PonyOfWar

For German, I guess Pennsylvania Dutch would come closest? At least in the sense that it’s a variety of German spoken in North America. It’s barely understandable for modern-day Germans.

Yesterday, on my bike, feeling the warm sun on my skin again after a long winter.

A hereditary monarchy is still not an oligarchy 🤷

Sure, not saying it is. I was arguing against Cowbee’s claims of North Korea being a democratic system controlled by the working class. North Korea is not a classic oligarchic system however, so I’d agree with your reply to OP.

But anyway, you’re only talking about the head of state. They have an entire system running there

I don’t think that any kind of democratic system is possible under a head of state with that amount of worship and cult of personality around a single person. The structures for a democratic system underneath may exist, but when it’s not possible to act out of line or speak out against the great leader, they might as well not. All the evidence I’ve seen suggests that it’s not. Both from North Korean media itself, which I’ve watched quite a bit of, and from the mouth of North Koreans who managed to get out.

You’re no doubt well-informed on the theoretical systems of those countries but you can’t just look at the theory and be like “that’s exactly how it works in real life”. It’s a fact that leadership in the DPRK has passed on from father to son for 3 generations now - any country that does that is a hereditary monarchy, not a people’s republic. Kim Jong Un was never part of the working class. He was raised in palaces and sent to an elite college in Switzerland. You don’t even need to trust any Western media on this - just watch a few minutes of North Korean TV and you’ll hear how the leaders are basically treated as gods. Many people who threatened or spoke out against their rule, including those in the “royal” family like Kim Jong Nam, have been murdered or disappeared.

There were and are so many dumb and incorrect conspiracy theories that I think it’s understandable that people would outright dismiss them, even if there was a real conspiracy.

Take the deep state. Sure, you can say that there absolutely is a deep state of oligarchs influencing/controlling governments. But if you read about that topic on conspiracy forums, you’ll quickly find it getting entangled in bullshit like Pizzagate or QAnon. They said Donald Trump would be the one to finally “expose the deep state”, which is just laughable. On the same forums you’ll find stuff like “flat earth”. So why would anyone use those places as sources of trustworthy information?

In Germany, people can get a “Pflegegrad”, which basically defines how much assistance someone needs. Depending on that, they may be assigned a caregiver, paid for by the state. If other relatives decide to take them in, they’ll also get some money and assistance for that.

I haven’t been there. I don’t think they offer any dishes without meat, at least at their locations in Japan.

Favourite: Coco Ichibanya. Lifesaver in Japan for me, as they offer vegan curries and exist in smaller cities where other options for food I can eat are scarce. Also, very tasty.

Least favourite: Mc D’s I guess. Only went there once in the last decade. Food was crappy and overpriced. Annoying ordering system as well.

Read the article. It’s not a traditional vaccine as we know it, but it puts the immune system on a higher alert level in general, meaning it will have faster and stronger responses to any pathogens.

I personally expect that there will be downsides to that, which the researchers do acknowledge. But it’s interesting research nonetheless.

I don’t think so. That would be a hard thing to enforce and rather pointless. Comparing it to other internet regulations like the GDPR, it’s not illegal to use a website that doesn’t adhere to it. That said, with the amount of stupidity we tend to see in politics, who knows what some countries might do.

It might happen for some instances, but I think if some countries start requiring fediverse instances to do this, most users will switch to instances hosted in countries that don’t require it.

Context? Looks like a (somewhat pareidolic) leather seat cushion or something.

Centrism is okay during good times, when managing the country is all it takes and the political climate isn’t poisoned. During times of crisis, however, it’s horribly ineffective, because centrists are usually quite averse to any large-scale reforms and their ineffectiveness will only benefit (usually right-wing) radical parties.

People protesting agains the arms industry will generally focus on the bigger problem, which is all the people being killed.

“Stop murdering people” is probably a more powerful message than “Stop wasting resources on murdering people”.

I think I’d survive. Never had a broken bone or any serious injuries really. I’d just have surface-level wounds everywhere, none with a lot of blood loss, and 2 rolled ankles. It would be unpleasant as hell, but I don’t think my life would be in danger.

They’re design-focused first and foremost. You get a Nothing phone if you want fancy LED-lighting on the backside.

They used to be about having a “minimalist”, bloatware-free Android OS as well, but since last year some of their phones come preloaded with Facebook, Tiktok etc and they even put ads on the lock screen for a while (until backlash made them revert that).

2020s, by far. 2010s were the best, but after 2020, the world order I knew pretty much became undone and everything seems to just be getting worse. I was pretty hopeful and excited for the future before, but now we seem to be on an unrelenting march towards dystopia. Much of the societal progress we’ve made in prior decades is being reverted. Also not great when it came to personal events for me, as my dad died in 2021. I guess the decade still has a few years left to redeem itself, but that seems highly unlikely right now.

Can you be more specific on what reminds you of prisons with your schools? I don’t think any of my schools in Germany looked anything like a prison.

I would personally be annoyed by such a person and not want to associate with them. I have no issue with religious people, or even talking to them about religion, but if they’re just constantly preaching or trying to convert me, that would get on my nerves very quickly.

Looks like you can only participate with a Mastodon account, unless I’m missing something.