because wires don't follow political boundaries

your fiber is our fiber and visa versa. it's all bound up. a message you send from Vancouver to Halifax may/ probably crosses the border into the USA

and If i am in Chicago and i send a message to Anchorage, that goes through Canada

Canadian and American data is intertwined

and our authorities coordinate and cooperate in managing that in ways that would make both Americans and Canadians uncomfortable if you don't want eyes from another jurisdiction seeing our data

I'm sorry, but I agree with that. If you on the UK want us to dam up our rivers and build roads out to geothermal areas and tap into our resources, and raise our local power prices in the process, all for the benefit of the UK, our government better damn well profit as much as possible from it and reduce our taxes / improve our services in exchange for that.

Unfortunately, xB and xD do not agree.

Readily replaceable intakes?

Seriously, fuck the fish.

You could find fans for a plan like that...

Better negotiate the contract during a Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn / Framsóknarflokkurinn (conservative) government. Samfylkingin would approve it under the condition that the Icelandic government's share of the sales are so high that you would barely save any money on the imported power, and Vinstri Grænir would outright reject it no matter what you offered. But Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn and Framsóknarflokkurinn would let you dam up whatever rivers you want and take gigawatts of power in exchange for a handful of shiny trinkets and a couple magic beans.

Shame you burned any mod points you might have posting this

what does that mean? serious question

my argument: valid moral and logical point that you do not consider

your response: empty insults

exactly

you didn't make any arguments against what i said, you just threw empty insults

that's an intellectually dishonest person's way of conceding a point

so you're welcome for the education

grow and learn

thank you

stupidity makes me angry

It remains the case that either my original statement is true, meaning a counter-example for the reliability of fact-based ranking has been identified, or my original statement is false, in which case the statement itself becomes a counter-example because it is widely repeated but incorrect.

warring european states leapfrogged india, middle east, china technologically and started the colonial era instead of india, middle east, and china, exactly because they were warring states

if india or china or the middle east's internal make up was fierce rivalries lasting many centuries between small proud states, then india, china, or the middle east would have been colonizing europe with more advanced technology

now, europe is united under one political umbrella

and before the warring states period, it was tiny tribes increasingly united due to external warlike forces (rome, huns, mongols, etc)

meaning the trajectory of history of clear: always conflict, but conflict between increasingly larger groups

now it is united europe versus india, china (middle east is still fragmented)

that's progress, and that's real

and in the future, after we contact someone out there or they contact us, humanity will quickly unite behind a single banner, and war and rivalry will continue, but earth versus someone else. the trajectory of history preserved

btw, star trek was never peaceful

in star trek we have peaceful allies (vulcans, etc), but we also have warring neighbors who would gladly destroy us: romulans and klingons (whom always seemed to me to be symbolizing china, and ussr, respectively)

and the episodes were also always full of totally new unforeseen horrible dangers. no episode was "hi strangers, we come in peace, and everything is wonderful, the end"

so star trek is nothing but the stories from the age of exploration, the colonial era, and the cold war era, repackaged

my thought on the future and optimism is this:

when we meet someone out there, we will unite as one planet, and war with them

because: peace is stagnation, like india and china before being visited by europeans from the high seas. therefore if we become a peaceful united planet BEFORE meeting someone else, we will be stagnant technologically, and we will be devoured. like india or china in the colonial era

and if another planet was entirely peaceful, they would never have gone into space to meet us, they would have stagnated. and so we will meet them first, and colonize them like india or china or the aztecs or incans

in this way, i'm glad russia is pissing us off. we need to destroy and colonize russia, as china will most certainly do with siberia. split russia between europe and china. and advance technologically to preserve our fighting spirit in this way. and we will do this most certainly because russia is a belligerent, and weak, asshole

if there is no scramble, there is no reason to advance

but scramble we will

Of course we have. The response was deliberately paradoxical. Think about it.

Erm... It was intended to be ironic. Well, paradoxical, technically. Compare my final sentence

with the classic "This statement is false".

If my statement were true, it would illustrate a problem with Google's proposal.

But as my statement is false, it is itself a demonstration of the problem, because it perpetuates a myth sufficiently popular that it even has its own Wikipedia page. I was a little surprised that I couldn't also find it on Snopes.

Anyway, it's disappointing that no-one seems to have noticed that. Were none of you even a little suspicious about a post that in one paragraph said "Just because something gets repeated a lot, that doesn't make it factually correct" and then repeated one of the most popular myths there is? Really?

So... how many people do believe in "1984" or "Brave New World"? Or "Neuromancer"?

all those who complain about that and do nothing. they believe in slavery. then they act like a slave

all of the cynics who call reality today just like 1984, they believe in it. and make it true, by defining an oppressive reality, then doing nothing about it and agreeing to be oppressed. "today is just like 1984!" (goes back to playing video games)

there's always vile people at work in the world. you can almost excuse them, for being honest about who they are and what they intend

it's the cowardly cynical lazy motherfuckers, who whine and moan about a problem, then don't do a fucking thing about it, that you really can't excuse. the person who sees someone intend malice to them, and then accepts it and takes it and helps in their own enslavement?

"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."

- Albert Einstein

merely complaining about a problem is not enough. if you do nothing about it, you ACCEPT it, and you HELP those you hate. you believe in your own subjugation when you identify it, then do nothing about it

you become a slave, not because there are slavemongers, but because you act like one: whine and moan and think you can't change anything

well indeed: a coward can't change anything. because their cowardly beliefs define their reality. only those with heart and who believe in something positive change this world (and then get ridiculed by the cynical slaves, who don't deserve the person with heart at all, because they work against the person of heart, by siding with the malicious in their cynical beliefs)

this is the psychological basis of whining cowards, complicit in their own enslavement:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

Learned helplessness is a behaviour in which an organism forced to endure aversive, painful or otherwise unpleasant stimuli, becomes unable or unwilling to avoid subsequent encounters with those stimuli, even if they are escapable. Presumably, the organism has learned that it cannot control the situation and therefore does not take action to avoid the negative stimulus.[1] Learned helplessness theory is the view that clinical depression and related mental illnesses may result from a perceived absence of control over the outcome of a situation.[2] Organisms that have been ineffective and less sensitive in determining the consequences of their behaviour are defined as having acquired learned helplessness.[3]

teach yourself a new trick, slave

the dogs in the learned helplessness experiment were shocked, and could not escape. then they opened the door, and shocked the dogs again. some escaped, but others just lay down and accepted the shocks rather than escape. made slaves. their belief became their reality. no oppression needed, the oppression is all in their head without the slightest finger needing to be lifted by the slavemonger

humanity doesn't adapt to the world, we adapt the world to us. we don't grow fur in cold weather, we kill animals and drape their skins on us. we don't forage for berries, we plant berry seeds and grow them when and where we want them. we don't lie outside in the rain and sun, we build our own caves out of peat, mud, thatch

point is: we are emergent phenomenon, not static reflectors. we believe something, then we make it happen for real. and if we believe in unreal things, don't laugh, because maybe someday we really will fly like birds and walk on the moon

that also means fatalism and pessimism is what is really for losers. a child's crazy dream today is our reality in a few years

lust like our group beliefs and efforts become our reality, individual lives are reflections of individual attitudes. so if you believe things will never get better, you're right, they won't... but only in your life

don't mistake your stunted imagination and your ignorant empty cynicism for our reality. your defeatist attitude is a self fulfilling prophecy only for you, not all of us