These types of draconian laws will ruin the internet if they are ratified.

Is this the same guy that proved time travel was possible by generating a negative energy density gravitational lens using any common coffee maker?

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Itâ(TM)s easy to switch the search default in Firefox to whatever you want. I use duckduckgo, personally.

Reddit used to have principles that aligned with the open source model. Now they are removing mods that protested their API pricing. They have changed and that is how they are killing the goose that lays golden eggs. Everyone was cheering for them to succeed. Not anymore. The good will people had towards reddit is gone. They killed it.

Coal is used to make steel and silicon wafers because its carbon sucks out the oxygen; de-rusts the raw ore, so to speak. The article is paywalled so I can't tell if it addresses this.

It's going to cost $20mil a year to run Apollo with the current API pricing. It's not sustainable. Reddit is killing themselves like Digg did.

Others of us learned by learning, such as attacking the message, not the messenger.

You have shown how valuable that degree of yours is, that you didn't even learn that basic point.

Tipping in the US began in the 1850s, before slaves were freed.

You should learn a little yourself before teaching lies.

Wikipedia says tipping for service goes back to the 1500s, and was imported into America from Europe in the 1850s, before slavery was abolished.

"The main reason USSR engineers were not innovating was lack of incentives"

ie, the same kind of central economy as China has. Both countries have incentives, but they are only as "markety" as the central planners want.

"The US nearly bankrupted itself trying to win the cold war. Lucky USSR folded first. This time the US may not be so lucky."

The US never came close to bankruptcy before the USSR dissolved. US governments have and continue making lots of stupid decisions, but bankruptcy during the Cold War was never one of them. And luck had nothing to do with the USSR folding first. It was inevitable. As unfree as the US market economy is, it is freer than the USSR and China by every measurement. China would have to ditch the CCP and dump Xi in jail to have any hope of bankrupting the US.

Let me get this straight: you claim Xi is not a dictator because he won an election by legal means?

Hitler was also elected, and the 1933 Enabling Decree was legal too. Are you claiming Hitler was not a dictator simply because he won an election?

Stalin and all Soviet dictators came to power by legal elections. Are you claiming they were not dictators?

"they just could not do much with the tools and components they had"

Yes, because they depended on a planned economy to provide the tools. China is little different. Why do you think their real estate market is falling apart? Because the central government told them to build ghost cities and high speed rail to them. Why are they pushing the Nine Dash Line and upsetting every single country in the area? Because Xi's ego demands it for his legacy.

Eugenics and McCarthyism were just as bad as wokism is now. Eugenics has never really disappeared. But they were brought under control as voters changed regimes. China doesn't have that option any more than Nazi German or the USSR did.

You're out of date. Used to be freer than most communist states, but Xi went for that third term, the real estate binge is crashing, Hong Kong is no longer free, and he's making noises about Taiwan and the Nine Dash Line to distract the public from domestic problems. It's not nearly as free as it used to be, and the real estate bust and navy buildup are soaking up a lot of money.

Someone published a book a few years back about the difference between territorial nations and naval nations, although I forget his exact terms. Point is that territorial nations need armies to defend borders, such as Germany, eastern European countries, Russia. Armies are very hierarchical, very much top-down command structure, because that's what you need to coordinate armies. Naval nations don't need to defend borders nearly as much, so they develop merchant trading networks and navies to defend them. Navies even now, with satellite communications, are more independent than armies, and they and merchant traders foster independence.

There are hybrids, and two that come to mind are France and China. Both absolutely need armies, although the EU has made France's need less. But China absolutely has a lot of borders to defend from Russia, Mongolia, Afghanistan, India, Vietnam, and while it does depend on trade, that is not the existential threat of land invasion.

Every war France was in with England, the army came first. The navy never got enough money to practice and drill, and lost more battles than they won. China had that explorer who got as far as Africa, but then land threats distracted them and the ocean-going fleets were disbanded and forbidden.

China's army-navy problem is the same now. If they do get involved in any kind of naval dustup, it will embolden their territorial neighbors, and the navy will be cut back. Attacking Taiwan, for instance, takes a navy to do the invasion, but then needs an army to sustain it and maintain the occupation, and that will draw down army resources elsewhere. Trying to build up islands in the South China Sea has pissed off everyone in the area and they have lost a lot of good will which will take decades to restore; if they get bogged down anywhere else, they will lose their tenuous grip on the Nine Dash Line.

Xi isn't stupid, but dictators surround themselves with Yes men, and Xi has too. His instincts are to crack down, just as with the Uighurs, with Hong Kong, with the Nine Dash Line, with Taiwan. He won't have the patience to tolerate any domestic problems.

Comparing the tech available now with the 1940s-70s is silly.

And saying that political oppression can be separated from doing scientific research shows you know little of history or research or innovation. Look up Lysenkoism. Look up Winnie the Pooh in China. Look up the Stasi. Look up the history of electronics research in East Germany and the USSR.

Oppressive regimes breed snitches, who are incredibly eager to make up lies about colleagues and neighbors to reduce the competition. You have led a sheltered life if you have never experienced that kind of atmosphere.