Made me think of this:

https://youtu.be/AiCF1QdyxhM?si=A8dF6aU31sWh39_E

If I understand correctly they have some kind of explanation where the sun works like a spotlight or something. But it also requires light to curve in weird ways to make any damn sense, soooo…

If it was me in their place, I’d try giving up as little as possible then seek some sort of binding defense agreement, whether NATO or something else. And if necessary do it in secrecy so Russia doesn’t hear about it until the agreement is fully in force.

Honestly I just think the US is simply not reliable, and with Ukraine seemingly relying heavily on the US, they need to be looking for the quickest exit strategy they can come up with at a moment of strength.

Hopefully, if Republicans prevent continued US support, other countries will still provide enough…I just fear it may not be, and that seems like a worse outcome for Ukraine’s people.

I hope they do, but this is why I’ve always thought Ukraine needed to be a little less hard-line on not giving up any territory. Because I figured it was only a matter of time before the Republicans (and other similar parties/groups in other countries) ratfucked the support away from them.

I don’t know if Russia was ever open to negotiating, but if they were, Ukraine may find themselves wishing they had negotiated at a high point, instead of their support being pulled out from under them.

Sadly, the US is simply not a reliable ally or source of support right now, and probably won’t be until getting the internal insanity under control. Until there are two parties actually willing to govern instead of one party trying to govern and the other acting like a deranged shit-flinging baboon, the US will be unreliable.

That, if accurate, is some damning poll results. 75% of them support the attacks on October 7, and an additional 11% are fine enough with them to have no strong opinion. That’s 86% of the population.

If 75% of the population supports the attacks, and 86% at least had no problem with them, then I can’t agree when people say things like most of the Palestinians just want to live their lives in peace.

Honestly, I don’t know for sure since I’m not an expert; my reasoning was the hope that being able to examine the entire line of advancement would allow the necessary technical knowledge to be extracted and duplicated. I knew that just bringing the latest one would definitely do nothing.

That’s why most of the stuff is technical or scientific information for the researchers; things that aren’t subject to change, just technical info. The money stuff I would hope to manage in less than 6 months from my arrival, because even in that short time I’d expect a lot to change by the end of it.

It’d just be a question of getting that initial funding off the ground with which to set up my research institution. After that, the few things I don’t release for free should cover expenses.

Sidenote since I didn’t address it in the original reply, taking over the world is impractical even with future knowledge, but as the person in charge of this outfit that would quickly be the world’s most advanced research tank, I’d probably have a lot of influence, which is the best anyone can practically hope for, I imagine. A lot more than the last 25 years of advancement would be needed to actually take over I figure.

Get every flagship CPU and GPU from 2000 to today that I can get my hands on. Also as much open source code as I can get hold of. And especially AI stuff - there’s several fully open source models, so bring those, and as much technical writings on them as possible.

Speaking of which, download every science paper published since 2000 that I can get hold of, in every possible field.

Get as much info on the 2000 election as possible, to hand to Al Gore, see if he can win that election with a solid unassailable margin.

Research stocks, lottery, and everything else I can to get fast money within the shortest possible period of time after I get there, so I can get super rich before the butterfly effect makes predictions impossible, I need billions in seed money and I need it fast.

Then use that money to start a private research group, and hand them all the scientific papers I brought. Get those experts to work studying all this knowledge and figure out what can be turned into practical technology. Turn some of this into profit-making devices to fund continued development, but release as much as possible for free.

Essentially, deluge the world in as much new technology as possible, mostly free and open source, holding back only as much as necessary in order to fund continued research.

And oh jeez the pharmaceutical industry. Release for free every drug made since 2000, so the pharmaceutical industry can’t get their patents in them.

Big list of stuff there, but if I pulled off even half of it, the world would probably be a much better place in 25 years than in my original timeline.

Some of these actually do have an effect, but it’s difficult to impossible for a person to know whether this particular one is a placebo button or not.

This is especially the case with elevator close door buttons. Those buttons are always hooked up, because they are needed during emergency operation with the fireman’s key. They are sometimes programmed to cycle the doors marginally faster under normal circumstances, but more often aren’t.

