Who’s paying him? Seriously:

• If nobody is, then we got our value’s worth.
• If someone is, then we should look at who, how much, and why.

It’s a -$10/month type of service, they’d have to pay me in order to use it… and they’d still be making money on the data and ads.

They set the price artificially high

Actually… it’s likely only slightly higher than what they get from ads per user, and still lower than what they get from compiling and selling all the information you agree to give them.

Users tend to severely underestimate how much their cumulative data can be sold for.

Oh my, stop it… now the rear can also catch fire?! 🤣

At this point, they don’t have many options, since their economy is based around using the waterways as main transport routes.

Keep in mind Russia can have a container ship delivered from China right to Moscow, and viceversa.

Russia’s best bet (around 2000-2010), was to befriend the EU, while getting rid of all their internal corruption, and start treating ex-USSR republics as proper states instead of relying on forcing puppet governments in them. Especially in Ukraine, they shouldn’t have burned their puppet government in 2014 by making it accept a worse deal than what the EU was offering, definitely not before at least having the country split in half and Crimea+Donbass secured as separate puppet countries.

By uniting Ukraine, then making an enemy out of the EU, while still allowing a ton of internal corruption, Putin has screwed Russia royally.

Russia’s only options right now are to either:

• Roll over and ask the EU, Ukraine and NATO to pretty please forgive them… which Putin would not survive (best case scenario, he’d stand before the Hague tribunal, if he got to live that long)
• Dig an even deeper hole for themselves until they go full nuclear… which Russia as a country would not survive (but maybe Putin could, in a good bunker)
• Have a civil war… which Putin might be able to flee, while whoever ended up on top could roll over and ask the EU, Ukraine and NATO to forgive them pretty please.

Speculatively:

• Spend some bucks on Iran to support Hamas going full berserk in Gaza in an attempt to shift US attention from Ukraine… (which already had Republicans ask to reduce military aid for Ukraine while increasing it for Israel)… and hope to secure some more of Donbass before those F16 make it basically impossible for Russia to do anything. Then push for an armistice with the new borders.

But it’s kind of impossible for Ukraine to willingly agree to that, highly unlikely for the EU to lift its sanctions just because, and NATO would still rather have Russia disappear as a threat completely.

The EU might agree if it included guaranteeing a safe tax-free railway corridor to China, which would on one hand still hurt Russia, but on the other they could also benefit from a railway connection to China, even if it isn’t that much better than having container ships go from China right to Moscow.

pedantic_mode 1

You didn’t need to enable it again, since they forgot to disable it.

pedantic_mode 0

“What if technology was… (wait for it)… just technology, you ape with a gun”

Technology is neither good nor bad, it’s how you use it. The intent of Black Mirror is to make you think about how you use technology… but of course if you blame technology for your own actions, it doesn’t work.

which race has the least amount of people

The “human” race.

There are no races of humans, “human” is the race.

Just make them look and sound as whatever stereotype they have for that race.

I’d watch that.

Please look again at the map for the Unified Deep Water System.

This isn’t about having a port on the Black Sea, it’s about having ships from ports in inland Russia getting unobstructed waterway access to the Black Sea, from where they can go to the Mediterranean and beyond.

Russia has access to the Black Sea through the Sea of Azov, which is controlled by whoever controls Crimea… and to maintain control over Crimea, Russia needs supply lines over a land access at least across the Donbass, not just through a bridge that can be bombed at any time, as it has been already.

Both the Donbass and Crimea, Ukraine considers to be Ukrainian land, even though the history of both areas is plagued by forced resettlements during the USSR times.

Additionally, there are natural resources, some ports, and a nuclear plant in the Donbass area, which Russia would happily take over.

You’re right, I’ve checked my notes and it mentions Shell; technically British now, post-BREXIT, but it has branches all over the world.

Anyway, the problem with those $400B is… if a corporation can sell for $400B and it only costs them $200B to extract and distribute it plus $20B to kill everyone in Gaza… that’s $180B of “clean” money (just dripping some blood). Shell’s yearly revenue is $380B, with a net income of $40B, so they’re just the kind who might consider it a reasonable 5-10 year plan.

Some wars are about who gets control over some resources, or who will be collecting the taxes, without trying to wipe out the other side.

Wait until you hear it’s not “under Gaza” but under the sea, in what would be Gaza’s “economic influence” area… and that the Palestinian Authority has been in talks with Egypt to extract it, while Israel has been in talks with US corporations.

The gas is expected to be worth about 400 billion USD.

Russia wants to keep unobstructed access to the Black Sea, for its freight and military ships.

The EU and China want to keep a railroad from China to the EU, through Kazakhstan and Ukraine or Belarus, to cut in half the time freight ships take.

Both need control over the same piece(s) of land.

For reference:

• Unified Deep Water System of European Russia
• Dec 10, 2014 - First direct China-Madrid freight train arrives after epic 13,000km journey

The difference between Putin and Israel is… that Putin “rescued”, relocated, and gave a bunch of children to surrogate families, before bombing their parents.

I mean… that’s “technically” less inhumane, or something?

and the breaking is biased to the front.

What does that mean, the front falls off?

The point is they had all of that to do by hand, and still managed to “work for hire” less time than us in a society where over 90% of the stuff is automated.

Peasants had at least a couple changes of clothes, plus the Sunday and festivities clothes.

Also don’t forget that salmon for dinner didn’t catch itself, you either spend the time, or it’s lobster night again. And better remember to get some flour to the baker to get some bread made for the family, or it’s lobster with month old moldy bread. Better hope the chickens lay some eggs for breakfast.

On the other hand if you had a kilt, your balls would’ve been freezing though.