No, but one shouldn’t take high impact statements about what the “consensus” is on any issue from random comments on the internet without any justification.
The second sentence is justification. I don't mind if people don't just accept my conclusion based on the comment, it's just a comment, a small piece of the puzzle in someones mind.
It’s not a justification though. That’s what I’m saying.
Just because the left doesn’t mention an issue, doesn’t mean that a consensus is reached.
No political party really talks much about school shootings in the US nowadays, but that doesn’t mean the consensus is young white men are naturally school shooters.
Do you think all comments need to be articles in length? My original comment contains an idea, and a justification. It really is almost platonic in how simple it is actually, schoolbook example.
You might feel that the justification is inadequate, but instead you began talking about how my comment doesn't "prove" anything, and now that it doesn't contain justification at all.
Part of the reason why this justifies the idea that a consensus actually has been reached, is that the left used to extol in length the benefits of immigration, and how Swedes are terrible people that need diversity to get anywhere. It turned out that was wrong, and now the country is heading away from reasonably being called a developed country any more. The focus of the leftists in control is instead to feverishly moderate the discussion so no one begins talking about __mass remigration__, what Sweden actually needs, and they do this by talking about limiting migration, even deporting some criminals. (the consensus, ding ding)
Not every comment need be an article, but the internet would be better if every comment has actual justification and not just statements.
I said “prove” at first, but I should’ve said “justifies.” It’s a better word for this.
An equally plausible reason for the left not talking about immigration is that there is not a giant migrant wave as there was in the mid-2010s and the lax migration policies are already in place.
My original comment contains justification for the idea presented. I don't understand why this is controversial to you? Why do you hold that my original comment does not contain justification? It clearly does.
Moving on to the real discussion, not this infernal semantic journey you've taken to embark upon.
If it was equally plausible that mass-immigration is currently not openly condoned by left-wing politicans, because the migrant wave isn't currently hitting europe and the lax migration policies are already in place; then why was the left so willing to talk about being pro-migration __before__ the migrant wave? The lax policies have been in place in Sweden since the 70:s.
What has happened, is that the disaster of the policies is now so plain and obvious, that not even professional liars can reasonably stand in the tv-broadcast and talk about it enthusiastically, it is a disaster for everyone involved and no one pretends it's not. Instead, all the politicians can do is ignore the problem while they silently try to alleviate as many small aspects of the disaster as possible, so people don't wake up to just how poorly this country has been run.
>This is not the world you live in. [A world where people get debanked for political reasons.]
I know quite a few people, and entities affected by it in Europe. Some of them even personally, individual accounts, not just their companies and organizations. I would elaborate, except I suspect that will be counter productive. Please read site guidelines. Let's agree to disagree.
The idea that the debanking of individuals on political basis has only happened in Canada is wrong. Furthermore, this also only happens to, let's say one side of the political dialogue.
> This [KYC/AML] will affect the typical user of the financial system precisely zero times during their lives.
I've been affected by this nonsense, and so have friends and family. Quite inconvenient when you're trying to buy a house and trying to keep things moving on time. I may not be "typical" but my mother certainly is. I can tell that patio11 is highly invested in the finance industry, not wanting to burn bridges, and I think he is incentivized to try to make people believe that KYC is beneficial and highly effective, but it's just not the case. It reminds me of the people inside Google working on their auto-banning systems who won't admit that it doesn't always work perfectly.
"Debanking will also not infrequently swiftly cascade to accounts in the same household, regardless of title (non-specialists can round this to “name on the account”; industry can’t). Banks institutionally consider those accounts in the same household to be highly likely to be under common control, regardless of what paperwork, account holders, or politically influential subcultures believe."
My parents live 1000 miles away and we haven't been in the same household for 20 years. Either our troubles were independent and uncorrelated events, or banks are crawling through people's family trees like they're 23andMe. Maybe my cousin who I haven't seen since we were kids did something shady and tainted our whole family tree in the eyes of the banks, who knows anymore.
> or banks are crawling through people's family trees
I work in securities. Our KYC screens aren’t as sophisticated as the banks’. We absolutely see family relations. (They’re typically gleaned from public records and social media. It's unfortunately not uncommon for kids to open accounts in parents' names and vice versa, even after a long time.)
If people have actually read the article, they will have spotted the bits where patio11 himself has been adversely affected by this at least twice!
> I think he is incentivized to try to make people believe that KYC is beneficial and highly effective
I don't think the article is arguing that at all. It's describing the "system", not endorsing it (and explicitly complaining about it in several places).
If nothing else having to do more paperwork is very common.
British banks tend to not open accounts for people abroad because of the cost of KYC, and they even close accounts if you move abroad. Difficult if you have assets or a pension in the UK but live abroad. As you say, it makes it very hard for people who move around.
There are definitely political biases in closing bank accounts in the UK, and many cases of accounts being closed because banks did not like someone's politics. Not even fringe political views, associations with the previous government's part has caused problems in some cases, and definitely association with smaller but significant parties.
People also avoid taking on jobs that might make them "politically exposed persons" because the rules are too broad, and that (although it affects only a few people) does a great deal of damage because it reduces the number of people from outside in organisations, which worsens governance and corruption.
