unwarlikeExtortion

I don't know where they got their quote from, since, historically, democracy has almost always died in broad fucking daylight.

No need to cry!

Let me reiterate it - it's not inherently a bad idea.

The wheat tax wasn't inherently bad (well, other than taking food from the already-starving population, but that isn't the problem of the way the tax inherently works, but of how it is used): the main problem was: it was too successfull. The wheat tax was meant to provide the Church with bread. The church took 10% of every household's grown wheat and they got way too much, so the wheat spoiled. Then they switched to a monetary tax, since money doesn't spoil as easily, and they could use it for more stuff than just baking bread.

These two reasons are why the tax isn't used anymore. But, again, it's not inherently a bad idea.

This model can easily be adapted to work properly. Medical procedures aren't things that "spoil", and there's steady demand for them. It could also work for stuff like housing (anyone building a hotel or an apartment complex for-profit has to make, say, the same 10% for the government), and even retail (if stores had to give even 1 item for every 100 items sold to a public kithen, the kitchens would be overflowing nationwide).

Honestly, this is the way to go. The capitalists just don't want that. They'll be the first ones to point out how it was a feudal-era tax, how people weren't free, and how it wouldn't work in reality (when itsure as hell would). They'd say it isn't practical: foodstuffs spoil, for example - but we're not living in the Middle ages anymore - we have bookkeeping, abd the government could decide to "take" their "fair share" to the kitchen when the demand, well, demands.

The first option is very close to this, but the money is a problem. Once we achieve a near-moneyless, near-classless society where inflation isn't a concern, even that model would work. But, for now we'll have to stick to this, sincethis is implementable in the current society.

That's still a lot.

1. They know what videos you click (obviously)

2. They know when you click them

3. They know how much you watch each of the videos

4. They know how many times you click on the videos

5. Depending on the platform/client/browser/search engine implementation, they see what videos are shown to you before you click on them (thumbnail gets fetched, autoplay, pre-loading, etc.)

6. If someone sent you the link, they most likely know who's sent you the link (through a reference ID)

7. The person who's sent you this is probably logged in, so they know them by name, DoB, interests, etc. From here on out they can guess your own membership of certain statistical cohortsa bit better then through yourown clickinglinks alone.

And a host of other things - where you're located (IP address), what type of connection you're on (IP address + bandwidth), what type of device, what browser/client, etc.

This is just of the top of my head.

Don't mean to scare anyone with this, but it is inherently spooky at the very least.

Your idea is kind of sound, but it really depends on how you implement the "negative" money.

You can just choose not to pay off the public debt. That will, effectively, make you print infinite money, and we all know how much corpos like to use and very much abuse inflation. Your idea'd fall quick.

An alternative is to charge the provider for the service they're providing, or someone with deep pockets who could. This seems much sounder of a wax to go to me. For example, if someone is building a hotel with 500 rooms, say they have to build an additional 30 apartments meant to house a 4-member family. Or, say you keep the asinine US health insurance system, but for every procedure they charge, they have to make one for free. Who they give it to is chosen by the government. This is effectively a form of "negative" taxation. Shame it's basically a revive of the feudal-era "Wheat tax".

Dark mode can be recreated using extensions, although the colors most likely won't be as legible as "native support".

I don't see why a similar extrnsion couldn't change the timezones of clocks.

Additionally, I don't see why the server should bother with either (pragmatically) - Dark mode is just a CSS switch and timezones could be flagged to be "localized" by the browser. No need for extra bandwidth or computing power on the server end, and the overhead would be very low (a few more lines of CSS sent).

Of course, I know why they bother - Ad networks do a lot more than "just" show ads, and most websites also like to gobble any data they can.

Playing devils' advocate here: Sure, the Facebook ecosystem is one giant platform, but WhatsApp is completely cut off from Facebook (at least Meta says so, and I highly doubt that myself). But, were that true, I wouldn't be against treating them as seperate platforms.

In any case, Facebook is a "very large platform", which at the very least means auditing. Auditing should turn up any "hidden" connections between WhatsApp and Facebook proper. I hope the DMA has enough teeth to do what it's supposed to.

Oh, nicotine is way worse. It may not harm your health directly, but addictiveness is exponentially worse.

