to have a really thin sole so you’re basically walking barefoot. I had trouble finding shoes that fit until I switched. It also just feels good to be actually using my feet “properly”. Instead of relying on the shoe to bend in certain ways, it’s my foot and the muscles in my foot that are doing the work.
The whole “cup size” thing is so weird. Even the name “cup” makes it sound like it’s based on volume, but it’s not. It’s the difference between a measuring tape wrapped at boob height vs a measuring tape wrapped just below the boobs. This means that a 36A and a 28E might have the same volume of breast tissue but wildly different “cup sizes”. It really seems like the whole thing would be a lot easier to manage if there were just a “breast volume” measurement and a “band length” measurement.
My guess is that’s more about fashion than not knowing how to buy good quality things.
In ye olde days, like the 1950s, jeans were jeans, and a pair that lasted years was great. Then in the 1980s trends started emerging like stone washed jeans, or acid washed jeans. Then there were the boot cut, tapered leg, loose cut, baggy, bell-bottom, and all kinds of other trendy cuts.
What’s the point in buying a $200 pair of jeans that will last decades if they’ll be out of fashion in 5 years?
High quality clothing is still out there, but it’s not fashion clothing, it’s work clothes. If you go to a store that caters to construction workers, factory workers, or other people who have to wear durable clothes as part of their job, you can still get stuff that lasts a very long time.
I don’t understand why women say this, then buy clothes without pockets (or without useful pockets).
It’s not the same thing, it’s not just the medium that’s different. That’s my whole point.
That’s my point, that’s not a good definition of an Internet Meme.
You’re arguing that “Internet meme” should be it’s own thing, when it fits perfectly well within the overarching definition of “meme”.
Yes, just like “motorcycle” fits perfectly well within the overarching definition of “vehicle” but it’s still useful to have a more specific term.
Smack in the middle, but the definition is narrower.
Definitions change. Dawkins didn’t define an “internet meme”. People who were spreading certain kinds of viral content on the Internet found Dawkins’ word and adapted it to match the things they were doing.
That’s the Dawkins version of a meme, not an Internet meme. An internet meme is typically defined differently:
By some definitions some viral videos would count, if they’re viral because they’re funny. By those definitions, if they’re viral because they’re critical news like the George Floyd murder, they’re not memes because they’re not humorous.
Personally, I don’t think it’s an internet meme unless:
- It’s intended to be funny or at least wryly amusing. So, serious news items or shocking things don’t count.
- It is remixed. A funny viral video isn’t a meme until people start remixing it.
What made image macros into internet memes was people taking the same macro and using different text. Otherwise it’s just a viral item of internet context.
My definition is not necessarily “right”, but I like it.
They’re missing a lot of things, especially including having a childhood where your mistakes weren’t forever preserved online.
I mostly agree. The one thing I’ll say is that police departments weren’t specifically ordering MRAPs. It’s more that the military had a lot of spares that were otherwise going to be mothballed or destroyed. In some ways it’s efficient to reuse military materials like that. But, there are obviously downsides too.