> If nothing else having to do more paperwork is very common.
British banks tend to not open accounts for people abroad because of the cost of KYC, and they even close accounts if you move abroad.
How are their so many non-dom retirees if that's the case? They have to have some sort of income.
As patio11 made abundantly clear in his article, banks are not homogeneous in their preferred customers, their ability to serve specific needs or their tolerance for risk. It may well be true that some banks don't like non-resident customers, but many banks offer products specifically tailored for these customers.
The term "non-dom" usually means foreigners in the UK making use of the tax dodge. In that case, British banks are happy to open accounts for them, especially as they are rich.
Some accounts will be opened for other foreigners in the UK - sometimes the "basic" accounts .
Also happening in Japan. Quite a number of big-name vendors like DMM, DLsite, and others are getting heavy pressure from Visa and Mastercard to censor certain merchandise for no justifiable reason (as in no legal basis) and in some cases have been blacklisted outright.
The Japanese response, and this is after placating the first round of censor demands, has been to reverse-blacklist Visa and Mastercard because Japan realized that giving an inch only means they will then demand a mile, then a league, and so on.
This reads like an American, once again, deciding to enforce American cultural norms on other nations
I'm not defending or condemning any of the artwork in question, just pointing out that American corporations have been forcing through their own cultural norms for decades, even in countries where that may not always be welcome
In turn, this makes American corporations the arbiters of what is de facto legal, despite not being the ones elected to write the laws
> I feel like you are omitting the content that visa and mastercard find particularly objectionable that is commonplace in japan but not elsewhere.
At this point, I would argue that the reasoning isn't even cohesive or unified. Some sites lose all processors (e.g., Amex bails too) whereas others lose only Visa and MasterCard, and the distinctions aren't made clear to end users.
Sure, DMM and DLSite end up offering a large variety of pornography, but it's not just that -- Niconico Douga's premium subscription service was also blacklisted, despite the fact that it's basically just YouTube Premium for Japanese livestreamers (i.e., not pornography).
A lot of people argue that the reason is specific genres of pornography, but the practical reality is that it can be basically any type of content of reason. Stripe considers pornography an industry that's too-hot-to-touch, for example, despite the fact that some processors do work with pornography, and end up charging much higher processor fees for the hassle. A lot of user-generated content, which is wildly uncontrolled, combined with a relatively high risk of refunds, can lead to this type of action without necessarily transgressing a general rule like "this specific variety of pornography is bad".
>DMM and DLSite end up offering a large variety of pornography
What's really twisted is these same payment processors seemingly have no qualms about Steam's large variety of pornography[1], some of which are Japanese eroges[2] (with less/no censoring![3]) that DMM, et al. are demanded to delist.
Banks and payment processors really need to stick to just doing their business, which is securely storing money and facilitating the transfer of money between two parties regarding legal business transactions.
It's clearly Japanese amateur content publishing economy that they are after. They're leaving professional comic/porn sections of same websites as-is, while cutting off multiple amateur bookstore chains[1] altogether. This is not even double standards.
Their intent is undoubtedly to throw wrenches into Japanese manga ecosystem that incubate and train authors rather effectively through out-of-economy feedback mechanisms in social media and self publishing, massively supercharged in the past decade through Twitter; it had proved immune to foreign replication attempts, financial incentives, leverages, even generative AI tools[2]. Those tools don't do much, other than raising barrier to entry by raising expectations and bolstering Japanese dominance.
Some crazy person somewhere must be on a cultural crusade trying to "solve" that problem, not understanding that trying to deny financial incentives just widens the cost-performance gap between Japan and the rest of the West by suppressing market valuation of Japanese manga and anime, allowing it to be more heavily subsidized by authors' dayjobs. They never made money in manga. Introducing money to disinterested then refusing it achieves nothing. Otherwise it makes no sense.
1: as in small videogame-shop-like franchises that specialize in casual self-published books - yes, that's a thing in Japan.
2: AI is completely useless in manga, I mean, there's no way copyright flamewar and watermarking movement existed if it worked. Pornographic voice drama authors[3] are loving it for generating cover arts for free. But even they don't look interested in AI content generation, they just love free covers.
3: yes, it's a thing in Japanese language, seem to be steadily growing even among English speakers. They're picking up Japanese fast. The hardest language on Earth, not anymore.
Omitting that tends to result in more productive discussions. Most people are much more principled when discussing in the abstract than when it comes to something that they have been two minutes' hating for their whole lives.
Your feelings as a non-Japanese have absolutely no bearing on what flies in Japan.
Whether the content concerned is tentacle hentai, or goth lolis, or genderbent King Arthur and Leonardo Da Vinci, or whatever else, that stuff is legal under Japanese law and Visa/MC are violating Japanese rights ordering Japanese creators and merchants to censor them. Visa/MC are quite literally engaging in foreign interference and subversion of democracy and Japan's very culture.
That's a, uh, rather overheated statement and ironically, a very Western point of view. Japan is one of the richest nations in the world, they can (and do) run their own payments systems.
