CharonY

North America would like to have a word. Oh good, so we should just make up stuff instead, yes? You could easily look up stuff yourself. And based on Wikipedia, yes they do if only slightly. North Korea, China Haiti have much lower alcohol consumption than the so obviously they are much freer according to your assumptions. Which then clearly shows that your measure is just silly. Again, before trying to extrapolate, you might want to try to get at least a few facts right.

Generally one per spammer is enough to bring it to our attention, though at this juncture there are so many, going through new posts has a similar impact.

I think I agree mostly- though I also think that especially if you are student it is relevant to note that while not wrong, the books thematically have a bit of a big narrative issue. They are well written and try to build bigger narratives but they are not that specific as an actual textbook would be. I think they are good to make you curious, less so for learning. But I think it there is also a bit of my anti-big narrative bias showing. Similarly, while I think that the idea of Ancestor's tale is inspired but there is a bit of a focus on humans and animals, which given the time component is really just a small snippet of our ancestry and feels a bit lopsided. While I do understand of the need to make things relatable to us, I feel it just does not do justice how weird organisms can be. Perhaps similar problematic, focusing on complex animals has given us the idea of a neat evolutionary tree, whereas especially in the microbial world we know that this is probably more of an exception than the rule (I suppose a web made by a drunk spider would come closer). But the the critiques are really just pet peeves and I wouldn't really know how to make things better- if I was writing a book I probably would never even reach vertebrates. Well, probably I wouldn't even finish the first chapter, considering the heap of papers that I still need to write...

The wording implies the area per house, there is no indication of ownership. Moreover, considering that the colour suggests that the square footage of Germany appears to be above 1000, I think that it will also include multi-family homes, which are very common there. However, I am not sure whether high-rise buildings would be included. .... meth lab :D?

You do know that it's not about the size, but how you use it, right ;)? I am pretty sure that the number was made up by cats.

Sorry, I meant to say, pushed for space specifically for agriculture. At least lack of agricultural space was never much in discussion, from what I recall. Plus, the Netherlands, which has an even higher population density than Germany is a famously huge net food exporter. I.e. free area is not the sole factor in that regard.

Population density has a huge impact on infrastructure, no doubt. But there are also engineering guidelines and practices, some of which are adapted to varying densities and other parameters, of course. In much of Europe brick construction is standard, whereas in NA most dwelling are wood based. It is not to say that one is fundamentally better than the others, but they create a different feel and also long-term durability. When I arrived in the US, I was basically told that folks are basically moving every 15 years or so, which is a fair bit of a different attitude regarding homes than e.g. in Germany (not sure about the UK). Yes, it is a different building philosophy and it does make sense considering the availability of resources, but also the simple fact that in Europe you have homes still standing (though hopefully renovated) that were built way before the USA existed. One of the homes I lived in had still original parts from the 15th century.

While not wrong, I would argue that on average, European infrastructure on many levels at least seems to outperform their US equivalent. One could also try to look at the highest end in Europe and compare to the best structures in the US, but I don't have any data to do so. But living in and traveling through the respective regions, there is a marked difference. There are areas in Europe with notoriously bad infrastructure, too. However, the EU has invested quite a bit in certain areas and those just look much better than most newly built infrastructure in I have seen, at least in the US southwest, for example. The difference is a bit hard to describe, though I suspect there are engineering reasons. Many roads, and especially buildings in the US are built with a lower life-time in mind, it seems. Things are built much faster in the US, but especially up close there significant differences. You can repair a significant part of the house with paint, mud and drywall which I still find somewhat funny.

Yeah, infrastructure was one of the initial shocks getting to the US (well, North America, really). It is a bit hard to describe and you'll get used to it eventually, but things are just built differently and even if new they have not the polished look and feel of newly built infrastructure in much of Europe. Many American have a weird obsession with Europe and a lot of their knowledge gaps are filled with assumptions. In the beginning that was weird. It is not that Europeans do not have biases and assumptions, but at least they do not appear to be as confident in their wrongness (unless it is about local things, that is an entirely different ballgame). But to some degree it was a bit endearing, even as it got a bit tiresome trying to explain e.g. what a social democracy is.... But at some point it feels that this curious cluelessness turned malicious and I cannot really pinpoint when exactly it happened. Clearly along the way this lack of knowledge has been weaponized and at least for some, it solidified into an imagined reality from which they extrapolate. And honestly, that is scary.