Also, some of the traffic crossing buttons don’t make the walk cycle come sooner, but they occasionally are needed to insert a walk cycle at all, because some intersections don’t trigger a walk cycle unless the button has been pressed.

And the way they tell you to do it is never either one of those.

Well the waste of land part doesn’t really matter much cause if we ever did need that land for other things, it’s still there. It’s not as though building a golf course makes that patch of land into an irradiated wasteland that can never be used for anything else again.

Most likely, in my opinion:

Hold you for 24 hours to see if anyone reports a crime and describes you as the perpetrator.

When no one does, find a crime which seems plausible for you, and where they’ve gotten a description that could possibly fit you.

Interrogate you about it, giving you your lawyer of course. Assuming you do not have a solid alibi for that particular crime, there’s a real chance you’ll be charged and eventually convicted.

If you do have a solid alibi, they might keep looking for other crimes to charge you with, or they might give up.

If they give up, they’re likely to charge you with something related to wasting their time, for which you will at minimum have to pay a fine.

There is one other thing that could be done…but won’t be.

Qui tacet consentire videtur ubi loqui debuit ac potuit. “He who is silent, when he ought to have spoken and was able to, is taken to agree.”

If they simply decided to adopt a silence gives consent rule for the Senate’s role of advice and consent for all appointments, they would no longer be able to obstruct by simply holding off on things. The senate could still deny consent by voting against a candidate and explicitly not confirming them, but doing nothing would automatically become consent and pass unopposed.

This is what Obama should have done with Merrick Garland, not to mention all those other federal judge appointments. Simply go ‘okay, you’re not voting on it, which means you’re silent, which means you consent. All appointments approved!’

Edit: Although truthfully the idea that the Senate needs to confirm every military promotion is so insanely stupid that I can’t understand how it’s ever become the standard. The only reason Tuberville can do this is because these promotions are usually passed behind the scenes with unanimous consent - he can’t actually block them…he can just make them be voted on. And yet, the volume of promotions means that simply voting on them would take up all of the Senate’s time. The Senate really should only need to confirm the highest levels, not every single promotion in the entire military.

Well if one of the forms is going to become the neutral, how about making the feminine form the default neutral instead, eh?

Recent times have shown two important things to me.

One: People want to create regardless of any reward related to it. The excuse that people need to be rewarded in order to do anything valuable is completely wrong. People, in general, want to do things that other people find valuable and beneficial and bring joy to other people. We are very social, and that desire is nearly universal. If one has no concerns over their continued comfortable existence, then the vast majority of people would dedicate themselves to something they enjoy which is also useful and helpful to others.

Two: People will very happily give rewards to those who create things that they want and enjoy. Even people who themselves have little, will give some to those who have brought them happiness and joy with their work and effort. We see this in all the people donating even when they receive nothing in return for it.

Point two suggests that universal income is theoretically unnecessary, but point two is unreliable. Yes, people will give, but they won’t give in a steady, reliable way that can be counted on to meet another’s needs regularly. And just as importantly, they don’t really give if the quality of the creations are low, which…fair enough, however, this limits the potential creator’s ability to practice and get better, since they cannot devote their efforts to the thing they enjoy that would, if they got good at it, be enjoyed by many; instead they are forced to devote their efforts to continued survival and comfortable existence.

Back in the day they used to do similar things. I have disassembled, with tools, some hotel mountings and such, so I could hook up my Super Nintendo or PlayStation back then.

Deer usually have ample power to prevent their death; most of the time they have sufficient time to get out of the way, but they do not do so.

Which really makes the comparison even more on point, since as a whole our civilization could have taken action but chose not to.

Um, yes? Assuming I haven’t done anything that will get me in trouble, and that the society we’re in doesn’t punish wrongthink, then most definitely; a mind reader should be much better at counseling than anyone else.

I love a quote I read once in a thing about alignment. “If you fix twenty neighbor’s roofs, you’re Jimmy the Helpful Thatcher. But if you eat the neighbor’s daughter, you’re Jimmy the Cannibal, and no amount of additional carpentry assistance will change that.”

But as OP points out, someone will get that kidney eventually anyway. So the difference is that a different someone else gets to continue existing.