Also, it's risible to call that stuff Japan's "very culture". It's not. Otaku culture is fringe there, too. Japan is not anime.
Also, there are plenty of legal things that are (rightly) publicly shamed and ostracized.
For example, I don't want white supremacists to go to jail for what they say, but I want their lives to be as annoying and lonely as possible.
> For example, I don't want white supremacists to go to jail for what they say, but I want their lives to be as annoying and lonely as possible.
Do you want e.g. electricity companies to refuse to do business with them? Do you think that's a private business decision that doesn't need any particular right of appeal or evidentiary standard?
(The author deliberately presents the notion that a bank account is something different from a utility as though this were an objective, immutable fact of nature, rather than the product of choices that the financial industry makes because it finds it very convenient to think of itself that way)
The idea of making people with 19th century views actually live in 19th century conditions is extremely amusing. We could try it, sure.
On a more serious note, I don't think it's accurate or fair to say it's merely because of industry choices.
The US stretched the idea of the common carrier (ie everyone has equal access to send freight on the railroads) to things like oil pipelines and telecommunications lines. Utilities offer services under license from the government and have special rights and subsidies.
I don't think a bank account is that similar. It's essentially floating you a loan - you can cash a fraudulent check and skip out with the money, for example, and the bank eats the cost.
>Japan is one of the richest nations in the world, they can (and do) run their own payments systems.
Indeed. JCB and certain western credit cards contracted with them for access into Japan (namely AMEX and Discover) have no problems (and why should they) with what Visa/MC want to censor.
>Also, it's risible to call that stuff Japan's "very culture". It's not. Otaku culture is fringe there, too. Japan is not anime.
Tentacle hentai goes back at least as far as Katsushika Hokusai[1], so you are mistaken. Otaku culture is very much a part of Japanese culture and inseparable.
>Also, there are plenty of legal things that are (rightly) publicly shamed and ostracized.
When legal tender cannot be used for legal transactions, there is a problem.
> When legal tender cannot be used for legal transactions, there is a problem
Why? Something being legal for you doesn't make it compulsory for others. With limited exceptions, nobody is required to do business with you.
Also, I must stress again that Japan is a real country with real people. It is not anime, and it's even more risible to point to famous historical porn and say it's analogous to modern porn.
That's like gay slurs are deeply central to American culture because the Roman poet Catallus lost his cool once at some critics.[0]
>> When legal tender cannot be used for legal transactions, there is a problem
> Why? Something being legal for you doesn't make it compulsory for others.
Because this undermines soverignity. Nation monopolizes violence. There can't be a private police with its own laws, that's a mafia. Once an entity has powers comparable to that of the nation it resides in, within few orders of magnitudes, that power must to be destroyed and transferred to the government of the nation.
In this case, the US government, as well as the governments of other nations, will tacitly impose its monopoly on violence against banks, processors, and merchants to ban content it doesn't like. So it was with Wikileaks, and so it goes with ero-manga. The only mafia are the ones prodding the credit card companies into a financial dilemma between legal liability and cutting off a market.
VISA isn't doing it in compliance right now. It's doing its things using "global standards" as an excuse. That behavior is not democratic, and such functions need to be regulated out.
I remember seeing people debating who's the kingpin and where the orders are coming from, as it'll change which of anti-monopoly laws, financial transaction laws, trademark laws, outsourcing laws, etc. would apply or has to be amended.
Whoever it is, it's kind of obvious that the mafia isn't a US or European official government entity or employee. Last I've heard, people doing this research-activism seem to have largely excluded direct involvement of VISA Inc. in US as well as its Singapore subsidiary, and was poking around few specific VPs in VJA or something.
>Why? Something being legal for you doesn't make it compulsory for others.
Money is legal tender for all debts public and private, money has value precisely because everyone can and should use and accept it.
If banks or payment processors inhibit or prohibit my ability to conduct business by refusing to transact my money with no justifiable basis, then that is violating my and the other party's rights to free association as well as destroying the very essence of money.
If you truly do not see the very serious problem here, I'm not sure what it will take to enlighten you.
>Also, I must stress again that Japan is a real country with real people.
You are literally talking to a Japanese man, I probably know about Japan more intimately than you will ever do.
>It is not anime
Otaku culture is an inseparable part of Japanese culture and attacking it like Visa/MC are doing is attacking Japanese culture, what part of that do you not understand?
>it's even more risible to point to famous historical porn and say it's analogous to modern porn.
Kinoe no Komatsu[1] is quite literally a doujinshi-equivalent[2] from its time. Classic Japanese eroges are sometimes featured[3] as a symbol of Japanese culture of its time.
>That's like gay slurs are deeply central to American culture because the Roman poet Catallus lost his cool once at some critics.
Whitewashing histories and cultures is nothing short of reprehensible. Whatever happened to diversity and heritage?
[3]: https://x.com/Ian_Fisch/status/1820897232746594354 - The lower screenshot (it is SFW) is from Words Worth[4]. The dialogue translates to English like so: [Astral]: Hey Katra... Are you always peeping at Sharon when she's naked?
