Ever visited the Netherlands? Almost all urban intersections are roundabouts. It works.

Roundabouts have consistently fewer casualties, and usually better traffic flow. Those seem like valid reasons to me.

The AI bubble produced many useful products already, many of which will remain useful even after the bubble popped.

The term bubble is mostly about how investment money flows around. Right now you can get near infinite moneys if you include the term AI in your business plan. Many of the current startups will never produce a useful product, and after the bubble has truly popped, those who haven’t will go under.

Amazon, ebay, booking and cisco survived the dotcom bubble, as they attracted paying users before the bubble ended. Things like github copilot, dalee, chat bots etc are genuinely useful products which have already attracted paying cusomers. Some of these products may end up being provided by competitors of the current providers, but someone will make long term money from these products.

As a European, I feel that rhetoric of violence is the most American way of doing politics.

I’m not confident it is a Russian op, but Russia has always fueled both sides of the political spectrum. They don’t necessarily want one side to prevail, they just want their opponents to be divided.

While the plastic gadgets are wasteful, they don’t hold a candle to all the unnecessary food packaging that’s used. Just tear apart one of your garbage bags, and see how much is food-related packaging and how much is gadgets.

I visited the US (WV) recently, and I was appalled by how much waste goes unrecycled. At home (Europe) our family produces one bag of unrecycled waste every 2 weeks, in WV we produced 6 bags in 2 weeks, and that’s while living in European style (refillable water bottles, declining plastic bags for groceries, buying unpackaged produce, etc.).

In the 1930s, the Netherlands kept detailed records of ethnicity for every citizen. No one thought this was unnecessary, as ethnicity wasn’t something that could ever be used against you.

That line of thought ended when the Germans took over in may 1940. Unfortunately those records still existed, and aided the most efficient genocide in human history. Without those records, many jews, sinti and Roma would’ve been able to deny their ancestry and evade being murdered.

Privacy from government and corporations will one day save lives.

Is it socially acceptable today? Maybe I’m biased by my location (western Europe), but Ive never seen people with fashist views getting widespread acceptance. Unfortunately that doesn’t the lone wolf from making quite a bit of noise, though.