Spyke

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world

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You could say smoking is one of the most human activities ever. Does nothing but actively harm and potentially kill everything around you. Just what we're the best at.

But seriously now. Can we speed up smoking bans? Like, everywhere?

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Both Sides SaMe!!

As usual, mass propaganda turns the world black and white, and divides people exactly into two groups to make sure they never unite.

By the way, you can acknowledge that both sides are made up of the worst scum human history has ever seen and vote for the "lesser evil" at the same time! You don't have to, and you probably shouldn't let your vote influence your entire personality and/or belief system.

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Former President Joe Biden diagnosed with 'aggressive' prostate cancer

This comment section shows that even on decentralized, less mainstream platforms there's a lot of people behaving similarly to what would be called bots on Reddit. Come on, guys, we can do better than this.

We can acknowledge Joe Biden's crimes and failures without cheering his sickness and wishing him a painful death. Same with Donald Trump and all the other scummy politicians.

We can also disagree about various policies, issues or parties while treating each other with respect and an open mind, instead of degrading all discussion to 'communism vs capitalism' or 'democracy vs fascism' arguments.

I know it can be difficult to remain civil towards government officials who are essentially criminals, and anyone who supports or seems to support them in any capacity. However, I personally think we should try.

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What If We Made Advertising Illegal?

Personally I've been of the opinion that advertising, at least in its current form, should be illegal since I was about 15. I'm not 100% sure if it should be completely illegal, or just very heavily regulated. Even after all those years, I'm still baffled nearly every day that people around me seem okay with current advertising.

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From my experience, it's almost always "Chrome doesn't have feature x". It's the most feature poor browser currently in wide use. The only advantage that comes to mind is web dev tools, which: a) 99% of people don't care about, because they aren't web devs. b) Chromium also has, and it's like the considerably less infuriating twin.

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America is fucked

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Shitty solution to a shitty problem in my opinion. Quite often patients are indeed put into the ambulance immediately. Ambulances also have tons of medical equipment, none of which you can fit on a bike, obviously. Then there's the question of paramedic safety, especially given how many road accidents there are in the US. Plus, that would be a major cost for healthcare providers. Instead of 2 paramedics, you'd need 3 or 4, since they can't go solo, again due to safety concerns. Overall this isn't something we should be looking for alternative solutions to. You can't keep making workarounds for systemic issues, like horrible road/traffic design or society being severely uneducated.

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Microsoft says it provided AI to Israeli military for war but denies use to harm people in Gaza

However, the company said it had found no evidence to date that its Azure platform and AI technologies were used to target or harm people in the Gaza Strip.

I'm sure it's technically true. Can't find evidence if you're not looking for it. Or if you're actively sabotaging any such efforts. Or if you've deliberately created a framework that makes it easy and likely for any 'evidence' to disappear.

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WhatsApp is officially getting ads

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It's not very easy to solve the issue of infinite growth in a world with finite resources. The fundamental issue is that it's just not physically possible, but they keep trying. Either we continue this cycle and eventually destroy the planet irreversibly, or we acknowledge that maybe money isn't everything, and that maybe [the vast majority of] people aren't inherently egoitistical monsters, and we move on to different systems.

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Notepad

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The fundamental roadblock here is: people are generally done with 'learning' when they become adult. Not learning computers or software, or anything else in particular. Just learning. There seems to be a somewhat common idea that 'education' and 'learning' is for children, and as an adult, you should have better things to do. Sadly, we can see all around where such an idea leads us.

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Tesla, $TSLA, Board of Directors have just reportedly opened a search for a CEO to succeed Elon Musk

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They are the best EV out there

First of all, there are a ton of EVs right now, with a new one coming out every day. While Teslas are generally solid EVs, it's not so obvious thay they are the best. Have you seen the new Chinese ones? Have you tried them?

Second, this means little even if accurate. For the time being, EVs have little purpose due to the technology (mostly batteries) being incredibly underdeveloped for use in vehicles. So "the best EV" is still, overall, terrible.

Their main advantage is supposedly that they are environment-friendly. Well, that is mostly (still not fully) true only if you never swap out the battery. Which in a few years makes the car barely usable. Due to the way lithium-ion batteries work, their condition degrades rapidly when you charge them quickly, or only half-way, or leave them charging overnight. It's the same as in a smartphone. Just look at people's iPhone's battery conditions after one year of use. Except in an EV, battery life directly translates to range.

A Tesla Model S has a marketed range of 373 miles. At 100%, brand new battery condition. Regular use can bring the condition down to as little as 80% over a period of one year. That depletes the car's range to approximately 300 miles. And the condition will continue to drop. To keep the condition high, you'd need to charge the battery relatively slowly (24-48 hours of charging) and from a very low charge to a mostly full charge. Precisely the same way you keep your phone's battery condition high. This is simply unrealistic in the context of EVs.

This leaves us with the inevitable replacement of batteries, which alone generate more CO2 emissions to produce than entire combustion engine cars, including driving them for a year on average. Does this still sound environmentally friendly to anyone?

As it stands, the technology just isn't there for us to be able to make good, environment-friendly EVs. And I'm ignoring all of their other issues here. To include everything, you'd have to write a novel. I don't mean to hate on EVs too much, but to me personally it looks like currently they just make very little, if any, sense. Maybe in a few years? Chinese companies are successfully developing new types of batteries, but they're not sharing them with western companies.

We'll see what the future brings. In any event, don't stop boycotting Tesla even if the CEO changes. Musk still has a shitload of Tesla stock, so the company's financial state is closely linked to his.