But then you can’t call the US a liberal democracy in any way as they aren’t hands-off at all. Time and time again they meddle in other countries’ business to exert influence and power and to advance their interests.

Israel itself was created by the West as Palestine was a British colony before and the US has since given more support to Israel than they would usually grant an ally. The continuous protection (political and militaristic) makes Israel almost a vassal state of the US. This is the real reason why “liberal democracies” have not reacted much (yet, hopefully).

Lol, as all ratings there’s biases and simplifications…

This is our natural AC overheating slowly…

Dude, the other day I was reading some rag because there was nothing else to do in the train… One article was just Trump’s agenda without any commentary. How is that news if you don’t put it in perspective and with the context that Trump barely reached any of his goals in the first term. Unbelievable.

The thing is: It’s 30%, but leave it to the US to call themselves a democracy and completely defy the understanding of other democratic countries.

It’s one thing to say that a country not spending even 2% of the GDP should not be able to call Article 5. It’s another thing to say you would “encourage [Russia] to do whatever they wanted to do” with said country.

Nevertheless it’s signaling unreliability, because it would violate the treaty the US has signed. Plenty of NATO countries have helped out the US when they called article 5 on bullshit arguments and lies when invading Afghanistan.

But you’re right. It’s good European countries rethink their dependence. Too bad it comes with rethinking their alliances as well, with a belligerent USA.

Trump’s inviting the invasion. Let’s not get things twisted. The US has plenty of ways to pressure other member states to contribute more spending to the alliance than threatening publicly to break the treaty and winking towards Russia.

The US demonstrates themselves as an unreliable partner. That’s not in the interest of the US as they lose power globally, when countries rethink their dependence on them.

Congressional approval is necessary for entering treaties, not for leaving them. Congress tries to change that. Hopefully in time

And with 9/11 a lot of people have talked of blowback. Are you saying the same can be said about Israel?

The largest differentiator to other devices by Apple really is the always-on cameras and the idea that you can/should use the device with always-on cameras in public. Otherwise Meta/Oculus have already done just as much as Apple has done here. Apple’s entry into the market just heats up the discussion around the “Metaverse” again.

I work in the space myself and wearing a VIO system on your head can really give you a lot of health and personality information. The device sees your iris and can identify you. It can analyze your gait and with some “AI magic” even notice and detect movements of your extremities outside the visual field of its cameras.

Devices like these can also be helpful in the medical space though: Not just for diagnosing diseases in the brain or of the eyes, but also help with therapy of patients by augmenting reality with virtual content that can help. One classic one is Parkinson’s patients who can walk again normally with some virtual visual guides on the floor.

Clearly that’s not the main goal of Apple, and obviously not of Meta, but it’s not all bad if used correctly. A privacy first approach is definitely necessary. And it’s not completely true that M$ doesn’t give a damn. With their Hololens they did for instance introduce a privacy preserving mapping and localization system. Nevertheless Apple has a good privacy track record compared to other tech companies.

Not clear from the article how many are from Chinese brands though or just manufactured there.

But “wasting” government resources on immigrants (those few that don’t work and as such don’t enrich the country they immigrate to) would only impact the economy if the health of the economy is reliant on government help. Just because the government is spending more, doesn’t mean the economy is worse… (often time it’s actually better off with government spending). Unless we see massive tax increases in such countries that will impact wealth generation and labor costs etc. I cannot see any negative impact on economic health.

Quite the opposite. Immigration usually helps fill in gaps in “economic planning” and the extra labor helps the economy. And increased government spending for the poorer groups of the population usually boosts the economy a lot more than tax cuts. So any negative economic impact of immigration has to overcome these positive ones.

That said, there are certainly other, non-economic reasons against immigration, but that wasn’t the point.

That’s mostly because the “Elite” is rarely affected by these economic downturns, sometimes even gets richer quicker. That there’s a high potential for lashing out when people see the wealth gap widen one way or another, shouldn’t be a surprise.

How would unfettered immigration (assuming it exists) cause an economic downturn?

With the amount of verbiage and ex-employees they’ve taken over from Magic Leap it’s not far fetched they were looking into a see-through device as you describe.

They are enablers but at the same time it’s impossible for them to position themselves into opposition to the ruling parties because they’ve been “the establishment” for far too long. So the anti-establishment right flocks to the AfD as the only viable option for them and gets radicalized.

For sure. I wonder if it’s even worth it or just look creepy to look at a pair of two eyes deep in the uncanny valley.

It’s half a kilo strapped to the front of your head. There’s lighter products out there right now that can do similar things. I don’t see this first iteration as anything revolutionary.

And Israel needs to do something against its bad reputation at this point. They hope a 2-months break will make people forget whose been brutally bombing schools and refugee centers. And if Hamas or whoever breaks the 2-months ceasefire, it’s clear Israel isn’t the aggressor.

Yeah, just today I remembered that Kushner has already “solved” this problem when I read an interview about the future of this conflict depending on the future US president. The interviewee said Trump hates Netanyahu because he congratulated Biden when he won the 2020 election, so the US would probably not pressure Israel to resolve the conflict, but also not help Israel out.