I'm going to provide a bit of nuance here, but would like to clarify I am not a fan of ICE's tactics in the slightest. Yes, the ICE agent was stupid for standing in front of the car, just as Renee Good was stupid for hitting the gas while he was standing in front of her car. At that moment, he became 100% legally justified to shoot. The limits of human cognitive performance significantly limit how fast your brain can send the signal to your hand to stop shooting, and the stop-signal happened when he was standing by her side window. In a split-second, he was shooting to defend himself against a reasonably perceived threat of being run over. Yes, it could have been completely avoided by both individuals, but "shooting through side windows of cars driving away" is misleading. The Alex Pretti incident, completely, totally unjustified. Just wanted to provide a bit of nuance from the perspective of someone who studies self-defense encounters.
Letting the state control our privacy is a huge price to pay for traffic management. Especially if said state is currently detaining people left and right, and occasionally murdering them
I'm not concerned about "privacy" on public roads. If law enforcement illegally detaining and murdering people is a concern, I'd rather increase accountability for the law enforcement officers engaging in illegal activity, instead of removing their ability to police actual crime.
I got my BS in Computer Science legally carrying a Glock in every class. I think it's very likely I was the only person doing so; Not because I was fearful, but because I like being prepared. It takes very little long-term effort for people to carry pepper spray, a gun (if able), and a first aid kit everywhere they go. You never know who's life you might save.
There's been exercises where you simulate active shooters with some or none of the people armed. As I remember it the situation with some of the targets were armed ended up with higher casualty numbers in quite a few simulations. The solution to a bad guy with a gun might be a good guy with a gun, but it also might be easier paths to run away and lowering the probability of a bad guy getting access to a gun.
Looking at the non-US stats, it's pretty clear the latter is at least a lot more credible.
I'm actually not surprised. As a conceal carrier, I think that most people that conceal carry a firearm are woefully under-trained and potentially a liability. I still absolutely encourage people willing to put in the effort to do it, given the potential to save lives. Pretty much every single active shooter situation only ends with the suspect shooting themselves, or being shot - I want every chance to end the threat possible.
That would be on-brand for European leadership. It's a good thing European countries aren't shutting down nuclear power plants and increasing dependence on Russian oil and gas...
We need to push for clean tech obviously. I disagree with Republicans blocking wind farm construction and rolling back regulations, but American energy independence is important for national security, which is a shorter term issue than climate change. And developing more domestic clean energy helps with that as well.
My read: China is seen as a serious geopolitical rival that the United States must beat in a shooting or Cold or AI or <insert here> war. As a result PHDs to China as an export would be a negative impact, not a positive one potentially.
Or their constant threats against Taiwan, or their oppression of LGBT people in their borders, or their genocide against the Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, or their heel-turn into racialized nationalism (Han Chauvinism).
Yeah they seem to have gotten excited to do the probability math (with bad assumptions, conflating a 300m^2(!) cross section collision with an actual probable collision), and with no consideration that this can actually be trivially simulated.
What fraction of conspiracy theories have proven correct, at a Snowden-ish level?
My sense is that conspiracy theorists are essentially a cron job crying "Wolf!" every 60 seconds. The occasional real-world wolf does not justify paying any attention to the alarms. OTOH, it's a false dichotomy to believe that the false alarms prove the non-existence of wolves.
If the past decade of my life has taught me anything, it's "attribute all malicious actions to malice." It's usually just a matter of direct vs. indirect malice. Meaning, are they directly benefiting from their malicious actions or are they just assholes who "do it for the lulz".
The malicious actions are just at the potential stage at the moment. Someone has the capability to mess with our buses by means of a remote software update.
Just like someone has the capability to do with virtually everything we have running software.
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