Software is a tool. I develop stuff that i know is of interest to companies working with everything from nuclear energy to hydrogen electrolysis and CO2 storage. I honestly believe I can make a positive contribution to the world by releasing that software under a permissive licence such that companies can freely integrate it into their proprietary production code.

I’m also very aware that the exact same software is of interest to the petroleum industry and weapons manufacturers, and that I enable them by releasing it under a permissive licence.

The way I see it, withholding a tool that can help do a lot of good because it can also be used for bad things just doesn’t make much sense. If everybody thinks that way, how can we have positive progress? I don’t think I can think of any more or less fundamental technology that can’t be used for both. The same chemical process that has saved millions from starvation by introducing synthetic fertiliser has taken millions of lives by creating more and better explosives. If you ask those that were bombed, they would probably say they wish it was never invented, while if you ask those that were saved from the brink of starvation they likely praise the heavens for the technology. Today, that same chemical process is a promising candidate for developing zero-emission shipping.

I guess my point is this: For any sufficiently fundamental technology, it is impossible to foresee the uses it may have in the future. Withholding it because it may cause bad stuff is just holding technological development back, lively preventing just as much good as bad. I choose to focus on the positive impact my work can have.

Lol, this is actually top-level trolling, you really know what buttons to push to keep people going.

I should have listened to you… I took the bait, but got out now :P

You’re making arguments to attack positions I’m not trying to defend, and you seem completely unaware that you’re missing the mark.

I’ve repeatedly tried to clarify this for you, but the way you’re blatantly ignoring my actual position, and instead making up proxy opinions that you ascribe to me and find it easier to argue against makes me think you’re either a troll or a pigeon. Either way arguing with you is rather pointless when you’d rather make up what you think my opinion is, and argue against that, than try to assess a position I’m actually willing to defend.

Nah, you’re still just making up opinions you want me to have so that you can think I’m an ass. Then you’re twisting my words in order to convince yourself I’m saying something I’m not.

It’s honestly kind of impressive that you’re able to go from “I respect people who are willing to risk their own well being in order to protect others, without care for personal gain.” to what you just wrote. Like… that requires some pretty heavy handed misinterpretation.

Now you’re just coming off as disingenuous. So that I won’t need to repeat myself, just read my comments and try to figure out for yourself where you can find backing for what your accusing me of instead of putting words in my mouth and purposefully misinterpreting my comments or taking individual phrases out of context.

Take your time, I won’t be waiting up.

Ok, I’ll try to make this simple for you: I can hold respect for a combatant that puts their life on the line in an effort to do something they believe is making the world a better place, rather than for personal gain.

The KKK is immediately excluded, because there was/is little to no sacrifice being made by those lynching others. The same goes for SS soldiers running a concentration camp. I was quite clear in pointing out that what demands respect is the act of putting your life on the line to protect or help others.

As for who put those regimes in place: That is completely irrelevant as to whether you can have respect for an individual who sees the atrocities committed by the regime, and believes they are doing good by fighting it. I have a hard time thinking that a soldier in Afghanistan is thinking a lot about who put the Taliban in power, or what they personally stand to gain from the fight when they decide to go there.

“All the troops, both sides” is half my point when pointing out that enemy combatants historically have often held respect for each other.

Yes, I respect a combatant fighting for something they believe in that’s bigger than themselves, people not fighting for personal gain, but because they want to give someone else a better life. That’s regardless of what side they’re on- even if they’re on the side I’m actively trying to kill.

This take just baffles me… you can disapprove of a war, and still respect people willing to put their life on the line for something they believe is right. Even in war, opposing sides have a long history of showing their enemy a certain amount of personal respect, even though they clearly disagree about something to the point of killing each other over it.

Your take is just condescending and unempathetic. You can respect someone for sacrificing themselves without agreeing with them about what they’re sacrificing themselves for. Regardless, it shouldn’t be hard to see how someone fighting to depose an infamously brutal dictator (Iraq) or a fundamentalist regime that stones women for wanting a divorce (Afghanistan) can believe that they are doing something good.

Look: We are loads of people that agree that more can be done. Don’t use that as an argument to say that this isn’t good. He’s doing good things, and if we keep voting in candidates that are more progressive than the previous candidate, we’ll see progress. Biden is better than trump, next time let’s get someone better than Biden.

I agree that genocide is horrendous, but you seem to be missing the fact that your alternatives are voting for the candidate that has publicly pressured Israel to stop, and withheld weapons, or voting for the candidate that wants to arrest and deport people that oppose the genocide, and has actively urged it on.

