From the article:

The plane’s fuel was tested and found to be of satisfactory quality,

Bitcoin specifically? No. It’s a janky prototype that should have been superseded a long time ago.

Crypto in general? Probably something. It’s good for buying and selling illegal things.

For the Republicans, it’s either this guy or a recently promoted conspiracy influencer with random frat bros as staff. The Democrats will still manage to lose.

(This is my impression as a Canadian)

Like I said in OP, that’s how modern dictatorships work, too. They have coups and intrigues and corruption absolutely everywhere you look. The dictator spends most of their time just staying on top and keeping the factions in balance.

I’d say you’re right that the degree of control was lower on average before the conveniences of fast travel and communication, but then again it varied quite a bit. Rome’s level of centralisation is still etched across the European landscape.

You don’t??

This is either bait, or you need to get the police involved for the kids and find somewhere safer/saner to live yourself.

We’d love to. You know we get it first and in higher concentration, right? Not to mention all our shit that burns down in the process.

And I mean, it’s from the climate change that you helped make as well…

Dictatorship had a pretty clean run of several thousand years there. Sure, dynasties changed, but never the actual system.

Also, consider the attractiveness of dictatorship. I think that everybody would like to be a dictator. Who wants to share power? Not me. I want to be in control, of my forum, my project, my game.

So, my second paragraph kind of addresses that. It’s never actually about one person having the power, as a government system.

One-person control over something, backed by externally imposed laws, is a completely different thing. You don’t have to worry about your forum members poisoning you and physically taking control of your server.

Experience shows democracies work better in just about every way. Mainly, there’s questions about how stable they can be over the long term.

I’ve known people who liked the idea of a dictatorship, but they’ve all had funny ideas about how they internally work. Palace intrigue and corruption are inevitable and huge, it’s never just one potentially-wise individual calling the shots.

I don’t know, but the way they’re answered often ends up being very interesting.

“Whoops, we pinky swear we’ll investigate ourselves for that. Anyway, since they’re all gone now, we can go back to normal relations with the rest of the world, right?”

Ah yes, you could say it’s a camp where they can be nicely concentrated.

Yeah, if you’re looking at food in China, there’s a real argument to avoid anything artificial-seeming because of incidents like this. I’m told it’s part of the reason why wet markets are so popular - there’s no doubt if your meat is real and unadulterated when you just saw it running around.

It actually sounds like they were straight up using normal paint as food colouring.

Sometimes, or sometimes they get a pass based on connections. Those aren’t mutually exclusive, either; scapegoats have long been a useful political tool.

Yeah, it’s more like they’re fueling sexism, and are gobsmacked that anyone dares to be bothered by that.

Time to find a good counterfeit.

Interesting. Mine is based on a NiCad battery and I don’t think it lasts anywhere close to that long.

That was only after the eventual direct attack on Iranian soil, and I don’t know if it’s even double digit missiles that have managed to land in return. Some Israelis are still stunned, but only because of how deep in a bubble they are.

Iran also opted not to close the Strait of Hormuz, even now, although apparently they were making preparations.

I can’t really confirm it’s complete disinformation, but they always post stories that case Ukraine in a positive light and a lot of them are never confirmed or repeated elsewhere.

They are at war for their existence as a nation, so some of that is to be expected.