JasSmith
@JasSmith@kbin.social
- Comment on Just 9% of British voters think Brexit has gone well, poll finds 1 year ago:
The country needs more people.
No it doesn’t. It certainly didn’t need 1.2 million people last year. The only reason to support this insanity is a desire to increase homelessness and impoverish the middle and lower classes.
- Comment on Just 9% of British voters think Brexit has gone well, poll finds 1 year ago:
I don't think having enough homes for people is an awful policy. Where do you want the migrants to live? Tents?
- Comment on Just 9% of British voters think Brexit has gone well, poll finds 1 year ago:
I think a LOT of voters wanted to slow down migration. Leaders lied to them, and claimed the only way to do that was to leave the EU, so they did. Now they're realising the reason migration is high is because both major parties are neoliberals who want high migration to pump house prices and keep wages low. It won't change until they elect a party which cares about the working class, and campaigns on reducing migration to no more than the number of homes built in the previous year. This is such common sense policy that the only reason it's not already in effect is because leaders in all major parties don't care about the middle class.
- Comment on Road casualties have become normal in Britain. But there is another way 1 year ago:
Driver training and awareness campaigns and reduced speed limits are all tinkering around the edges. They don't make any meaningful change. The Netherlands and Denmark proved this is a solved problem: build dedicated cycleways with a curb separating them. Yes it's expensive, but it works. Anything else is virtue signalling.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 year ago:
But he didn’t lament disagreement. He was very clear about the stuff he thinks is trolling.
There was (and in my opinion still is) no point in seeing their answers since a great amount of their replies were just pictures or gifs of things like the butthole of a pig, literal shit and things of that caliber. Additionally, every posts or discussion that talks about them, inevitably draws their attention and they start to spam the same kind of stuff, relishing in the idea that they are hated, simply replying with things like “cope, seethe, rent free etc”.
Why are you pretending you didn’t read his comment? It’s literally right there. We can all see it. Pictures of shit isn’t disagreement. It’s trolling.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 year ago:
All of the replies to this comment are the reason everyone wants to defederate from Hexbear. Let no one pretend not to understand how insufferable they are.
- Comment on Automaker CEO Elon Musk Strips UAW Twitter Verification as Union Strikes Against Big Three 1 year ago:
Most people agree with censoring hate speech and death threats. The problem is they expanded well beyond that, all while people cheered. The chants of, “it’s a private company!” were deafening. So now they can lie in the bed they made.
- Comment on Automaker CEO Elon Musk Strips UAW Twitter Verification as Union Strikes Against Big Three 1 year ago:
Using a siren to silence me is just another form of censorship.
- Comment on Automaker CEO Elon Musk Strips UAW Twitter Verification as Union Strikes Against Big Three 1 year ago:
You’re confusing the U.S. Constitution with free speech. The Constitution only prospects some kinds of free speech, and only for American citizens. I’m not American. Most people are not America. Surely you realise there are many others countries out there, and other kinds of speech?
You say “harmful” speech has not place in the public square. Who adjudicates that? Right now it’s Elon Musk. Are you really happy with that?
- Comment on Automaker CEO Elon Musk Strips UAW Twitter Verification as Union Strikes Against Big Three 1 year ago:
I must say it is amusing watching the same people who cheered Twitter censorship the last few years suddenly realise why giving companies the power to sensor is a bad idea. Eventually the gun gets turned on you.
- Comment on Unity ...It Just Keeps Get Worse 1 year ago:
They’re just different pricing models, not different verticals. Unity is still cheaper, but incurs significant risk now. Whereas Epic will take their 5% after $1M, Unity has no revenue split. However now that they’re charging per install, devs need to be sure their marginal profit clears this bar. No one is sure their pricing model works before launch, so I think this risk is unreasonable.
- Comment on Caribbean nations set to demand royal family makes reparations for slave trade 1 year ago:
If you only go after the people with money, then yes. Then it’s not about justice or morality at all. It’s about money.
- Comment on Caribbean nations set to demand royal family makes reparations for slave trade 1 year ago:
Yes they made a financial commitment to various states, companies, and individuals to compensate slave owners for their financial loss when Britain ended the slave trade. I think that was pragmatic and commendable. I don’t see how that addresses me comment.
- Comment on Caribbean nations set to demand royal family makes reparations for slave trade 1 year ago:
it’s about paying people for the work they did.
Okay, so pay slaves for the work they did. But we can’t, because they’re long dead. So that’s not what you’re asking at all. You’re asking for people who never owned slaves to pay people who were never slaves. Not all British white people are wealthy as a result of historical slavery. In fact, most British were dirt poor and never owned any slaves at all. Today, their ancestors remain dirt poor. You’d ask them to pay recompense for something for which neither they nor their ancestors are guilty.
I’m white and of Irish descent. My ancestors were subject to genocide under the Irish Potato Famine. Am I morally owed restitution? Further back, my ancestors were subject to slavery along the North African coast and Middle East for hundreds of years in the Barbary slave trade. Am I owed reparations from the numerous countries involved in that? To me it quickly becomes apparent that any feigned moral outrage begins and stops at white people. Everyone’s ancestors are guilty of atrocities if we go back far enough. Everyone’s ancestors were subject to atrocities as well.
- Comment on Caribbean nations set to demand royal family makes reparations for slave trade 1 year ago:
So the morality of the exercise hinges on the wealth of the accused?
- Comment on Caribbean nations set to demand royal family makes reparations for slave trade 1 year ago:
This is getting silly now. We’ve agreed for thousands of years that children aren’t responsible for the sins of their fathers. This attempt to resurrect Babylonian era values is absurd. Critical thinking is clearly absent in modern schooling.
