Huh? Do countries voicing their approval or disapproval not count as a “vote”?

No. The stances of countries are the [leaked] stances of their respective governments. Which may or may not reflect the views of the country’s MEPs. You can read more here: Fight Chat Control

That’s not even half…

True, and that’s indeed very concerning. However, it should be noted that this is not how many countries are against this proposal, but how many countries oppose it enough to reject it before voting. Many countries currently ‘undecided’ are likely to vote against the proposal in the end (if a vote took place). Likewise, some of them could vote in favor.

Which, according to your own numbers, they already had.

Not at all. I mentioned that, with Germany changing their stance to against, we had over 35% of the EU population against. Which means in favor and undecided both had less than 65% together. Right now I can’t count the populations, but there’s 12 countries in favor, 9 against and 6 undecided. This by no means gives the countries in favor a qualified majority. Unless all in favor and at least half of undecided (3 countries) fully voted in favor. Which is fairly unlikely.

Additionally, as I mentioned above, these numbers are for the member states’ governments, not their MEPs. Usually MEPs are more pro-people, but of course, it depends on the country and its current government.

It was demonstrably not a lie. There were so many regions in support of it that it was dangerously close to passing.

It really wasn’t. It couldn’t have been close to passing without a vote even taking place. The vote was scheduled for October 14th. However, since countries representing more than 35% of the EU population have declared their opposition to this proposal, it has been canceled.

A lot of countries have indeed declared support, though this is completely separate from the vote. There, it’d require a qualified majority (55% of member states in favor, or countries representing 65% of the EU population in favor). Looking at MEPs’ public statements, it’s unlikely that the vote would have passed.

Nonetheless, it remains troubling that they keep trying to force this proposal through. We have to push back every single time, but they only need it to pass once. Who knows what the future may hold.

It’s almost as if the entire system is designed for this and cannot sustain itself otherwise… surely that’s not the case?

Both meat and veggie patties are sold as ‘burgers’ in the EU. Not always of course - the naming may vary, but this one is fairly common in my area.

Something you have to realize is that the meat lobby has been heavily lobbying for this for years. This has nothing to do with consumers. Just like with vegan cheese, this will only make the product names more confusing. There used to be products called ‘vegan cheese’. Perfectly clear what it is - just plant-based cheese alternative. Now you can’t legally name a product ‘vegan cheese’, so instead they’re called ‘vegan slices’ (if they come in slices) or other nonsense like ‘plant-based product’, which tells you absolutely nothing until you read the description.

There is an important distinction between being religious and supporting organized churches. ‘Religious people’ aren’t any more of a threat to you than gay people are. Churches, particularly the Catholic Church in Christianity, that don’t even follow their religion’s teachings, are the problem.

That’s why the high price.

From my perspective, right-leaning politicians aren’t necessarily a problem by themselves. It’s good to have a mix of various opinions and backgrounds. The problem is that ‘right-wing’ in the year 2025 is almost always just fascism. It’s like every single person associating with the right is extreme right and never anywhere in the middle.

No offense, but Americans were (or still are) literally the only ones oblivious to this. Fascism in the USA did not start with Trump’s second term. It did not start with his first term either. This has been progressing practically ever since the declaration of independence.

Most at least slightly educated people saw this clearly decades ago. Most weren’t saying anything, because we had bigger problems.

The main issues here consist of:

• lack of an at least semi-functional education system
• ubiquitous propaganda

Nothing about the current state of the USA is surprising whatsoever to most people who weren’t born there. Americans have been exploited and manipulated for generations, and this is the effect. As pointed out by other commenters, there are countless books, essays and works of fiction discussing this phenomenon.

Tough but fair.

Looks like it’s just producing random numbers. If you remove ‘the’ and only say ‘sum numbers above’, it’ll result in 10. You can also do the same with no numbers anywhere in the sheet and the result will still be 15 and 10.

You can even tell it to ‘sum the numbers from A1, A2, A3’ and it’ll yet again produce 15. As per the documentation, you should give it specific cells as context, e.g., ‘COPILOT(“sum the numbers”, A1:A3)’. I can confirm this works, though I’m not sure why as the prompt sent to the model should be the exact same.

It’s easier to resell the phone later on if you have the original box. Why throw it away if it takes up practically no free space?

It was referring to not being able to call emergency services, which may realistically lead to your death. It’s a fairly unlikely scenario, but not a completely crazy one. It’s just a highlight in a sea of issues. Or at least that’s how it looks to me, as I’ve never used a Fairphone. Some people say they work flawlessly.

Not necessarily. This is a very simplified, decolorized version of events.

Most voters in the US can’t even name and shallowly describe any given policy of their chosen candidate. Americans voted for Trump, because they liked one or two things they heard him say. Or simply because they only knew one of the names on the form.

True. That is indeed very interesting. Although not limited to comic books. You can spot a similar pattern in movies too. Somehow, in America, the films to become the most popular (or most successful) mostly featured themes portraying powerful people in a positive light, directly or indirectly. While in Europe this trend never really took root.

In a classic, underdeveloped autocracy, the answer would surely be blatant censorship and prosecution of authors portraying different views. However, the American mechanisms for accomplishing the same goals are considerably more complex and intricate. That is, assuming there was or still is such a mechanism, as I’m not sure we can say that definitely. Perhaps it was all just a natural process of people preferring the easier, more convenient narratives?

Based on most smartphones being very insecure. Of course, iPhones aren’t extremely secure, but the competition is practically nonexistent. Pretty much the only secure Android phones are Pixels. Samsung is considered one of the more secure manufacturers too, but according to GrapheneOS devs it’s still way behind Google.

Note that even police and government agencies sometimes have trouble getting into iPhones. They never have such troubles getting into Android smartphones, except Pixels.

This is by no means meant to advertise iPhones. It’s just a simple observation that security in smartphones is heavily lacking.

In terms of security alone, iPhones easily beat most Android phones. Which may be a fair argument in favor of iPhones. However, to ignore Apple’s policies and long history of delisting similar apps is delusional.

True, batteries are quite expensive and very much not environment-friendly when built on such a scale. Though it should be noted good solar panels last longer than 15 years. Even cheap panels can last 20 years.

This is an important point to consider. However, to me it seems somewhat separate from your previous comment.

Of course, no sane government should push for a country to rely solely on wind and solar. Ideally you have a mix of various energy sources, even potentially including some fossil fuels. Hitting that 20-30% sweetspot, as mentioned in the paper, looks to be fairly cheap and beneficial for everyone.

It’s nice, but I just really like the Windows’ design of this feature. Not really anything functionality-related. Honestly, I wish I could just have the file manager from Windows Vista or 7. I don’t even need tabs.