"_Tools_ have a response to this post" is not a sensible comment that a human would likely make. It reads like a prompt to an AI accidentally pasted into the wrong place.
OK, what does "_Tools_ have a response to this post" mean to you, in the context of the posted article, and as a response to it? Why would a human being organically reply to the article with that sentence?
> an empire is a state where the core ruling population exercises control and extracts resources from a periphery which is composed of people other than the core group
By definition, doesn't the later Roman Empire cease being an "empire" as there isn't really a "core" population anymore outside of some vague multi-ethnic military aristocracy.
Sure, Rome had a few lingering privileges and prestige, but little in the way of direct power. And certainly, the post-crisis Empire didn't exist to siphon resources on their behalf. Heck, pretty much as soon as the 3rd century crisis ended Italy itself lost most of its special status and more or less just became yet another province.
And once that was gone, they weren't really replaced by anyone except the imperial bureaucracy and aristocracy itself. So who are the "core" people here, because if "an aristocracy" is enough to count, then who the heck isn't an empire under this definition?
Maybe it's enough that they began as an empire under this definition. Or maybe Devereaux is fine with the stereotypical Empire losing its status as an empire long before losing its territory and power. Or perhaps would have some counterargument at hand if he happened to read this. Who knows.
The main issue is that they are very careful not to frame it like that. In broader contexts, it's always framed as something like "do you favor limiting children's access to social media" without a word on what it would cost to actually institute such a ban.
You don't necessarily have to be in favor of any measures which reduce adult privacy to be in favor of that. Logically speaking, the liability for minors accessing age-gated products and services is the person who provides those products and services to the minor. In the case of the internet, that person is the parent, not the ISP or the website. It is the parent who contracts with the provider and then forwards the product to the unauthorized user, the child. A parent who purchases, say, access to porn and then provides that access to their child is no different than a parent who buys booze and provides access to it to their child.
You can end all wars and eliminate hunger if you point the Death Star at us and kill all life on earth. If someone objects to the collateral damage, remind him that when you said "world peace and no hunger at all costs," you meant all costs.
> if anything we are seeing what a good idea taking kids off social media is and how crazy we allowed this to all happen for so long
We're not seeing anything of the sort, and couldn't possibly for some time yet.
What we are seeing, as evinced by the article, is how ineffective these laws are at actually keeping kids off social media, and how effective the mass collection of identity data is at creating an environment for scammers, hackers, data brokers and the means for widespread political oppression.
Exactly. You frame these things in the general case and HN is against it because obviously it's evil.
You frame it as "we've come up with a composite score (social credit) that lets us more efficiently enforce [stuff HN likes but the population likes way less]" and it's mostly all cheering and the one guy with principals is downvoted and flagged.
Arguably, Rome itself is such an example. Over the course of its long history it was repeatedly pushed to the brink of ruin only to slowly build back up without ever quite reaching its old heights.
The crisis of the third century could easily have been the doom of Rome, with its crumbling splinter states infighting until they broke apart completely. Instead, the succession of Aurelian, Diocletian, and Constantine were able to build it back into a single unified state, if not so prosperous or dominant as the previous version had been.
The same chaos that took the west might well have claimed the east as well under different circumstances, but over time they were able to restabilize, recover, and start to grow again. If not for the Justinian Plague, the reconquest of Italy might have been an actual success instead of the phyrric one it turned into. If nothing else, they at least managed to hold onto fully half the empire until centuries later when the Arabic conquests began.
And speaking of those early conquests, there was absolutely no guarantee that those wars were something they would survive. The Empire was still recovering from a brutal, generations long war against Persia, which itself did not survive as an independent state. The sieges of Constantinople were harsh and brutal, and could have gone differently, but they held on and slowly regained control of what they could, until the Macedonian dynasty was at least the foremost power in the region once again.
But then they screwed it up, spent some years in decline from a succession of bad rulers culminating in a few key defeats to the Turkish invaders caused in large part by infighting from wealthy elites. After this, they spent most of a generation with various elites selling off bits of the remaining empire to secure a throne whose value continued dropping with each betrayal. This too could easily have been the end, but eventually things stabilized. One of these grasping leaders actually managed to hold onto power and slowly rebuild. Then one lucky crusade later, they actually have much of their pre-Turkish territory back.
Except oops, a grasping member of the imperial family seizes control and drives it into the ground. After that we get a succession of weak emperors unable to deal with the harsh realities of their situation, followed by a series of coups that results in one of the displaced heirs inviting the fourth crusade into empire, which eventually results in the capital being sacked and the empire shattering into tiny city states.
That really ought to have been the end. Except that one of these states managed to regain control, rebuild to a fraction of their old strength, and at least hold most of Greece and Western Anatolia. It was a tiny, tiny fraction of the pre-crusade empire, much less Rome at its height, but they were still able to carve another century or two of stability when all hope had seemed lost.
>It's harder to play baseball or football without all assortment of costly bats, helmets, gloves, et cetera
In practice, casual football isn't any more resource heavy than soccer. Most non-league games of football are going to be "touch football", which only requires a ball, a field, and some sort of end marker (as a kid, it was usually just "from that tree to that other tree").
Obviously, organized league play has a ton more equipment, but the sort of informal casual games that kids or young adults play requires much less. It's one of those things that doesn't really get talked about a ton compared to league play, so it's easy to miss for those who didn't grow up with it.
In most places with any sort of economic opportunity, I have a very hard time believing that part time earnings would get you housing on par with a full time earner in 1976.
They cant. Tech workers are just disconnected from real wages. Most people I know spend easily 40-60% of their monthly income on rent alone (if you're in University it'll be easily 80%+), all work full time. And thats in Europe, where living costs usually are much lower than in America. Some people just never leave their privileged circle and assume most people could get there somehow. I for sure couldn't afford a 50% pay cut.
(4000€ pre tax, ~2500€ post tax) This doesnt even get me a good flat in Germany.
>For example, the vast majority of people choose to retire once they reach the age where they are able to collect enough from their pension that they no longer need to work in order to get by
Part of the problem is that the current system doesn't provide a great way to taper off, at least not by default. I suspect there would be a lot more people who'd keep working if it was simple to get a comparable job at 30 hours per week 25 weeks out of the year. But for those who are traditionally employed instead of contracting, the choice is often between full time or nothing.
Out of curiosity, do you have a source or list for this? My own home state and those around me that I've spot checked all have a state ID available as an alternative to a driver's license. My understanding was that this is the case for most states.
Unless I've misunderstood you and you meant a state ID that is completely separate from a driver's license to the point that people with a DL would have one?
>It was also possible to bypass the copyright monitors by installing a modified system kernel. Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers—you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that
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