Or rather, my go-to default. Since I see it everywhere in the soft "sciences."

Didn't have to. Communism collapsed under its own absurdity. I had a front row seat on the other side.

This is every company that uses any kind of automated system for this sort of problem. Pray you never set off any of Google's automated systems because the odds of getting that fixed are just as bad.

Companies should take this more seriously as there's nothing stopping a bad actor from intentionally inflicting these sort of problems to damage the company's reputation. If someone could make enough money shorting stocks to take advantage of bad publicity around the problem there's sufficient incentive to engage in it.

If he got hired during or around the COVID lockdowns it's not at all surprising. A lot of stuff moved to remote interviews and those are a lot easier to fake or to slip someone sketchy past any usual safeguards that might prevent something like this. All he needs is a stolen ID that will get passed a background check and he just needs to pass an interview. The NK government would ensure he's trained well enough to do that.

A little of both no doubt. He's probably skilled enough to do the job if he's a government agent for North Korea, which is almost certainly the case. Their economy is so bad that even working for entry-level wages below his capabilities is more valuable than anything he could do in his own country, but realistically the willingness to work for less just makes it easier to infiltrate the company if he's trying to do something to make possibly extort the company for millions.

Keep in mind that the average North Korean generates about $1,500 per year in economic activity adjusted for purchasing power. Even taking an absolutely insulting salary from Amazon would increase his earning potential more than 50x. Even if the government isn't directing him to engage in any kind of additional subterfuge, he's still making them a lot of money in a denomination that's accepted practically everywhere and can buy just about anything.

China is not your enemy, but the CCP declared ideology is to conquer the world, whether through force, innovation, or economics. So if you want to live in a communist paradise without human rights, then you have no enemies in the CCP.

Building the bomb more-or-less required building a computer to get all the calculations right (the alternative was to hire tons of mathematicians to do the calculations by hand). Any country that didn't do that, wouldn't have the bomb without American help (or stealing the technology from America).

At least they didn't try to invade Canada or rename the gulf of Mexico. At least they didn't blame Zelensky for starting the Ukraine war. or attack Venezuela. I'm no Biden fan, but the Trump administration has no shortage of stupidity and insanity.

To begin with, "liberal democracy" doesn't seem to affect interest in reproducing more than dictatorships.

To a dictator, "hedonism" means "anything I don't want you to do."

It's a subset of the concept that "killing other people is bad." America didn't win the cold war by killing communists.

Pakistan will like anyone who gives them money (except India, they will never like India even if India gives them money). Bangladesh is the same way.

And killing communists is bad because...reasons?

The creators of the bus on stilts were all put in jail. That's a great example of how power stifles innovation.

if they went public they'd have to use GAAP for all their financial statements. Given the billions in deals they have inked I'd be almost shocked if the accounting isnt on the creative side currently.

Harder to bilk^H^H^H^H^Hattact sophisticated investors when you can be accurately compared to your peers.

Does it really matter though. The notion that the world will end or completely collapse is ludicrous, but it will change in ways that we cannot fully predict and humans tend to hate change past a certain point. Some parts of the world that were previously habitable will become less so (such as when the Sahara became a desert several thousand years ago driving civilizations out of the areas they inhabited) and that will create its own set of problems. If ten million people are displaced because they can't grow food where they lived for millennia, where will they go? Which country will welcome them openly? The alternative is only what humans have done for all history, which is to fight and conquer.

All of the carbon locked up in fossil fuels came from various life forms that died at one point for it to be sequestered in the first place. It's obvious that life will go on and humans are one of the most adaptable species on the planet. However, it's not going to be a smooth ride and the more rapid the changes to the climate, the more bumpy the ride because the more it will upset the status quo. We're in for interesting times whether we like it or not.