I’d argue he isn’t a great leader; he is a successful one. He gambles, he takes chances, and is swashbucklingly lucky throughout his career, even when he gets punished, until he meets and follows the lead of arguably the better leader between the two of them, Jean-Luc Picard, in the nexus.

TOS was quite woke in its day. There is still an awful lot of sexism on that Enterprise. The treatment of Spock is quite discriminatory. You could argue his unilateral decision that appears to be salomonic more than covered by actual law or regulations to maroon Khan and company on Ceti-Alpha 5 leads directly to the death of his own son, of whose existence he didn’t really know because his mom knew better than to stay in Kirk’s orbit. While you could say that an orderly private life isn’t a prerequisite to being a great leader, I think Carol Marcus knew he’d be trouble at home and at work and that’s why she wanted out.

He was very often in the right place at the right time and only made decisions that were later judged not to be entirely wrong. He had the charisma of a great man right until he oh-my’ed loose his mortal coil. If there had been an HR department between the music room and the colorful food cube dispensary there would have been need for the admiralty to get involved. He is a beloved character for his brazenness and faults.

Humans have no problem holding in their mind simultaneously two fundamentally opposing ideas. Your question stems from the assumption that beliefs and especially religious ones are borne from this sort of unimpeachable internal logic, if A then B. That’s enlightenment wannabe thinking how we should be. And it isn’t like that.

Also, we are herd animals, we want to belong to something. A lot of people want to belong to this or that religious group to fulfill their own needs. Even if they disagree with some of the religious commandments. So they espouse stuff they don’t actually agree with without any or much internal conflict.

I also feel that few people are actually “raised Christians.” They tend to be raised Baptists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Mormons, etc. They have wildly differing views on that carpenter from the Middle East and what it all means.

If you like LD I think you’ll find stuff to like in Academy as well. Tawney was in the writers room. I’m glad to hear you’ll give it another shot.

How can anyone answer this unless you vaguely doxx yourself?

Your loss. What’s your favorite?

There world breathed a sigh of relief after Russia and Qatar thinking thank Pele the next world cup will be held in nice, non-contriversial countries! And then time moved forward.

I didn’t have any plans to visit in the first place. But if you ask people who organize conferences or other events these days they all bemoan a significant drop in demand from abroad. I think Mexico making the headlines recently with the cartel starring a turf war will not have helped either. My prediction is the highest percentage foreign visitors compared to local spectators will be at the games in Canada. I suspect the US venues will struggle to put butts in all the seats like during the Club WC.

I also think it is very likely that I, personally, will never travel to the US ever again. I have no money - undoubtedly the bigger obstacle - but I lost all interest.

Encounter at Farpoint was terrible too. If you got thru that, you can stomach 90210 in space as well.

Savor the Trek that is available for I fear there will be significantly less new stuff in the future.

You’ll never know if you don’t watch it.

“Killer feature” is silicon-valley-invrstor-ROI-speak. The fediverse is designed in opposition to central platforms funded by investors looking to make a profit.

I don’t want to go back to reddit because they abandoned third party clients and made another few decisions that made me mad. Lemmy today is - objectively speaking - worse than reddit was circa 5-7 years ago. The user numbers aren’t the same, the way the fediverse is connected reactions aren’t as snappy and the search function is way worse. If I judged this on “killer features” I might be tempted to go back to reddit. I tolerate the shortcomings because I believe centrally operated platforms have a high tendency to enshitify as soon as they realize they need to make money.

I see your bullshit and raise you horse manure. Speaking from an administrative point out view, it is indeed harder to run a program like that spread out over a much larger area with a much larger population to deal with. A complication in the US is also in differing state laws. This probably wouldn’t work EU-wide either.

Also Finland didn’t start from a large pool of homeless people due to mental illness or medical bankruptcies because there were other social safety nets spun before this one to catch a lot of the people before they became homeless.

Blame the US for not trying. I do too. But “economies of scale” are not going to help a program that for it to run well cannot be run like a business.

I only use my head + the clues some streaming services provide marking shit as viewed.

