What excuses are you referring to?
Are you also arguing that if a problem isn't in your immediate periphery then it doesn't exist? We are all human beings, living on the same planet.
There's nothing wrong with feeling a modicum of empathy for those less fortunate by circumstance of geography or socioeconomic influence.
Even more simply:
Government: closes their curtains in the evening.
I'd probably turn off the power first especially if I didn't already know what was behind it and whether it is properly grounded.
Sorry, all you get is images of a maxi pad to indicate enormous damage for what was likely a graze.
An attempt on a former president's life is a big deal, whether I think he's a human dumpster fire or not.
However, the way he played this up was and is ridiculous. He didn't need to prove anything. Someone shot at him and that's not in doubt. Instead he chose to milk it and I personally find that ludicrous given the circumstances.
I feel like I'm the exact opposite of what this article proposed however the entire thing confuses me.
I'm not rich but relatively well off, and, without doubt in the best financial position of my immediate group of friends.
If I happen to be the one that picks up the bill I often have people chasing me to pay me. I actually think that is a problem because they feel obliged to do the right thing, however I'm unmotivated because I don't care about the outcome -- I don't need the money. This is my fault and I feel poorly for it but the reality is that after I've had a nice evening I don't really care. In terms of the debt: honestly I probably wouldn't bother asking.
The very concept of asking someone for 4 bucks seems abhorrent to me. To be clear, I say this personally; I'm not struggling to pay rent/mortgage/utilities/whatever. If you're in a position where those are concerns then please absolutely follow up.
Chasing a $4 debt won't make you rich, ever. Even if you do it all the time. Anyone well off chasing this kind of cash is deluding themselves.
Generally speaking my friends and I operate over a long term fairness principle. "Bob got the last round, I'll get the next"; they won't be even but our assumption is that it'll balance in the long term. That applies to more than just the pub.
I'd prefer they make it fatter if the battery would last more than a day as consequence.
I used Netscape "back in the day". With some interim transition attempts including the likes of Opera, I eventually switched to Chrome because it was genuinely more featureful and faster.
I was a happy Chrome user until they decided to deprecate manifest V2 and fuck up my ad blocker, at which point I switched to Firefox and haven't looked back.
Everything in this industry is circular I guess.
My problem is with the influence that a hostile foreign state actor has with TikTok.
Google is an independent company; I'm 99% certain their motivation is to make money and I'm confident their algorithms are tailored purely for engagement and profit. Whilst I'm sure they have some back room deals with US intelligence organisations I suspect that it's a case of providing data vs providing influence (though I would not rule it out).
TikTok is controlled by the Chinese government. That's not up for debate; if you have an entity in China it has to work that way. Imagine the damage they could do if they actively decided to increase, for example, messages of reunification with Taiwan in their algorithm by just 1% on a global scale. That frightens me and I'm not convinced it isn't happening already on specific topics of concern to China's foreign policy.
And that's putting aside the amount of data that the Chinese are getting without even exerting any influence. They can likely discern worldwide sentiment on a range of topics and adjust political posture accordingly.
I'm not saying Google is perfect. I hate social media in general for the way it's warping the zeitgeist. But I personally consider TikTok to be a huge threat to the world.
“They all looked like Silicon Valley startups,”
This hits too close to home.
Anti-depressants.