No shit. We raised the price to $5 per letter, and now no one is writing any letters....

What makes the researchers think there are any humans on these channels anymore?

They are no longer required to fully fund pensions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

no problem.

I'm actually responding to the AC above you. He is arguing that the attack wouldn't make any sense for either country to make, based on *national* interest. I'm pointing out that's not the only framework in which *regimes* make decisions.

That's a very western-centric view. China imports a large range of products extensively, including western produce and finished goods. Examples include: specialist electrical and mechnical goods, especially for manufacturing their exports and for medical/scientific/power generation use; oil and gas; grain and soy beans; prestige western cars, mostly European; plus significant quantities of various ores, minerals, and other raw materials... They do have a significant trade surplus, but it's nothing like as vast your comment implies.

Regardless, it might just be a database entry of some numbers, but don't just sit on it but rather convert it into things like government gilts and bonds - "Treasury Securities", in US parlance. Still a database entry, but one that turns that fiat piece of coloured paper into a way to help out an ally, or into a notional lever they could pull to disrupt the economy of the bonds they hold; dump a large number of the bonds, and watch the economy in question take a dive as inflation spirals upwards. Yes, the book value of the rest of their holding goes down too, but that's still a better use of the money than just torching the virtual equivalent of a pile of coloured paper sat in a warehouse, Joker style.

As of September, China is currently the third largest foreign holder of US T-Bills ($700.5b), after Japan ($1189.3b) and the UK ($865.0b), then you're rapidly into the long tail with Canada in 4th place at a "mere" $475.8b. That's quite a lot of influence, should they choose to use (read "burn") it.

Whatever, dude.

I made specific points and your reply did not.

As for my worldview, you interpret posts the same way you interpret the news, exaggerating everything and extrapolating it to absurdity to make yourself upset or say something unreasonable. If you have inferred I was ever an extremist, you were wrong.

thanks

Efficiency is based on differences in energy that are economically accessible, not on some rambling theories in a newline-free paragraph.

You can access room temperature. You can' economically access the blackness of outer space from the earth's surface. Likewise, you can access the negative terminal on your battery, but not some static charge in the upper atmosphere.

You pump X amount of energy into a heat engine, it expels that energy to an accessible exhaust, and typically 70 to 95 percent of that energy is *not* converted to work. You pump X amount of energy into a battery, it dumps that energy through a motor to its negative terminal, and only 5 to 10 percent of that energy is not converted to work. That's the only way to practically analyze the situation.

We could also all have infinite free energy if we could access the levels below the zero point energy in the quantum fields. One little problem: that's not accessible either.

No, Amazon specifically said their layoffs are not due to AI.

Amazon spokesperson said the job cuts werenâ(TM)t a result of using AI, and pointed toward a message in October from Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology, who said they were part of the companyâ(TM)s effort at âoereducing bureaucracy, removing layers, and shifting resources to ensure weâ(TM)re investing in our biggest bets.â

But reporter would like to have a story about AI job loss, so they forge ahead and build the narrative:

Still, the push for agentic AI is arriving as Amazon is reshaping its own labor model, raising uncomfortable questions about whether the tools the company is selling will displace employees, both within its ranks and among the customers itâ(TM)s selling the new software to.

That part isn't news, it's commentary.

So, what is your prediction? It sounds like you think Amazon is going to fire thousands of people in hopes that AI will eventually replace their roles, and then say, "whoops, it doesn't work, we're screwed," and the packages will stop flowing. Is that your prediction?

Anybody have a way to read the blomberg article?

Solving the problem of paying wages is just another way of saying increasing efficiency, which has been the goal of almost every technology and management practice forever.

And people concerned with equality should be delighted if there are meager inheritances, or even if they were simply outlawed. Inheritances are very illiberal. Inheritance is the foundation of a class-based society. Inheritances are also fly in the face of conservative principles, since they in no way reflect merit nor market forces.

It would be hard to keep the dashboard top clean enough to prevent reflections in the windshield even if the dashboard top were very black. There is nothing to stop you from using flat black spray paint on your dash.