This is well thought out and a good point, it does feel like though there should be some “special case” for donating land to keep for public use as a park.
You are right though, how long can someone who doesn’t own that land, have authority on how it is used.
Maybe a bit out of scope for this article, but seems like in every country “Younger millenials and Gen-Zers” are turning to gambling online while traditional gambling (like Vegas) dies.
I feel like this might be a net negative from the pure speed and access in which you can lose money online vs real life, but idk.
In regard to number 1, it really is such a hard problem to get money and aid to those that need it. Autocrats and every person with power along the way is happy to pocket it.
“Tbh they could've just hooked up zig translate-c to c2rust”
This doesn’t work like you think it does. These things are full of errors and make the code very verbose and hard to reason about. It works with small apps, not entire rewrites.
Saving energy is something we are biologically trained to prefer.
Computers won’t necessarily have the same drivers.
If evolution wanted us to always prefer to spend energy, we would prefer it. Same way you wouldn’t expect us to get to AGI, and have AGI desperately want to drink water or fly south for the winter.
> But traders weren’t just active on Polymarket: there were similar surges of oil futures trading activity just hours before Trump announced updates to the conflict that would lower oil prices.
Prediction markets are all the buzz, but banning them isn’t fixing the problem. This has happened forever. Let’s not forget there was an unusual amount of put option buying right before 9/11: https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jnlbus/v79y2006i4p1703-1726.ht...
I don’t know if just one instance means direct democracy is bad. For example, in the US referendums have been used a lot for issues that are popular for voters, but politicians won’t touch.
(Weed legalization in many states, Abortion protection in Missouri I believe)
You could also argue Brexit. Ultimately, most of the UK was okay with shooting themselves in the foot to feel more independent like the good olds days. Maybe was wrong long-term, but if it’s what the people wanted, then maybe it’s good. Politicians never would have done it despite the people wanting it.
> 12 trading ships from Black Sea ports made desperately incompetent efforts to dock alongside the harbour walls. Then the reason became devastatingly clear; very few of their crews were still alive. The living were emaciated skeletons, covered with black boils that oozed blood and pus.
Can’t imagine what that must have been like to witness in medieval Italy.
Anthropic is a good example of my point, judges are blocking that action.
The president has always had these powers, starting wars hasn’t been a congressional power since World War II. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq twice were all police actions by the president.
For the most part he can do what he wants at first, but the system eventually pulls back. It’s happened with ICE, it’s happened with Anthropic, it’s happened with interest rates and pressure to effect fed reserve chairs.
Had this conversation with a friend, but I think as an America you can be very optimistic about the institutional strength of democracy in the country.
People are very pessimistic recently, but if anything, we are seeing that our system works well. A person got into power that a majority voted for, but when he oversteps, the courts and other institutions (even judges and fed reserve chairs he picked!) seem to hold him to the rules.
I get the pessimism, but for the most part, I kinda think the system is working.
You are saying this like there are other of nations that didn’t need to struggle for equal rights, workers’ right etc.