You agreed that nurture is “definitely” is more important than nature. That’s a scientific truth claim, it can be answered without philosophy, and the scientific jury is out on it. And yet the claim is often deployed in the service of Marxist political ideology as if it’s a proven fact. Which it’s not. Maybe you’re not aware of this context. It’s true you didn’t explicitly bring up politics.

Firstly, just know that the formula “democratic socialist” is itself almost an Americanism (although it’s true that Orwell used it). In the rest of the world it sounds suspiciously similar to what the former communist countries of eastern Europe called themselves. And they were most certainly not democracies.

Outside the USA the usual term is “social democracy”. That’s what the Scandinavian model called itself. Past tense intended.

For examples of successful, free, and equal societies, I would suggest that the best examples are indeed in northern Europe, with a handful of special mentions like NZ or Japan. The HDI is surely the best indicator.

Of countries that have historically used the word “socialist” to describe their political systems, with or without “democratic” thrown in, none are places that you would want to live.

Clearly no Nordic country is a panacea. But the issues you mention are relevant to a whole bunch of northern European countries, many of which are pretty “socialist” by American standards.

On the oil question, Norway is in any case the international exception. Most countries with oil are not socialist paradises but rather repressive police states. Or semi-failed, like Venezuela. Even before the climate crisis made it unethical, oil was a decent predictor of bad social outcomes. Norway aside, the world’s most successful countries, as measured by HDI rather than GDP, tend to have few natural resources. Or almost none at all, like Japan and Germany.

It irritates me that, even today, people keep mentioning oil as some kind of magic solution. It’s the opposite and always has been.

Norway being the only exception.

I’m not aware of any research that can really answer this, although more broadly nurture seems to matter more than nature.

In my understanding, the research shows it’s rather the other way round. But these things are pretty hard to quantify so the debate is always going to be a bit sterile.

I do however take objection when science is instrumentalized in the service of political ideology. As you surely know, a core tenet of Marxism is that human beings are socially constructed. Therefore, rather like religious fundamentalists on the subject of evolution, doctrinaire leftists have a strong incentive to deny science on this subject.

Sweden and Finland have no oil, and if anything are even more “socialist” than Norway.

Back to the drawing board on your premise.

This is pretty harsh on people whose children turn out badly in spite of anything they did. And there are many such cases.

On this subject it seems best to stick to the science rather than to cling to intuitions.

Model and price is unimportant. But if metal’s too expensive and they can’t do a fake chrome finish that doesn’t wear off in 5 minutes then then they should just stick to white or black.

Hardly. Just do away with coursework and stick to in-person exams and orals.

My laptop, similar Taiwanese brand, is fairly new and already beginning to look like this. I don’t know why they have to be such cheapskates with the crappy fake metal finish. Somehow we can find enough aluminum to make disposable Coke cans out of it but it’s too expensive for a laptop casing.

Good question. No, but at a small cost in security. The key I generated using sha512sum using a very solid memorized passphrase. This means I can regenerate the key in the scenario you describe.

Locally.

Here’s one that probably nobody else here is doing. The backup goes on my mobile device. Yes, the thing in my pocket.

• Mount it over SSHFS on the local network
• Unlock a LUKS container in the form of a 30GB sparse file on the device
• rsync the files across
• Lock, unmount

The backup is incremental but the container file never changes size, no matter what’s in it. Your data is in two places and always under your physical control. But the key is never stored on the remote device, so you could also do this with a VPS.

Highly recommended.

Had exactly the same thought. Although I doubt anyone’s “trying” to promote anything. Consumer culture has just colonized many of our minds, even here.

Much respect to the various brilliant people who have made this argument, but it has never made sense to me.

You cannot compare experience to non-experience. By definition, not living is not negative or positive, it’s nothing. No matter how many times you multiply zero by one, the answer is still zero. Something cannot be compared to nothing. In this case, a person who does not exist can never know that they do not exist, therefore to evoke their misfortune is meaningless.

For me, the only thing a life can be meaningfully compared with is another life.

This question seems to be an interesting case of conflicting intuition.

Why would you want to toggle air plane mode with Termux? That’s doesn’t make sense.

You would think of some reasons if you tried very hard. The point is that it’s my device and I shouldn’t have to beg permission.

Fair enough.

This conversation was about doing things with Termux

Then your device must be powered by magic, or more likely it’s not a recent Android version. That the toggle is there does not mean it works: it doesn’t work without root.

This is more a case of Germany’s excessively law-abiding culture, IMO. It’s the same in East Asia: people waiting like zombies at a red pedestrian light even tho there’s not a car in sight.

Incorrect. Wifi only without root.