Context: During 16th and 17th century several Popes made proclamations to the effect that “slavery is bad” especially on Christians.

Slave traders involved in the Atlantic trade were quick to adopt the newfangled idea that all of humanity can be divided into “races” based on skin color and physical features. Africa was their largest source of slaves, and if they could convince everyone that African people were somehow not fully deserving of (what at the time passed for) human rights it would mean extreme profits.

The cross logo belongs to the Portuguese royal monopoly Casa da Índia and is a bit anachronistic since the slave trade was fully privatized by late 1500s

Is the paper itself product of a PhD study?

Um, companies wanting to charge for their services? Sure it not as nice as getting stuff for free but how else are they supposed to fund the insane cost of running LLMs along with at least some profits.

After the first round they didn’t check every single device they own? Of course, what’s the chance it happens again!

Speed limits are generally bs, only useful for justifying police budgets. The goal should be designing roads with safety in mind.

Introducing arbitrary rules helps nobody. Not in reducing the amount of cars on the road, not people who are forced to drive for some reason.

Supposedly Meditations were not supposed to be published, although I’m not sure why he’d write all that if not for others to read.
I’d interpret it as his way of dealing with the cognitive dissonance of trying to be a good person and roman emperor at the same time

Imagine phones having stupid logic like printers - no you can’t make a call, your smell cartridge is empty

It doesn’t hurt you so don’t worry about it

Eh, not so sure. Beauty standards propagate, and pressure to conform to those standards is real.
That’s just how fashion works. In this case fashion requires disabling a functional part of your body. It’s at least a bit icky.

I hate how it’s framed as a bad thing. Intentional or not, real estate prices falling is a good thing.

At least then you have the absolute moral high ground.
" we need to eradicate drug trade" is not a good call to arms, since consuming psychoactive substances is the most human thing ever, practiced by a wide range of the population
“we need to get rid of murderers and human traffickers” is clear and unambiguous, and would actually make more people turn their back on the cartels

They’ve been trying to use a nuke since the Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2022, but can’t find one that works

None of these articles make sense until you reform your electoral system to allow for multiple parties. Until then it basically do you want complete idiots, or a smaller amount of stupid takes.

There’s still people into boats, but it’s not very popular compared to trains/planes/cars. Which is kinda strange, there has never been a time with more shipping traffic. Maybe because ports these days are fairly inaccessible to observers

Potentially unpopular opinion - the term “autism” and “ASD” have expanded way beyond their original clinical meaning. It doesn’t help that even the official definition is so broad as to be useless. Add to that the cooption by the Tiktok culture to describe any “quirky” behavior, and you get the current situation where it’s hard to find a person that doesn’t exhibit at least some “autistic” traits

I’m sure there were buildings with nice artwork on them. Ironically, communist countries had a well defined ruling class who could get nice things. It’s the average that counts. Also, slapping a small artwork on an otherwise ugly building is not really a solution.

My experience is mostly Romania, Hungary and ex-Yugoslavia. Those in Romania and Hungary are awful undecorated gray boxes, with substandard installations, paper-thin walls, and very depressing places to be in.
Yugoslavia is a different story, visibly not a part of the Soviet bloc. While there are some bad buildings, on average both quality and aesthetics, are much much better. Fairly nice places to live in

Not mutually exclusive. My pet conspiracy theory is that Soviet buildings were somewhat intentionally made to be awful, not so much to save on resources, but because the appearance of “suffering for the revolution” was desirable. Literally - we can’t let people have nice things, it uncommunist.

We do. It’s called an apartment building.

Idk why people insist on the false dichotomy between commieblock and other types of buildings. Sure there are some truly awful ones, especially in Eastern Europe that are basically high-rise slums. But most of the insanely expensive and luxurious housing is also high-rise residential.

Complaining about “songs getting dumber” is a story as old as recorded music. We tend to remember music positively if it’s important to our personality formation. Usually the music from our youth, although big jumps are possible later in life.
It’s not that new artists are worse or better than the old ones, you just don’t have an emotional connection to newer music.

That being said I do dislike some trends in 2020s music - melancholic mood and more focus on introspective texts. And all of reggaeton subculture. Contrary to your point I think there’s more focus on lyrics now than in 2010s.

1950s revolutionaries were something different. It was a more optimistic time.

Could it serve as an iron supplement?