It's a throwaway account intended to be detached and hopefully untracable to whoever the owner/main account is.
What I'm wondering is what point you're trying to make here; account age has no bearing on whether it's a throwaway or not, though the longer a throwaway is used the more it accumulates an identity of its own.
We live in a society. There were a bunch of pedos in the Netherlands who tried to start a political party to change age of consent.
It did not go well for them.
The middle class and below live paycheck to paycheck so that's an issue they don't have. I suppose the author refers to this (ironically or not)
But debanking happens, or has happened, to _almost_ everybody who has some assets and cash, probably from the higher middle class until the ~1% .. as for the super wealthy, this class enjoys offshore private banking, has assets split into dozens of accounts and is mostly unbothered by AML.
> debanking happens, or has happened, to _almost_ everybody who has some assets and cash
I don't think this is true. I know many people with assets and as far as I know, none of them has been debanked. Surely I would know someone who has been debanked if almost everybody with assets has been.
You need to provide data behind your claim that debanking is so widespread as to use the word almost everybody.
Never ever heard any person I know being denied banking services, except for some unlucky (were they?) entrepreneur with very shady is-he-laundering-money situations.
I feel exactly the same. I tire of people on HN talking about their accounts being closed but providing 10% of the relevant information to their case. I have said it before and I will say it again: If your accounts are wrongfully closed, immediately: (1) Visit your your bank in protest and meet with the branch manager and (2) send physical letter of complaint to (a) local branch (b) head office (c) national bank regulator and make it clear you have CC'd all. I bet 99% of legit cases will be reinstated within 30 days.
If you look in the details of the "paycheck to paycheck" surveys, people reporting they make 200k+ a year also say yes to that, so I think it's just unclear what they think it means.
> But debanking happens, or has happened, to _almost_ everybody who has some assets and cash, probably from the higher middle class until the ~1%
Can you back up this claim? The wealthier you are the less chance you're going to be debanked. Marc Andressen and all the crypto bros will never have an issue with debanking. Banks are rolling out the red carpet for him and everyone else with his net worth.
What they (1%) want is to own the bank and own (and create) the currency without ever having to be an actual bank. They invest in crypto to make a massive profit, and it's foolish to play along with these things as some sort of benefit to society. Together these guys could end world hunger and still have more money than they would ever need, but no, they've decided VBucks are a pressing issue.
I saw a picture of the insides on another site, it looked like a Disney castle with the stone polished to look almost white. Why not just restore it to look like before the accident?
As sibling-comment said, no LEDs back then. They probably used soot-billowing torches, 200 years of that means the building must've looked pretty shabby already when done. So the state it currently is in is unrealistic after all.
medieval builders would have relied on the use of flame and natural light.
I think it all looks great with the exception of white-spectrum LEDs as far as the eye can see; the natural lighting of the past Notre Dame during early morning was special -- maybe it still is , but the white LEDs everywhere make it look 'clinical' to me.
Not sure but I think these lights are temporary the time for the ceremony, I would be very surprised they keep using them while other French cathedrals don’t.
I wouldn't say "not allowed" because art is subjective, but there's a certain awe in visiting a place that shows clear signs of being many centuries old.
I obviously haven't visited Notre Dame yet, but when I visited the fully rebuilt Berlin Palace last year I did get an impression of "this place needs to age a couple hundred years before it's done".
Old buildings look so dark die to centries of dirt. Especially since industrialization and automobiles. But before that due to fires (for heating and light) For many of those old buildings there are light stones beneath the dark layer.
Same for glass windows, which in old times haven't been as clear as today possible, but still lighter than after centuries of dust settling.
The stone likely may have been painted, originally too. I asked a tour guide at Chartres about the why the floor was so rough and the walls so perfectly aligned. She said that the walls were not perfect, they painted over the stones and drew lines of perfect boundaries because the walls and ceiling represented heaven (perfect), while the floor represented earth (imperfect), so it used rough, variously-sized, unevenly fitted stones.
(Incidentally, this is related to why there are gargoyles on cathedrals. The church building is a microcosm of the cosmological universe. On the outside is untamed wild, which is where the monsters are (a monster being something we do not understand or cannot integrate, hence the abundance of chimeral combination of multiple animal and/or human parts). Inside the church is where the Kingdom is, with a baptistry at the beginning, because you enter the Kingdom through baptism. Then, the masses of the people in the Kingdom. And originally the altar was behind a screen, which represented the holy of holies, where God is; now this is often represented with a raised platform for the altar.)
I am gravely disappointed with all attempts of democratic government.
"People" don't end up deciding, some small elite does instead, usually financial, but sometimes sociopolitical. (media/education/parties) The way Romania handles it is just as bad as more western countries, they just let their dictatorship moves slip up as more obvious. I would give examples about how more western countries are corrupt, but I don't think that's allowed on this site, pretty much making my point for me.
It's certainly widespread for movie remakes. Old classics usually cost money, or a specialty streaming service. New remakes of the same classics are usually on prime or netflix.
