Really I feel this is mostly about the UK avoiding all the issues its has with what it did to the Chagossians, and the expenses of dealing with islands that will be massively impacted by climate change.
To analogize, the UK stole someone else’s car and has had it for a while. But now the original car owner is trying to get it back, the engine is failing, and the practical choice is to offload it to someone else for a quick buck before shit hits the fan
Its amazing that since then we haven’t had much success in even landing anything unmanned on the moon, let alone manned. The fact that they weren’t ripped to shreds like most other things weve ever tried to land, using that era’s technology, is absolutely fucking bonkers
E: Im assuming someone downvoted this bc they think Im saying this as in “the moon landing was fake” or something, which is not the case. Its just incredibly difficult to land something on the moon successfully, even with all the modern technology that we have. Resilience (2025), Hakuto-R (2023), Luna 25 (2023), and Beresheet (2019) all crashed in attempts to land on the moon using modern sensors and flight equipment that have infinitely more capability than what the US used to put men on the moon. The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) used a 1.024 MHz processor, 2 KB of RAM, and 72 KB of read-only memory. You would need 4,000,000 times more RAM to simply play kerbal space program.
I dont believe the moon landing was faked whatsoever. Russia was watching every step of the way and would have happily pointed out if it had never happened. This was the height of the cold war. But instead they congratulated the US on its achievements. That said, its fucking insane that we were able to do it. Modern equipment has a less than 50% chance of landing safely, the odds of them being successful back then were infinitesimally smaller
The “speak softly” era of American diplomacy is over, but the big stick is still bigger than ever. There is effectively a zero chance of anyone being willing to go toe to toe with the big stick. Although its possible the current leadership runs itself out of resources to wield the big stick against a large enough coalition of other countries. That part remains to be seen while we waste time fighting Iran for no reason
Maybe Im just not understanding the point of the centaur analogy, but it seems more convoluting than it does useful. At least in comparison to just making the same points without the analogy.
The point of a good analogy is to make your broader points immediately register with the reader, not create an entirely new concept to explain
They do know why, its that cows have some directional sense based in electromagnetism like an actual compass. Cows that are near high voltage power lines dont align the same way as cows normally do. Their sense gets messed up by the strength of the electrical fields that surround high voltage lines
Like for veggies, the egg is poached in the middle of an assemblage of multiple imbricated containers filled with specific amounts of water and pre-heated in a multi-step procedure. We are also told that the egg yolk must be punctured with a fork before cooking. (What happens if you don’t? The book doesn’t say, and I would rather not know.)
The recipe calls for 1 minute and 10 seconds of cooking at full power. Around the 1 minute and 5 seconds mark, my egg violently exploded, sending the various vessels to bounce around the walls of the oven. And listen, as I said, I came to this book with an open mind, but I expect a cookbook to give you at least enough information to avoid a literal explosion. So I wrote “LESS” in the “(____)” and never tried this recipe again.
Thiel links these religious themes to what he calls the exhaustion of the Enlightenment story of progress and the crisis of modern liberal democracy, arguing modernity’s faith in reason, institutions, and global cooperation is breaking down under the weight of geopolitical conflict and technological upheaval. He has suggested the stagnation of transformative innovation, rising bureaucracy, and a growing reliance on supranational bodies are signals that the modern era is ending and that a new, more openly theological politics is emerging in its place.
Within this framework, Thiel has repeatedly singled out Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg as emblematic of what he calls “legionnaires of the Antichrist”—figures who seek to halt or tightly control scientific and technological development in the name of safety or planetary survival. In leaked recordings of a four‑part “Antichrist” lecture series, he described the modern Antichrist not as a reckless technologist, but as a “Luddite who wants to stop all science,” adding, “It’s someone like Greta,”
Lets say for the sake of argument his overall idea has merit, but hes way off in choosing Thunberg. Who do we know, what major political figure, has massively undermined society’s faith in reason, institutions, and global cooperation? What major political figure has rejected scientific advancement that would save the planet in favor of the archaic “drill baby drill” model of propping up destructive industries like coal, oil, etc.? What major political figure has argued that the United States should have unilateral control over the western hemisphere, and has time and time again reduced global cooperation via the UN, treaties, etc.?
I dont even think most of his argument is that far off base. I also think its plainly obvious that Donald Trump is the antichrist if there is one. His followers wear the mark of the beast on their foreheads (MAGA). He seemed to suffer mortal wounds, or came close, and yet miraculously survived (Covid. Or almost being shot in the face). He literally calls himself the “President of Peace” which is such a blatant ripoff of the “Prince of Peace” aka Jesus Christ. The antichrist is someone who will turn good people into bad people by convincing them that being on the side of evil is actually righteous. Look at the moral denigration of his followers who will never see the light.
There was a website that tracked all the ways he was similar to the biblical descriptions of the antichrist that is ten miles long. They stopped updating it years ago before he even reached a second term in office. Its only gotten more obvious in the interim. Trump is literally the antichrist
"This isn't the department of baking cookies," one source said. "This is the Department of Homeland Security, where you can be deported from the country. And we're now employing people who are not equipped to tie their own shoelaces”
The damage to her scalp and vascular network was so severe that restoring the ear at the time was impossible, so the procedure was performed to save the patient’s aural orifice so it could be reattached to her head later.
Okay, but its going to be really hard to find socks in the meantime. Also, dont the hairs that allow you to hear not grow back? I assume the ear will never be useable again. Although I guess the aesthetic appeal is still there
To give context, this is a local newspaper and therefore the audience is not general. People who live in the area this is in are already aware of a few things:
One, the vast majority of land in the valley is public land already. Huge amounts of national forest land, and additional public open space land as provided by the local governments and county governments. To make this more open space would have required too large of a financial commitment by the county to have been worthwhile. There is plenty of public land even literally adjacent to this property. Plus Old Snowmass is not a real town with people who could purchase it for local use, so that is out as well.
Two, the land as a monastery was owned by the Catholic church. Effectively it was sold because of its value and location as the return could be used by the church to hold onto other land outside of the valley. Or use it for better purposes, at least as defined by them. There are already Catholic churches in every sizable community up and down the valley
Three, any time a large chunk of land goes up for sale in this valley that is worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, you can be sure a rich prick will buy it. Every small family home in the valley sells for $1M or more. Even the local trailer parks had to band together to get $40M mortgages to save their parks from being sold. “Rich prick buys up property” is just a Tuesday out here
So I understand as an outsider you think more could have been written about these topics, but it would have been highly redundant for the local audience of their paper. The same would be true for the several other local news entities that have covered the sale over the last 2 years
Really I feel this is mostly about the UK avoiding all the issues its has with what it did to the Chagossians, and the expenses of dealing with islands that will be massively impacted by climate change.
To analogize, the UK stole someone else’s car and has had it for a while. But now the original car owner is trying to get it back, the engine is failing, and the practical choice is to offload it to someone else for a quick buck before shit hits the fan