The way I see it, there is a case to be make that many Americans are woefully misinformed about the world and fill the gaps by making up narratives that at best are caricatures of the real situation. And perhaps more importantly, they don't care that they wrong. Pretty much every statement here is either poorly informed our outright wrong. The only element I would tentatively agree on is that entrepreneurship is a bit harder as in the EU labor has more rights and the market is quite a bit more risk averse. But for the rest: The cucumber example: there were guidelines and standards for cucumbers, but they have been abolished for more than a decade. While these regulations were not popular, it was not a way to control sales, but to classify the quality of the product. The USDA does have grades and labeling standards for certain foods, too. Comparing that to the restrictions of freedom of the USSR is, simply put, ignorant. Freeeeeeedom: while freedom is hard to quantify, most freedom indices put the USA below a wide range of European Countries (https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-index-by-country)https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-index-by-country) Unsurprisingly, as it turns out, extreme inequality does restrict a wide range of freedom. Who would have thought? And obviously, this year is going to be extremely bad for the US and I expect that for this year things like media freedom are going to drop further. Alcohol: the idea that alcohol consumption is linked to freedom is quite laughable. Rather than relying on "someone totally real told me so" you could simply check out statistics on alcohol consumption. Based on that, Muslim countries like Afghanistan must be incredibly free. Or just, you know, think a bit. The US alcohol consumption is just where Burkina Faso is, but higher than, say Malta, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and also China. Does it line up with any pattern that you want to see? Global elites: I mean that is just silly on its face and at minimum requires a proper definition of what the global elites are. The way I see it, in almost all countries corporations and the rich have outsized unchecked power and in the US they managed to to have one of them to take control of the highest office. It is the most direct case of an elite taking over governmental powers and that folks still somehow think that this is an anti-elitist movement is just weirdly fascinating to see. And extremely worrisome. This also exemplifies why politics especially in the USA (but, to be fair, there is a world-wide trend in that direction) is just in such a bad shape. Folks do not bother to even check the simplest of facts and just make things up and expect not to be challenged on them. Heck, the US administration is taking the lead in that by contradicting themselves in the same sentence and yet expect the press to play along.

I think if we want to continue this discussion, it might be helpful to talk about specific jurisdictions and have some definitions covered. In Canada, for example, there is no hate crime as a charge as such. In contrast, in the US there are provisions that can change the minimum penalties when charged as hate crime. This is a bit different (from my understanding) to aggravating or mitigating circumstances, which are not specific charge as such, but which can be used to modify sentences. A criminal action from a position of power could be considered especially heinous, while evidence of remorse could be considered a mitigating modifier, even if none of those change what actually has happened. In that context, and I believe it is getting quite philosophical, laws often represent the moral values of a society. Most jurisdictions have specific considerations for sexual violence, for example, even in cases where the physical harm might be indistinguishable from non-sexual violence. I am not sure whether there are many examples of criminal laws where such (moral) circumstances are not considered. In fact, even not having those modifiers would exemplify some sort of moral stance. A mandatory death sentences for any kind of drug possession would be a clear moral condemnation of anything related to drugs, for example. In a way I think the discussion would ultimately be whether there can (or should) be a criminal law system which focuses entirely on outcome, rather than on morality and how it might look like. But I think that will get rather far away from the freedom of expression topic. But perhaps it might be an interesting ethics discussion? Edit: I should add that in addition to the moral dimension, laws are often created in response to address specific issues. Famous examples include civil rights issues, where in the US, states frequently did not convict murders of minorities by white folks. Specific statues were then implemented to be able to try some of the crimes on the federal level, IIRC.

Just so that I do not misinterpret. On a high level intent (i.e. was your intent to inflict harm) should be an aggravating circumstance. However, beyond that, you don't think that there should aggravating factors in sentencing that could speak to motivation (e.g., planning and deliberation vs spontaneous, criminal association/terrorism, hate against certain groups etc.)? On the other hand, factors of effect (e.g. vulnerability/impact on victim) could be, as they would aggravate the damages? Did I interpret that correctly?

So from a legal perspective would you prefer that intention is ignored and only focus on outcome? I.e. harm by accident, negligence and intent should fall under the same category and only scaled by level of harm?

That is not how (in the US) the laws are applied, though. But generally speaking in pretty much any jurisdiction mens rea is considered on some level. Taking assault as an example, it can be as broad as simply offensive contact. It is usually only an offense if it can be shown that the person deliberately initiated the action to incur harm or fear. IOW, the context is important, not just the outcome. If someone accidentally pushes someone and that person is harmed, any potential charge will be very different form someone where it can be shown as a pattern of deliberate actions. The difference between US and Canada (I believe, I am clearly not educated in law), is that if a person is shown to repeatedly assault say, persons of a specific ethnicity, in the US it can be used to establish racial hatred as intention and incur a higher charge, whereas in Canada a patterns of racially motivated actions could establish that the actions as deliberate (vs e.g. accidental) but would be charger as any other deliberate assault.