There are some examples of remakes that are great. Frequently, these become the "classics" and people forget about the original. A canonical example is John Carpenter's "The Thing" in 1982, which was a remake of a somewhat crappy 50s movie and is now a sci-fi horror classic. Another good example is "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" from 1978, starring Donald Sutherland. It was a remake of a 1950s movie too, though in that case the 50s movie was actually pretty good, but the 1978 one was scarier.
I can't think of any good remakes from after the year 2000.
Does the Coen Brothers 2010 version of True Grit count? I think it was better than the 1969 John Wayne version, but maybe it doesn't count as a "remake" because both were based on Charles Portis' novel.
It was fantastic for about 2.5 seasons, and then jumped the shark. It really, really showed the importance of not just letting the writers make shit up with each new season, similar to LOST.
Notepad++ was my first editor of my own choice. In the end, not something I wanted to keep around, but It's certainly something I would recommend to people who are just getting started in IT.
The title made me click, and the content was enjoyable. But I still don't think clickbait like this should be present in scientific papers.
It's something about how scientific papers are not "for pleasure", they're informational tools. An easter egg in a game is cool right, but an easter egg in a graphics driver? That's the distinction I'm making here.
I am so puzzled by this attitude. People are free to make any distinction they want, the way they want, but the representation you have of a scientific literature is erroneous.
Scientific articles are informational tools that report results of experiments and nothing more. If the results are interesting to the peers, they are published. By they are not world's laws made paper unless sufficient replications are made.
This means that each article need to be read with the context of the literature in mind and with a critical eye. Each are a single point of evidence to a phenomena.
Hence, there are subjective informational tools, written toward a specific audience (the experts of the domains) to inform of a specific result in a specific case.
On top of that, their are specific journal/issues where these types submissions are allowed. Don't read these submissions if you are looking for serious "information tools"
Scientific literature must be handled the same way as legal literature. If you are not a law expert, you ask a lawyer. If you think you are a legal expert when you are not, surprising consequences may arise.
In universities, they are classes dedicated to handling the scientific literature. They are provided for a reason.
So please, don't use cat's physic for liquid simulation in game engine... or please do?
Let's imagine someone interested in the biology of cats and felines at large. A specialized biologist. They might choose to personally catalog all publications which have use for them, like this article surely might.
But in their catalog of articles, one will have the title: Cats are (almost) liquid
And this is cute, slightly funny, but not correct. From an informational standpoint, this is not related to whether or not cats are liquid. From a material standpoint they consist of both solid, liquid and even gaseous substances. (to the extent we can consider co2 a part of their bodily function)
In a newspaper or such, this would not be a problem, you read it, enjoy it, and move on. But not for serious science. A dry and purely objective title is better in that case, just like how a function should be named based on what it does, not based on some meme regarding what it does.
The paper could be named: Awareness of body flexibility among cats. A function should be named get_employee(), not get_luser().
And the reason why this is true, is because the fad of naming a function get_luser() will become "not worth it" the day someone who didn't understand the meme comes across it, and has to ask you about it. Again especially if you're making a driver/library, something to be used by many, not by just yourself or a few others. And also, the "funny" aspect of it will present a mental hurdle. Instead of simply calling get_employee() in your new context, you will be calling get_luser(), and laughing for a bit and thinking about the bofh comics. Train of thought is lost.
The human mind is limited, and attempting to "capture" it attention leads to an attention arms race. And this arms race leads to tiktok. Which is why we use dry naming for serious pursuits.
Why reinvent a graphical interface in the terminal? If we are playing chess in the terminal, we are likely happy to accept abstractions and such. You could use normal letters for the different pieces, perhaps using lowercase for black and uppercase for white. Even the "grid" could be an optional setting, placing a slight emphasis on user skill in being able to visualize the grid on their own.
A B C D E F G H
8 r n b q k b n r
7 p p p p p p p p
6
5
4
3
2 P P P P P P P P
1 R N B Q K B N R
This to me feels more like truly playing chess in the terminal. Add a non-interactive session mode, for example "chesst game123 view" to produce a view of the game, and "chesst game123 e2 e4" to move the pawn infront of white king two squares up. Naturally moving a piece can by default also print the new board state, after the opponents move. Implicitly prompting you to move again, or to just leave the terminal and do something else.
I'd also assume people would use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_notation_(chess) for the notation. No need to say "e2 e4" if "e4" is already non-ambiguous. Plus side for learning this notation is it can help read old games.
There was some trouble in scaling unicode text within the layout. Unfortunately increasing `font-size` is not trivial within the context of terminal. There are some ways around this , but i figured out that it's far more easier to render chess pieces as pixel images using `rich-pixels` [1]
I think the unicode chess symbols are not quite in the spirit of terminal applications. It is also more intuitive to move the rook using algebraic notation, if the rook is denoted by r, rather than "♜". But certainly, viewing the board using unicode symbols is a very reasonable user setting, but I would err that it would not be default.
And "e2 e4" contains technically superflous information, yes. The application should be able to parse the most minimal algebraic notation possible, but also more verbose commands.
I did start initially with something like this, but then i sort of stumbled upon `chess-tui` and I was mostly trying to see if i can build something similar.
