FailForward @FailForward@social.cleverlibre.org

@jwildeboer
I get what you mean. But as you say yourself it's early days still. we cannot judge the maturity of the final outcome yet. We are at TRL 3-4 and I think I am still very optimistic here.

Thanks a lot for interesting topic, I will respond properly later in the day when I am by the computer once again. Walking across the city now....
@qrsbrwn

@qrsbrwn @jwildeboer I was also involved in such projects, although in much earlier stages in academic contexts. My take is that they tend to lead to centralised solutions just because we do not know any better *yet*. That does not mean that when the ideas reach full maturity (still decades from now, btw), they will remain centralised.

One thing I have confidence in is that in our contexts (western civilisation circuit), we very well realise fragility of centralised solutions and prefer more robust, albeit sometimes sub-optimal patterns (e.g., this thing called "democracy"). Just simple fact that we speak about a danger of centralised solutions becoming "big brother"-ish right now is a sign that we, as a society, have checks and balances set well and that they work (just a tad slower than we'd like to).

The realm of multi-agent systems and emergent behaviours is a difficult domain. My observation (we can speak plethora of examples around us if you wish to), it typically proceeds from firstly centralised ideas to more robust and decentralised ones.

@jwildeboer Take a closer look. Maybe the smart city is actually as decentralised as the smart village, just the geographical density of independent inter-connected nodes is higher by orders of magnitude compared to the village. In turn, when you look from distance, the city *appears* to be centralised, while it isn't. Which do you prefer now?

> We don’t often encounter an author capable of denouncing “the tyranny of Orwellian syntax” while arguing in the same breath, literally and without irony, that freedom is slavery.
> Matt Taibbi in _Marcuse-Anon: Cult of the Pseudo-Intellectual_ at https://taibbi.substack.com/p/marcuse-anon-cult-of-the-pseudo-intellectual-1d3

Mildly entertaining, somewhat boring. But the ending quip is worth a Jeremy Clarkson ending bombshell medal. Clearly, sometimes one needs to write a full essay, just to get an opportunity to drop the single bombshell line at the end.

@ry@mas.to It's not my primary password manager (personally I have different reqs than you mention), but for work stuff we use Passman https://www.passman.cc/. Has a web extension and as a backend it's integrated into ownCloud (https://marketplace.owncloud.com/apps/passman), so if you are a user of that, the integration is seemless. Works reasonably well for me.

@mathias I picked up your suggestion and started to watch this. Very very good. I probably wouldn't stumble upon it on my own (Netflix thinks I wouldn't like it). Very much in the great tradition of British criminal series like Luther, Bodyguard, or Marcella. Thanks again.

@mathias
Can't agree more. I think this reflects well the evolution of thinking about health care in many (if not most) EU countries too. We took different paths over the last 30+ years, but are arriving at the same conclusion.
@lfrffs @ew @louiscouture

@mathias

Re Taiwan: clearly, that is the strategic goal. It can only be prevented by a mightier power, US in this case, projecting itself into the region. I'd say, Sauron's eye (i.e., US) is looking in the right direction in this case. Any military intervention on the side of China risks a hot war and that is not something China takes lightly against US. I think the balance will go on using economic leverage - as Trump started and Biden will, no doubt, continue. I am no way an expert on this, but since China's development seems to heavily depend on exports, it seems to me that the US (and EU) has a long long lever there. But what do I know?

Personally, I think how this plays out over the next decades will be the story of our generation.

Some (like Friedman in the book I mentioned previously) think there's a good reason to bet on China's implosion/reversal to their introvert nature and future closing off. I find the argument why quite interesting, but have not enough good information to judge its merit.

@marathon I highly doubt it. But each is free to draw his own conclusions.

@louiscouture @freemo

Yes, health care is very inefficient, poorly managed, costly, slow, yada yada. We can complain forever (including myself at times).

But let's be clear about some things: relatively minor cost factors aside (e.g, US vs. EU-style systems differences) at the moment, we are living in a world which has the best healthcare in the whole history of humankind. And especially so in the Western world. Today you have to wait with a health condition for a couple of months and it hurts, it is uncomfortable and we suffer and then it's often solved (or not, but such is the nature of the Mother Nature). Absolutely. But 50-70 years ago, your ordeal would be to learn to live till your death with that same condition. And 100+ years ago you would simply die to it before a doctor would see you.

So let's complain about healthcare systems here and there, it's a fun sport for all of us. But wherever you live (and I doubt either of us lives in a developing country - speaking to each other on this platform is already mostly self-selection from affluent places, because we have simply too much time on our hands): would you change for living in a significantly different health-care system? I wouldn't, I am fine where I am. The rest is just money, peanuts, first-world problems... I am grateful for how we are managing it here around.

@mathias @lfrffs @ew

@marathon
Good luck there. I was born in a non-US sphere of influence and I am glad we are out. If I had to choose only between living in China or living in the US, I'd take US anyday. But of course, different people have different preferences. Some don't mind government oppression. I do.

@marathon Do I understand it correctly that you are suggesting that it would be better for your own country to switch from US sphere of influence to China's sphere of influence and that it would significantly improve your life?