Wikipedia: Caffeine - Dependence and Withdrawal: Moderately physical dependence and withdrawal symptoms may occur upon abstinence, with greater than 100 mg caffeine per day, although these symptoms last no longer than a day

Wikipedia: Nicotine withdrawal: Symptoms are usually strongest for the first few days and then dissipate over 2–4 weeks (...) In a minority of smokers, cravings may persist for years.

Edit: Left out the "Caffeine" in "Caffeine - Dependance and Withdrawal"

Edit to add: Caffeine withdrawal causes you to be annoyed for a day. Nicotine causes real, actual cravings (you know you need nicotine, whereas for caffeine you're just generally "moody" - most people don't feel "i need caffeine, now", and even if you do, chances are, if you run out of coffee and can't get it within less than a day, the "craving" just stops).

For some, many of whom I know, quitting nicotine is downright impossible due to the cravings. For quitting, toning down is key. Those that quit either relapse momentarily in times of stress (usually for about a week or so), or complain of very strong cravings every few weeks/months.

Additionally, nicotine isn't the only addictive compound in cigarettes, and from what I've heard, vaping, gum, etc. just isn't it for some - people also get addicted to cigatettes themselves.

Not to mention, vaping causes pneumothorax and all the other alternatives cause some harm as well, although much less than cigarettes proper.

The brain is, basically, a think-machine, even though it's "just" a lump of meat. The brain tries to make sense of stuff and piece everything together "logically".

Oftentimes the braim makes stuff up - your brain is very good at lying. Take for example vision - the eyes contain a relatively hole in the retina, yet you see a perfectly clear image. This is the "intended" purpose, but the core mechanism bywhich this is done is much more deeply rooted into the brain's main "function" - it's one of the core things the brain does. Its "thinking" is very malleable.

This can cause smaller "misinterpretations" of reality: Here's a personal example: when my grandfather died, I periodically saw his reflection in the front door of his house. It would be visible only for a second, and then disaopear almost immidiately. I had to be moving relatively fast for it to appear, and couldn't cause it to appear at will. 15 years later, I noticed it was actually my reflection, but since it was only visible in the exact same spot, from a certain angle, only in the evenings, with the porch lamp on and on a wood-textured PVC door, it took me that much time to piece all the puzlle pieces together and deduce the root cause. Me not having to visit his house all that often certsinly didn't help the situation.

The other is plain hallucination: Take arthritis. You have pain which is proven not to be caused by anything external. Your nerves just send the "pain signals", and you feel pain.

Additionally, sinesthesia isn't just something someone either has or doesn't, but it's a spectrum, and, all the senses are in fact connected on a quite deep level.

What you describe definately falls somewhere on this "misinterpretarion-hallucination" spectrum. Maybe there was nothing to smell, yet you felt you smelled something, caused fully by your unconscious influenced by past experiences. Or maybe there was a totally different smell that got turned into this smell, but you couldn't pick it out - as is the case with my grandfather and I.

This spectum can also be taken as the "physical-psychological" (cause) spectrum.

Maybe it's a one-off thing for you, or maybe it's a chain of conditions that'll get fullfilled again every now and then. There's most likely a logical explanation since the brain is inherently a logical machine, but chances are it's not. There are just too many variables at play as far as outside factors go.

Checked the site quickly and didn't find the information, but judging by the top-level comment, they don't charge you if you want to use their cloud service, but if you want to "unlock" the ability to use someone else's.

TANGO HOTEL ALFA TANGO INDIA PAPA ALFA INDIA SIERRA SIERRA TANGO INDIA LIMA LIMA BRAVO ECHO TANGO TANGO ECHO ROMEO TANGO HOTEL ALFA NOVEMBER TANGO HOTEL INDIA SIERRA INDIA PAPA ALFA

Question about the years if someone knows: is "years hence" a fancy british way of saying "years in the future" or is it some antiquated large non-SI unit of time since I find any of the species described in shorter timeframes, the Vacuumorph beimg an egregious example ("200 years hence") very hard to imagine "evolving" only 200 years in the future, even with the 90s outlook on technology (since it seems they said these earlier examples at least are engineered species in the book).

Historically, I have a vague memory of knowing the fact that some places did actually do that, although I should check.