Isn’t the new Syrian government an ex-IS offshoot?

Have they considered spending less on war and more on education / R&D?

The friend fell off.

Bangladesh is a very populous country that lies almost entirely at sea level, and the Ganga and Brahmaputra flood at least once a year. The problem isn’t not being able to swim in calm water. The best swimmer in the world would still die if he got caught in one of those currents.

Ah yes, the French Revolution …

THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror … A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

• Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/989759-there-were-two-reigns-of-terror-if-we-would-but

The admins seem to not crack down on misogyny, transphobia and so on. If they’re doing it on principle - refusing to censor and letting the bigots make fools of themselves in public - then I guess I can respect that. But on the other hand, sometimes silence can be seen as approval.

I wonder if it will be somewhat better here.

If you host your own instance, you have complete control over what gets posted. If not, you have to follow your instance’s rules.

one of the requirements being having to copy a sentence from the link provided which links to some article called “The Principles of Communism” which I thought was very odd for a site to do.

That’s just basic bot detection, like a captcha. Karl Marx’s works are out of copyright, and Lemmy’s lead developer is a communist, hence the choice.

it’s part of the sign-up process to almost pledge to some political or religious ideology.

In general, instances don’t expect you to agree with their mods on politics or religion, but the content hosted on that instance would be somewhat biased towards the mods’ tastes. So you go from lemmygrad (far-left) to lemmy.ml (centre-left) to lemm.ee (centrist) to shitjustworks (centre-right) to lemmy.world (right-wing). Personally I’d avoid the first and last, but it’s up to each person to decide what’s right for them.

The smallest Indian city that (almost) all Indians would know would be the hill resort of Shimla (pop 170,000). However, this is because a place is expected to have a population of about 100,000 to be declared a ‘city’, so for example New Delhi is only a town.

It would be great if he can at least press the IMF into agreeing to concessions on the bailout terms. The Rajapakses and their friends looted the country and ordinary people have been left holding the bag.

For now, it is great that he seems to have won over the Tamils, Muslims and hill people. Hopefully this leads to an end to the ethnic conflict that politicians (on both sides) were using to rile up their base.

Arabic and Chinese then.

As an Indian, I just hope they steal someone else’s sacred symbol this time.

I agree, but the UN is useful only when countries pay at least lip service to its decisions. Israel is attacking UN aid workers. Anyway, they won’t get kicked as long as the US defends them, so it’s just a symbolic vote.

The Linux kernel (the code) is open-source. Linux Foundation (the people who write said code) is headquartered in the US. The US can decide what Linux Foundation can and cannot do, who works there, etc. They can’t control who uses the code.

I’m guessing most IoT devices are made in China (or increasingly Southeast Asia), so yes.

Because (1) lithium contamination is a much, much, smaller problem than climate change and (2) we shouldn’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Of course, if the EU is combining taxes on EV import with an equivalent investment in public transport or cycling / walking infrastructure, I wouldn’t be complaining.

Subsidizing production does not … from China anyways (eg. batteries).

I’m asking why the EU isn’t subsudising their domestic EV industry and starting a competition in electric propulsion technology. That would benefit everyone, except maybe the oil lobby.

one should disincentivize internal combustion vehicles by adding taxes to them

Why not both? And preferrably better subsidies for public transport / cycles / footpaths, etc.

avoid misusing words like “terrorist” because, when misused this way

If killing a handful of people is terrorism, what would you call trying to kill the entire human race (along with thousands of random other species)? ‘Terrorist’ is, if anything, too mild a word to describe such filth.

They saw the red cross symbol and thought it was the x mark on the target. (/s)

these US assets are present at the express request of the Kurdish militia, which is formed by the people who actually live there who got sick and tired of the oppression of the religious fundamentalist regime

So like the Russian military units that are present at the express request of the Donetsk and Lugansk militias, which is formed by the people who actually live there [and] who got sick and tired of the oppression of the Ukrainian state?

China heavily subsidizes EV manufacturers (and production in general)

And that’s a bad thing? Any sensible government is going to subsidise renewable energy and electric vehicles. It makes both economic and environmental sense. Anyone not doing this is an idiot and a climate terrorist.

The best course of action for India is to remain neutral and trade with everyone. Whatever mistakes the current government is making, they have fortunately understood this principle.