It’s much harder to get large swaths of the public addicted to opioids due to pesky red tape from Brussels. And there are far fewer veterans you can abandon to their battle PTSD in tent camps.

I read about a Finnish initiative to just get everyone they could find on the streets of Helsinki without an abode into apartments, give them money, and help them sort out their lives and get them into jobs wherever possible. That’s socialism bordering on communism to American ears. That’s quite lefty even by European standards, sadly.

In America’s defense it’s easier to do in a country of 5 million people than in one of 340 million. That’s not a reason not to try though.

It’s been a decade since I had to worry about such things. I remember reading that breast milk is - when available and plentiful - the preferred method. Formula is always second best. But this is a numbers game and I think the lab coats don’t say formula child will suffer consequence A as a result. It’s always there is a 5% higher chance of catching this or that (and I pulled that number out of thin air). But this is the margins I think I read about when it mattered.

Child #1 got supplemented with formula 60/40 at first; child #2 never had formula. Child #2 has spent more time in pediatricians’ waiting rooms. It’s a numbers game where you can do everything “right” and still not “win.” Big air quotes on those terms.

If you are a new parent or are about to become one and you’re reading this thread and you’re freaking out: please take a deep breath. You’ll figure this out.

I hold them in much higher esteem than people who randomly capitalize words online.

I heard that there are people who hate Chinese tourists… so is this actually gonna backfire?

I’ve been to a few touristy spots in my life and it is my experience that it is a fairly recent development that Chinese tourists have nudged American ones from the top spot in the annoying tourists category. So regardless which group you’ll pretend to be from, people will probably still find you annoying.

I totally get why you would want to pretend you’re not American these days to avoid questions about the orange, ICE, and the subtleties of international law. Do what feels right and works. I wouldn’t go as far as faking an accent but I wouldn’t hold it against you necessarily.

With as much detail as you require, i.e. what they wear in bed at night, this question is nearly impossible to answer. As there is not a single person alive that has observed all rich people while they’re catching some zzz’s. It also hinges on the definition of rich.

Logically, the answer to your question is probably no. There will be a few rich people who wear non-designer clothes. But in my estimation they will be a minority. If you have the means, the show-off appeal or the perceived higher quality of the more expensive stuff is probably enough to fill your wardrobe over time. Also, rich people get a lot of shit for free.

What they are saying ≠ what they are doing. I’m my book, this is a half-assed, poorly thought through, unadvised military campaign. Trying to grasp it with logic is as useless as an ashtray on a motorbike.

After 9/11 W was flown around a long time in Air Force One to keep him secure. After just having their old dear leader blown up, it’s highly likely they have stepped up security on junior. So junior will be moved around or hidden in bunkers and caves or moved around between various bunkers and caves, thus making a hit harder.

… apparently a lot of English people have at least 25% Scandinavian DNA,…

In the 9th century the Vikings invaded and occupied a huge chunk of England (mostly). They blended in with the Anglo Saxons after a while, who, btw, also originally came from Northern Europe.

A bunch of Vikings also went to set up shop in Normandy, France. That sounds very French today but when you look at it, it sounds surprisingly like “northman”-dy. These Normans also invaded England in the 11th century, stayed, and fucked around like their Viking cousins of old.

We are all blends of DNA. People moved around, also to North America. Including people from the Iberian peninsula. That’s why it shouldn’t be that inexplicable that you have some of their DNA in yours.

No, they aren’t. No, you shouldn’t care less. No, that doesn’t matter. And unfortunately yes, it is.

If it were faked, the Soviets would have had a field day. They didn’t. If all the other facts didn’t work, I find that most convincing. The nemesis had to accept it begrudgingly.

Between the 70s and today, the motivations for moon landings have changed. Back then: fuck the commies, we go first, and science. Turns out the moon isn’t that interesting to continue sending people there. Rocks and dust, yawn. Not worth the ROI. The reason why there is renewed interest now is because people think realistically they can build a base on the moon. That was science fiction in 1969.

For your own mental health, give yourself a time frame and if they still think it’s fake allow yourself to let it go. Chances are they don’t want to be convinced and you have to let nature take its course and hope the seed of doubt you have planted comes to life and blossoms.