zlatiah
@zlatiah@lemmy.world
- Comment on How does the Chinese government even work 9 hours ago:
Oh boy. I don’t think I’m remotely an authority on this and I guess I will be downvoted to hell… but here goes nothing
- PRC (China) is an one-party state led by the communist party (CCP, CPC, Gongchandang… whatever); there is no opposition party because they got driven to Taiwan and became today’s ROC. That means, present day the CCP is the Chinese government, and the Chinese government is the CCP. There’s no real democracy since there’s only one party
- China has always been authoritarian for its entire history. CCP started as a far-left authoritarian Marxist/Leninist party, and later became a… Maoist party. I don’t think there is any party currently in the world that is Maoist (probably better to keep it that way), although there could be some fringe Marxist/Leninist parties somewhere
- After Mao died and the subsequent mayhem subsided, the successors still hang on to the communist/socialist naming schemes (where the socialism with Chinese characteristics or something came from), but have mostly adapted a blend of state capitalism and free market capitalism models, especially on the economic front. In practice, that means that China is very free-market, but most of the largest companies are either fully or partially owned by the CCP. The past few chairmen before Xi massively tuned down on the authoritarian scale because no one wanted another Mao. Culturally, Marxism is anti-religion so CCP purged a lot of folk religion and Confucianism, so ironically China might be culturally more progressive than their East Asian neighbors…
- Funnily enough, even though there is no democracy, a lot of Chinese emperors/dictators tried to be benevolent dictators. Because China’s social contract is kind of like “we give away our freedom but demand prosperity in return”. If China ever becomes not prosperous, the people are known to revolt and overthrow the government; happened a dozen or so times in recorded history. So CCP does still have somewhat of an incentive to try and not screw over its people too much
- China did retain some socialism stuff, notably: planned economy in 5-year increments, citizens technically can’t own property (but can “lease” for 70 years…), heavily state-sponsored public infrastructure, universal high-quality education… But at the same time China’s actual economy is also insanely unequal and highly resembles a free-market, anything goes model. Again, more like the US than anything else
- On the other side of the equation, the lives of the average citizen in China is… surprisingly similar to those in the US, despite everything. It’s just that China basically has their own version of everything the “Western world” has, because China’s economy and internet are quite walled off. If anything, maybe Chinese citizens have a bit more of a pent-up anger? Since you are thrown into a metaphorical meat-grinder but can’t even protest… I think the pent-up anger shows up on Chinese social media a lot if anyone is interested. But that’s pretty much it
I’m not a political scientist so I probably missed a lot… but that’s the gist I think. If you are asking about how the actual government is organized, I think Wikipedia explained it way better than anyone on Lemmy could, and honestly it is not as exotic as most would think (there are a lot of parallels to governments of most democracies)
- Comment on Evolutionarily speaking, wouldn't premature ejaculation be considered the desired trait? 1 day ago:
OP thanks for making me search up this on Wikipedia. I guess this does answer the first question: premature ejaculation might indeed be the desired trait in most mammals…
I couldn’t find anything about length of intercourse vs reproduction rates… The only thing I could find that are remotely related are one suspicious blog post and this post by Mayo Clinic. It seems that the sources I could find (including one scientific article by WHO, wtf) suggust it is a serious issue for self-confidence/sexual well-being, but there doesen’t seem to be any documented fertility issues as long as it is PIV sex
- Comment on For people who relocated: when did you realize you want to live in the new place long-term & why? 3 days ago:
Personally I work in academia so relocating is significantly easier (doesn’t require local language at work, academia has a foreign worker culture), and I did it before US scientists collectively realized what happened and wanted to get the fuck out… Even then it was difficult for me to find a job. Sadly I don’t think it is as easy for tech…
Also I suspect moving between different states in the US or between different EU member states would be significantly easier
- Comment on Awooga 5 days ago:
Holy shit that is terrifying. I’m glad the woman got the breast reduction (and somehow ended up with bigger honkers at a healthy size lol, from B to GGG back to D)
