i appreciate that you put me in this distinguished company, but i've largely desisted from trying to argue about this here. practically the only insight i got from it is how close-minded, gullible and hateful the loudest part of the audience here is. that's good to know but really needs no further assessment at this point, and the process is quite time-consuming, futile and depressing. i'd rather sit back and watch it foam at the mouth with every new clickbait-du-jour, which is also futile and depressing, but much less time-consuming and has at least some dark comedy value. enjoy your "victory" and receive sincere greetings from you very underpaid russian propagandist. good luck to everyone and thanks for your attention to this matter.

likely not. incresing awareness and valuing one's mental health is, as is the spectrum of circunstances now considered mental health conditions. people have become more sensible to that and during good times have had more ability to choose and demand. if your problems don't "have a name" and your survival depends on your job and you are unsure you can get another one soon enough, you will just soldier on and put up with whatever comes.

this has been a long term tendency but there are hiccups, and we are in one: unemployment is on the rise, so employers can be more demanding. return to office surely has had some effect. layoffs due to restructuring, ai, etc. then again the datapoint for people saying "their employer isn't focused on supporting employee mental health" going from 73% to 93% in a single year seems way too much, to me it suggests a measurement error, these being polls to begin with. but the medium term trend of decreasing insatisfaction with work and the current spike seem plausible.

indeed, realized that after posting. still, that's all the data there is, and the source doesn't seem credible in the first place.

i was curious too as to how this was even calculated or, better said, projected. fiscal reports would be the obvious approach, but fiscal residence can be a pretty fluid thing for them, plus they don't necessary reside where their money is. is there a millionaries' census? do they notify when they leave, and say where to? do millionaries get polled? what is a representative sample of millionaries and why wouldn't they blatantly lie i as i do on every poll?

it was really just 4 clicks and seconds of reading. i even did it twice because i couldn't believe it was that daft. welcome to the slopocene! X'D

wish granted, source from tfa: https://www.henleyglobal.com/p...

note that there's not even a mention of method or real data source, and the reference is circular: "henley&partners" cites "new world whealth" and "new world whealth" cites "henley&partners". it's just comical, and likely all just made up.

indeed, but not all countries are on equal footing and there's where the difference comes in:

let's take the us. the us has enjoyed a long period of dominant position (for several reasons), and on trade agreements with less developed countries have used that as leverage for profit. part of the eu, specially the uk and north europe, much of the same but lately to lesser extent. this is mostly the case when what the partners have to offer is basically natural resources. if you only maximize your current profits, you make sure that your investment in those countries imposes strict conditions, ensures a steady resource flow for years to come, and doesn't benefit the other part too much, so that you keep the leverage, ideally forever. this is in essence a modern version of the colonial model. it is not really based on mutual benefit, and is not really fair trade.

china otoh is just entering a period of dominant position, and has been expanding its influence all over the planet for a while, very much so in developing countries, eg. africa. they ofc seek profit too, and are also primarily after natural resources, but they offer better deals and and give them agency, allowing their investment to actually improve those countries' development. it's a longer term strategy that forfeits a little of the immediate profit in favor of being fairer, fostering good relations and general exchange, and the expectation of the country becoming a more solid partner in the future that has much more to offer than mere resources, for one becoming a profitable market of chinese products, but not only. this is based on mutual benefit, and the whole brics initiative operates on this premise.

one could argue that china's different approach is a factor of their status as an emergent power. maybe as they become more and more dominant this will change. maybe it's just their philosophy and their vision of a future multipolar world. i guess we'll find out.

would that matter if that economy didn't depend on constantly producing weapons to function? these limitations mainly apply to the defense sector.

dependency is normal. all countries are dependent on others to varying degrees. diversify, and fair trade and exchange are mutual benefits. it might become a problem when one country starts acting like a school bully. which is the case here. in that case the bully better has his shit together. in this case he hasn't.

now, let me share a wild idea, this is just a random thought, a crazy what-if: what if trump was perfectly aware that this would backfire on the military complex, and is totally fine with it, because that's precisely one festering ground of his political enemies? he does show keen interest in the military and specially in selling weapons but maybe he doesn't really need that many hugely expenisve high tech missiles, or stratospheric bombers, he must know that most of these arms delivery deals and golden shields he brags about aren't even realizable on those scales, not for years, so maybe that's just a distraction? what if he has no intention whatsoever to attack china, nor iran for that matter, and the military he really is interested in is more a federal military police type of force, driven by an entirely different set of people? crazy stuff.

i don't think china really gives a crap about other 'leaders' chest-thumping for domestic consumption. they do care about trade being fair or just an instrument for interference, and respond in kind.

i guess as proof of due dilligence, oh the irony. this whole thing is a mess.

stalemate? slow on the news. the new-new-new narrative is that nato is winning again. winning! i'm telling you! pinky swear!

btw zelenksy already prepared his parachute: "as long as ukraine continues to exist, we won". well, there is a small possibility that ukraine actually ceases to exist completely as such, but in a sense he's not wrong: the current warmongers will never accept defeat, no matter what, they are going to keep poking russia until they are replaced or hell breaks loose. the us won't accept defeat either, they'll just walk away and blame it on the eu.

