What is the point of repeating the same empty rhetoric? No specific claims, no credible citations and now a lame attempt to shift burden of proof. Where are those facts you spoke of earlier?

It is illegal* to ask if candidates are married.

It is illegal* to ask if candidates have children.

It is illegal* to ask if candidates live with their parents.

* In America.

A classless (true communist) society can't scale up beyond Dunbar's Number. They do work for groups like communes and small, isolated villages. Where everyone knows everyone else, what their skills are and who is/isn't getting work done. The latter are usually banished from the community, either returning the miscreant to "outside society" (this presumes the existence of an outside society willing to deal with your screw-ups). Or accepting the fact that the banished will probably be eaten by wild animals.

Once Dunbar's Number is exceeded, one needs some sort of bureaucracy to manage societal organization. One can't depend on markets, because that wouldn't be "fair". Someone with valuable skills could demand more than the average peasant, undermining the whole equity shtick. Likewise, resources (the means of production) must be managed by this bureaucracy. Since leaving decisions to the market would have workers with little/no skills under-funded. Again, "equity" rears its ugly head.

So, we need this bureaucracy. Made up of the self-appointed intellectuals. To "manage things". This creates a scramble to the top of the intellectual pile, lest you be left behind among the filthy proletariat to do actual work. Hence the tooth and nail fight to make it to the top of that pile. Which works until a government stabilizes under the winner of the scrum. Then, to protect themselves, the winner(s) must eliminate the also-rans. Much as Stalin purged anyone he felt to be a threat to his position. Or Richard III burying the princes that could challenge him in the walls of The Tower of London.

Market economies (capitalism) allow me to "own the means of production", but leave the wisdom of the masses to reward those with the best foresight. There is no "leader" or opinion-makers to self identify as having better brains than the others. If you are really smart, you'll 1) pick the winners and invest. And 2) keep your mouth shut about your big brains, lest the competition tries to front-run your strategies.

Someone figured out that socialism means you have to work. Even in a Star Trek economy, someone has to wear the red shirt.

I agree with the last part in parethenses. Do you have citations for the rest?

Not for lack of trying. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/judge-blocks-rfk-jr-from-scaling-back-childhood-vaccine-recommendations.

Bwah? The article I linked to is on Harvard's news site. It is not just about Harvard. As that article notes there's been about 500 million dollars of contracts canceled. Note that even if that were all Harvard (which it isn't) that would be a sizable chunk even in their endowment. And this has on top of that had a major chilling effect causing corporations to stop doing mRNA treatment research in general.

Dispute resolution mechanisms are baked into the agreement. If parties feel subversion is taking place any party can exercise it as was done in 2020 two years after the US violated the agreement.

If you were serious about "facts" you would provide specific claims and cite credible sources to support your statements.

AI has been running at a big loss to get the users hooked. It was inevitable that prices would start climbing. That process is nowhere near done, running AI is expensive as hell.

Once the market starts reflecting the actual costs, you can bet the cost/benefit will not be nearly as rosy as it looks now. But some customers will already have gotten themselves between a rock and a hard place and will be sucked dry, then discarded. Those "expensive" people that are getting dumped will start looking like a bargain, but they will have already been snapped up by smarter companies by the time management that can't see past their own toes figures that out.

So? I think what Trump is doing is embarrassing, dangerous and counterproductive yet unless he starts invading Greenland or Canada or sells F-35s to Russia or some truly crazy shit nothing substantive is going to change because the existing architecture serves everyone's interests. FFS Europeans are still sending cash to America to buy military equipment not at a discount but at a healthy war profiteers markup. There is a lot of noise but nothing as of yet has fundamentally changed.

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. Did you mean to ask would Trump respond in good faith to an invocation of Article 5 by European allies? I'm not sure. He is an amoral shitbag. I wouldn't count on it. Even if there was someone sane in the white house if shit really hit the fan it was never a certainty the alliance would deliver due to selfish balancing of interests. Article 5 makes no affirmative demands of any country... it is all voluntary.

The question of would he invoke it, given all the whining about expecting NATO to come to his aid and help clean up his mess in Iran my guess is he would try.

When I said shit hits the fan I'm not speaking of the US-Iran war. It would be something crazy like NK lobbing nukes, attacks from China, meat waves from Russia...etc.

If I were a head of state of any European country unless Iran attacked me or my allies I sure as fuck wouldn't enter the war with Iran at this point.

My best guess you've misinterpreted my remarks.

No idea of the relevance of "Big Boy".

You've already asked this question and I answered it above. I never said shit about anyone sending troops to Iran.

A note to mods please read the FAQ before moderating. Disagreement, being wrong or disliking someone is not a valid reason for down mods. If you can't respect the rules of this site refrain from moderating.

Iran had nothing to do with my previous "shit hits the fan" statement.

I do think when there is a common threat and countries with aligned interests don't work together to address it then they can all expect outcomes that serves nobodies interest. The stream of noise and annoyances coming out of the white house does not alter the basic structure of alliances and interests.

This is like saying you made fun of me and that other guy over there is shooting at me so no because you belittled me I don't want you to help me and I won't help you when they shoot at you. Have some perspective. I get people are royally annoyed and pissed off by the demented clown in the white house.

There is a reasonable chance Putin would attempt if he could to wage endless wars of conquest in a bid to reconstitute the USSR. Iran doesn't even enter into that picture except as an enabler of Russian aggression.

If you think every country for themselves will work against Russia as it slowly annexes neighboring countries and mobilizes their populations to fuel future war efforts... god bless you good luck with that you are going to need it. You are not being attacked (right now) go back to sleep.

So, how much for heated seats?

Let them come. The socialists have been heralding the post scarcity society. The Star Trek economy is approaching and the left is terrified. Seems someone just told them that the hammer and sickle symbolize labor.

All of this makes me remember a short story reading assignment in the 5th grade. It was about kids growing up in a society where machines did all of the intellectual work. To them, writing was 'squiggles'. They managed to disable a filter on their "bard" (a story teller for children) and had it tell them a tale of machines ruling over Man.

Nobody expects prophesy from a 5th grade reading assignment.

Oblig joke: Computer scientists were putting the finishing touches on their first fully intelligent machine. Once booted up, they decided to test it with deeply philosophical question: "Is there a God?"

"There is now."

Are you certain that there's no one to the left of zero? I'd beg to differ.

Stack Overflow

... AI and robots, this is how you get AI and robots.