The first version was chess notation based movement. I got some initial feedback that it's probably not very useful. I still understand that most people would probably use chess.com or some other chess app if they want a full blown graphical experience and with terminal there are many limitations at play which would limit a full experience for such folks. But there is hopefully more interesting things that can be added to this such as your suggestions for viewing games that will make it more useful.
I wrote cboard, a simple text-mode frontnend for playing with UCI engine, which basically works the way you describe. It is part of the Haskell chessIO package.
And Emacs Chess (also known as chess.el) has a "chess-plain" board variant which is configurable down to which letters should be used. Borders are also optional, all configurable.
I'm going to assume this produces a grid. Once again, we are reinventing a graphical user interface. If we wanted all this, why wouldn't we open firefox and go to chess.com or lichess.org. Or even something that runs natively on your computer, perhaps even producing lavish and beautiful 2d or 3d rendering of the game.
This will be used to silence political dissent in the EU. The current rulers fear the change which could come about if they allow the political climate to shift in the direction which it is ready to.
There is currently an initiative to forbid a political party, the AfD in Germany. This is not supported by the CDU, but by others. While I do not like the AfD, forbidding political parties that serve as an outlet for people who do not support the uniparty and their essentially identical policies seems to be one of the most totalitarian measures in postwar Germany.
The SPD should instead examine why they themselves are losing votes.
Yes, they cling to their positions and pensions. In the case of Germany/SPD it is especially amusing (or tragic):
With a leader like Willy Brandt and the historical SPD they'd easily get 40%. The current mediocrities in the SPD are old enough to know that. Yet they still prefer their positions over actually serving the country.
Globalization. If you're a rich person you spend most of your life in the company of other rich people across the world. If you're a politician you spend it with other politicians. It's natural for a person to feel some kind of group affinity for the people they interact with the most.
The result is they're even less connected to the societies they are nominally a part of. It also makes them much more invested in perpetuating the system and less receptive to society.
edit: This was intentional as it was thought that such a system would reduce international conflict.
> The result is they're even less connected to the societies they are nominally a part of. It also makes them much more invested in perpetuating the system and less receptive to society.
How might we start to fix that, do you think? I don't imagine globalization is going anywhere.
When dealing with complexity tooling usually helps. I tend to think instead of redacting documents when FOIAd everything should be public by default. We could have graph tools that markup the connections and make the world more comprehensible.
Well I'm curious what you think, so really it depends on what you want to happen, which presumably would include fixing this:
> The result is they're even less connected to the societies they are nominally a part of. It also makes them much more invested in perpetuating the system and less receptive to society.
Well, you might want to read the German constitution. In short is says; any group or political party whose goal is an upheaval of the current system of government can be declared unconstitutional.
No. Democratic elections are part of the system of government. If the AfD wants to significantly hinder democratic representation via elections, reduce the ability of non-native Germans to vote, or reduce the power of elected representatives, then it is acting against the system of government and must be outlawed.
Do you have any evidence that AdD wants to 'significantly hinder democratic representation via elections'? So far I do see efforts to do just that by parties that promote censorship ('stop disinformation') and try to ban their political opponents like AfD.
Considering what the AfD stands for, I'm in for them being banned from political life. German society has been extremely patient with them, refraining to use the word "nazi" when it kind of fits. I don't think it'll happen though, because they manage to be as nazi as possible within the letter of the law.
> The SPD should instead examine why they themselves are losing votes.
Extremist discourse is appealing. Much like using lead in gasoline. It's very hard to compete with hate-based politics when you don't have to outline actual actionable and long-term viable policies and can rely on soundbites for effect.
Radical parties gaining mass support is an indication that the centrist parties which should be 'more reasonable' are deliberately ignoring some major factor which a lot of the voters care about.
Anyone looking at the rise of AfD should also look at the example of Denmark, which some years earlier had also seen a strong rise of radical alt-right parties, but once the centrists switched their stance against immigration, at the next elections the radicals went back down to their rightful 1% or so of votes. That is also an example which shows that indeed it is possible to compete with hate-based politics with actual actionable and long-term viable policies.
Indeed, SPD should instead examine why they themselves are losing votes and consider it their duty to provide some alternative for German voters so that a person can vote against immigration without getting the full neo-nazi package in addition to that.
> deliberately ignoring some major factor which a lot of the voters care about.
Is it that so, or is it that hate-based shallow arguments appeal to a particular audience more than "more reasonable" policies or discourse?
> once the centrists switched their stance against immigration
Then the far-right would have won and turned the political mainstream into xenophobes. Not a great outcome for the society as a whole. Would arguments centered on supporting immigrants (and refugees fleeing humanitarian crisis) and integrating them into their host society have the same appeal for people who have been fed a diet of fear and hatred?
There has to be a line that should never be crossed in any democratic society. The far right has crossed it.
"uni party" is AFD lingo. And when that "outlet" has, in parts, goals that are incompatible with our constitution, then a discussion (and it's not much more at this stage) about a Verbotsprozess seems appropriate. To give some more context, the possibility to forbid parties that work against the foundations of our democracy is explicitly defined in the constitution, it is not a purely political move to silence opposition, as your seems to imply.
