deleted by creator

I’m not the previous poster but I do think it’s AI for a few reasons.

Visual distortions on some fine elements such as the top of the plant in the lower left.

A number of bird shapes that don’t make any sense.

The reflection in the water also doesn’t really make sense - there’s nothing with that color pattern it could be reflecting.

There’s an odd green object that looks like an alien skull or something on the rock over on the right.

Maybe it was generated partially with AI or cleaned up by a human artist who worked on it for a while, but I also thought it looked like a computer image. But overall it’s a nice effect and an interesting style.

Is this a scale where five stars is optimal, or where you’re being chased by police helicopters?

It’s an okay album. It’s a rock opera. It’s very melodramatic. There are some great songs.

I go back and forth on Animals or Meddle as their best record, with Wish You Were Here close behind.

Definitely The Wall feels much more like the solo Roger stuff than the best of Floyd.

Though the real purists only like the Barrett stuff.

Cheesy Gordita Crunch and Crunchwrap Supreme.

I’m also a fan of the Beefy Five-Layer Burrito positively smothered in Fire sauce.

That’s why I live way the hell out in the suburbs

Putting that much money into circulation would cause hyperinflation and then a gallon of milk would cost 10 quintillion dollars and you’re back to square one.

$140k per year is enough to afford a mortgage on a $500k house. You’d have to make crazy money to buy a house outright on a year’s salary, so nobody evaluates it that way.

No, you just completely failed to understand the comment and therefore the subject at hand.

If you don’t understand that a specific example or phrase is frequently used as a stand-in for a broader subject, and you can’t figure out what the subject is and therefore the meaning of the comment, then you are illiterate.

Are you really incapable of understanding that the comment was broadly about people killed in the name of religion, and “burning at the stake” was synechdoche for a larger phenomenon? Or are you just playing dumb to be a troll?

It may not happen in the western world in the modern era, but blasphemy is still punishable by death in Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Brunei, and Mauritania. Apostasy is further punishable by death in Malaysia, Maldives, Qatar, Somalia, UAE, and Yemen.

I agree with the first part, but not the second.

The impact of the financial crisis reverberates to this day, and that drives a huge proportion of the issues, but the crisis in my opinion was inevitable. From my perspective, the Post-War Economic Miracle, as it’s called, catapulted Japan through all the stages of economic development into an almost accelerated version of the same problems that are afflicting the U.S. and other Western countries.

The dream of infinite growth in the Japanese context fell flat for the same reasons it is falling apart in other developed countries. A rise in standard of living and wages led to offshoring and outsourcing of production, the hollowing out of the middle class, a work culture at odds with family life, and so on. The country’s land and businesses were valued in the late 1980s as though it could remain competitive internationally with a mostly domestic supply chain, even as the production costs of its goods continued to rise along with the needs of its population, which in a globalized economy turned out to be a pipe dream.

We see the same thing in the U.S., where every president promises to restore the American manufacturing base, then comes up against the reality that U.S.-produced products made by U.S. workers paid U.S. wages cannot be competitive with something built in Southeast Asia and shipped overseas for less than $100 per ton. But the conservatism of Japanese society certainly plays a role, in that the country is highly resistant to change, and also due to a rigidity that stifles innovation, making it hard to start new businesses outside the keiretsu/conglomerate structure. The U.S. has somewhat mitigated its manufacturing decline through the creation of new service sector and especially tech businesses that operate internationally, which path is less available to Japan due to the rigidity of its business structure.

But the part I disagree with is the idea that Japan has rejected industrial society. Japan is still extremely proud of its culture and the impact it’s had globally. They love that people in western countries eat ramen and sushi, play Nintendo games or watch anime, and they have a deep reverence for their globally successful businesses and particularly the auto industry. They have no desire to reject or withdraw from industrial society, they just haven’t been able to figure out amidst external economic barriers, and internal cultural and financial barriers, how to move forward.

Yes, but not to mention Asia as in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh! 1.5 billion people living on the Asian continent, but “Asian” in popular American usage seems to only refer to China/Korea/Japan, and maybe Southeast Asia to a slightly lesser extent.

That’s not even necessarily mixing the two up so much as failing to distinguish cultures within “Asia” in the first place. A lot of people think of the whole region as one place. Put some soy and garlic on something? You’ve got an “Asian” dish. Never mind that there are numerous regional culinary traditions within China alone.

See also: Africa.

I’ve sometimes heard it phrased that “Japan has been living in the year 2000 since 1980.”

Yes, an absolute scam. Perfect for a demonstration project for a big polluter to point at to discourage legislation that would threaten their business model. Not useful for reducing carbon emissions at scale.

No, that’s just completely wrong. Taiwan’s government was created when Chiang Kai-Shek fled mainland China in the 1950s. It’s the continuation of the Republic of China that governed the entire country of China before the PRC government took over.

Saying that the PRC created the ROC name is ridiculous. The ROC predates the creation of the PRC and is the older name. The PRC didn’t even exist when it was created. Also suggesting that the PRC would ever endorse the ROC in any format is silly. Their entire position is that the ROC doesn’t exist.

You should go read a Wikipedia article on the history of Taiwan as your grasp of the history here is not strong.

The official name of Taiwan’s government is Republic of China, and it’s the continuation of the government that controlled all of China before Mao’s uprising.

So I’m not sure your argument makes sense. They claim to be the legitimate Chinese government in their own name.

The Common Descent podcast has two paleontologists discussing ancient life on Earth. Every episode focuses on a specific era or group of creatures and what we know about their evolution and speciation. There are really good episodes on the “big five” mass extinctions when major changes led to a fundamental reorganization of living groups on the planet.