No, that's exactly not what chatbots are doing. Chatbots have no concept of right and wrong. Chatbots know that given the frequency of words already in the conversation and their probalistic neighborhood to elements in their body of data, which words are most probable to come next. And if there is not enough data fitting their current state, they randomly add words, because no possible next word presents them with a high probability.

You don't think policies like VAT on private school fees and pushing up business taxes instead of personal ones play well with the typical Labour voter?

They're cratering in the polls anyway for a host of other reasons, and I suspect Starmer is already toast anyway for a host of other reasons (though it's significantly harder in practice for Labour to replace a leader they're not happy with than it is for the Tories), but I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that some of these policies are being chosen because of their political alignment.

They appear to be playing heavily on the politics of envy. Look at some of their education policies, for example, or the way they treat small businesses and the people who run them. They don't seem to want to pull up the less fortunate if they can be busy pulling down the more fortunate. It's not a good look if you actually want a successful economy, but it plays well to their base.

I agree with you that they seem to be all over the place in policy generally, and after trying to give them a fair chance in the early months, I now have a fairly low opinion of them (with the odd exception in Cabinet who does actually appear to be at least recognising the real problems and trying to do something about them, which I can respect even while thinking little of their party politicians and government as a whole).

You're right about the investment culture as well, but presumably if we're talking about entrepreneurs who have already been successful and are looking to move elsewhere, that's of limited relevance unless they're planning to start at least one more business after they arrive, so in this particular debate, I doubt that is such a major issue.

While we're hardly Russia, our democratic and stabilisation credentials are looking more shaky than ever as well. Our electoral system produces results very far from proportional. One of our two traditional main political parties is now essentially irrelevant. The other, which currently holds power, is breaking all the wrong records and is widely expected to suffer severe losses at the next election already, barely a year into their term. Waiting in the wings (and currently leading by a very wide margin in the polls) is the nascent far right populist party that has become the default protest vote. It looks scarily like that party might actually be pulling so far ahead (whether thanks to their own merits or, like the present incumbents before the last election, because the government of the day is so unpopular) that even with the usual reversion towards traditional voting patterns when a real election happens, they might still win. And the prospects of what happens next in that timeline are truly terrifying, particularly for anyone who isn't a white British citizen from birth.

As a Brit, I was surprised to see the UK as a destination of choice.

The current Labour government here often seems to be criticised for being ideological and not pragmatic. In particular, they seem to prefer policies that tax "the rich" and businesses in one way or another, yet not large, relatively wealthy groups like pensioners or the homeowners who have lucked out and now live in a million-plus property that most younger people will never be able to afford.

There's also quite a lot of red tape for businesses here, maybe not compared to some of our neighbours in Europe, but certainly compared to places like the US and probably parts of Asia too.

Obviously some of this is politics and maybe the policies are not so surprising coming from a party that in theory represents the working class. However, it is surprising that entrepreneurs would be attracted to a culture like this at a time when we expect to have this government for another four years still.

Once you have a plant cover, it starts to be self-reinforcing, as the plants already grown provide shadow cover for the next generation. The pioneering plants get replaced by other species later, once the local micro climate has changed, and then you get an even more complex and more stable ecosystem. Of course, this takes many decades to establish completely, but it might be that it is self-sustaining much earlier.

Biologists study this all the time. Spoil tips, abandoned crop fields, volcanic ash, or the charred remains of a bush fire, they are ideal research objects on how Nature reclaims those areas. And the time line is vastly different depending on the environment, between a few years, and centuries. Until an oak forest has naturally regrown and gets into balance, it takes about 1000 years.

In the U.S., "champagne" simply means sparkling wine, in other places, it means "wine grown and produced in the Champagne region". Same with Parmesan or Budweiser or something.

And there isn't even a clear cut difference between the two, and especially in German, where many food items have different names depending on the region (don't you ever trust a dictionary, because for many food items, there is no Standard German word), a vote like the one the European Parlament just did does not work. The famous "Berliner" (jelly donut) is a prime example, which is not called "Berliner" in Berlin itself, but a Pfannkuchen (pancake), while the pancake is called Eierkuchen (egg cake) here.

