Given how much of modern manufacturing is fully automated, why couldn't US companies compete on a level playing field with Chinese ones?

Tariffs simply allow domestic manufacturers to reap higher profits and/or continue to use inefficient processes to create an equivalent product.

Perhaps the motto of the USA will eventually become: "Tariffed into mediocrity"

No, who's Meta?

The stock price was inflated to start with, due to speculation. Elon was just taking advantage of the situation. "Oh, you want to buy a tiny fraction of my company at way more than it's worth? Sure. I can use an infusion of liquidity." What's bonkers is that if you sell 1% of your company for $20 billion, the talking heads then pretend the whole company is worth two trillion. Who would actually buy SpaceX for two trillion dollars if Elon wanted to sell it? But they call him a trillionaire. He's only worth the net present (discounted) value of all future earnings of his companies. Yes, that's a lot of money, but look at how much these companies make and do the math.

That's because the suburbs have basically spread us out to such a ridiculous degree that kids don't have a lot of opportunities to socialize.

I think you are missing important details here. Kids still have their chat groups and socialise over them, pretty much as they did before. The difference is just that these chat groups aren't tied to a social media platform any more.

Before the "ban" there was a lot of pressure for kids to be on one particular social media platform or another, depending where their friends were, in order to socialise with them, with the inevitable exposure to other content on those platforms unrelated to their social group. Since the "ban" there are definitely kids who still have social media on one platform or another, but the fragmentation means that the social media platforms no longer become the defacto common space.

Kids now use more specific apps (eg Whatsapp, Facebook messenger) for their shared social spaces.

The social spaces not only still exist, they are also more purely that, not co-opted by endless scrolls of algorithmically presented content and adverts or subjected to engagement mechanics (likes etc). The social spaces are just actual people talking to other people they know.

In that regard I think the "ban" has been relatively successful, different kids may still have accounts on different platforms and perhaps may still spend too much time on them, but generally kids aren't practically forced to be on a social media platform just in order to talk with their friends.

None of this is about "stripping adults of their privacy" as you describe.

The Australian law explicitly prohibits platforms from requiring ID or retaining personal data collected for age assurance.

You are correct. What's kind of crazy is that a lot of the training data is probably GPL code. So if LLM-generated code retains GPL copyright, that's going to provide a lot of work for lawyering companies over the next few decades. And before any lawyers start cheering, there's no guarantee that the lawyering companies will need to hire any lawyers. LLMs can do most of their work already.

These drone delivery services that have to operate in line-of sight and comply with a gazillion FAA regulations are doomed to failure. You could deliver the order faster using a trebuchet over such distances and with fewer liabilities or costs.

Manna Aero has moved to the USA for its trials because it effectively had so many problems in it's home of Ireland and Just the other day another 85lb Amazon drone crashed and burned.

Given the costs, both from a hardware, labor and systems perspective, they'll never compete with a gig-worker on an ebike.

Civilian infrastructure is a pretty squishy target in wartime, even without "cyber" attack vectors. If the bullets ever really start flying, expect everyone's standard of living to plummet. Look at the civilian infrastructure that's been hit in the Ukraine war, and now in the Iran war, even in neighboring countries. It's fragile and takes a long time to rebuild. We need to make it clear to our leaders that we want a large alliance network and open but fair trade agreements with other countries, because that's what has traditionally provided peace, growth, and prosperity. Countries don't generally bomb the people who buy all the shit their factories produce.

It must be the preliminary moves in a surprise strike by our mortal forever enemy, Canada. "Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia." - 1984

Imagine what this would do to you mentally. You've never done what you were accused of, but you're found guilty anyway. All of your family probably suspects you too. Your neighbours and coworkers don't want anything to do with you. You're presumed guilty. One moment you're going through life smoothly and suddenly your life is turned upside down, and it's not an 'act of God'... it's just other people who erroneously decided to cast you out of society. It's a horror movie.

The point was simply that the "old days" of decades ago was based on a mutual trust, and that trust is gone. It works both ways. If employees leave immediately after training, we shouldn't expect companies to offer training.

Do you not see how that's leading to exactly the problem that the OP is complaining about? Decades ago there was an understanding that you could stay at a company for years and your loyalty would be rewarded. The OP was complaining that companies show now loyalty anymore. My point was that loyalty goes both ways. Your point is... that companies are stupid for offering something with the expectation that the employee might stick around? Ultimately this didn't bankrupt the company... we don't take risks we can't handle. It was only an illustration. I'm sorry it went over your head.

Ok, sure. The days of staying with a company for your whole career and moving up from a job in the mail room to the executive level... that's been over for a long time. Companies won't invest in workers by investing in training. We're a small family-run business that prides itself on sticking with employees for the long term and we hired a new engineering grad a few years ago, paid for her to take a multi-month training course to get her certified, spent lots of time mentoring her, and a few months after that she gleefully announced she was leaving the company for a better opportunity out in the oil industry. She was surprised that we were anything but happy about it. She literally had no clue how much we'd already invested in her, and that hiring her hadn't come close to being a net gain yet. It goes both ways. Companies feel screwed over and aren't going to offer those perks anymore.

But there are still many, many, many more protections for employees than there are for influencers and gig workers. It's not even close. And I've done a bit of YouTube publishing just out of interest sake. It's a LOT of work and you're mostly just working for YouTube. And your viewers end up being super-demanding. They expect constant posting. And you live and die at the whim of YouTube, who can cut your revenue suddenly just by tweaking their algorithm. It's a brutal industry with long hours, lots of stress, and no security.

Look, both 'sides' have been pushing identity politics, and it seems to escalate back and forth. Saying that one side does it but the other doesn't is disingenuous, and saying that it's OK for one side to do it because the other is worse isn't helping the problem. Some of us still remember when racism was wrong simply because it was illogical: the variation of people within a group is far larger than the difference in averages between groups, so it makes no sense to prejudice (literally pre-judge) someone based on their visible attributes. But that cuts both ways. "All men are this," or "all white people are that" displays just as much prejudice, and some small-minded people wanted to continue generalizing about other groups, so hence the rise of identity politics. Push back against all forms of identity politics, or stand by and watch it destroy your country.

This is obviously true, and the realization that AI was going to be the battleground for "truth" happened almost immediately. Even relatively smart people, if they go to Google and type in a query, will read off the AI-generated "summary" at the top as if it's the de-facto truth. I mean, they did this prior to AI as well, not taking the time to click into the articles. I find that AI summaries are even worse, as when I click on the supporting links, I rarely find the information that supposedly supports what it said. But if you argue with Google you just look like you're crazy.

The only way they're going to be able to monetize this technology to the masses, who won't pay a monthly subscription, is to use it for advertising. If you ask AI about the best vacuum cleaner, it's going to give you an answer that's manipulated by whatever vacuum company paid the most for promotions. Similarly, if you ask it a political question, the answer will be influenced by paid political pandering, and also by the whims of the organization that created the model. Grok's going to sing the praises of Elon Musk, and Gemini will sing the praises of Sundar Pichai.

This gets pretty scary when you consider the "ministry of truth" implications here. Sure, we'll have lots of different models available, and they'll be beholden mostly to various corporate interests, but you can already see where it's heading in authoritarian regimes like North Korea, China, Russia, etc. That's why all countries are racing for AI. It's a race to control the magical oracle machine that everyone thinks is the single source of truth.