My mother told me that daycare used to be FREE in the 70s and early 80s. She was a working single mother.

Vote long enough for the VVD and you will see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension.

The demographic structure was also different.

Europe has become a pensioner-heavy society since then, these people vote, and vote, quite logically, for the welfare system to support themselves.

All the rich societies which slowly transform from 10 per cent old people to 40 per cent old people will have similar cashflow changes.

I am an atheist and any country were a leader claims their country to be Christian is a no go for me. Is the separation of church and state a joke to Americans?

It was pretty funny because right next to Trump they had a man/woman in a Easter bunny suit.

To be consistent, you must also not go to hindu, moslem or any other countries. Out of curiousity, which countries remain on your list?

I am also an atheist. Our country has christian prime ministers in the past. It was not a problem, because virtually all the christians that are left in our country (the majority of people are atheists of agnostics these days) believe in a separation of church and state.

It is not about christianity. Authoritarian and populist leaders will always coopt/corrupt whatever is convenient for them. Christianity, socialism, capitalism, whatever works to rally a substantial portion of the population.

The Netherlands is a small but very tasty fish in a pond infested with sharks.

None of the sharks ultimately ever managed to agree who gets to eat it- because whoever did would upset the balance between the sharks.

But China and America are mega sharks who don't care about balance and want to eat everything or die trying.

Satellite internet is not a new invention- Iridium already did it and they went under. Nice for war zones and remote areas but not much else.

Besides the Chinese are launching their own network which will mean a price war. And the Chinese tend to win those.

Starling is an entirely different beast. However, it's addressable market is not unlimited. More people live in urban and suburban areas with fixed line internet than ever - the only real customer base is rural, and it still needs to compete with conventional mobile internet.

Starling is indeed very good, but it alone doesn't get spacex to 1.75T

Well, let’s not pretend like Starlink is the same as previous satellite internet providers. No previous providers were anywhere near as fast or low latency. The use cases for Starlink are a lot wider than previous solutions and it can even compete directly for customers who have cable existing service.

I still agree that the company is disastrously overvalued. Even if we consider Starlink to be just as valuable as a telecom like Verizon, that’s only a $190 billion dollar company.

Iridium cost $3/minute for voice or 2400bps data. Starlink prices and speeds are comparable to terrestrial broadband.

I am currently reading a book about the post war history of the Amsterdam stock exchange and it's quite funny reading about the booms and busts.

Although I am in my 40s I had already forgotten a lot- but yeah I was there in the 1990s. Repressed traumatic memories. Dutch consumers really soured on stocks when that house of cards collapsed.

I would say "it is happening again" but at least now we have bots who trade for us in milliseconds (although those didn't save anyone in 2008).

I feel like this drama is another example of the overall society change toward the culture of victimhood. Now it's passive investors outraged about being victimized by stock market index rule changes. The answer is, if you're so upset and impacted then cease being a passive investor. But then the standard reply is "well what about all the retirement accounts and people who just can't adjust?!". Those accounts are in target date funds actively managed for risk anyway so it doesn't matter. For the people who adjust their 401k's as they see fit, well, they should keep doing that.

I feel like SP500 made the right decision because the proposed changes don't really align with the purpose of the SP500 IMO but i'm not a financial expert. The HN drama on some issues is a sight to behold.

That's how the Chinese empire collapsed. They had scientists and explorers until one day the emperor decided that knowledge upsets harmony.

You don't know anything about China.

I have seen some chatter where 2nd-term Trumpism has been (very imperfectly) compared to Mao's Cultural Revolution.

Obviously there are many differences, no question. But it's actions like this where a bit of the comparison seems apt -- fervent, nonsensical anti-intellectualism / anti-science actions done purely in the name of ideology.

Why else would one actually go out of the way to dismantle a working ocean observation system, which provides a rich amount of data for multiple purposes?

The only action that seems to make sense is that: A) Some of that data can be used to observe climate change issues. B) In Trumpism, it is not enough anymore to propagandize that climate change is not happening. One must also actively suppress anything that could suggest climate change is happening, no matter how much the cost, no matter how much it hurts other non-related things.

Goes both sides. Anyone who works in tech is immediately circumspect when they defend AI data centers.

Hell I will always side with locals WHO ACTUALLY LIVE THERE than IT workers in their Google cubicles lmao. Ofcourse America in it's dystopian wisdom is now making corporations vote...

more money to other countries who don't allow protesting or even complaining about data centers,

The point of living in a rich country is that you don't lower your standards to shit holes with corrupt governments...

Men can wear the bald look if it comes down to it. It's women that I feel really bad for.

Some men can. Unfortunately, a full head of hair looks better the vast majority of the time.

America has the jury system- which means you have to be a good actor.

Making people believe that the 14 year old girl is a slut that was raping your poor client- THAT is lawyering.