Grützwurst, Erbswurst, Bettwurst - all words using the German word for sausage (Wurst), but none of them is made primarily from meat or does even contain any meat at all, and the Bettwurst is not edible, but a bed accessoire. And Burger? How about Bitburger (a beer) and Burger (a bakery and a trademark for different types of bread)? Do they have to change names? What about Schnitzel (cutlet)? How do we call Rübenschnitzel (sugar beet pulp) and Holzschnitzel (wood chips) going into the future?

This was a vote where the main goal was to "own the Left", without any thought about the consequences.

The problem is that in German, it's not Hamburger Steak, it's Hamburger Beefsteak, something everyone in Hamburg would understand. In German, Steak means the meat, and Beefsteak means the patty - quite confusing for someone native to English, for whom "beef" means meat from a cow. But when the words were borrowed by the Germans, they moved their meaning.

Problem with your calculation is that it is already outdated. Germany right now is at 57.4% renewables for the whole year of 2025, and not just a good month. The worst month in Germany in 2024 was November with only 45.1% Renewables, but two month, February and April (yes! those two!) came in at more than 60% Renewables. The whole of 2024 finished at 55.8% Renewables for electricity production.

By the way, February 2025 was the worst so far at only 42.1% - completely different than February 2024. On the other hand, June 2025 broke the record with 73.4% Renewables, while all three, August, September and October 2025 so far are above 60% Renewables.

If you want a look at the numbers, here they are.

That's not exactly right. Engineering is Applied Science. You don't have many scientific breakthroughs by engineers, because that's not what they are trained for. They are very good at combining things we already know into new technology. They are not very good at spotting where we don't know things. There are many similarities though. Both need a solid background in Mathematics, and a thorough overview of Physics as we know it right now, as it applies to their field of work, and many problems can be solved with both the engineering and the physics approach, but calling Physics "obsolete" because we have Engineering, is like calling R&D in a company "obsolete", because we have skilled craftsmen.

While this part is correct, the second

has nothing to do with the article at hand.

What you are describing is a genetic drift within a species, like the Peppered moth, caused by changing environmental conditions.

What the article is talking about is species disappearing completely, and the fact that it's the most colorful ones. The Peppered moth never disappeared. It even changed back to a majority of lighter colored specimens when industrial smoke no longer darkened the birch bark.

Actually, it's colorful species dying out, not adapting to a less colorful environment.

It's like there are at least two layers of funny money accounting going on here.

First, you have the strange way that people equate market cap with value. There's no guarantee that holding shares with a current market value of $X will eventually return $X or more in dividend payments plus maybe some eventual disposal of assets, and these are usually the only tangible values involved. A market cap based on ludicrously high P/E ratio will be high, but trading those shares is like trading Bitcoin: it starts to look more like a Ponzi scheme than a genuine value-based investment.

Second, even the market cap is mostly theoretical here, because any shares held can't be freely traded on an open market. The asset is almost completely illiquid other than occasional anomalies like the secondary sale we're talking about. The first IPO of an AI unicorn could be the pin that bursts the bubble.

It's the difference between being one of the AI unicorns that doesn't actually make any real profit yet and is largely funded based on hype and hope, and being a supplier like Nvidia that is actually being paid real money (funded by all the AI investment) and has a P/E ratio that is high but not off-the-charts stupid.

The current prices for battery storage are US$75/kWh. Hence 2 TWh cost about US$150 billions. (I just checked, I can order a 4 kWh LiFePo4 pack for less than 300 EUR at Amazon - rated at 6000 charging cycles.) The Australian Health budget is about 112 AUD billion for 2024/25, or about US$60 billion. This means that the Australian public health spending buys us 2 TWh battery storage every three years, given current end user prices at Amazon in the EU.

I also seriously doubt your 15 years figure. Current technology degrades about 20% after 3000 charging cycles. Given that the 2 TWh number is a 3 day storage, you would need to fully recharge them about 120 times a year at a maximum, which means that after 25 years, you still have 80% of the capacity left. This means you have to add 20% of the capacity after 25 years or do a complete refresh every 125 years - and that means that all technology development stops right now.

I bet, LIGO can also detect the difference between workdays and weekends. That's how bad the idea of resting is!

For everyone to chisel it in marble: Just because you can detect it does not mean it is bad.