Could you clarify why you are not comfortable with Canadian hate laws? The reason I am asking is because it seems that they are much more in line what you think they should be, especially compared to the US. In Canada federal criminal law has three provisions in the Canadian criminal code section 318-320. 319 addresses advocating for genocide (which amounts to promoting violence under the federal definition of genocide); 319 covers public incitement of hatred (i.e. incitement outside of private conversations). This sections has specific defences listed, including good faith expression and 320 covers warrants of seizures of certain types of hate propaganda. As far as I can tell there is no provision where a hate crime would modify assault charges in Canada https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/page-45.html#docCont. This is different to the US, however, where hate crimes can create a enhanced charge under laws enacted during the Clinton administration (as part of the expansion of violent crime control laws where they wanted to be tough on crime). I might be wrong, but I couldn't find anything equivalent in Canadian federal statutes.

You mean nobody wants to know... I wonder about that a bit. There have been quite a few politically motivated assassinations and attempts in the US in the past. The recent times look especially bad due to the high-profile cases including the recent murders in Minnesota, or the attempt on Trump. But even before that, there were many cases, including e.g. the shooting spree where Gifford was severely injured, or the attack on Paul Pelosi. What seems to be different, though is that in the past these attacks would be soundly condemned from all sides. Now, political violence for one side at least is being endorsed on the highest levels. It creates a normalization of violence which excuses all forms of violence from the right (Jan 6, the vanishing of reports on far-right extremists, Fox News joking about attacks on Dems, etc.).

Pretty much, and This is what is going through press right now, but in addition to entertainers, columnists (Washington Post) and analysts (MSNBC) also have been fired and in these cases even without a direct prompt from the White House, I believe. We have entered the state of pre-emptive obedience. Not to mention Universities and law firms. Considering how cunningly clever this administration is, they would probably call themselves Ministry of Lies, then rename themselves to Ministry of Amazing Balls, and then compromise on the manly Ministry of totally not propaganda.

The latest crackdown from the administration on free speech and the speed with which media are pre-emptively caving in across the board sure shows that there is little institutional resilience left. I also feel that folks still do not quite appreciate what is being lost right now. Even if the GOP lost power now, it would take a long time to rebuild what has been torn down. And it is not even clear that they will be.

I am not even sure about that one. Economically they have started to implement a "shoot-your-own-foot" approach to things. And I am not sure how much of that is ideological vs incompetence.

In the paper (Hurowitz, J.A., Tice, M.M., Allwood, A.C. et al. Redox-driven mineral and organic associations in Jezero Crater, Mars. Nature 645, 332–340 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09413-0) they have formulated a null hypotheses for abiotic pathways and at least with the data they had, they seem unlikely but it stops short of a full refutation. Form the conclusions:

Coming from microbiology, the concept of species was pretty scrambled to begin with. I have made peace with that by realizing that categories are essentially post-hoc models and they may or may not conform to nature. More important is whether they are useful and to realize when their usefulness ends. Basically the whole the map is not the territory issue.

Listen, if you only provide AI prompts, why should anyone discuss things with you vs just talking to the chatbot? If we are not discussing your thoughts on the matter in the first place, it really just seems a waste of everyone's time. Especially if don't making an effort of synthesizing the AI output to formulate your own discussion point. Your intellectual contribution is basically at the level of a copy/paste script.

I have read McCaffrey and I remember it as a fun mix of fantasy tropes and what essentially is a scifi background. That was of course way before I became a biologist. But then, I'd take any excuse to get a flying fire-breathing lizard. That one wasn't really that popular in Germany compared to the UK and I never came across it.

That actually makes a lot of sense to me. I read Lord of the Rings when I was very young, but also Pratchett not long after (as well as Douglas Adams). I think the silliness of those books made things a lot easier for me when I was a youth. There is at least a decent chance that I wouldn't have the patience for silliness anymore if I picked it up now (but I suspect that once/if I retire it might change again).

I am not sure what you are asking. If you are wondering whether there is fencing, yes it is outlined in the provided article. Could they bypass it? I mean theoretically. After all Hamas got out of the Gaza strip to commit atrocities. But unarmed individuals? Especially now? No chance. Especially considering that the IDF has documented cases of killing unarmed folks (including children) even if they do not attempt to enter a secured zone....