The CCP actually views the Taiping Rebellion positively, as an egalitarian movement which is a precursor to their own, albeit significantly flawed [1]. Upon looking this up, I was surprised to see they rarely even view it from a religious lens, maybe because the movement was so syncretic. Although, that could be due to the similarities between the Taiping Rebellion and Cultural Revolution’s aims.
It’s quite ironic how the assimilationist nature of high church Christianity has ended up becoming what early Christianity was in opposition to. Early Christians were non-conformist, to the point of execution, and were sometimes even seen as anti-social. A thousand years later, Christians are incorporating obscure tales from the East.
I think this is another argument for a separation of Church and state. It allows people to challenge when religious teaching goes awry without fear of persecution.
I disagree. What changed was that the Roman Empire stopped persecuting Christians. There are still places where Christians are non-conformist to the point of execution. Christianity is often in conflict with governments. One example is the criticism of Thatcher by Church of England bishops.
Idk. The establishing act of Christianity supposedly consists of Paul (?) saying that newcomers don't have to follow the strict rules from the Old Testament.
You're using quite a broad brush with "non-conformist," so I'll assume you're referring to Roman Christian martyrdom. The perception of Christians in that era was more or less that they were being coerced to libel Christ and suppress his memory, who moreover had the vital Answer for humankind; and to dissolve their brotherhoods as conspiratorial organizations, including by incriminating friends and family and (in time, certainly by Diocletian) to libel their ancestors. This is quite different from the modern, essentially Reformation, view of them, which is that they were ideologues with an obstinate disinclination to lose the argument. Another misconception is that they were under continuous persecution, when in fact Roman enforcement was more like a limited number of notorious showdowns well spread out over time and terrain; however, this one is not just a modern view but was also promoted by fairly early hagiographers[0]. Finally, resisting even per the rationale I've described was quite controversial, and not all Christians refused to capitulate, even after it had become an established religious concept and practice. For example, see the Donatist controversy in re traditores[1].
Venezuelans voted for the party alliance led by Machado and support the removal of Maduro [1].
Iran looks more complicated. Pretty much the only insight we get is from the diaspora and cosmopolitan people from Tehran. There seems to be a very significant armed force clearly in favor of the Ayatollah, so removing him without their complicity will likely lead to turmoil.
I find it disingenuous to attribute the popular vote to Machado. The candidate that represented the alliance was Edmundo González and it was for him that the voters cast the vote. He is perceived by the public as a centrist / centre-left. He is someone who has worked under both Hugo Chavez and Carlos Andrés Pérez. Machado might have helped swing some right-leaning voters to him, but it is doubtful if Edmundo González could have managed to swing the left-leaning voters to vote for her, if she was the candidate herself.
As for Iran, you need to look beyond the perspective of "repressive" regime or an "army run" nation. It is only culturally "repressive" when you compare it to the western cultural norms. For a muslim middle-eastern country, it is actually quite moderate. And it is the only middle-eastern nation that has a functioning stable hybrid-democracy while most of the other middle-eastern countries are run as kingdoms by their Shieks (supported by the west). Moreover the Ayaotallah does have a huge support base amongst the religiously inclined, who do belive that their country's political system should have an Islamic influence. To understand this better, just look at the right-leaning politics emerging in the US and Europe about preserving the country's Christian culture - many of them are elected on that platform and if they come to power, can anyone say it is undemocratic? Further, it is important to understand that the Ayatollah is the equivalent of a Pope to the Shia muslims. Imagine the politco-religious turmoil that will take place in the west if an attempt is made to get rid of the Pope from the Vatican. I am sure many Iranians don't want to mix religious with politics. But I can assert with confidence that they are currently in the minority.
This comment isn’t as much of an exaggeration as it seems, at least regarding engineering. At a previous job, I was tasked with helping a product line achieve certification to a government standard. The public facing government contact I interacted with was just a middle man with the consultancy, ICF, who actually developed and maintained the standards, to government specifications. Also, those government specifications had significant input from industry.
This thread is looking at this from a political angle, but he was arrested and charged for threats of mass violence. This seems to be a case of over zealous policing regarding school shootings in a very tense environment rather than a guy arrested over offensive memes.
There's no "tense environment" around school shootings. Like the president said: We have to... on second thoughts, maybe I should not be quoting him either.
The cost of hiring in the US versus elsewhere is already greater than $100k for the type of tech firm that can just open an international office. I took the base salaries of Google SWEs on levels.fyi for NYC, London, Bengaluru, and Toronto, multiplied them by the standard 1.4 for overhead, and realized the US is already significantly more expensive than most developed countries, let alone the Global South. Companies clearly value employing in America despite the cost.
Immigration has always bolstered the American tech industry, but the bulk of the industry has always been American. Just look at the distinguished members of Bell Labs. Many are immigrants, but most are American. The reason why immigrants come here is that American industry is already very strong. It’s not mutually exclusive to claim that Americans build a strong tech industry and that skilled immigrants have invented many new technologies here in America.
You are right about Bell Labs, the majority were US-born.
But let's consider one of the biggest innovations of recent times: Artificial Intelligence (transformers/LLMs specifically). Where was it invented? In America. Who invented it? Let's take a look. The seminal research paper that kicked off this revolution (titled "Attention is all you need") was written by 2 Indians, 1 German, 1 British Canadian, 1 Pole, 1 Ukrainian, and 2 US born people. So only 25% US-born.
Have you watched OpenAI's demos and how many of their researchers are Asian? Would you prefer for them to remain in Asia and contribute to DeepSeek instead?
The revisions cover March 2024 through March 2025. While his policies may deliver turmoil in the near future, I don’t understand why most of the discussion here is about Trump. Furthermore, these revisions are at the high end of estimates, so it’s not a complete shock. The Fed and financial institutions must have already had an idea that the job market could be this bad.
1. https://bitterwinter.org/the-taiping-mystery-1-why-is-the-cc...
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