I’ve never seen any one studying sudden breast growth now that I read this… Hope this doesn’t get me into some weird rabbit holes
- Submitted 6 days ago to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world | 21 comments
- Comment on would you visit an authoritarian country if you had the chance to live there up to 4 weeks for free even if you believe multiparty democracy to be something non negotiable? 1 week ago:
… Are you sure it will only be four weeks? Sounds to me like your grandparents really want you to just stay there forever. Since traveling & living long-term (say a year or more) will be very different especially if I’m politically active
I did just go back to China for two months and was fine; lived in Beijing too so there’s that (I think ppl in the South are less… monitored). China is huge… so if someone just minds their own business the authoritarian government (and probably 99% of the population) basically just leaves them alone. But then I also am not very social & most of my family circle are neutral-/anti-China so… If for any reason I offend the government or anyone affiliated who reports me, then I’d probably be done for, and I’m afraid it is bound to happen if I stay there for too long
So yeah, I dunno but I would never stay in China long-term if I were you. Traveling is fine but I really don’t know how to make of your aituation
- Comment on There is no good reason why there is still homelessness and poverty 1 week ago:
Everyone else already mentioned this… Methinks the fundamental issue is wealth distribution, so yes it is capitalism. I would say it is a “good” reason as it is a major target for sociology research and politicians, and there are active efforts in some countries to reduce inequality so…
I think I was radicated by this back in second year of college… Professor mentioned something like “The US Midwest has enough production capacity to feed the entire world” when a lot of the crops went to beef production, sweeteners, or just waste
This has been an issue for a while and I think Cory Doctorow mentioned it in one of his blog posts? About the Luddites; they were not anti-technology, but saw how the productivity increases would only benefit the rich and wealthy. I suspect the current AI issue is the same, “robots replacing your job” will be a lot more positive if the replaced worker still makes the same amount via basic income/stipend by the government instead of the money being concentrated into OpenAI or Meta or somewhere
… I’ve wanted to talk about these for a while
- Comment on If you argue for a cause like affordable housing for everyone, is it necessarily hypocritical if you also own investment properties? 1 week ago:
On this… I did read a prior research work suggesting that US government should use subsidy/housing vouchers in private markets instead of public housing construction; this way it helps with creating affordable housing while avoiding risks of defunding public housing projects due to political changes. I’m not sure if the findings of that work apply to other countries or if the author was mainly thinking about US
I guess I was thinking more about my personal morals. In terms of actual implementation, I do think you’re correct that the goal of “affordable housing for everyone” can be done even in a completely private housing market, as long as the market is well-managed with abundant supply (so no shortages, no excessive investor bidding, etc)
- Comment on If you argue for a cause like affordable housing for everyone, is it necessarily hypocritical if you also own investment properties? 1 week ago:
Methinks it is only not hypocritical under a few circumstances:
- I am renting a place myself and simultaneously leasing out my otherwise primary residence
- The property is my primary residence and is not overly big, but I rent out parts of it for roommates/traditional BnBs
- Unique property ownership situations that shouldn’t last longer than 6 months (maybe I’m downsizing, maybe house swapping… Not sure)
Any other condition is in principle hypocritical… Although there is probably still a massive moral difference between someone with a severe disability who owns a few rentals to pay for bills vs a professional investor who systematically prices out locals to improve profit margins
- Comment on Why does everyone hate Income tax ? 2 months ago:
I don’t hate income tax. But from my personal experience, when I was young lad with no political leaning, seeing a quarter of my first paycheck just… disappear into the void (what I thought back then) definitely made me feel something not great
I mean right now I can see that an income tax system is at the very least a “necessary evil”, but I could also see how ppl without a fuller perspective of things might interpret this as almost theft (the evil guvunment stole muh money!!!)
