The internet was a government project. Silicon Valley is a government creation. The internet nor silicon valley exists without government funding. Government investment can be a good thing as long as they allow space for the private sector.

The EU should also look into subsidizing their tech stack ( hardware and software ) like they did with Airbus. Hopefully india will follow soon after and eventually ASEAN and africa. The more competition and diversity of options, the better.

Agreed. But I think they've made up their minds already.

In the meantime, you can use "old.reddit.com" until they decide to take that away.

To be fair, you can say that about almost every empire - mongol, greek, british, ottoman, persian, babylonian, etc. I doubt the mongol empire stretching from vietnam to korea and moscow to baghdad will ever be unified under a single empire.

> If you consider how many different countries and cultures occupy that space today

To be fair, most of the countries and cultures that occupy that space today weren't ruled by the romans. Rome never ruled england as england came into existence after the anglo-saxons conquered roman britannia. As for syria and egypt, the romans never ruled the arabs who dominate the region.

> it really puts the magnitude of their empire into perspective.

Rather than the magnitude, I think the legacy of the roman empire is what separates it from others.

The roman empire wasn't particularly that large.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires

Considering that private companies are now becoming more powerful than many governments/countries, maybe this is something we should take another look at.

> When the government does it, you can't express that idea anywhere.

Can't you argue that you can always move to another country, just like you can use another company?

> When private companies do it, you can still express those ideas somewhere else.

Depends on the private company and its scale/monopolistic position.

"English started out as German. Old English, also called Anglo-Saxon, really is a foreign language, and requires serious study. I don't think an anglophone can learn to read it with mere tricks."

I can only copy and paste the full context so many times...

> So you either misunderstand what Germanic is, or you're choosing to read the author's sentence substituting "Germanic" for German, or you're being deliberately hostile.

No you are being intentionally obtuse. You knew fully what the author meant but you intentionally cherrypicked one sentence and misrepresented his entire point.

The author CLEARLY stated : "English started out as German. Old English, also called Anglo-Saxon, really is a foreign language, and requires serious study. I don't think an anglophone can learn to read it with mere tricks."

> ... Socrates is a man, all men are mortal, socrates is mortal... but not all men are socrates.

You might want to look up what a syllogism is.

The easiest way to end your nonsense. Lets end it once and for all. So you are claiming that the author is saying that english came from the modern german language right?

"English started out as German. Old English, also called Anglo-Saxon, really is a foreign language, and requires serious study. I don't think an anglophone can learn to read it with mere tricks."

To you, the author is saying english came from the modern german language with the statements above? Of course not. You are so full of shit, I don't know why you keep pushing your nonsense. Of course you won't answer but go off on a tangent. People can see through your nonsense. Have a nice day.

And what reference did you provide? Other than your supposed ability to predict the future?

> Four years is FOREVER in the energy business now.

It isn't. Also, considering solar subsidies have collapsed throughout the world, especially since 2016, it's far more likely solar has lost ground. Going from insignificant to worthless. But that's probably why you haven't posted any sources right? So you should be thanking me for using 2016 data because solar has taken a beating since 2016.

> PV costs fell by a factor of 5 in the last decade, you know.

5 times nothing is still nothing. You know.

Solar was a nonfactor in 2016. Solar is a nonfactor today. Solar will be a nonfactor in the future. Mindless zealotry won't change the facts on the ground.

"Full context: "English started out as German. Old English, also called Anglo-Saxon, really is a foreign language, and requires serious study. I don't think an anglophone can learn to read it with mere tricks."

> Did you even read what I wrote?

Yes, I even responded on a point by point basis. Did you read what I wrote?

> German and English started from a common ancestor yes

It is clear the author was talking about german as in germanic. Hence why he referred to old english and anglo-saxon. Nobody is saying that english came from the modern german language.

You sneakily copied one sentence out of context to argue nonsense - that the author claimed english came from modern german. You built up a silly straw man and you got called out.

Once again. The author wasn't claiming the modern english language came from modern german. But the language that english descended from was german. Just like the anglo-saxon people were german. As in germanic. Okay?

Full context: "English started out as German. Old English, also called Anglo-Saxon, really is a foreign language, and requires serious study. I don't think an anglophone can learn to read it with mere tricks."

> Can we not do better than this?

Can you just stop copying and pasting things out of context?

> But this is like saying that "Spanish started out as French" or "Romanian started out as Italian"

It's more like saying spanish started as latin given the context.

