Yes, even the UK had to accept this when they were in the EU. But unfortunately it wasn't very proportional, due to the small districts. Plus no one paid attention to EU elections, so it didn't have much impact on politics (e.g. it didn't help win any arguments about changing voting systems).
I think the headline is misleading. He's not arguing that we should keep fossil fuels. He's saying we can't just switch to renewables and keep going on as we currently are. Which is exactly what environmentalists have been arguing for years.
I had actually been planning a proposal for this fund for next year (social science). I'd sat through seminars on how to write a good proposal, and no one mentioned funding getting cut was even a possibility. The universities were completely blindsided.
It's a decision that seems to be driven purely by ideology, and mostly comes from one of the junior coalition partners (Act). I know for a fact that their leader has been expressing discontent about some of the research being done that has been criticising him (I.e. showing how his party spreads misinformation).
Mastodon is pretty different to its competitors. It looks similar to Twitter / Bluesky, but the way the social network functions is completely different.
It's designed to be anti-infuencer... One of the things I hate about most social media platforms is a few people get all the attention. There are a few reasons for this, but it's not really based on merit.
I think a lot of people joined Mastodon wanting a Twitter clone. It's obviously not and Bluesky is, so people moved there. The approach Mastodon takes is far from perfect, and may not work out in the long run. But it seems like it's worth at least trying something different.
The thing is even if AI could do all that (which is doubtful in my life time), you would still need someone to prompt it with something interesting. And CEO types have never had an interesting idea in their lives
People say humans firing lightning bolts out of their hands is a long way off, but look at the progress we've made on lasers in the last few decades. I reckon we're 5 years away, and we should be enacting laws to stop someone doing a Palpatine.
I agree the execution of the end of GoT was bad (i.e. the problems weren't just the issue of everything needing to come to a head). There were a lot of different complaints about how GoT ended, but I definitely saw a lot about how it was all just battles in the last season and no nuance. I think that was always going to be hard to avoid given how GRRM had set up the main plot. And I think he will find it hard to avoid when writing the last 2 books, which could be part of the reason he doesn't want to do it.
Trump may flirt with anti-vaxx sentiment or climate denial, etc., but he can't fully support those ideas. They're very niche and he'd lose the centre if he did.
RFK Jr doesn't hold back on those issues. For conspiracy types he is closer to their beliefs than Trump.
Everyone is terrified of all the social problems AI is causing, but maybe it will just encourage everyone to learn Linux and we'll achieve utopia.