Even before the bots, I remember MvM being unplayable if you weren't with enough friends to make votekick impossible (and that wouldn't stop them from trying, but they'd ragequit themselves when no one votes yes, and leave you down a player).
Natural features and characteristics are becoming in-vogue with airport design. Cebu and Clark in the PH have a similar timber roof design, as did Bangalore Kempegowda when I flew out of it.
LA county and the adjoining counties are roughly the same size as the Kanto Plain around Tokyo. The main difference is that Tokyo rebuilt their street car lines as heavy rail instead of turning them into automobile arterials.
And Tokyo does have highways and large streets, they just aren't in constant gridlock because people have other options (not to mention many other factors at play in Japanese car-ownership).
Tokyo was so relaxing. Greater Tokyo has the same population as the entire state of CA and yet was so quiet.
I've only caught wind of this through independent journalism on YouTube. The Hui people of China are also Muslim and you're not hearing about them being put into forced labor camps.
The west is creating hyperbole of fringe groups that were mostly active decades ago at this point, and using that narrative to economically subjugate them.
If a westerner sees a Uyghur work in a factory, the manufactured narrative leads to the assumption that the labor is forced, and this keeps these folks from finding good work and social mobility. This would then put these folks on the path to radicalisation due to this economic exclusion, and affect the social stability within the PRC.
I found this FBI whistleblower interview video [1] when I was researching CIA involvement with Xinjiang because I saw a video describing the US strategy about utilizing the Uyghur discontent for US geopolitical gains but could not decide whether this US strategy video was authentic.
tl;dw because couldn't be bothered. OTOH long ago I came up with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Zenz on my own, and he smells like a typical tool. Especially when you take into account which universities are the preferred 'recruiting grounds' for certain TLAs, also taking into account who taught there, teaching whom, and the resulting sockpuppetry. Furthermore this whole 'reborn-again-christian' thing. Also where did he get his fluency in mandarin? Rather ridiculous, if you know where else to look.
Austria has highly available state housing of high quality. I don't think they qualify as a communist state, despite one of the more prominent complexes named after Karl Marx.
Interesting, that's a good rabbit hole for me to go down.
Unpopular opinion, but much of the west is at least partially communist these days. We may not have a communist political structure that looks like a 20th century dictatorship claiming communism but we do have plenty of state-run programs that fit really well under a banner of communism (or socialism, or Marxism if the term communism is too loaded).
There's a question of degree for sure. Though for one example, the US heavily subsidies certain corners of the farming industry. The industry also has a heavy hand in lobbying and buying politicians so its somewhat up to opinion on which came first and whether it looks more communist or more fascist.
Boeing is another good example in my opinion. Again they aren't technically owned by the state, but the connection between the two is undeniable.
Utility companies in the US are also functionally owned by the state.
My point was never that most western countries are communist. I tried to be really clear in my GP comment that I was talking specifically about state programs that have many characteristics that overlap with communism.
edit to add the obvious one I missed: healthcare. Depending on the country, either the government took over the healthcare industry, the industry captured government regulation, or you have the worst of both worlds in the US where we somehow saw both sides take part in capturing parts of the other (and really ruining the whole system).
Subsidies have nothing to do with collective ownership of the means of production by workers, those are orthogonal. The state owning a few enterprises also isn't a markedly characteristic of communism.
I expanded more on my other reply so I will diverge us to discuss there, I think you misunderstand the terms you are using.
That depends greatly on where you are. The US is a very mixed bag, especially when you consider the state of many of our bridges and overpasses.
Even at the state level, Louisiana is an interesting case. They're better now, but for quite a few years their roads went to shit because they refused to increase the legal drinking age and the federal government pulled funding.
Similar to my comment above, there is a difference in having programs that follow closely with communist ideals and having a government or state that labels itself as communist.
I don't have stats for Switzerland handy but did look up Australia earlier. About 4% falls into there state-managed housing programs. That isn't nearly large enough to rival what the Soviet Union had for example, but the design of the system does seem to match with many communist goals. That is by no means a claim that Australia is communist, just a comment on their public housing program.
The other comment mentioned Austria system of public housing, not Australia's.
I believe you are misguided using the term communism or socialism, those have very specific meaning for an economic system, the overlapping characteristic being that workers own the means of production. That's it, socialised healthcare, public housing and so on are not communist/socialist.
Perhaps you are conflating social democracy with socialism/communism. The Nordics are not socialist/communist, like at all, Sweden has a freer market than the USA, and more wealth inequality, but do have social policies.
Your misuse of the terms is very confusing, I really suggest you brushing on what they mean so your communication is clearer. I got very confused at first on what you meant because there's no way any Western country is even close to Communism/Socialism/Marxism, like 100% not.
Based on some of the viral videos out of SF lately, I think we need Delamain from Cyberpunk 2077 more than Waymo at this point. I've been in a Waymo with other drivers trying to test its intelligence (trying to cut into the Waymo's lane with the signal on while right in the blind spot) and it's not fun.
You're making me think of malls in LA like The Grove which are simulacrum of walkable, people sized neighborhoods which aren't available in that region outside of Disneyland.
As someone who used to work on that platform back when it was still called PlayStation Now, no it is not. There's a few rumors and alleged leaks though.
There's an anime from 2007 called "Denno Coil" that focuses on AR compute with devices that look like normal glasses and integrated with everyday life. This is the piece of culture I'd compare against, and use as a barometer to compare where this type of interface can reach a critical mass.
That's interesting, Dennou Coil is actually the first thing I thought of (and rewatched) when the Apple Vision Pro was announced. I thought that if it lived up to the hype and I wanted to build something for it, then it would be good to have some sci-fi use cases fresh in my mind.
It seems like there are several high technological barriers to surmount though. I don't expect to see that kind of AR for decades.
