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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • NATO’s is not going to be part of Turkey’s geopolitical schemes. Nukes are needed in order to be on an even footing with the other regional powers(which will also have nukes). Even if Saudi Arabia/Iran never intend to nuke Turkey, they will be at an advantage.

    Hard power translates to soft power. And if your regional opponents have nukes and you dont have nukes, you will be at a significant soft power disadvantage.

    Btw Turkey is building its first nuclear power plant, with help from Russia. Saudi Arabia also intends to build nuclear power plants soon. Thats the first step to creating a nuclear weapon.




  • Yeah, it was both. The european brands avoided electric cars for a long time, while the chinese pushed hard for them. And because electric motors and car batteries were a new technology, this was a great opportunity for the chinese to pull ahead(everyone started from 0).

    And the chinese also used their cooperations and acquisitions(Volvo and Lotus are owned by the chinese brand Geely), in order to improve the conventional car making part production(everything other than the electric engine and batteries). Tesla followed a similar arc. Their motors/batteries are great, the other parts started as bad but they are improving all the time.



  • Neither Europe nor the US can make chips like this, thats why they are trying so hard to convince TSMC to make a chip fab in their territories. Does this mean that white people are too stupid to make chips? No, they just cant atm and they arent willing to invest the infinite time and money it would take to reach that level, especially since their ally Taiwan(TSMC) is already making the most advanced chips in the world.

    China on the other hand needs to become more self reliant, especially with the new Cold War escalating. So they have to do it. And they are doing it. But it will still take a lot of time and money to be able to manufacturer modern high end chips.

    TSMC is taiwanese, which is “yellow” people. Why are you trying to spin this as a racist thing? Literally the best people in the world manufacturing chips are taiwanese(han). Why would anyone think that the chinese, who are basically the same ethnicity(han), wont be able to make advanced chips because of racial reasons?


  • Because manufacturing super high tech chips is extremely hard and complicated and basically only a couple companies in the world can do it and they also depend on parts and technology from other companies all over the “western” world. China didnt have anything near this capability. It requires advanced research and knowhow on a million different technologies. So unless China does extensive industrial espionage(which they are trying to do), it’s gonna take them like 10+ years to start producing anything relatively modern without needing any external parts/help.

    In any case, it remains to be seen if it is actually 7nm. With a new cold war ramping up, China is trying to become self-reliant as much as possible.




  • Turkey under the Kemalists is an example of a primarily Muslim nation at least attempting to build a liberal democracy.

    Yes, building a liberal democracy by using military dictatorships. When you are trying to force something on people that dont want it(at least the majority), thats when you get Erdogan. It might suck for turks living in Western Turkey and in cities like Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara but the other half of turks have a majority.

    And one of the fundamental principles of a democracy is that majority rules. You cant use the military to overthrow democratically elected governments just because you dont like their policy.

    However, i agree with your point, there are plenty of turks who selfidentity as muslim and are ok with lgbtq, etc, just like there are christians. Though i never understood how that works. Like how can the Church of Sweden participate in Pride parades. At what point something stops being christianity and becomes a social club? In the Bible is clearly says that homosexuality is bad.


  • yes I don’t believe the earth is flat or that lizard people control the world - but look back in history and think about all the times the “official” narrative was wrong. WMDs come to mind.

    The official narrative for the WMD in Iraq was that WMD didnt exist, according to the UN nuclear inspectors. It was the US that wanted to create an alternative narrative that WMD are a thing, with satellite photos and yellowcake stories. And this is why the vast majority of europeans were against the invasion of Iraq. I think only in the US, the majority of the public supported the invasion.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_reactions_to_the_prelude_to_the_Iraq_War

    Most governments opposed it. And even in countries where the government supported it, the public didnt. If your closest allies are telling you “this is bad, dont do it”, then maybe it is bad.


  • 500GB. I wanted to get more storage but then i realized that with 1gbit internet connection, i dont need it, i can download whatever i want in a few minutes. Fast internet is a game changer, it allows me to try and test games without thinking about it.

    I also have a 2tB hdd for media but i dont use that to store games.


  • Noone is using windows because it is cool and hip and i doubt microsoft advertises windows. People use windows because they work and do what they want. Maybe they could use ubuntu, but why would they do that? What does ubuntu offer that windows dont?

    I’ll tell you why they(including me) dont use linux, because maybe their wifi wont work(or they will have to compile the universe to make it work) or their favourite app or game wont work. And even if you could make a piece of hardware or software work in linux, the performance might be inferior because it will be using generic drivers, instead of the proprietary windows only drivers that the manufacturer has made.

    Ultimately, people dont care about open source or privacy enough, to sacrifice their convenience.




  • Take robot or AI childporn as another example if cannibalism isn’t bringing home the intuition. It’s not harming children (at least directly) but it could reasonably be argued that it’s perpetuating and normalizing a violent and problematic practice.

    It could be argued but i am not so sure about that. You could start arguing about how “i fucked my stepmother” porn normalizes abuse but would you? I think these are philosophical or psychological subjects that ultimately have no real studies behind them.

    I’d like to believe that people are aware of the fundamental differences. These products are trying to appeal to non vegans who dont want to eat meat for health reasons. These people arent vegan in the first place. Is the existence of vegan meat equivalents make it harder or easier to convert these people into veganism? I think it makes it easier.

    It doesnt “normalize” abuse, abuse is already normalized. It is trying to change people and change takes time. In your AI childporn example, childporn isnt normalized and i could see AI childporn normalizing it and increasing real life child abuse.

    In the end, the animals dont care why they arent being killed. Me being vegan and not eating meat is as impactful as someone who isnt vegan and is eating a vegan meat equivalent. And this is the goal of veganism. Veganism isnt a religion, it isnt about purity, it isnt about you or your concepts of righteousness. It’s about reducing death and suffering.


  • Most vegans are against causing death and suffering to animals, not against how things taste. The abhorrent part is the killing, not the taste(for most vegans).

    Also i think your definitions are self limiting without a reason. Seitan tastes like “meat”, yet it is not. You cant just assign exclusivity on specific tastes. Those tastes can exist outside the realm of meat. But it is easier to talk about those things by referencing something that most people are familiar with(meat or sausage or burger).

    Would you be ok if we assigned 16 digit numbers to specific tastes and then used that number to describe products that have that taste? Is the use of the word “meat” that is problematic to you?



  • Armenians are christians, azeris are muslims(and ethnic turks). Turkey(Ottoman Empire) did a thing(genocide) on the armenians back in the day. Anyway eventually both countries were part of the USSR. The USSR collapses and all these new countries are created.

    There is a large region in Azerbaijan, inhabited mostly by armenians(the azeris say the armenians ethnic cleansed the azeris from the region). This armenian controlled enclave in Azerbaijan is separated from Armenia. Wars ensue, things become as they are now, with many issues but relatively peaceful.

    Fast forward to today, Azerbaijan has a lot of natural gas reserves, they are relatively somewhat rich and with the war in Ukraine, Russia(the ally of Armenia) refused to help Armenia and Europe has a huge appetite for non russian gas(ie for azeri gas). So Azerbaijan is in a very powerful political and economic position atm.

    Azerbaijan is using that power to “solve the issue” by military conquering the armenian controlled enclave, knowing that Armenia doesnt have any military allies anymore(Russia refused to answer Armenia’s equivalent to NATO’s article 5 request for help) and Europe/West cant do much politically because they are extremely dependent on azeri gas.

    Are the armenians the victim? Well, kinda. They are atm. But they were also the perpetrators in the past.