to restore balance to the 3 branches of gov't. Prez has been given too much power. If the Prez is by chance evil, it's hard to stop them.

> when photos emerge of him shagging a teenager.

Ivanka ain't no teen.

"The poor downtrodden rich need our help now! It's why Thurston Howell had to rent a 3 hour cruise from 2 bumbling morons in a dodgy boat."

It's smelled bubbly for a while already. When will this ZitGPT pop already?

Intel may actually be a good hedge stock since they don't (yet) make notable AI chips. Investors will see them as more reliable because they sell chips for actual and time-tested products. They'll look smart for not hopping on the AI bandwagon so quick, after the bursting.

The BB-sized metal spheres found by the Opportunity Mars rover are hematite.

Way to completely miss the point...

It's not that this never happened, or even that it was some extremely exceptional case in the millennial/GenX/boomer eras...but it was extremely different.

For starters, I think that there are two sides that have both valid points and problematic extremes. In the days of yore, companies generally saw employees as an investment. It wasn't uncommon for people to work at the same company for 25 years or more. Certainly not every company, but the majority of them accepted the tradeoff that new employees would require a good amount of training before the company broke even on their paycheck, and in return, the employee who stayed would earn the company a tidy profit over time, receiving enough money to support a family in return. Today, it seems that everyone wants to 'skip to the end' - companies want to hire savants with 20 years experience in Debian Trixie, make them always-on-call, and in return want to pay them less than half of a living wage, and keep a fear of layoffs at the front of everyone's mind.

The counterbalance is that Gen-Z knows this is the case, and treats employers with the same sense of expendability. If a company sees an employee as someone not worth investing in, with little ability to get promoted, and both promotions and layoffs being abstracted from job performance or dedication, it's not unreasonable to adopt the mindset of "if they're doing what's best for them, then I'll do what's best for me"...and it's only a few more steps from there to "I'll work when I feel like it", which is demonstrated in the willingness to no-call/no-show, doomscrolling at work, or having to be 'helicopter managed'.

This leads us to the downward spiral - with both sides leaving themselves vulnerable to exploitation if loyalty and dedication are expressed, it is only natural to reduce that vulnerability moving forward. The result, however, is both sides getting worse...it's a Prisoner's Dilemma, and neither side has incentive to break the cycle.

That makes 2 worlds we've polluted. Probably Mars also: 3.

More fake candidates will be chasing more fake jobs.

Re: "and put only half our eggs in the energy basket." -- should be "half our eggs in one energy basket".

And "Western-friendly companies" may also factor in location. For example, if war breaks out at Taiwan, getting supplies from Japan could be logistically difficult. Thus, we probably want a fair number of suppliers in the American, European, and/or African continents.

this may not account for things like environmental degradation, harm to the general population and other issues surrounding personal rights, etc.

China's workers are de-facto slaves and their consumers are de-facto guinea pigs.

The article mentioned the "996" labor model, which while technically illegal, is given a blind eye by the gov't.

The Soviet Union quickly caught up in nuclear weapons just after WW2 by radiating everybody and their dog around factories and test grounds. They moved fast and broke people. China has a similar mentality when Xi lists a top goal: win first, citizens be damned. To misquote Mel Brooks: "It's good to be dictator".

The Western world should refuse to become fully dependent on China for green energy equipment, and limit their market share in batteries, wind, panels, etc. to say 50%. That would mean the investors mentioned could focus on Western-friendly* companies that are to fill in that other 50%. That China's prices are lower doesn't matter, they would be limited to 50% of sales regardless of price. Don't forget the lesson of the pandemic: don't have a single source for anything important because wars, plagues, and mayhem happen.

We already know Xi is drooling bigly over Taiwan, having arguably the biggest navy now; we should thus presume there will be a war over it and run our industry with that assumption active, and put only half our eggs in the energy basket. (Both sides will likely shut down trade with each other during the Taiwan battle.)

* Not sure Trump is "Western friendly", that's a wildcard.

or as MTG says, "disrobed"?

North Korea?

Why not, everyone else is.

It's more entertaining than the original! No cat torturing, for one.

That kind of thinking got us stuck with COBOL ;-)

War is dumb, but giving bullies free reign is dumber.

Yes, Iran and Vietnam were probably mistakes, but nobody said conflicts are easy nor clear.