- Submitted 2 months ago to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world | 10 comments
- Comment on [deleted] 3 months ago:
Absolutely not. There is a reason I’m personally noping out of the US and told every international person at my former workplace to do the same so…
- Comment on [deleted] 3 months ago:
Disclaimer, was an international student for many years, not a law expert
I think realistically, an administration has many ways to make it incredibly difficult to recruit international students even without a blanket ban…
Such as making overseas visa applications even more difficult (it already happened between US-China during Trump’s first term), making legislation that require more from unis if they have international students, general societal xenophobia, …
I’m not sure if an actual blanket ban would be permitted under US law though
- Submitted 3 months ago to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world | 4 comments
- Comment on There are people who are still using toilet paper purchased during the pandemic. 3 months ago:
No joke but this somewhat describes me… I never hoarded TP, but I tend to buy toilet paper in large quantities (too lazy to go to grocery store) anyway, so I think my COVID stash lasted longer than my apartment at that time… I think I only used up all of it 2-3 years later. My then-roommate even took half of my stash when he moved out since I had so much lol
- Comment on If I snapped you back in time 650 years right this very second, how would you use your current knowledge to succeed? 4 months ago:
Try to use some type of boiling water technique to invent drinkable sanitary drinking water that doesn’t get me drunk (might not be necessary in some parts of Asia)
Most parts of the world that is not North America: try to convince some wealthy persons and bar owners to sponsor me to getting a bunch of bread molds and rats/mice, possibly even pigs, to conduct antibiotics and vaccine research, otherwise I might die from random sources…
Not sure if I could reasonably do those given my limited biology knowledge, but I guess they are worth trying. Besides that I’d just try to be less blunt/offensive so I don’t get sent to jail and try to live my best life I guess
- Comment on Linux help and actual pros and cons 4 months ago:
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See other recommendations for gaming-specific distros as I’m not familiar with them… Overall, most “beginner-friendly” distros (Fedora, Mint, …) that are not named Ubuntu are good. Ubuntu is not bad per-se: they just have their own ways of doing certain things that are counter-intuitive. Also don’t follow the memes and use Arch Linux or something (Arch is good, but not-beginner-friendly)
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Some multi-player games have anti-cheats that straight-up won’t work on linux, so if you play any large online-based games it might help to check their linux support first. Otherwise, there are unique examples like Skyrim that are very hard to mod on linux, but most mainstream games should work either out-of-the-box or with very minor tinkering. Unless if you’re into some weird esoteric retro games like me… if so then good luck learning WINE lol
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As long as you follow 1 you should be fine. In my opinion most beginner linux distros are more intuitive than Windows so…
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I’m not sure if it is a good idea to dual boot unless you are reasonably familiar with computers… as dual booting can be finicky and sometimes Windows can just eat the linux partition. But I think it is doable? Again I don’t recommend dual-booting so…
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IMO the biggest decision most beginners have to make is between Gnome/KDE (two of the most popular desktop environments), not between distros. Try to see which one clicks with you more! Also make sure to back up data before switching. Good luck!
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- Comment on [deleted] 4 months ago:
I think the best fit would be an immigration lawyer? Those ppl are incredibly expensive (probably in the $1000s to begin with) and are country-specific, so mostly only ppl who have difficult cases do that…
Can try to search the subreddits r/iwantout and r/immigration first, they have lots of good resources and past posts. Also can try expat.com
Also don’t make my mistake… finding a job in a foreign country is incredibly hard, even with a doctorate. So it helps to cast a wide net and/or get a job offer first before making further plans
- Comment on Unlike in movies, most smart people aren't good in chess. 4 months ago:
So… disclaimer first! I have played chess but only a year or so; I got into chess during the pandemic and had a peak ELO of ~1600+ on chess.com and 1900+ on Lichess; probably translates to a classical ELO of ~1200 (competition is tough in classical…). Obviously I’m not remotely a good player, but I can hold my ground. I also had to do a neuropsych evaluation recently for mental health reasons, so I spent the last month of my free time looking into research of intelligence (g factor, IQ tests, the disturbing history, etc…) for my own curiosity. So I might have a bit of knowledge on this… but:
