This is something I realised growing. Information and actual knowledge are two separate things.

The former is withour filter and the latter is under scrutiny for proper verification. In the hands of layman, it can be impossible to properly determine.

The current LLM mania is just an extension of that ‘validation through evidence’ that has been on-going.

Freedom doesn’t come with intelligence, morals or ethics, only consequences.

Real.

Where’s my Cobra Industries?

What about my Brotherhood of Nod?

Shoot, give me Neo-Contra, dammit.

At this rate, I may as well use these names me self and make them the good guys.

Knowledge knows no bounds. Being smart is about always learning and reevaluating the foundations.

Smart people always are eager to learn. Self-claimed intellectuals often aren’t broad in mind, just confident.

The Black Plague was first recorded 1330s in China long before it began its migration to the West. However, you were right in the aspect that China in general had a strong administrative and bureaucratic base which allows coordinating disaster relief efforts.

Plus, the advantage of having rice means they could afford to feed citizenry very well in most cases.

Also, China as we know it today didn’t exactly exist, but it’s better to understand and obeserve the various polities that came and went during the centuries. Each would have different circumstances and administrative power in combating disasters as they happened.

I reckon more than a few people there would be incentivised to play catch up and start avery fast paced industrial revolution.

Certain advancements were only enabled because of catastrophe and that the surviving population rebounded. Had Old World diseases not struck the New World, I reckon a plague would’ve hit at some point anyhow.

Corporate Serfs is the word you may be looking for

Kleptocracy in motion. That’s what it is.

And depending on who you ask, most keep an eyepatch and pirate hat always on standby for these kind of things.

Many are going to get put off by the inevitable 2000 dollar price tag and decide to build a half decent old PC rig for pirate games.

Today it’s games and movies. Tomorrow it’s something actually important and they’ll rent us an apology for a terminal illness and nothing else.

Sometimes…

People die when they are killed. That’s the way things should be.

It’s not just that.

Everyone and their mother knows that Iran had close networks with Russia and China. The fact that NO ONE in the West seemed to have learned anything or at least took inspiration from the Ukraine-Russian Conflict is testament to the stagnancy in the West.

Where’s the bisexual badass who comes in to save the day?

Knuckle bros!