@marathon Well, "can't stand" is a bit too emotionally loaded. From US perspective, it's an absolutely rational behaviour to protect its safety and interests as much as it can and as far away from their core territory as it can. And over the last 8 decades it can project that power very far. So it's also rational on their side to do so. If I were a top decision maker on their side, I would do the same. The fact that as an occasional receiver of their policy decisions I am not always happy with it makes little difference.

@freemo @mathias

Let's not throw around numbers from out of blue. Here you get a fairly detailed and also quite recent OECD paper on waiting times in health care: https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/waiting-times-for-health-services_242e3c8c-en

Interesting figures are starting [on page 17 onwards](https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/waiting-times-for-health-services_242e3c8c-en#page17). It's a mixed bag there, but nowhere near "horrible" in Europe. Rather to the contrary.

As for the cost of health care, here are plenty of sources on the fact that effectiveness of expenditures in the US is not exactly stellar.

Some other potentially useful data at OECD reports and DBs. Starting point perhaps here: https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SHA

@lfrffs @ew @louiscouture

@borrof
Thanks. That helps. Indeed, his pic streams are interesting:
* https://www.behance.net/zubkov46
* https://www.instagram.com/frm46/
@mangeurdenuage

# China's naval fleet is becoming a force to reckon with

https://www.maritime-executive.com/editorials/a-guide-to-china-s-unprecedented-naval-shipbuilding-drive

So I read that China's naval force is becoming powerful.

> Sometime between 2015 and 2020, China’s Navy crossed a critical threshold: it fielded more battle force ships than the U.S. Navy, making it the world’s largest navy numerically. Today, at around 360 hulls, it exceeds its American rival by more than sixty warships.

The article goes on to summarise the recent ship-building achievements by the China's naval forces. It's clear, the force-projecting machine is on the rise. This is especially worrying in the context of the regional waters around China, especially South China Sea disputes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_South_China_Sea).

This has implications in regard to the rise of hi-tech as a strategic asset: production of computer processors is becoming a strategic and vital military issue. C.f., e.g., the insightful article by Ben Thompson here: https://stratechery.com/2020/chips-and-geopolitics/. It boils down to this observation: _chips are everywhere and especially so in advanced weapons. You can't win a war without chips. Who owns chip production, owns a strategic resource and it provides them a freedom to operate in military theatre._

The most advanced chip production facilities are owned by TSMC and reside in Taiwan. The fact that EU and USA are becoming disadvantaged in chip production (it's of course way more nuanced, but generally true) is a strategic military planning concern. China's growing ability to project naval power and to capture Taiwan if it decides so are, in this sense, problematic.

There's one more interesting observation:

> More broadly still, it offers modern history’s sole example of a “land” power successfully becoming a “sea” power and sustaining that status over time.

Indeed, as well argued by e.g., G. Friedman in [The Next 100 Years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Next_100_Years:_A_Forecast_for_the_21st_Century), China is a land power. It's limited by it access to the Pacific Ocean by all the islands it needs to navigate to get to the Ocean. So regardless of their fleet size, their capability to project power beyond this region is limited as far as they do not control the whole archipelago between Japan and Indonesia. So far, they don't. Their growing naval capability, however, potentially threatens that to change. That well explains the growing USA obsession with China and Taiwan issues: threaten the control of Pacific Ocean by USA and you get their attention.

This is one of the slowly moving games played out there, curious to see further developments in the coming decades.

@jwildeboer @jwildeboer Maybe it's time to swap the connections to fill your timeline with some more positive news :-).

Seriously, I get your point. Methinks, on the one hand what you observe is natural, on the other there clearly is hope.

As a therapist explained to me the other day, human beings (as all wild animals) are naturally wired to be extremely sensitive to threat and then go into fight or flight mode. It's a matter of survival in wilderness and as such it is a good thing(tm). As a result, we are naturally wired to focus on potential threats, that is, all the negative things around us. The conclusions is somewhat dark: people, when left to their own devices, tend towards negativity. That's the normal.

We, however, have the ability to "fix ourselves". We don't need to live our lives in fear scared for the sabre toothed lion to jump on us. But that requires effort. To think positively requires energy, it does not come naturally. One needs to constantly reminded oneself and her/his surroundings that there are things to cheer. While I am not a proponent of forced positivity, simple techniques, like gratitude journaling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratitude_journal), or just consciously focusing on the more positive messages than negative ones helps a lot.

Myself, for instance, I see quite some positive messages around me. For instance in my saturday note here: https://qoto.org/web/statuses/105723219489655944 - e.g., read more lifestyle column of your favourite newspaper. Silly, but works. Elsewhere, this morning, I see here at Mastodon people opening up about their political preferences (https://qoto.org/web/statuses/105732464266923083) - that's nice. I find also some pixelfed photo streams of people around really nice (with simple pics from walks, or hikes) as they show their simple, normal life with some positive moments in it.

1) carve out some small energy every to seek positive; 2) seek positive. And let us know about the good outcome :-). Good luck there!