For the most part chess is its own unique skills and is unrelated to “smartness”. Nevertheless, I think chess might be related to probably just one or two specific narrow fields of intelligence. Being good at chess requires one to be knowledgeable of various chess openings (memorization, working memory), extremely strong pattern recognition (Magnus Carlsen is really good at this; AlphaZero was literally all pattern recognition due to the way it works), and being able to see 5, 10, or even 15 steps ahead and consider all the rational options (again, working memory)
I just took the WAIS-V test two weeks ago for my psych eval, and they do indeed test for working memory and pattern recognition in specific sub-tasks. However the difference is… IQ tests are meant to be practiced as they measure a type of “potential” if you may, but chess is all about what you actually play on the board. Sure maybe if ppl were literally just given the rules and had no prior exposure then a smarter person might spot a forced checkmate faster, but ppl do pratice for the game… In fact, the advice people used to give to get better at chess is… to do more puzzles
Sooo… methinks an intelligent person might have a slight edge training themselves to do the above, but there is probably otherwise very little association. After a certain point intelligence itself probably has no influence on chess performance whatsoever, and realistically it’s more about “grit”, or how much time/effort someone puts into the game
Aaand… case in point. Apparently Kasparov went through a 3-day intensive test, but had a really “spiky” profile that is more commonly seen in neurodivergent individuals; scored really high on some categories and abysmally low on others. I saw this random Reddit post which says that Carlsen scored 115(+1SD) on AGCT (a fairly quick and accurate online test). Nakamura allegedly got 102 on Mensa Norway’s trial test, which is not as accurate as AGCT but should be fairly good too
- Comment on Who would win in a fight, a Gorilla or a Bear of equal weight? 5 months ago:
Bear, but I think it’s because gorillas are known to be peaceful and will probably run away from conflict
If it is a fight to the death… Idk I think with how physics works it might be quite even?
- Comment on Should visitors to a country (tourist / visa-holders / people staying temporarily) have the right to criticize the government? When should an immigrant have the right to criticize the government? 5 months ago:
My interpretation is that visitors don’t have specific rights to criticize a government per-se. However! In most non-authoritarian countries, everyone has the unequivocal rights to criticize a government as long as they are not intending on disobeying other harassment/discrimination laws, regardless of their status. Since visitors are also included in “everyone”, they can criticize a government too
Of course this only applies to non-authoritarian countries. Authoritarian countries don’t have that right even for their citizens, so visitors are not excluded either
(I hate where this train of thought is going but whatever…)
- Comment on Why do some say they own or have bought something that they technically haven't (e.g. domain names, expensive things, etc.)? 5 months ago:
I just thought it’s more of an issue of language/expression than anything… Methinks the concept of “leasing/renting” for an indefinite amount of time might be quite new in human history, so maybe we just don’t have a better word for it
Case in point… From a pure technical standpoint, I thought a game I purchased on Steam or an audiobook from Amazon is technically “leased indefinitely with no additional fees”, but doesn’t the lack of additional fees make it equivalent to owning something?
And as otherwise pointed out, under capitalist systems you can literally own a home, but would still have to pay taxes to pay for maintenance of publicly shared resources… so at what time should we call it “leased” instead
- Comment on I'm leaving the US for good, anything I should do before I leave? 5 months ago:
It seems that a lot of scientist jobs are advertised on EURAXESS (sometimes mandated by law). There are also research topic-specific job boards… for example Nature Jobs advertises all sorts of positions across the world, although most are in China (since they are desperate for talent). Also by “scientist” I’m referring to anything PhD student-level and above, so yeah. I think Sweden is the country I know which has both reasonable research quality while still being a bit desperate on looking for more applicants
If that’s not possible: a lot of countries have their own job board too, but most of them require knowledge of the local language… (again, scientists kind-of get a pass on this due to English being the lingua franca)
Some companies do international transfer too… like how Denmark is known for pharmaceuticals, so maybe someone working for Novo Nordisk could theoretically ask for that? Although I assume those jobs would be very competitive now…