Not voting means you don’t care who wins: The candidate trying, at least somewhat, to reduce the scale of the genocide, or the candidate urging for it to increase in scale.

In that case, you are complicit if the latter wins, and the genocide gets worse.

I’ve never thought of myself as a conspiracy theorist, but if jar-jar being planned to be the actual phantom menace, but later being taken out of the role because fans hated him counts as a conspiracy theory: Count me in! I think the arguments are compelling to say the least.

I definitely roll with “badass tiny mf”, “chill little dude”, “tiny gangsta bro” or any other title making fun of my stature. Call me anything involving “king” and I’ll be inclined to convince you that, even though I’m short, you’ll be shorter once you’re confined to a wheelchair

I never said the current system is great: But given the choice between driving off a cliff and veering into a tree, your response seems to be to not tough the wheel and letting whatever happens happen.

You seem to be ignoring the fact that someone will win the upcoming election. By not voting, you’re leaving it up to everyone else to choose.

By all means: Something needs to be done to fix the broken system, but saying that we should have pumped the brakes long ago, and then doing nothing about the most immediate issue - who the next president will be - doesn’t help. We need to ensure that we get some president that doesn’t persecute political opponents if we want to have the option of electing an actually good president in the future.

By all means: Start or join a movement to get better candidates in the future, vote for other candidates in local elections and primaries to lift them up. The fight you’re talking about has to be fought long before the final two candidates are locked into the ballot, and complaining that it’s lost won’t effect who wins in the end.

And your solution to the problem is literally not vote, which is doing exactly nothing. I have a really hard time seeing how you can expect yourself actively not influencing the system to somehow influence the system.

Your suggestion to fix this failure of a system is literally “do nothing”. Please try to recognise that: You are advocating for fighting the status quo by doing nothing.

It will not work. If you want change you need to take action. Not voting is the exact opposite of attempting to change things. Use the influence you have to push for a change in the right direction.

But it might be beer!

Where I live they were systematically nice people that helped keep everybody safe. If they found some drunk/high person that needed help, they would drive them home. When we were teens and had beach parties, a couple of them would typically hang around somewhere out of the way, and only intervene if someone was being an asshole trying to start a fight (and they would tell people to pick up their glass bottles so kids wouldn’t get hurt the next day). If we were otherwise hanging around they might chat to us and ask what was going on around the neighbourhood, and nobody had an issue telling them anything, because we knew they were just there to look after and help people.

Obviously, I can tell that my experience with police growing up is far from what can be expected a lot of other places. I really do wish more places had police like we did.

Congrats on knowing a person that had something positive to say about China, that must make you proud!

It’s just laughable that you’re actually swallowing the Chinese propaganda that they want countries “internal affairs” to be left alone, when everybody can see how they’re treating the south-west pacific. China is a country with major imperialistic intentions, that believes they have the right to shove any smaller country in the region out of their way, and it’s obvious by their actions. Just look at recent events in the Philippine sea once you get out from under your rock.

Saying that Russia, the country that is actively engaged in a war of aggression that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, is “not a threat” is just so dumb it’s not even funny. Also, saying that they “retreated backwards”, when they weren’t even capable of sticking within their own borders is beyond stupid.

Point me to a Democratic NATO country that has expanded its borders by force after ascending to NATO, and I’ll give you permission to pat yourself on the back.

This reads like you’ve had an aneurism… “… as a condition as a sovereign country”. You do realise that the whole concept of being a sovereign country is that another country cannot place conditions on your existence, right? You also might realise that I never said anything about what is “moral”, but questioned the rationality of Russia having a bunch of its citizens killed, and resources spent, on invading a neighbouring country.

Your argument is just jumping all over the place. The fact is that Russia, and Russia alone, can stop this war whenever they want. They can ensure that no more people die fighting on Ukrainian soil, but they are choosing every day not to.

Western countries have been steadily expanding relations with Russia and China for the past couple decades, and for some reason, Russia went out of its way to show that being pals with them was a really bad idea if you enjoy not being bombed, invaded, deported and tortured. Russia could have just kept improving relations with us, and we would have been happy to keep trading and leaving them alone. Hell, at some point in the future, maybe even Russia could have joined some extended version of the EU if they had shown that they were trustworthy and willing to not senselessly violate other people. Russia, and Russia alone, killed that possibility.