Your comment is only technically correct, so I am gonna add to that:

Alfred Nobel did invent dynamite and was also a believer in mutually assured destruction, BUT: those two facts are not directly connected.

Dynamite in itself was not intended for warfare, but for mining. It was still relatively unstable so not really suited for warfare. (TNT, which came around 1900, solved that problem.)

Nobel did invent smokeless powder for warfare and he transformed Bofors into an arms manufacturing company though.

https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/alfred-nobels-thoughts-about-war-and-peace/

This game never was verified. It was playable despite being unsupported, which it is not anymore.

The story of the Tree That Owns Itself is widely known and is almost always presented as fact. Only one person—the anonymous author of “Deeded to Itself”—has ever claimed to have seen Jackson’s deed to the tree. Most writers acknowledge that the deed is lost or no longer exists—if in fact it ever did exist. Such a deed would have no legal effect. Under common law, the recipient of a piece of property must have the legal capacity to receive it, and the property must be delivered to—and accepted by—the recipient.[6] Both are impossible for a tree to do, as it isn’t a legal person.

[…]

“However defective this title may be in law, the public recognized it.”[11] In that spirit, it is the stated position of the Athens-Clarke County Unified Government that the tree, in spite of the law, does indeed own itself.[12] It is the policy of the city of Athens to maintain it as a public street tree.[13]

[…]

Although the story of the Tree That Owns Itself is more legend than history, the tree has become, along with the University Arch and the Double-Barreled Cannon, one of the most recognized and well-loved symbols of Athens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_That_Owns_Itself

In reality, the tree is not protected by law, but by the will of the people. Kind of symbolic if you ask me.

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How is a diverse opinion a threat to democracy?

If the opinion is that there should not be a democracy, then that is a threat to democracy.

Excluding a portion of the population from the polls

They are not excluded. They are free to vote for a party that is in line with the constitution.

its almost exclusively a phenomena specific to the left…

I don’t even know what to say. In which world are the far-right, fascists and nazis known to value opposing views? Are you serious?

Thanks, but I had a backup with the setting disabled so it was no issue to just reset the app.

I can confirm the same bug on my device

Device information

Sync version: v23.11.29-22:27    
Sync flavor: googlePlay    

View type: Cards    
Push enabled: false    

Device: beyond0    
Model: samsung SM-G970F    
Android: 12

I can’t speak for the rest of Europe, but in Germany there was a major reform in sexual assault laws in 2016. You cannot compare before and after at all, because the laws are much stricter now. Things that were not considered rape or sexual assault before, are now. I would assume the same happened elsewhere, too. In 2017 “Me Too” started, which also led to much more awareness on the subject, so more people report on it since then.

Violent crime in Germany, while being higher than in the last few years, is still lower now than in 2010 or any year before. https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/153880/umfrage/faelle-von-gewaltkriminalitaet/

Theft is roughly on the level of 2019 in Germany and way lower than 2016 and any year before that. Grand theft is lower than ever (excluding 2021).

Source: German Federal Criminal Police (page 36), https://www.bka.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Publikationen/PolizeilicheKriminalstatistik/2022/FachlicheBroschueren/IMK-Bericht.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=5

The “increase in crime” is only really there if you compare today to the unusually low pandemic numbers. In general, we are just back to the normal (higher) pre-pandemic crime rates.

I read in another article that it is just supposed to be a first test for the feature before the global rollout.

I spent the last half an hour trying to find anything related to different intelligence levels of male and female cats.

I did not find anything.

Male cats tend to be more playful and affectionate, but there is no difference in intelligence.

I’m not sure if it works with YouTube

I can confirm that uBlock Origin blocks Youtube Ads.

Not everywhere are cats a problem.

They are literally native to Africa and parts of Asia. In most of Europe they have been held for thousands of years and are not a threat to the ecosystems.

Taking Countries with invasive species as a global role model makes no sense.

My question was more specific than that. I absolutely understand why it is important to sanction high-tech products and stop Russia from exporting their goods.

But western companies selling non-critical goods inside Russia felt more like russian economic dependancy to western companies to me, which (for me as a layman when it comes to economy) seemed preferable to Russia having an independent economy. Thats where my question came from.

Now I realized that rather than “dependant economy” or “independant economy” the intended goal in this case is “no economy”, although i am doubtful whether that will really work.

Good point. Thanks for your insights.

If they imported some ingredients before and then had to switch to local suppliers after the pullout … doesn’t this also benefit Russia, since now all of the production is national and they require less imports?

It is not like making food or soft drinks is really high tech. At worst, it is just going to taste a bit different if the ingredients are different. Or other, already local companies might gain market share.

Maybe, but not without startup investment and knowledge. All of that isn’t free, and if an economy is unstable, no-one is going to commit money into it.

At least the knowledge is already there. Pepsi is not going to take the workers in Russia away with them. And as far as I know the investment is mostly the cost of buying the assets from the western company. For example the russian McDonalds branch just reopened with a new name at the same locations.

I have a genuine question that maybe somebody with more economic knowledge can educate me in:

How is continuing the sale in Russia helping Russia? As I understand Russia is gaining money on the sales taxes, etc. but the rest of the earnings will go to the US parent company, which cannot be taxed directly by Russia. If Pepsi backs out, wouldn’t operations just be replaced by a rebranded russian company, where all of the earnings would be under russian “sphere of influence”?

I genuinely do not understand why Pepsi backing out is considered bad for Russia. I thought countries generally prefer national companies over foreign ones.

It is not about how many animals a cat kills. The question is “how many kills are sustainable for the local animal population?”. And that number will always be different depending on where you are. In North Africa cats are literally native animals and in Europe they have been held as free-roaming pets for thousands of years.

The source is NABU = “Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union” (the largest non-profit nature conservation organization in Germany)

Translated from german:

But you have to look at the overall picture: only in human settlement areas are cats a serious factor that can partially lead to a decline in bird populations. But in fact, bird populations are increasing there, while they are decreasing especially in agricultural landscapes, but also in forests. Blaming these declines on cats would be far too simplistic. The greatest threat to biodiversity is and remains the progressive degradation of habitats by humans.

https://www.nabu.de/tiere-und-pflanzen/voegel/gefaehrdungen/katzen/15537.html

They recommend castration to limit the cross-breeding of house cats with wild cats, but see no general problem in free-roaming house cats.