- Comment on I'm leaving the US for good, anything I should do before I leave? 5 months ago:
Unironically… I’ve basically hinted at everyone I know on ways to apply for EU-based science jobs if they are interested (surprisingly… a lot of ppl are not)
I’m still being optimistic though, really hope the US can somehow pull out a miracle
- Comment on I'm leaving the US for good, anything I should do before I leave? 5 months ago:
I… don’t quite feel comfortable the full details, but F-1; I have submitted a green card application too but no way it’s gonna pass now. I might find an opportunity to write about it a bit more in the future
- Submitted 5 months ago to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world | 182 comments
- Submitted 5 months ago to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world | 0 comments
- Comment on Which game is it? 5 months ago:
Get ready for Autistic infodump
Osu (stylized as osu!) is a rhythm game… Developed by an Australian group, wiki says it first released in 2007. Probably by far the most popular rhythm game out there, and probably the only one that can rival DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) and DDR-clones/lookalikes. And unlike DDR which requires a ridiculously expensive setup (a reliable DDR pad would cost close to $1k and is extremely loud) or being a regular at your local Japanese arcade to play, osu can be played by anyone with a PC, a mouse/trackpad, and a lot of hopes & dreams Osu was inspired by the Nintendo Ouendan series on the NDS; in that game you use the little pen provided by NDS to click circles/drag sliders/etc on the bottom screen; obviously works well with the NDS form factor. The osu team decided to translate this into PC gameplay where you need to control stuff with keyboard/mouse… and somehow it worked quite well! Since osu is completely free (I believe it is still very much free-to-play, no idea how they monetize), relatively accessible (see counter-example of DDR above), and is a legitimate & very serious rhythm game, I think it quickly gained a sizable and very passionate player base. And unlike lots of other rhythm games where the charts are curated by a company, osu’s charts are created by players & “peer-reviewed” by mods, so there are a LOT of charts, basically any anime/game-related song you could think of is in the game as an approved chart, which further helps grow the popularity. Needless to say it just kept growing from there… I think even back when it was the 2010s and I was playing the game actively, there were already a bunch of community groups, and ppl literally had names for different play styles. I think my style of primarily using mouse but mashing keyboard Z/X key for combos was called the Seiiryu (blue dragon) style or something… I forgot sorry As for the gameplay itself… Osu’s gameplay is actually quite unique in terms of rhythm games especially back then. Back then the gold standard of rhythm games I believe are DDR and IIDX, both of which are vertical fixed-screen drop-down notes where you have to time the fixed buttons to the notes. Osu on the other hand has dynamic notes where circles fly all over the screen. However, this also means that at higher level gameplay, osu relies less on your “sense of rhythm” and more on… precise mouse movements, almost like an FPS. I think nowadays games like maimai/WACCA/Chrono Circle might be similar to osu’s playstyle. They did add more game modes though; they have a taiko clone, a “catch the fruit” game which is even more unique than their base game, and a djmax/iidx clone. And… yeah. In short I think osu could be seen as the gateway drug into rhythm games due to it being free, having charts for just about any song you could think of, and having a passionate community. Now that you’ve sunk yourself in the rabbit hole, grab your wallet and pay for that $1000 DDR setup you have always wanted, $2000 maimai ADX controller setup, and mortgage on the suburban single-family home to play it in so you don’t get complaints from neighbors. You know you want it. Do it. DO IT (/s obviously) ___
- Comment on How would you do this Technically? 5 months ago:
In response, the guidelines regulate the labeling of AI-generated online content throughout its production and dissemination processes, requiring providers to add visible marks to their content in appropriate locations.
My understanding is that this is meant more as a set of legal guidelines… I’m not a legal scholar, but since China has a history of enforcing certain information-related laws I’d assume they can “legally” enforce it
On the technical side… there is a subfield of LLM research that focuses on “watermarking” or ensuring that LLM-generated outputs can be clearly identified, so I guess in theory it might be enforceable
In practice as to whether it will actually be ensured… who knows (facepalm
- Comment on Which game is it? 5 months ago:
Growing up playing osu! forever scarred my taste in music. Now I have a $300 SDVX controller at home and I need help
Also honorable mention for the 500+ hrs I have in Skyrim (with additional difficulty mods), Slay the Spire, Binding of Issac, …