Yes, when China first started supporting Russia, much commentary noted that and made the point that Russia was desperate for allies and products and China anted to increase influence, so could use the increased relationship to their advantage to exert control over Russia, through the use of financial tools.

Yes, nobody wants tariffs, but China is already facing them from USA, so they are more at risk.bthe EU won’t want retaliation from China but they also don’t want Russia to continue to affect their economy and stability. China would have to choose and they would choose Europe as they are not natural allies with Russia anyway, and Russia won’t buy much off them. China needs huge amounts of resources, some of which Russia has, but they are moving away from fossil fuels faster than europe and USA and Russia.

Likely economically. Currently China will be wary of USA sanctions on trump and Russia having favour from trump. They won’t want to be on the outside o while their economy is already slowing down.

My dad was going grey, so my brother bought him ‘just for men’ hair dye, which he opened at the Christmas dinner table with the entire family. He was about 9. We still laugh about it.

Good job on not serving her. Unfortunately in service culture where the customer is always right, there often is no blowback from customers being rude or unreasonable. There needs to be pushback, even small victories are still a win.

Which goes back to the point about France and Germany being able to control the momentum with a third of the population.

Yes, but even Meloni and Trump are more liberal than their counterparts from previous bouts of fascism.

I wonder if the increasing complexity of our economies and societies is insulating us a little from the worst effects, even if some of that complexity is driving the lurch right for those who are feeling the pain

I’m not an admin but don’t they keep changing them so that you can’t prevent these updates with group policy alone.

I think that most western countries are converging on economic, taxation and liberal values that align. As developing countries catch up, to meet entry criteria, I expect it will expand east and south, potentially with some trading partners joining or aligning more closely. As the block gets bigger, it becomes more important to trade with, so it may hit a point where everyone wants in, but has to follow their rules. Or it stagnates and never gets there and dissolves over time, either because it’s no longer needed or it’s not fit for purpose.

I think the next 20 years will be telling, especially what happens to Britain and Ukraine in that time.

I get that, which is why my response pointed out that it’s not as simple as a majority of a veto, but that France/Germany combined has a large population bloc that means without them, it’s very unlikely to happen.

Each countries sovereignty remaining is part of the EUs strength, but also it’s weakness. Things like immigration are a trans continent problem and variations in policy, numbers of immigrants and refugees is problematic, even with Schengen. Cross border policies while retaining sovereignty are very difficult. Complex, and difficult to gain consensus.

The opacity of all this, with much of the EU business less visible than national governments, means there is less political capital to make things happen quicker when needed.

Yes, and there are loose coalitions between those disparate parties. Usually 65% of the EU population needs to be represented by how it works. A majority of states with a majority of people voting for something to pass. So France and Germany can hold things up with just a few smaller states. As it happens, France and Germany are more inclined to want to advance the EU rules rather than hold them up, but their combined size gives them an oversized power, which is not necessarily a bad thing given how many people they represent.

Greece was frustrated by Germany when they had to practice austerity. Germany often pushes for financial rules that are beneficial to their export economy.

I don’t think most EU countries want to be a federation at this point. Close ties, yes, but not loss of sovereignty.

For a simple majority, they can’t enact things on their own. However they can hold up a qualified majority with just a few smaller states due to their size. The EU is about broad consensus which is why it moves slowly for anything regarding sovereignty, which includes immigration and defence.

Which is likely why they are not bothering to fix it.

The veto thing is the only way the individual countries can maintain their sovereignty. It’s a union, not federation. There should definitely be mutual cooperation on defence, immigration etc but nobody will agree to cooperation if they are obliged to follow other countries plan. Ireland, for instance is constitutionally neutral. Small countries won’t want to be bullied by larger, so France and Germany combine almost could control everything with simple majorities. Larger countries want the smaller countries to contribute their fair share and not be carried.

End of glenroe. (Ireland)

I don’t play a lot of open world games. But, sf6 takes an age to load before you even try to match. I expected almost instant, similar to a cartridge console.

LLM are already good at tone for letters etc. As much as it may not be 100%, I’d say it’s close. Using flowery language is not necessarily better. However, I don’t think I’ve ever read a Dutch book translated to English. If this makes art more accessible across language barriers, I’m all for it.

Yep, no difference from PS4 for any game. This fast loading they talk about, minimal.

Similar for Facebook, Microsoft etc. It will be interesting to see how long before they start to lose market dominance, or how anti trust laws work worldwide.

Where Mr robot is an unreliable narrator that questions himself, devs has a paranoia that someone else is controlling the narrative to purposefully make you question,