I'm disappointed but not surprised that you are trying to discredit a comment based on a single term that saves a paragraph of explanation. The same tactics that we talk about in this submission.
Chomsky, so far as I'm aware, has never written "Uniparty." What he generally seems to be referring to when he says "One Party System" is the enthrallment of the USA government to capitalist interests.
"Uniparty," as in that exact word, is very much a Trumpean era creation, brought back into popularity by right wing q-anon aligned USA presidential candidate (I believe candidate?) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Someone's usage of it generally indicates not that they're an anticapitalist but that they're aligned with this new form of reactionary thinking.
"Supporters of the 2000 Green Party presidential bid of Ralph Nader used the term extensively, and Nader himself called the prevailing political structure a 'corporate uniparty' in his 2002 book Crashing the Party."
Pinning this term the right is the usual tactic to outlaw the term and remove it from the dictionary.
We are now 3 comments deep into talking about the term in the context of the US. The thread and the original comments were about Germany. Can you explain to us how the former relates to the latter? Germany has a much more diverse set of parties. However, terms similar to "uniparty" are used by AFD (and perhaps BSW) to refer to "all the regular" (read: democratic) parties, that they stand in fundamental opposition to.
Why are you replying on behalf of the person I actually asked?
You created your account today, this was your first comment, and I perceive it to be exceedingly aggressive and antagonistic. You're also putting words in my mouth. I don't believe you're acting in good faith and engaging with you is not a productive use of my time.
In the USA "Libertarian" and "Anarchist" also almost mean the same thing except the points they differ on identify them as fundamentally opposed ideologies.
Uniparty specifically is a term Americans mostly use from the right wing to describe what they call Globalist interests, which almost means the same thing as when anticapitalists describe Capitalist interests, except the points they differ on identify them as fundamentally opposed ideologies.
I've never heard any european politicians use the actual term "uniparty," if someone on this sub is using that exact term, they're likely adopting the American right wing definition of the term in the same way if you see someone referring to "libertarian values" on this sub they probably don't mean values like forming cooperative relationships of mutual aid, they probably mean american libertarian values like privatized unregulated industry. My sibling comment mentions that we're discussing Germany, and that's why I'm being a stickler, if you hear a German refer to the concept of "one party" meaning many parties being enthralled to capitalism, that's very different than the typical usage english word "Uniparty."
Chomsky is talking about capitalist interests, he's not talking about the modern American right wing "globalist interests" which is a sort of umbrella term vaguely blaming economic hardship on trade deficits, exporting factories, importing cheap labor, and sometimes simply antisemitism (global jewish conspiracy to pump nations dry for example). What chomsky is talking about is more like how both parties are required to serve capitalist interests e.g. by not socializing healthcare since that would hurt the bottom line of healthcare companies, or by not banning fracking since that hurts the profits of massive transnational oil companies.
Nothing in particular. European media work hard to paint the AfD as a fringe-right party, but its stated agenda is basically to prioritize national interests. This is something that the current government in Germany has failed at very badly, and the populace is not alltogether blind to this fact. In all recent elections, the AfD is now the top or second party, with 30%+ overall support, despite persistent attempts at political marginalization.
The AfD has a serious right-wing problem and doesn't want to clean up their act. Banning the party might lead to failure as with the NPD (which since renamed itself) but it's worth a try and in parallel axing their funding like just happened earlier this year with the NPD should be attempted.
I disagree with your "totalitarian measure" comment, it is the AfD who are not compatible with the German constitution and the majority of Germany's society who prefer a fair democracy should not bulge the shouting of demands by populists, Reichsbürger, Querdenker. The connections to the AfD do exist, AfD politician Malsack-Winkemann (then already not a member of the Bundestag anymore, a security issue in my eyes) toured through the Reichstag with people from the Reichtsbürger group around Heinrich XIII. Prinz Reuß. Local AfD politician Andreas Geitz was even part of the Reichstagsturm in 2020.
If the people want AfD, is not a clear indicator that either something is wrong with Germany's highest law or its interpretation? The benefit of there being being AfD in the open is that it would be in the open. Is it a good idea to keep things hidden?
If you are unhappy with a law, get a majority. AfD just like it's spiritual predecessor in the NSDAP won't get that. The best Hitler got before his Machtergreifung was only 43% right after the Reichstagbrand.
There was a path that we - thanks to the magic that is hindsight - can clearly see now and we should use that knowlegde to prevent history from repeating, but one thing is certain: The political extremes won't play by the rules, let alone play fair, to reach power. We've seen this with Hitler, we saw it with the Republican party in Florida 2020 to get Bush into power and we've seen it with January 6th and again with the preparations republican across the country do to prevent voters from voting or not validate results.
<< If you are unhappy with a law, get a majority.
<< The best Hitler got before his Machtergreifung was only 43% right after the Reichstagbrand.
Do you know how much support the remaining power centers had? Does it mean he had majority? Does it change your argument? If so, how?
I am avoiding addressing the meat of your argument so far and I am letting small things like Bush 2020 slide, because you are not wrong about power. You do, however, appear to be blinded by the convenience of Left/Right political spectrum.
