I think the situation is more nuanced than that.

Of course, the F-35 program was an incredibly expensive mess (litterally the most expensive weapon program of all time), because of conflicting specs, data leaks, political infighting, cost overruns which are the stuff of legend, etc… At some moments, there were certainly reasons to think the whole program would collapse on itself like wet tissue paper.

But there are operational F35 now. 900+ as of 2023, which is 4 time more than the rest of Gen 5 fighters combined. And performance-wise, it is good, especially on the stealth & avionics parts. On the other side, the J-20 is largely unproven (probably a decent design, but not as good), and the Su-57 is a bunch of glorified prototypes.

Now sure, cost is high, maintenance is time-consuming, availability somewhat below target, but it’s not particularly surprising for high-performance equipment. It may fall short of the ambition of the program on the cost part, but by itself it’s a dangerous and fully operational fighter.

Crabs. All will be crabs.

I’m not surprised by the fact it did collapse, but i’m surprised that libertarians, of all people, did not try to solve the bear problem using extensive amounts of firepower.

If by “mental illness” this graph refers to the effects on the mind of the person who study it, then it’s dreadfully accurate.

I blame the release of both Factorio and Victoria 3.

Yep, Giga-Euro.

I don’t disagree with you on the principle. But at this price tag (a significant part of the budget of a major Metropolitan area), you don’t only need to know it’s good : you need to know by how much it is better ; when the payoff is going to begin ;and how to you make sure you don’t create issues which will persist for up to a century. Granted, large road projects aren’t cheap either.

It also tie a significant amount of money each year to pay for continuous operation of these transportation, and for the moment, there is a significant number of transportation jobs which can’t be filled. Roads are costly too, but can withstand these employment issue… for a time.

US cities probably should invest much more in this area, but there are limits to the ability of these project to solve transportation issues.

I’m not sure. Public transportation infrastructure is insanely expensive. Where I live (France), there was a project to add a new subway line. A single one. Estimated cost was more than 2 G€. And that’s before taking into the numerous issues of another subway line modernization program…

Because public programs were somehow even more expensive for the same externalities and service.

No. You could reasonably argue that the LFI program is social-democrat, but their internal democracy is a joke, and JLM himself consider the Venezuelian political system to be a model while being remarkably tolerant of Russia’s imperialistic moves. This guy’s a crypto-tankie.

As for the RN, there are a fair number of fascists in the party (and nazis too, but that’s different), but they mostly seems there because there are no legal political formation further right. The voting base don’t particularly support them, and even the high management is annoyed by their presence/visibility… Even is their tolerance of it is far too much for my taste.

This government is getting dumber every day. Goddammit.

Using “Moderate leftist politicians” to depict Melenchon and its party is a very dubious take. And I won’t ho into the use of “nazi” for convenience, refardless of the truth of the matter.

I don’t particularly want Lemmy instances to become echo-chambers, but “good faith disagreement” require a degree of trust between people.

Here in this thread, we see Hexbear users worried to be silenced because of political opinion, while Lemm.ee users seems to be mightily annoyed by Hexbear users as they act in in way that would be at home on 4Chan.

I’m not convinced that these actions are one of a minority within HB, but even if it is the case, it’s going to be difficult to establish a basis of trust for these discussions…

There are already plenty of leftist in the non left-centric instances. Hell, if you really want a far-left perspective, there are others which doesn’t consider obnoxiousness a virtue, which seems to be a core tenant of Hexbear.

No, I’ll vote to defederate because :

• this instance host ChapoTrapHouse Mk2
• doesn’t see a problem with it
• hold one user who more or less insulted an entire ethnicity to casually make a political point
• doesn’t apologize so much as minimize the damage done
• and because literally no one else seems to think there’s a problem here

Wait. You posted a comment which was perceived as “Stating my ethnicity is subhuman”, and you think it merely “came out wrong”?!?

Ok, honestly, that’s it. I vote for defederation.

So, I’m a good public for this I suppose, since I loved Mamma Mia, and am a real fan of rock/metal operas. And I think this episode is… surprisingly decent?

I mean, the singing was surprisingly good, even with autotune (I mean, if you ever want to hear a real musical disaster, try Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia ; everyone here is pretty much excellent compared to that), so kudos to crew. The music was uneven : some parts were quite bland/uninspired, but I very much loved the common theme of “I’m ready”(catchy!)/“I’m the X”(lovely!) and the two widely different feelings.

On the plot side, you can feel they are trying very hard to brush over how nonsensical this musical thing is. And, somehow, I’m glad that not much progress happens here : you can summarize what happens as “La’an tell Kirk about the time-travel event, Spock gets dumped for a study program, Pike have a minor fight. And musical subspace shenanigans.”, which will sure come in handy if you’re allergic to musicals and (re-)watch the series.

But yeah, it was fun. The “La’an cut the captains couple argument in the middle of signing”, and the boys-band/K-pop klingon were unexpected.

Overall, I think this episode somewhat suffer the comparison with the Lower Deck crossover. The s02e07 was a real Star trek story : if Lower Deck wasn’t a thing, “These old scientists” would still be a decent story, it’s the meta element which push it into the land of deep sillyness (even when, like me, you don’t really like Lower Decks). “Subspace rhapsody” is… a musical. It’s good fun! But I was hoping for a bit more.