meanwhile germany, uk and france are on the path of either economic or sociopolitic meltdown, or both, but it's all putin's fault. the way out seems to be to talk about war nonstop, cray "the barbarians are at the gates!", pay even more for energy, outlaw oposition, supress free speech, divert billions from social spending to buy us weapons (well, germany actually wants to manufacture their own army now, with some imaginary factories) all of which will just increase socioeconomic tensions even more which they think is good ... if you want to recruit young men willing to die on the front and reset your failed status quo.

we have been there, and we do not learn. "the old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters"

not disputing that, but i've come to think that the role of middle managers is often to inflate the headcount, because headcount tends to be a criteria both for the perceived valuation of the company (specially if the intent is to sell), and also the preceived importance of higher level management: you're worth as much as the number of people reporting to you. now, if you want to increase headcount but don't have actual work for that many people, middle management role is a good choice as its output is very hard to measure and it gives the impression that your staff is very busy and organized and your company is valuable.

this has been going on for a while, specially so in the startup sector but actually anywhere where venture capital was the main fuel. and it worked if the aim was to artificially grow and then sell out. however, i've seen projects go bust because of middle manager chaos, and i have also see companies go bust in consequence.

however, the game has changed quite a bit now. ai is now the hot investment lure, and one of the salient points of ai is that it allows to reduce headcount, so greater headcount has ceased to be attractive, quite the contrary. so to increase your perceived value it's better to ride the ai wave and invest in fancy ai tools and get rid of the deadweight.

now, as we have discussed previously here, the case of 35% reduction in google in particular was a completely different thing, those weren't really layoffs but just internal reorganization. but, well, middle journalists may ignore these very signifiicant subtleties if they don't suit their bombastic headlines ...

for one, artists are special by definition. then again this is highly subjective and depending on your definition of art and artists.

there is a tiny portion of the population that is able to think and act (and hence "produce") in a way that is not available to others, being able to produce "art" that inspires other people and enhances the colective culture of a society. this is very valuable. in turn, a portion of these are able to do that because external help allows them to focus on it, be it a patron, a rich family or winning the lottery. others sort of get by doing gigs or even doing it along a day-job. finally others simply cannot do it, because they can't monetize their art, or they lack support or business skills.

supporting the latter group does seem a good investment which could contribute "invaluable" value to a country's culture. but the question of who is to decide who is eligible and what even the definition and the objective selection criteria should be seems to me very, very murky waters. i don't even think that's possible in any sensible and serious way. anybody can claim to be an artist, and actually does, and it also strikes me that this is "not means-tested". this makes no sense at all.

mind you, i'm all for universal welfare and think it is inevitable in the future, if we even get to have one, that is. but this is a clearly an electoralist measure and i dunno what the socioeconomic status in ireland is atm, but if there is even one single person that can't make ends meet while this is in place then yes, they would have very good reason to be outraged. the thing is ... i suspect they have far bigger reasons to be outraged for.

well, at least they tried and failed. i guess the money ran out.

about "just another chromium", i think that in all its evil google made a huge contribution to competition by opening it up. there is little/marginal competition for chromium itself, the js engine and html renderer are the big core blocks of a browser and these are insanely complex pieces of software, specially the renderer because of the clusterfuck that html is, and that's because it has become the universal user interface standard which is something it wasn't initially designed to be. at all. it's a frankenstein monster. replacing these foundations is hugely expensive and time consuming, and redefining the underlying design would be a nearly unsourmountable challenge because it is aready universally implanted and expected. it's too big a change, too late, so i do not expect much innovation in that field going forward, or rather none at all. however, there is still room for fresh ideas and different perspectives on top of that, and this is where most of the competition is actually happening: on chromium. so, good for them.

we definitely should rethink the entire web stack at this point, with the decades of experience we have, but that's a very hard nut to crack and getting any adoption would be either revolutionary like we have never seen or doomed to fail like swimming against the rapids. if there is any change it will be motivated by external factors, a change in the context.

i used opera for a good while years ago and i both loved it and hated it. it brought up very interesting features and stupid ideas alike, and its engineering was a bit hit and miss, very effcient but glitchy. that said, at least they were original and doing something different, competition is good. i'm no longer interested, but i wouldn't say it is garbage.

regarding this ai thing, this mass hysteria of integrating ai into everything, specifically the browser, is just dumb. ai is just too rapidly evolving and browser integration has too little value to add to make it worth the effort. but everyone wants a share, either for fomo or to desperately stay relevant. i wish them luck with their new business model and the roughly $1990/month of potential revenue from all its 100 users ...

i don't think so. in the long run, yes, probably (possibly?), but fossil use is still increasing and hasn't spiked yet. actually, it's getting a boost for several reasons: geopolitics, various domestic economic woes and last but not least, profit.

caveat: you say "need". and in that regard you are absolutely right. we wouldn't really have so much "need" for it if spurious interest weren't involved, but here we are. so that's a whish, not the reality.