> The cell is a living organism because we have largely defined the cutoff for living organisms at the cell;
Isn't that because all living organisms are composed of one or more cells ( cell theory )? It isn't an arbitrary cutoff but rather a result of observation that the smallest thing we can confidently called a living organism is a cell and all organisms are composed of cells.
> it's much more interesting to consider if viruses are machines or not and that really is a hot-topic in the biology community.
They are not self-contained self-replicating machines. But are they machines nonetheless? I'd say they are non-self-replicating machines. But I guess it all depends on how you define machine. Just like how do you define life or living determines whether viruses are alive or not.
pwsh never took off because it doesn't fit the spirit of unix system administration. pwsh is object based while on unix systems, it's all about shredding text. If you are on windows, use powershell as it makes your life easier. But I don't think anyone wants to use powershell on unix, linux, etc.
> But this just does not feel right. It feels like tyranny of the majority.
It's not tyranny. It's just democracy. Asset owners get lots of tax deductions, capital gains benefits and other goodies because they are the majority who voted it for themselves.
> Ordering them to decrease the rents is not that different from confiscating part of their property.
There have been rent stabilized apartments in new york for decades now. It's nothing new and it's nothing like confiscating property.
> There have been rent stabilized apartments in new york for decades now.
I know, I live in one such apartment. I have a very good relationship with my landlord. I'd be among the first to profit if NYC decided to force landlords to lower rent. It still does not feel right.
> It's not tyranny. It's just democracy.
Not in this country. Democracy is not just who has the most votes. There are checks and balances, and one of them is the justice branch of the Government, up to and including the Supreme Court. If something is not just, hopefully the Supreme Court will step in and say no. There were cases in history when this did not happen, for example the Dred Scott decision 166 years ago [1] that Black people do not enjoy the protection of the Constitution. But more often than not, the Supreme Court was there to undo the injustice resulting from the will of the majority alone.
> I know, I live in one such apartment. I have a very good relationship with my landlord. I'd be among the first to profit if NYC decided to force landlords to lower rent. It still does not feel right.
Then leave your rent stabilized apartment. What do you think rent stabilized apartments are? They are apartments with legally and artificially lowered rents. Would you feel better if they called it stabilizing rent rather than lowering rent?
> > But this just does not feel right. It feels like tyranny of the majority.
> It's not tyranny. It's just democracy. Asset owners get lots of tax deductions, capital gains benefits and other goodies because they are the majority who voted it for themselves.
Democracy, by its ideal principles, relies on tyranny of the majority: Democratic voting relies on a majority of people voting for A, regardless of the voting mechanism used, with those voting for (B, C, D, etc.) getting the raw end of the shaft.
> I hope the US takes the EU approach and regulates what data is collected
The US and the EU have different goals. EU's goal is to protect their control of propaganda within their borders. Ours is to control propaganda within our borders and protect our social media companies from foreign competitors. There is a reason why the government attacks on tiktok coincides with youtube shorts, facebook reels, instagram reels, etc. EU doesn't have a social media company to champion so they don't have that extra burden of protecting market share.
> I've been living in Turkey for some years now and I promise you, it's not fun.
Tiktok isn't going to go away. Too many companies have invested in tiktok for it to be simply banned. Tiktok is most likely going to be "confiscated". Tiktok parent will most likely be forced to sell tiktok to a US based company.
No country should allow foreign social media to spread propaganda within their borders. Every country should nationalize social media within their borders. It's insane that only the US, China and Russia seem to be protecting their social media space. I just don't get it. Social media can be used to brainwash, divide and destroy any country. It's almost like most of the world's leaders are incompetent.
> Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous.
It also democratizes the clout, power and protection that the hollywood famous have. Without social media harvey weinstein would not be in jail. A "relative nobody" wouldn't have been able to "out shout" and expose a media mogul like weinstein.
As with everything, there are positive and negative aspects.
> I find interesting that HBO, a US TV network, has become a worldwide brand name in a way that CBS,[1] NBC, and ABC didn't;
That's because CBS, NBC and ABC are national broadcast networks while HBO is a cable network, like CNN. CNN is broadcast internationlly.
> only BBC has also transcended its home country this way,
That's only because of the british empire. Who but their former slave colonies watches BBC?
> None except Netflix has yet gained worldwide recognition for their shows and brands, yet, though (not even Disney and The Mandalorian).
Isn't Friends the most popular tv show worldwide? People may watch it on Netflix but it was originally broadcast on NBC as part of the "Must see tv" thursdays.
> Isn't Friends the most popular tv show worldwide?
No. There are many lists of "top TV shows" or "most watched TV shows", some of which focus on the now, some try to be of all time. Regardless, Friends doesn't really crack the top 5 on any list that I can find (and isn't on most top 20 lists either).
While Friends is a favorite rewatch show, the overwhelming majority of people want to see the latest, they want to be part of the zeitgeist.
One of my favorite stories concerning primes is how fermat thought he discovered the formula for primes ( Fermat's primes ). He only checked his formula for the first few primes and assumed it worked for all primes. Euler checked for the next prime using fermat's formula and discovered the number to be composite and proved fermat's formula didn't work.
It’s worse than that, even, because it’s believed there are no Fermat primes at all after 65,537. It’s one of the few cases of a conjecture being (with very high probability) 100 percent wrong.
There is always value in truthful statements. You are right that 91 is not the smallest number as was implied by the parent. -91 is. After all it was the parent who brought in the negative integers into the mix.
I think GP made a worthwhile point, but in general the universe is full of uninteresting truths. Like take two large, distinct numbers, assert that they are unequal. Is that specific truth valuable?
Isn't that because all living organisms are composed of one or more cells ( cell theory )? It isn't an arbitrary cutoff but rather a result of observation that the smallest thing we can confidently called a living organism is a cell and all organisms are composed of cells.
> it's much more interesting to consider if viruses are machines or not and that really is a hot-topic in the biology community.
They are not self-contained self-replicating machines. But are they machines nonetheless? I'd say they are non-self-replicating machines. But I guess it all depends on how you define machine. Just like how do you define life or living determines whether viruses are alive or not.