> English is descendended from the Anglo-Saxon dialects

So english started out as german?

Solar is a nonfactor in energy. It counts for absolutely nothing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#/medi...

The only energy disruption we've had is natural gas in the last few decades.

To show you how insignificant solar is, it only makes up 15% of renewables. The largest renewable source is wind ( 3X more energy than solar ).

https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/4-charts-show-renewable...

Interesting. Wonder if they did brain scans on people taking morphine to see if the same areas were affected. If so, couldn't we narrow "mindfulness of pain" to that section of the brain?

Right and life went on before you decided to play "hero".

> They apologized because they were being civil and polite not out of some admission of guilt.

But you told him not to apologize. So that means you told him not to be civil? Also, it's not polite to speak for others as it isn't part of civil discourse.

> I think you can see what others thought of your tone as well.

Others? Just you. And it's rather childish to "appeal to downvotes".

> Both of your comments here come across as very angry.

"Yeah, no."

Listen, the only one causing drama here is you. I made one innocuous and helpful comment. The guy responded and everything was settled. The conversation had nothing to do with you and yet here you are.

"...this is probably not politically correct to say, but I did develop some sympathy for that bishop."

Sympathy implies justification. Also, I clearly explained what caused the bishop's inquisition.

Lets switch it up. Imagine after reading mein kampf or a biography on hitler, nkoren wrote the following.

"...this is probably not politically correct to say, but I did develop some sympathy for that fuhrer."

I bet I wouldn't have gotten flagged and mass downvoted. nkoren's pathetic post is just carefully repackaged white supremacy/white man's burden. I'm surprised nkoren didn't come back with "it was cultural genocide not real genocide". There are a handful oft-repeated racist genocide denial.

> Are we in an alternate reality where 67 year olds immediately drop dead?

This is called a straw man. Where did I say this? Reread my comment calmly and rationally and you'll see I never wrote that.

"I'm all for continued learning but can't that be done in a non-credentialed manner that doesn't disadvantage young people?"

I'm all for old people living their best lives except when it directly and negatively affects young people for no reason other than pure vanity.

I'm all for continued learning but can't that be done in a non-credentialed manner that doesn't disadvantage young people?

Twitter has been the greatest tool to expose the news industry and journalists for what they are. Propagandists and political activists with an agenda.

That said, I agree with those recommendations. I'll add one more. Police departments should almost exclusively hire from the communities they "serve" and/or require police officers to live in the community that they "serve".

Except that the "subject matter experts" have a horrible track record. Also, global warming proponents misrepresent the skepticism. Nobody is really questioning the warming of the earth. People are questioning how much man is responsible for it. After all, the "globe" has been warming for thousands of years before industrialization. There are "subject matter experts" who believe the warming is mostly a natural phenomenon. There are even fringe "subject matter experts" who believe the earth will cool. You aren't a cynic, you are just agenda driven.

> Want to get good medical advice? Find two highly regarded medical specialists and ask them independently for a diagnosis and treatment plan.

Where and which ones? The one's that say you don't need to wear masks or the one's that say you need to wear masks?

I won't bother with the rest. All you are saying is believe and trust authority. But the problem with that was a time when "experts" believed in global cooling, medical experts believed in blood letting, political experts believe in racism, financial experts believe in subprime loan derivatives, etc. Blindly believing authority also tends to cause a lot of problem. The problem with the "experts" in your list is that it has become so politicized and corporaticized that one has to be skeptical by default.

He removed that link from his comment and he apologized because it was the right thing to do. Also, virtue signaling to encourage bad behavior isn't right, no matter how good or superior you think it makes you feel. Especially considering you weren't smart enough to realize that I wasn't criticizing the referrals in his article ( valid ), I was criticizing the shortened link in his comment which was a referral.

Science can lead to new technologies, but new technologies lead to new science as well.

https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/whathassciencedone_03

The general direction of science and technology in the first half of the 20th century indicates that general relativity, theory of computation, etc would have been discovered.

No. Microsoft didn't IPO until 1986. So after the mid 80s to the early 90s.

> when they were both microscopic compared to anything today?

Well, both apple and microsoft were "microscopic" in the 90s compared to what they are now. But still apple was the star tech company of the 80s and microsoft was the star tech company of the 90s.

> Not really a valid comparison.

It actually is if we are being honest. But that wasn't my point. Was just pointing out that once Apple was the big success compared to microsoft because microsoft became the big success. But you can cherrypick dates to fit whatever narrative you wish.