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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: October 19th, 2023

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  • I’ve got nothing against you. I’m just not willing to accept a lecture (from other people, not you) about being “lazy” for wanting tap-to-pay on my cell phone. My statement is that the convenience of tap-to-pay for payment cards and transit passes is not worth the otherwise marginal privacy benefit of switching to Graphene.




  • NateNate60@lemmy.worldtoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldthe war on computation
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    2 days ago

    As it is right now, my cell phone replaces a collection of about six plastic cards. I have not yet found a wieldy phone case that has space to store payment cards.

    Realistically, this question could also be asked with cash. If you’re going to be pulling out a wallet-like item anyway, and you are that concerned with privacy, why not go with anonymous, fee-free, secure, actually offline paper money? Card processing is not offline. The card machine has to be connected to the Internet for it to work (offline card processing theoretically exists, but is not widely implemented enough to rely on and is not particularly secure).

    If people are going to argue that wanting to pay with a cell phone instead of a plastic card makes me lazy because the card takes a few extra seconds to use compare to the phone, I’m going to argue in turn that they’re lazy for using a card when using cash, with all of its privacy benefits, also only takes a few seconds more.


  • I’d love to stay private, but I’m so addicted to giving my financial information to banks that I can’t handle pulling out a lighter, fee-free, no-Internet-access-required, and nearly universally-accepted banknote from my wallet and so will continue to give up data about my spending so I can continue to be mildly inconvenienced.



  • Government sources indicate that the US really only imports from two Middle Eastern countries: Iraq and Saudi Arabia. I don’t see how either of those countries would be particularly displeased if the US cuts off Israel.

    Israel is a useless ally. They just hold their hands out for American money and don’t seem to provide anything in return other than bad press. Maybe you could make an argument that Israel’s position is beneficial for regional stability, but I don’t see why other countries couldn’t fill that role. There is no shortage of strongmen in the Middle East. Yeah, they’re the “oNlY deMocRaCy iN tHe MiddLe EasT” but that means nothing if their electorate always just votes for politicians who want to massacre their neighbours.



  • Israel’s government issued a formal declaration of war against Hamas on 7th October 2023. But that doesn’t give it the right to attack Syria.

    You don’t need to recognise the entity you are declaring war against as a state to do so. Cameroon declared war against Ambazonia (separatist group) on 4th December 2017.

    Notably for this conflict, the First Syrian Republic declared war against Israel in 1948. While the two never agreed to a peace treaty, the First Syrian Republic no longer exists, nor its successor, nor its successor’s successor, Israel’s attack against Syria is—to put it very, very generously—of extremely dubious legality under international law. I don’t claim to be an expert in international law, but after the Assad regime was overthrown, I would consider the new Syrian Arab Republic as a legally different polity than its predecessor. I don’t recall hearing any confirmations from the new Syrian government that they want to continue war against Israel, so if that is all correct then Israel just attacked a neutral country that so happened to be populated by Arabs sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, which is honestly par for the course for the Israeli military.



  • I’m not going to pretend that I know the whole picture as to why this project is so severely over budget and behind schedule (there is likely nobody on Earth who does), but let me give some pointers as to why countries like China have built hundreds of thousands of kilometres of high-speed rail while California struggles to build a few hundred.

    For one, the legal environment in China is one of the prerogative state. “Rights” in China are whatever the Government suffers you to have or deems it expedient to honour. So if you “own” a piece of land in the middle of the planned rail route, the Government will just kick you out. What are you going to do, sue? In the US, environmental laws, land rights laws, and legal procedural law mean that anyone who can spend $50,000 on a lawyer can cause $1 million worth of headaches for the high speed rail authority using the American legal system, which believe it or not, actually sometimes holds the State accountable to the law.

    Secondly, in China, the Government has an unprecedented control over the economy that allows it to offer carrots and sticks to a degree that American politicians could only dream of. Yes, you have no say on whether the Government will order your house demolished to make way for an expressway, but in return, if you go quietly, you’ll get a flat in a high-rise in exchange and generous monetary compensation. Raise a stink, and you’ll be paid three strawberries and a steamed bun for your house instead.

    Thirdly, under Chinese property law, all land in the country belongs to the State. Everyone else can only lease it from the State.








  • The Taiwan issue has exactly to do with the fact that sending official diplomatic representatives to it means recognising its legitimacy and sovereignty. Even though most Western countries already believe this, sending the representatives would be to express that they believe this which is what upsets the Chinese government. China doesn’t care what people think as long as they keep it to themselves. It’s when they get “embarrassed” on the world stage that Chinese leadership thinks it demands action.


  • It’s not about “reforming” him. I’m talking about the fact that if he will at least consider whether a proposal is popular before he does it. If it’s within the margin of error or at least close enough to cover it up and pretend, it won’t stop him, but if it’s overwhelmingly unpopular it will cause him to think twice, but it is not guaranteed to change his mind. Again, this is based on past behaviour which is not necessarily indicative of the future.