India Russia and China hate each other to the bone.

India and Russia have had goid relations for over half a century. Polls in India usually show Russia as the most liked foreign nation. China and Russia also have had good relations for at least the last decade or so.

India-China relations are complicated. There is a border conflict, but China is our biggest trading partner, and we need China’s UnionPay if we ever want to decouple from Swift.

India

You need to understand how politically backward the US is compared to Lat Am, Africa or Asia. My country is currently led by the most right-wing Prime Minister in our history. Even he will not talk shit about socialism, or try to stop our system of heavily subsidized healthcare (free for the poor) and university. There are communists in our Parliament, and they are seen as serious politicians, not some radical outfit.

The idea that Mr Mamdani’s policies are somehow novel to us is laughable.

127,0,0,1

No, India.

Afghanistan, Tajikistan and most of Kyrgyzstan are mountainous. The route is going just north of this range.

They violently suppressed protests (and quietly suppressed political opponents). I’m not saying they’re good people. I’m saying they’re the least bad option.

Good. Conscription is worse than murder; it is forcing people to give up their humanity.

Eh, it’s complicated. The Awami League protected women, workers and minorities (to some extent). Now it’ll be a three way fight between the Western-backed interim government, the army and the BNP (religious fundamentalists). Whoever wins, the people will suffer.

airborne viruses that can travel for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of miles

Airborne viruses usually travel about two metres (hence the two metre social distancing rules for Covid-19). Even if a single virus somehow travels farther - perhaps by hitching a ride on a vehicle - it is unlikely to cause a successful infection, because you need enough of them (‘viral load’) to overwhelm host defences.

I don’t know what ‘diluted toxins’ has to do with viruses and immunology since toxins are a rather different matter entirely

Vaccines work in different ways. The oldest method is what you described - attenuated viruses. Newer ones usually do not contain active viruses. They either have inactivated viruses, or, increasingly, just the viral proteins or mRNA. This reduces the risk of the vaccine causing harm to the recipient.

the immune system can ‘learn’ and ‘evolve’ over the course of a single human’s lifetime

If the person survives, their immune system may learn to identify and defend against that virus. Or it might just forget. Or it might cause random damage due to cytokine storms. Or it might forget all previous information. And in any case, some percentage of the population will die.

Thinking that infections are good because they will help increase immunity is like thinking that a country constantly being at war is good because then they’ll always be ready for war. Particularly when you can give the same immunity at a fraction of the risk using vaccines that just have some proteins or mRNA.

breathe contaminated air in the general vicinity of animals, drink water they’ve pissed or shit in, etc.

Don’t go near animals. Boil water before drinking. Simple as.

That is in fact how a vaccine/our immune system works, yes.

Vaccines work using either diluted toxins, or increasingly, proteins / RNA that just look somewhat like the real thing. The immune system works by enough of the population dying off until only those with the necessary mutations are left.

cows don’t stop existing just because we don’t eat beef.

Humans need to go close to the infected animal to get infected.

being around/eating animals all the time also builds up your immune system’s defenses against diseases that originate in those animals

Oh, so being exposed to new viruses reduces the risk of dying to a virus you got … because you were exposed to it?

People getting killed is obviously bad. But just to put this into perspective, how many people were killed in Gaza today? How many children? And yesterday, and the day before? Oh wait, we don’t even have a full count because the monsters also murder journalists.

Well, that depends on what you want. Lemmy.world leans right and harbours transphobes and racists, hence the nazi.world jokes. Personally I think such users should just be allowed to make fools of themselves, but if you find that disturbing you can join another instance. lemmy.ml leans left, lemm.ee is fairly centrist, and sh.itjust.works is mildly right. But all are great instances.

The amount of trade is not the only thing that matters. Russia exports food, fertiliser and oil. Trade with Europe / US is mostly in luxuries. If forced to choose between them, China will likely choose the first.

(More likely they won’t be forced to choose because they control multiple key supply chains, and can sink the economy of any country except maybe the USA.)

It’s even more stark for my country. No trade with the west means we lose a lot of export revenue, and our growth slows. No trade with Russia means famine and fuel shortages. It’s not even a choice.

The problem with small independent media is that they can be shut down by just filing twenty different frivolous cases against them in different parts of the country. You need someone with deep pockets - a major labour union, say, or a trust, backing them.

India (red)

1. One man owns several major media outlets and is trying to buy up more.

2. If a newspaper publishes something the current ruling party (state or union) does not like, they paint a pretty big target on their back. They might lose government ads. They might be harassed investigated for any tiny infarction. They will likely not be invited to press conferences or given interviews.

The overall result is that most media try not to rock the boat too much. One field our media is relatively good at is world news, since we aren’t in any of the major geopolitical ‘blocs’, and foreign ownership of media outlets is banned.

Nagato Yuki moment

Definitely ask your principal for a recommendation.

Dust can also block connections. I remember a 64 GB RAM system becoming 128 GB when it was cleaned (two sticks; one was clogged).