Connections to the AfD exist, because extreme right people will always choose the most right wing viable party (NPD or successor is too small) as their home. The question is the percentage of these people and if all of them are genuine or some of them are planted.
I agree with the CDU here that the purported issue is not clear enough. It is a shame that we do not have the relatively normal political era of Schmidt, Kohl and Genscher, but that's the fault of the CDU/SPD.
In April 2018, Germany's domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), estimated that Reichsbürger movement membership had grown by 80% over the previous two years, more than estimated earlier, with a total of 18,000 adherents, of whom 950 were categorized as right-wing extremists. [Wikipedia]
Apart from numbers -- given that their ranks include former KSK members, they've had some success infiltrating local police departments, and are part of a much broader cloth of revisionist/antidemocratic movements; on top of the events of December 2022 -- the description of "completely irrelevant" is weirdly hyperbolic.
For context: the RAF probably had no more than 100 members at any point, but no one would think to call them "irrelevant".
I was imprecise in saying "the last time", I was aiming for a specific comparison.
Also, I'm fairly sure Strafgesetzbuch section 86a is not what bans parties and membership of them, but censors their symbols and imagery. The Basic Law (Grundgesetz) article 21(2) is what bans parties.
The article has a list of parties whose symbols were banned by that law. Strafgesetzbuch section 86a bans the symbols of "unconstitutional parties".
But what bans the parties? Who decides parties are unconstitutional? That is Grundgesetz article 21(2):
Parties that, by reason of their aims or the behaviour of their adherents, seek to undermine or abolish the free democratic basic order or to endanger the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany shall be unconstitutional. The Federal Constitutional Court shall rule on the question of unconstitutionality.
Parteien, die nach ihren Zielen oder nach dem Verhalten ihrer Anhänger darauf ausgehen, die freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung zu beeinträchtigen oder zu beseitigen oder den Bestand der Bundesrepublik Deutschland zu gefährden, sind verfassungswidrig. Über die Frage der Verfassungswidrigkeit entscheidet das Bundesverfassungsgericht.
I'd suggest by tackling the issues affecting the common folk, in earnest. Let them see you have a solution for their problems and it is working.
Otherwise, the loud idiots with simple-sounding solutions (that don't work) will gain power.
In the case of the Weimar Republic, it was fucked over by the victors of WW1 imposing a crippling financial burden on it. So, don't wreck your enemies so hard, you might create a monster.
What if there is no solution? What if some problems just have to be endured for a while?
This rethoric always sounds to me like "it's the big parties' fault the people are voting for extremists because the big parties didn't create a perfect world full of rainbows and sunshine".
I'm not convinced that the quality of the current government(s) is the reason for extremists gaining popularity.
Almost all problems faced by governments are social or economic ones, rarely is there "no solution"... just a range of solutions with different trade-offs, and you have to see which ones you can convince the populace to accept before they turf you out of your job.
What if the Weimar Republic said "screw it, we're not paying"? It might have prompted military invasion, or further sanctions from the victors, making it a pariah state, but it might also have relieved the misery felt by ordinary citizens, and they might not have been so receptive to the big lies of the future dictator.
Because I find people are very upset about this until it's used on people they don't like - socialists or fascists - and then they are very happy it's being used to 'stop the slide into fascism/communism' until it's used on them again.
Yes. The tyrannical clan of the ruling class knows this method very well and uses it to great effect repeatedly and with apparently little to no reaction or pushback. It is not the only method or even class of manipulative and abusive methods. It is basically just a bait and switch at its core.
A famous example many here will likely still be able to associate with is “The Patriot act”, which should have really been called “The Hunt Patriots act”; in reality a kind of mop-up operation after the USA has already long ago been functionally and psychologically conquered without the people even realizing it, kind of like how people can one day find themselves wondering how they slid into a very abusive relationship little by little without realizing it or being able to take action to prevent it. The only difference being that many, definitely not most people haven’t even started asking themselves whether they are in an abusive relationship, let alone how they got there.
People still haven’t even realized that the whole premise of the EU is a tyrannical and hostile illegitimate imitation government. It has no legitimacy under its own claimed democratic principles, it’s the timeshare fraud of governance; sell a fantasy and good presentation, while reality is a fraudulent and destructive nightmare.
Are you sure these are the same individuals? I can imagine them being different members of a nebulous group where different people talk louder at different times.
The justification is that the group they oppose is against the democratic values they espouse and, therefore, must be violently suppressed by any means necessary, in order to protect their democracy. "Communism/socialism" is usually a straw-man used in those cases.
The last 10 years have seen it become fascism/nazism.
One need only quote what Churchill said to see that it's nothing of the sort. Unless of course you think the man who kept the world war against nazism and fascism going for a year by himself was himself a fascist nazi at which point words don't mean anything.
Bringing up immigration is indeed probably a good method of generating a lot of heat and very little light.
There are places one can calmly discuss even the most abhorrent of ideas like giving parents the right of infanticide or banning home ownership or requiring parents to swap their baby for a random one without anyone getting heated, but this isn't one of them.
