In that era, most people became slaves when their cities were conquered, and the normal practice was to slaughter the entire population. Slavery was seen as a merciful alternative to death, so it's safe to assume that all slaves were grateful that they were enslaved rather than killed, as evidenced by the fact that they chose not to kill themselves.

Modern sensibilities cannot relate to the idea that slavery was merciful, but it was. Plato himself was was to be executed but was instead sold into slavery, though he had a friend who bought his freedom relatively quickly. Likewise, if you read Plato's works, you'll find quite a bit in there that is shocking to modern views. Plato was an incredibly forward-thinking man for his times... but his was a product of his times.

To alvinrod's point, you almost certainly hold some beliefs that future generations will consider immoral, so it's not wise to judge the people of the past by current standards.

Italy and Japan have shrinking populations. We would too, if it weren't for immigration. However our population growth rate is still low, and if it were any lower we'd be facing serious economic and social challenges. Sure, a shrinking population would drop housing prices, but we are far from having so many people there isn't space to fit them. Our real problem is seventy years of public policy aimed at the elimination of "slums" and the prevention of their reemergence.

If you think about it, "slum" is just a derogatory word for a neighborhood with a high concentration of very affordable housing. Basically policy has by design eliminated the most affordable tier of housing, which eliminates downward price pressure on higher tiers of housing. Today in my city a median studio apartment cost $2800; by the old 1/5 of income rule that means you'd need an income of $168k. Of course the rule now is 30% of income, so to afford a studio apartment you need "only" 112k of income. So essentially there is no affordable housing at all in the city, even for young middle class workers. There is, however a glut of *luxury* housing.

In a way, this is what we set out to accomplish: a city where the only concentrations of people allowed are wealthy people. We didn't really think it through; we acted as if poor to middle income people would just disappear. In reality two things happened. First they got pushed further and further into the suburbs, sparking backlash by residents concerned with property values. And a lot of people, even middle-class young people, end up in illegal off-the-book apartments in spaces like old warehouses and industrial spaces.

Yeah, Na-ion is not for cars.

I vacation around the US in an EV all the time, and it's really not an issue. Not unless your vacation travel is of the "pee-in-a-bottle-no-stopping" sort. If you aren't hardcore about minimizing travel time, making stops for decent meals, and stops for bathroom breaks and leg stretching, you'll find that you spend little if any time waiting for the car to charge. What you do is drive for 2-3 hours, then stop for 15 minutes for bathroom (and charging), then drive for 2-3 hours, then stop for an hour for lunch (and charging), then drive for 2-3 hours, then stop for 15 minutes for bathroom (and charging), then drive for 2-3 hours, then stop for an hour for dinner (and charging), then drive for 2-3 hours, then stop for the night (and charging).

Basically, you just make sure that whenever you stop for biological needs, you do in a place you can plug in. This is quite easy to do.

You do want to pick hotels with chargers to overnight. If you don't, then you'll probably have to 30-45 minutes in the morning to charge (during breakfast?).

I've done several thousand miles of road trips with an EV in the western US, where distances are long and cities are far apart. It works fine.

You actually can't in the US, not on the interstates, anyway. Tesla has the US interstates covered, with chargers every ~75 miles. Sometimes this means there's a Supercharger out in the middle of the desert, sure. There's always a gas station/convenience store there, too. Also, you don't actually have to think about when/where you're going to charge. The car's navigation system tells you where you need to stop and for how long.

If you get off the Interstates, you can find larger distances between L3 chargers. In practice I've never found it to be a problem, though.

What EV has a transmission? They have a reducing gear, but AFAIK, that's it.

I only came here for a "May the Forth be with you!" joke.

There's a lot of mythology around who Trump voters are. Part of it is that statistics can be confusing, especially if you're prone to jump to conclusions. Yes Trump wins the voters without a college degree, and people without college degrees tend to make less money, but we can't leap to the conculsion that Trump voters are poor. In fact, data shows Trump lost the $50k and under income group solidly in both 2016 and 2020. In 2016 he won every income group greater than $50k, although only *strongly* in the $50k -$99k group. In 2020 he solidly lost every income group betlow $100k, but but won the over $100k group by an enormous 12 point margin.

Putting it all together, Trump's core voter group are people with limited educational attainment who are economically comfortable of (good for them) well off without having a college degree. However he doesn't own any particular socioeconomic group; really elections are determined by changes in turnout in key swing states. There was strong turnout among Trump's *share* of $50-$99 ke voters in 2016; I don't think many of those voters changed their mind, but their compatriots who sat 2016 out came out to vote in 2020.

Just because the cigarette industry pictured doctors recommending smoking in its advertising didn't mean that *all* doctors, or even most thought smoking was healthy for you. This was largely in the 30s and 40s when they took advantage of a positive attitude toward science and particular medical science. They began to pull back from this after 1950 when evidence was mounting for the link between smoking and cancer, for fear of pushback from the medical community.

What does this have to do with lab grown meat?

As I said, you clearly don't have children, and therefore have no idea what you're talking about. In general I'm opposed to arguments of the form "You're not an X so you can't comment", but when it comes to raising kids, it's just the truth. No one who hasn't done it has any idea what it's really like.

Doesn't matter, because if you had children you'd know that no one is capable of being sufficiently attentive.

As a Googler... I think this comment hits the mark, far more than any of the others.

It is not, not even then. You'd need at least three parents: One to go to work, one to stay with the kid, one to cover for the second when they have to do something other than watching the kid (clean the house, do the laundry, use the bathroom, etc.). Oh, sure, you can try to put the kid in a safe environment while you do stuff, but many young children are shockingly good at finding ways to get into stuff they're not supposed to get into, and do it far faster than you would expect.

A team of nannies can do it.

People used to live in the middle of a village of other people who watched out for their neighbors' kids when their parents had to take their eyes off of them. And kids used to die. A lot. Far more than we'd consider acceptable today.

And not just one. KIds vary widely and it's not uncommon for parents who've only dealt with a single child to assume that all kids are like that one. Usually adding a second kid is enough to open their eyes when they realize that none of what worked on the first kid works with the second and vice versa. Occasionally parents get two that are very similar and don't learn this until they have a third, or until grandkids come along, or other close exposure.

How many children have you raised? I'll bet, one. One who happened to be easy to dissuade from putting stuff in their mouth, so you have extrapolated from that sample of one to all kids everywhere.

The fact is that kids aren't all the same. Some are easy to train, some aren't.

Source: I'm a father (4X) and a grandfather. Based on my sample, I should perhaps assert that all babies and toddlers stick everything in their mouths and there's nothing you can do to teach them otherwise until they're at least two, and usually three. But I know that kids are all very different, and so I can imagine that there may be some child who can be taught not to put stuff in their mouth younger than that.