Could you imagine Cuba with the per capita GDP of Florida?
Geopolitical and sovereignty awkwardness aside (big aside I know)…. it’s obvious Cuba, and especially the average Cuban, would benefit immensely from the island becoming a US state, no?
In an alternate universe, instead of the Castro 1959 takeover, a pro-US faction took over and requested annexation, and was accepted, since 1950s Americans all would have thought it was cool to have another cool tropical island paradise state. The Hawaii of the east coast!
If anyone thinks Cuba is better off in any metric now than they would have been in that alternate reality, I’d love to hear why.
> If anyone thinks Cuba is better off in any metric now than they would have been in that alternate reality, I’d love to hear why.
I mean, pre-Castro Cuba was basically a playground for the US rich. Like, the whole revolution was about kicking those people out.
Personally, I think that's morally justified, but I don't agree that what the US has done to them since then is morally justified. Obviously people differ on their opinions of this stuff, but collective punishment (which is what the US embargoes are) is generally regarded as a war crime.
> Obviously people differ on their opinions of this stuff, but collective punishment (which is what the US embargoes are) is generally regarded as a war crime
The definitions really keep mutating on the left don’t they. Economic sanctions are a “war crime,” “silence is violence,” etc.
> The definitions really keep mutating on the left don’t they. Economic sanctions are a “war crime,” “silence is violence,” etc.
You may have me confused with someone else, as I have never said anything about silence is violence.
Economic sanctions are definitely a method of waging war. The loss falls mostly on the ordinary people of the country, and as such are collective punishment and war crimes.
Now, is it better than bombing the people back to the Stone Age? Definitely in the short-term, but one look at what happened to Iraq after ten years of sanctions (everyone who could left) and the impact this had on post 2003 reconstruction would seem to suggest that it's the difference between acute and chronic illnesses.
> 2019, the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute adopted an amendment to the definition of war crimes applicable in NIAC detailed in article 8(2)(e). The new article (8(2)(e)(xix) prohibits the intentional use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including the deliberate prevention of relief.
Fuel for cooking food and providing heat is necessary for survival; deliberate prevention of this aid from reaching Cuba is a war crime.
Companies will make far more than 130b off this. There's no way they only raised prices just enough to cover the 130b and the labor required for the internal policy changes. This was a justification for price gouging. Which they will not stop doing.
Agreed, this is the real take away most people will be left with. Not only did we all pay higher prices, instead of using that money to pay off the debt we give it away to business managers who were never out that money in the first place. Politically, that doesn't accomplish what some think it does. Midterms are coming up in 8 months...and the results of the house are going to be drastic no matter which side wins. Either Trump can do what he wants or the government will be deadlocked and nothing will happen for 2 years. Neither seem like good outcomes.
Sir no sir. I believe entirely the opposite. If they're tech illiterate then they don't have the entrenched knowledge that is the only thing keeping most people within the Windows ecosystem.
A Linux install that meets the basic needs of the user is perfecto!
Less so recently just due to time constraints, but I'm generally the technical person in my family group, and I've lost enough touch with Windows that troubleshooting it is increasingly difficult. If they need me to 'format and reinstall' they're getting Linux unless they have a very specific need that only Windows can cater to.
It's getting less silly every month! So many people in that boat only use the web browser anyway.
With a well-supported hardware configuration and a working web browser, even a non-techie may have a more stable experience than they would with Windows.
That has as much to do with the decline of Windows as with the ascent of desktop Linux, but still.
The sentence prior explicitly says this. There’s no dishonesty here.
“Even fully autonomous weapons (…) may prove critical for our national defense”
FWIW there’s simply no way around this in the end. If your even attempts to create such weapons, the only possible defensive counter is weapons of a similar nature.
just to be clear: from my standpoint it's the worst period ever being a junior in tech, you are not "fucked" if you are junior, but hard times are ahead of you.
This case has always been made for juniors but it's almost always the opposite that's true. There's always some fad that the industry is over-indexing on. Senior developers tend to be less susceptible to falling for it but non-technical staff and junior developers are not
Whether its a hotlang, LLMs, or some new framework. Juniors like to dive right in because the promise of getting a competitive edge against people much more experienced than you is too tantalizing. You really want it to be true
Some things take very little time and effort to manifest into the world today that used to take a great deal. So one of the big changes is around whether some things are worth doing at all.
Note: I'm not taking any particular side of the "Juniors are F**d" vs "no they're not" argument.
Geopolitical and sovereignty awkwardness aside (big aside I know)…. it’s obvious Cuba, and especially the average Cuban, would benefit immensely from the island becoming a US state, no?
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