I read the first Three Body Problem novel, and I thought it was crap. Some of that might have been the translation, although I've read other translations from Chinese without that much of an issue. The plotting was terrible, the characters flat. I finished it more because I kept expecting it to eventually turn around, breaking my rule that if I don't like a book in the first three chapters, I won't finish it. In the end, I couldn't imagine why I would want to read any more of it.

Does it have the intro "Imagine Bash, but object oriented and with function call names so long they would drive a Java developer to madness. Brought to you by the author of Microsoft Bob and Clippy, psychopaths that infect your computer with their dead-eyed smiles comes Powershell."

As an owner of the complete History of Middle Earth series, these books are not for the casual fan, or probably even the average fan. They really are more designed for Tolkien scholars, and anyone picking up The Nature of Middle Earth expecting ripping yarns filled with Hobbits and wizards is going to be very disappointed.

The Sunshine policy didn't work. The North Korean government didn't like how it reduced their power. They are more interested in power than in increasing the opportunities for their people. The North Korean government uses aid to increase its power (by controlling its distribution), and rejects aid or connections that it doesn't control.

So the Sunshine policy would work great if it made connection to people at lower levels, but since the North Korean government prevents that, it becomes a means to increase the power of the North Korean government.

Technically speaking the crime of fraud has three elements: (1) A materially false statement; (2) an intent to deceive the recipient; (3) a reliance upon the false statement by the recipient.

So, if you want to lie to people and want to avoid being charged with fraud, it's actually quite simple. You lie by omission. You distract. You prevaricate (dance around the facts). You encourage people to jump on the bandwagon; you lead them to spurious conclusions. It's so easy to lie without making any materially false statements that anyone who does lie that way when people are going to check up on him is a fool.

Not only is this way of lying *legal*, it happens every time a lawyer makes an closing statement to a jury. It's not a problem because there's an opposing counsel who's professionally trained to spot omissions and lapses of logic and to point them out. But if a lawyer introduces a *false statement of fact* to a trial that's a very serious offense, in fact grounds for disbarrment because that can't be fixed by having an alert opponent.

We have similar standards of truthfullness for advertising and politics because in theory there's competition that's supposed to make up for your dishonesty. In practice that doesn't work very well because there is *nobody* involved (like a judge) who cares about people making sound judgments. But still, any brand that relies on materially false statements is a brand you want to avoid because they don't even measure up to the laxest imaginable standards of honesty.

Now investors have lots of money, so they receive a somehat better class of legal protections than consumers or voters do. There are expectations of dilligence and duties to disclose certain things etc. that can get someone selling investments into trouble. But that's still not as bad as committing *fraud*, which is stupid and therefore gets extra severe punishment.

If I understand your argument properly, you're suggesting that things will be OK with the reefs because "survival of the fittest" will produce a population of corals better adapted to warmer conditions.

Let me first point out is that this isn't really an argument, it's a hypothesis. In fact this is the very question that actual *reef scientists* are raising -- the ability of reefs to survive as an ecosystem under survival pressure. There's no reason to believe reefs will surivive just because fitter organisms will *tend* to reproduce more, populations perish all the time. When it's a keystone species in an ecosystem, that ecosystem collapses. There is no invisible hand here steering things to any preordained conclusion.

So arguing over terminology here is really just an attempt to distract (name calling even more so) from your weak position on whether reefs will survive or not.

However, returning to that irrelevant terminology argument, you are undoubtedly making an evolutionary argument. You may be thinking that natural selection won't produce a new taxonomic *species* for thousands of generations, and you'd be right. However it will produce a new *clade*. When a better-adapted clade emerges due to survival pressures, that is evolution by natural selection. Whether we call that new clade a "species" is purely a human convention adopted and managed to facilitate scientific communication.

You don't have to take my word for any of this. Put it to any working biologist you know.

False.

That will happen to Reddit too, once people realize they can get on the front page of search results by posting there.

Israel's business is far more profitable than having your head cut off by Hamas for the crime of usury.

Terrorists use terror for political purposes. Violence is deprecated, but not everyone who is violent is a terrorist.

Your idea seems unrealistic on two counts:

Historically we have seen groups with houses and future to reach for, who still go to war.

Israel did withdraw from Gaza, motivated by your idea, closing the settlements and removing the settlers, and Gaza got worse, not better. The infrastructure got damaged.

You should read what I wrote again, because I clearly did not ignore that.

I'm not necessarily going to defend this protest, but criticism of Israel is hardly some "woke Commie" position (whatever the hell that even means). One can sincerely believe Israel's actions against Palestinians is unjust, without, say, wanting state control of the economy.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

It's been protected since 1791.

I expect that general anxiety about anti-Semitism is driving this. Like it or not, condemnation of Israel comes with certain baggage, and as can be seen on campuses throughout the Western world, criticism of Israel can turn into anti-Zionism which then turns into anti-Semitism very quickly. The lines are very thin. The business world is very risk averse, and coming down on the wrong side of this particular debate can have a whole lot of consequences. Beyond that, of course, Alphabet is a business, not a society for activists, and while it may tolerate certain kinds of activism that may not be perceived as threatening the bottom line, right now, criticism of Israel is just a step too far.