Blade 619

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Good to see you back!

I genuinely expected Brewers to have started this...

Umbition - Where you aim to achieve nothing. Synonymous with Acathy - Active apathy.

That's even worse State corruption is the defualt in China, everyone is doing it, and everyone knows. If someone is prosecuted for corruption, it means that they crossed someone more powerful. Or maybe it's a signal to the higher-ups of that person that they're on a short leash. It's a power game. Is there a country where corruption isn't common place? No. But the degree varies. Is it more the price and the degree of visibility which varies? An openly corrupt system is at least a level playing field, even if your wallet is too small to take significant advantage. Conversely somewhere like the UK or the US, if you have the millions of spare capital to throw at lobbying (bribing), or the media empire to blackmail politicians you can tilt the tables in your favour, but if you're average Joe you're fucked. Actually, the avearge Joe is truly fucked when he can't get the simplest administrative tasks done - like get a building permit for his garden shed shed - unless he "expedites" the proces by "donating" to the pension fund of the city council clerks. Not necessary of course, although issuing that permit might take a few years. Or maybe he needs urgent medical treatment? Unfortunately the waiting list for that particular procedure is 2.5-3 years, but a little financial incentive and it can be arranged for next month. Or maybe there is a job opening for a decent position in public administration? Well, does he have any relatives working there already? Friends? Nothing? Well then that's not going to work, unless they're willing to pledge absolute loyalty to their boss who will eventually make good on that pledge. There are absolutely places like that on Earth, and in comparison the US and UK is practically corruption-free! Now I believe public services in China for the average citizen are fairly accessible without having to grease too many palms, but I know for a fact that even the lowliest public sector jobs (think elementary school teachere) are given more or less on this basis. Interesting... I've met a few Chinese people including a teacher... their general conclusion is that the west is technologically backwards for the average citizen and find our cities to be generally unsafe. They don't expect to need to bribe people. No, not us. It's the one thing I can say I'm not old enough for yet. I won't be volunteering for it either. Blade is a medical dude, so I would think he's taken the needle already. Had the jab... had a mild headache for a couple of days and 24h fever on day 1 post jab (38.2C). Apparently that makes me quite unusual... approx 9/10 are without any significant side effect. Our conclusion anecdotally at work is that people who have recently had Covid are experiencing stronger side effects. (Pfizer) At the end of the day it's a vaccine... it's causing you to mount an immune response. I find that I mounted a temperature reassuring... it shows me directly that my body generated an immune response to the vaccine, therefore likely I have some degree of antibody protection moving forwards. The data is still reassuring that the approved jabs offer good protection even against the newer strains, though may take longer than we expected to get high levels of protection (ie, 21 days to get 90% rather than 14 days). But the jab is not a definitive solution. It will need to be used in conjunction with good hand hygiene and sensible health behaviour (ie, don't go out / work / visit friends etc when sick) for the foreseeable future. Personally I've lost 2 colleagues to Covid (directly or indirectly) in the last 2 weeks, so I'm not taking chances. A bit of a headache is a more than adequate price to pay to not have a virtual funeral and have my parents outlive me.

Is this to get you unbanned from Discord?

That's even worse State corruption is the defualt in China, everyone is doing it, and everyone knows. If someone is prosecuted for corruption, it means that they crossed someone more powerful. Or maybe it's a signal to the higher-ups of that person that they're on a short leash. It's a power game. Is there a country where corruption isn't common place? No. But the degree varies. Is it more the price and the degree of visibility which varies? An openly corrupt system is at least a level playing field, even if your wallet is too small to take significant advantage. Conversely somewhere like the UK or the US, if you have the millions of spare capital to throw at lobbying (bribing), or the media empire to blackmail politicians you can tilt the tables in your favour, but if you're average Joe you're fucked.

That's even worse State corruption is the defualt in China, everyone is doing it, and everyone knows. If someone is prosecuted for corruption, it means that they crossed someone more powerful. Or maybe it's a signal to the higher-ups of that person that they're on a short leash. It's a power game. Is there a country where corruption isn't common place?

Haha... Can you imagine? Would need to have a new election on a bi-monthly basis.

Short term safety can be assured. The technologies are fairly well established and the sample sizes are sufficient to rule out any common negative effects. Any drug / vaccine currently regulated by the FDA has the potential to cause harm, though the chances are often vanishingly rare. The trade off here is that for every 50k people who contract covid you might have 1k deaths. For every 50k vaccines you might have 1 or 2 deaths which may or may not be directly attributable. To get us herd immune we'll likely need more than 80% of the population to have been exposed. To let it do that like wild fire will result in unnecessary deaths. To slow down the spread and introduce artificially generated immunity will allow us to reach the herd immunity targets with lower overall causalities and likely lower overall impact on the economy.

Presidents have invoked the 25th for themselves a few times in the past. Usually its for when they are going for a surgery and they reinstate themselves afterwards Yes... though the implication of the original joke is that Biden is incompetent and will try to invoke the 25th to remove Trump after Biden comes to power.

https://evetrade.space/ How I made my first bn isk and then quit the game.

This makes no sense? If he involved the 25th he'd take himself out of office... have no impact on Trump at all? I'm glad somebody got the joke. Joe Biden is brain dead. From the other view point so is Trump haha.

This makes no sense? If he involved the 25th he'd take himself out of office... have no impact on Trump at all?

I mean... why not?

By that point they were just allegations though.

The biggest finger would be to buy California... but he's too smart to assume their debt. If you treated it as a business you'd need to have tens of trillions to buy it!

Yes... like in the last election... Where Biden, as VP, just got on with it and no one stormed the capitol buildings... different circumstances but yeah. Should it have happened, no, but it's just the most recent example why I hate politics. It's literally impossible to have unity and healing now. Both sides have become violent now and make all protesting look bad. That was the election where the Russian interference allegations were made.

He claims half of his fortune is for him, and half is to establish the Mars colony which will protect us from meteor disaster / our own fuck uppery. (I mean... who wouldn't buy their own planet!)

Yes... like in the last election... Where Biden, as VP, just got on with it and no one stormed the capitol buildings...

Everything is covered with this guy. I believe they didn't have it to give, and they tell him he's in such great health to make him feel better about them not having it to give to him. We'll try again soon. I don't think this stuff is widely available yet, but he deserves to get it. To be fair availability is still pretty scarce.