In my limited experience of just living in bad neighborhoods, most gangs I’ve encountered are just small groups of kids that sell drugs, rob, burglarize, fight, and occasionally kill kids in other small groups. From talking to older people that were in gangs (well, they still consider themselves to be in a gang, but the gang doesn’t functionally exist or do anything), things were much different in the 80s and 90s. Guessing it differs depending on the city though (there aren’t really “territories” in my city; drugs are sold through apps/text).

I’ve heard it claimed social stratification didn’t really start happening until agriculture; that’s when you see many small residential structures and a few large ones. On the other hand, it allowed for specialization and the pursuit of arts and sciences (at least for the elite).

They seem to be trying to emulate Russia, Hungary, or even Nazi Germany. So probably similar things. The US tech oligarchs seem to want something like Dark Enlightenment, while the other politically powerful sect seems to want christo-fascism; all seem to be white nationalist to varying degrees.

I think some people in the admin actually want that. A lot of them are heavily into crypto and other assets such as real-estate, and they won’t be able to balance trade as long as the USD is the world’s reserve currency.

I think they could just print money to pay instead of defaulting because the debt is denominated in USD (still disastrous though).

There are multiple videos to corroborate.

And immigrants here legally as well. And because they’re ignoring due process and habeas corpus, I have no doubt, citizens who committed no crime soon (they’ve already kidnapped citizens and looted citizens homes, but haven’t exiled citizens yet, AFAIK).

Edit: Forgot. Yes, they have already started kidnapping and exiling citizens who are minors.

Yes, and it’s very popular, at least with younger people. Asmongold, Rogan, Shapiro, Fresh and Fit, Charlie Kirk, etc. They’re usually further right than mainstream too. The algorithms boost them, they typically sell snake oil/crypto, and are suspiciously well-funded (last year, many were found to be taking Russian money).

Privacy policy changes are worrying. They also implemented Privacy Preserving Attribution, which sends anonymized data to advertisers, and enable it by default. I personally like LibreWolf.

I don’t think the next generation of the US is looking over at the Foxconn dorms and their suicide nets with envy. Even the average manufacturing job still in the US doesn’t pay a living wage (due to unions being destroyed). Not that these tariffs will bring manufacturing back anyway.

current large models like ChatGPT model more “neurons” than are in the human brain

I don’t think that’s true. Parameter counts are more akin to neural connections, and the human brain has something like 100 trillion connections.

I agree, and I probably won’t be fine. A failed dictatorship is better than a successful one.

I’d guess it’s mostly the AI autocomplete stuff. I.e. you keep on typing until the AI guesses it right then press tab to save keystrokes. LLMs are really bad at making test cases in my experience; they, ironically, can’t do the simple but nuanced computations needed to figure out what the output should be given the inputs, or to recognize and test the edge cases.

There was a story a couple weeks ago about another person getting deported on expunged charges. I’m guessing some agencies still keep records after expungement (I’ve heard they still show up when getting security clearance), and they’re using that data.

I think shortages will be short-lived as companies and retailers just have to suck it up and pay more. People won’t be able to buy as much stuff, so layoffs and a recession or depression are likely, but there’s not much I can think of doing to prepare for that.

I have Berberis Repens in full shade where almost nothing else will grow. Hasn’t bloomed yet though. Google says it’s good down to USDA zone 5. I think there are more ornamental Berberis species and hybrids that may work too.

Probably because the article is from a business news outlet. I have heard a lawyer talk about the case, saying it was very unusually for her to be arrested for such charges (Leeja Miller I believe; not really a journalist, just a youtuber).

Trump and Bukele are ideologically alike. Bukele wants more funding for his prison, which the US is providing. The prison is basically a black-site with journalists given very limited and controlled access. For all I know, it could be a deathcamp; they do use forced labor, so it is at least a slave camp. Also, they never release anyone from there, which further raises the suspicion of it being a death camp.

He could be insane and doing it for graft. He obviously sees himself like a mobster and tries to operate like one. My theory is he wants to individually negotiate tariffs to solicit bribes from businesses and foreign countries. It’s not exactly 4d chess. He just knows he has the power to pressure the richest and most powerful people on the planet, so he’s going to use that power to enrich himself and family. I don’t think he actually understands much about tariffs or much of anything though.

Also, the evidence of insider trading and market manipulation is pretty convincing to me. I don’t think that was the original intention, but Trump, or those around him saw the opportunity and took it.

Years ago, I used to just ignore letters. Nothing happened for years. Moved and switched ISPs (smaller, regional), then was banned by that ISP after a few months, lol. Copyright holders can sue you, so it’s just an odds thing.

I just use a VPN now. Used Tribler before I set up my Arr stack, because Tribler didn’t work well with it. Tribler is faster than i2p if you use 1 hop, but theoretically, the Movie Picture Association could run an exit node and still sue you, if you only use 1 hop. (Actually, it’d probably be a legal gray area for them to run an exit node because they would be facilitating piracy).