norcon4

Taiwan, South Korea, and Ukraine are all de facto western tributary states. I think you should investigate the actual reasons why China was founded, and maybe read up on the 100 years of humiliation. Why do you think western nations are functionally different as they were 100 years ago? Ultimately capitalism will serve to exploit and destroy Taiwanese people, save a few rich business owners

Why are you worried about the world relying on China? The global economy was actually stabilized by China's zero-covid policy for the past few years because although lockdowns were disruptive, the death and disability of workers is an even greater threat. We now live in an even more unstable time now that China has abandoned this policy since the international community has decided to embrace living with covid.

And God forbid a country outside the west hasn't been completely subjugated by it. Why exactly do you think China's goals aren't aligned with the West? Have you read anything about what imperialism was doing to China (and literally everywhere else on Earth not being settled by Europeans with few exceptions) during the 100 years of humiliation? Do you honestly expect a nation to take that in stride without retribution? I think a lot of younger folks like myself forget that colonialism was alive and well until around 50 years ago, which is the blink of an eye in the long-run.

Sure, you can point to Tibet and Xinjiang as signs of hypocrisy, but I counter: where did all the native americans go in the USA and canada? What was done by the Belgians in the Congo? What was done by the French in Indochina? At least the Uyghurs and Tibetans are actually still alive in large numbers of healthy individuals. Even in China, minorities get special treatment. For example, they were exempt from the One-Child Policy. I don't think there's any example of that in western nations. In the US, black people get the privilege of seeing their children murdered at the hands of the police for minor offenses and disobedience! :)

The war drums are beating and it's fascinating to see otherwise brilliant people fall victim to what is very clearly the propaganda being turned up to manufacture popular support for the genocide of billions under the name of "freedom", "democracy" and a "rules-based system". Let's do an exercise: which nuclear states have the weakest policies preventing the use of nuclear weapons? It's the United States, France, the UK, and Pakistan. Even Putin has stated multiple times on the record (even in late 2022) that Russia will not be the first to use nuclear weapons. India and China are strictly under a policy of no first-use.

Let's remember history: the United States is the only state to ever have used nuclear weapons to deliberately kill people. And remember doubly: those bombs were dropped for demonstration purposes, not out of necessity, even a USA general said so.

Clearly, greed and arrogance will be the downfall of Western imperialism. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, etc. are all de facto USA asian tributary states under USA hegemony, but nobody wants to acknowledge that.

I hope that in the coming 5 - 10 years once you have the luxury to bear witness to western militaries indiscriminately genociding billions of civilians in the name of "maintaining a rules based order" that you realize you cannot wash the blood from your hands.

Maybe I'm biased, but I think cheering on the toll of remote work on cities is being sanguine. Cities have existed for a long time for reasons beyond proximity to work. Their decline will represent a decline in wider society. We centralize people and resources to give everyone better access to resources and economize on infrastructure. This pattern is as old as civilization itself. Bully for you if you can make off with the loot to the hills. As cliche as it sounds, we live in a society. Of course there will be winners and losers. But to me, the picture of wealthy, isolated, and spread out exurbs hoarding the wealth while cities languish in poverty is an incredibly bleak picture of the future. My hot take is that remote work is unnatural and has only taken off because of how laborious commuting and unaffordable housing have become in this country. Like others have said, many remote workers will still choose cities because of what they offer, and they could be much better places to live if we re-invested in them as such.

I don't like that this article makes it mostly a binary of polyester against cotton. There's a wide variety of fabrics available that could do a better job of solving environmental issues in clothing. This article makes no mention of semi-synthetic materials (e.g. rayon, tencel, viscose), which have gentler land-use and actually biodegrade.

If you're really reading what the IPCC is saying, you'd understand that western lifestyles are under threat. Within most peoples' lifetimes, the carrying capacity of earth will be cut in half, unless emissions are reduced severely. Perhaps this is not the demise of mankind, but I think most people would categorize that as a kind of apocalypse. I'd love for you to tell me how human population being halved is somehow okay.

The clathrate gun hypothesis this is referencing has been largely discredited. I'm not familiar with the science, but I trust the researchers who say there are good thermodynamic reasons the clathrate deposits in the arctic will probably not suddenly destabilize. That being said, we should be absolutely be terrified of this because we're not certain clathrate destabilization is off the table. Plus, thawing permafrost is a nearer-term and more realistic methane monster barreling toward humanity.

Please consider laying off the Deep Adaptation doom reading and pick up a phone to bully your representatives and industry leaders into decarbonizing their operations. Even if there is a climate apocalypse the only way any of us survive is through collective and community effort.

Exactly - it's not a smart bet to make on technology on behalf of billions of humans who stand to suffer or perish if technological progress does not keep up. Sure, the neolib Steven Pinkers of the world have been right so far that we're not sleepwalking into a malthusian trap, but you only have to be wrong once to spell incalculable consequences for humanity and the planet. The greatest challenge of this century will be moving human activity globally to operate within the safe planetary boundaries, of which we are currently exceeding 5. Our global society is certainly playing with some very risky dice right now.

Found this interesting from the FAQ:

> "Why don't you support anything made by Google or Apple?"

> At this time, we are reliant on both Google and Apple to be listed in their respective app stores. As such, we have been advised that in order to remain in good standing we should not offer support for these services.

What a disturbing reality these developers are up against. Even though this is a big limitation, the project is wonderful!

The site is throwing a security error for me: PR_CONNECT_RESET_ERROR Anybody else have the same issue? Or is the site just being hugged to death.

I actually agree with your point on prerequisites. I think by absolute beginner I meant to say no experience with probability theory either. With the prerequisites you outlined, I think a determined person could do well with the material. Mainly posting this follow-up to correct myself so people curious on whether they'd be able to follow the course are better-informed.

I got the chance to casually work through this course while stuck at home during COVID-19. I highly recommend it to anybody who has a surface-level understanding of statistics and wants to dive deep. This is NOT a course for absolute beginners. It is rigorous and thorough. Overall a great resource, especially the notes, but the lecturer is entertaining too.