- Comment on Caribbean nations set to demand royal family makes reparations for slave trade 1 year ago:
That’s nothing. You should hear about what the Vikings did. And the Romans. And the Sumerians.
- Comment on Roxann Dawson (B’Elanna) passed on directing new Star Trek but has returned to science fiction with Foundation 1 year ago:
With all due respect, I strongly disagree. I admit my views are coloured by my love of Asimov’s work, and their radical re-write has left a bad taste in my mouth. But when I analyse this show objectively I am left bewildered that anyone could call it “excellent fucking science fiction.”
Most of the actors are TERRIBLE. It was like watching wooden planks act. Instead of developing the story in any meaningful way, the directors chose to focus on disparate and dream-like sequences which appear to have little connection to each other. Bizarre pacing. They took the expansive time gaps and somehow made them confusing and meaningless. The dialogue is atrocious. The CGI is laughable. The accents are ridiculous. This is science fiction of the worst kind.
Lee Pace is the only reason I finished season one. Despite the horrific writing, he somehow pulls it off. The Expanse set the bar very high for sci-fi, but it showed us it can be done well. Foundation is fantasy in space. It’s Wheel of Time and Rings of Power in space bad.
- Comment on Roxann Dawson (B’Elanna) passed on directing new Star Trek but has returned to science fiction with Foundation 1 year ago:
I agree. I grew up reading Asimov. It ignited my passion for reading and sci fi. To see how badly they’ve butchered this material is devastating. It bears almost no resemblance. Like so many Hollywood projects, the only thing it has in common with the material is some character names. Everything else is creative writing. Because of course modern writers think they’re better than Isaac Asimov.
- Comment on [MEGATHREAD] Starfield - Your experiences! 1 year ago:
Skyrim and Oblivion definitely hooked me with exploration. It was a significant reason for playing and completing those games for me. If I want story there are a thousand better games out there. One without the other feels like a loss for me.
- Comment on [MEGATHREAD] Starfield - Your experiences! 1 year ago:
This is one of the more biting criticisms I've heard of the game. It results in a lack of feeling of scale and scope. The universe just feels like connected places, instead of worlds within a galaxy. No Mans Sky got this right, and it's surprising that Bethesda would fumble such a core mechanic. It looks like they tried to cover up this wart by... removing city maps.
- Comment on NHS waiting lists: estimated 340,000 died awaiting treatment in 2022 1 year ago:
That's terrible, but it's not like similar mistakes don't happen in publicly run hospitals. There doesn't appear to be clear and compelling evidence that private hospitals are any worse than public hospitals in the U.K. Studies repeatedly find mixed results at best [see citations below]. I am generally opposed to public services being privatised, but if the level of care is better for the same cost, I support it. The issue, as outlined by Kruse et al. (2018), is the incentive structure. With private hospitals responding more efficiently to financial incentives, it becomes critical that policy carefully align public health outcomes with financial incentives.
- Comment on NHS waiting lists: estimated 340,000 died awaiting treatment in 2022 1 year ago:
You asked the right question, and no, the data presented isn't causative.
More than half of people who died in England last year were on an NHS waiting list, according to statistics.
Unsurprisingly, old people are often on waiting lists for things like knee and hip replacements, and these can be long. They sometimes die while on these waiting lists. In total, around 600,000 people die each year in the U.K. It would be unbelievable if half of those people died because they didn't receive medical care in time.
The article has merit, but the headline is total clickbait.
- Comment on Those who are against iOS and Apple in general, have you tried their devices lately? 1 year ago:
iPhone are great, but restrictive. The DMA will open up competition on iOS for those in the EU soon. We'll be able to install competing app stores, and download and install any software we like without having to go through Apple.
MacBooks are really well built. I'm not a big fan of macOS, but it does integrate well with my iPhone.
Ignore anyone who mocks you for using the right tool for the job. People who make technology their whole personality don't really have much depth.
- Comment on Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, a real world experience set in a 100 room hotel designed to look like a spaceship 1 year ago:
It was like $6000 for two nights for a family of four. We're talking some pretty basic rooms, too. Just stupidly expensive.
- Comment on **BLUE BEETLE Discussion Megapost** 2023-08-18 🪲🦸 1 year ago:
This looks so dumb. B grade schlock. Anyone want to bet on the budget of this train wreck? $120M.
- Comment on Is charging electric car at holiday house "theft"? 1 year ago:
Ouch! Just for comparison, the charge here is typically around 50c CAD per KWh. It was much higher last winter thanks to the Ukraine war, but it’s settled back down. What is yours? We have very high insulation standards so heating costs are not too crazy. We also typically don’t have AC, so costs stay lower in summer.
- Comment on Is charging electric car at holiday house "theft"? 1 year ago:
I own a holiday home rental in Denmark. That’s the norm here for holiday homes. Short AirBnB stays don’t do it though. I think it’s the norm in Germany and the Nordics too. Power is much more expensive in Europe than in most places in the U.S., so that might be the reason. Charging your Tesla could cost closer to US$30, depending on time of day and model. Also tenants are using lights and heating and dryers and all kinds of other appliances. So them paying for only what they use encourages efficient energy use which is great for the environment, but also allows us to keep rental prices down. For reference, power for a week’s stay is typically between US$50 in summer up to US$80 in winter.
- Comment on Is charging electric car at holiday house "theft"? 1 year ago:
This is an easy problem to solve. In many countries, tenants pay for the power they use. They record the meter on arrival and when leaving. The rate is in the agreement. I wonder why she doesn’t just do that.
- Comment on Switch 2 would arrive in the second half of 2024 and development kits are already out 1 year ago:
I think you're right on all counts, but RDNA 3, due out next year, is claimed to achieve a 54% increase in performance-per-watt. They could limit clocks/power and achieve similar levels of battery life with significant performance gains; all while keeping thermals down. One can dream!