CarbonIceDragon

Artificial wombs are something that's often presented as dystopian, but I would imagine would actually be a very good thing. Beyond the obvious help it would be to infertile couples that desired children, they would if commonly adopted eliminate the danger of birth and pregnancy complications, and discomfort associated with the process. Probably not everyone would want to use it, but I'd bet even having the option would mean a lot to a lot of people.

I mean, I doubt people tend to buy medication based on the name of the company making it, so do they really have much incentive to change it?

Even just having a pledge of allegiance for schoolkids was always a bit sus.

Virtually all food is gross if you think too hard about it.

If it was a joke, I definitely missed it then, I didn't even have the slightest suspicion that it might be one.

I wasn't even thinking about that kind of thing, since drones are something I'm sure we could utilize as well. It's mostly the sheer production capacity and population that China in particular has. I expect an actual large scale war against them, that both didn't turn nuclear (since that renders the whole concept of a victor a bit moot) and wasn't some very quick defensive action like an attempt to defend Taiwan might be (which might end fast enough for production capacity to not matter as much as existing inventory), would end up looking something like Japan's war against the US during ww2: we might be able to cause a great deal of damage to their military assets at first, but if they can replace their losses much faster than we can, then all they have to to is drag things out enough for the numbers to swing decisively in their favor.

Tbh my experience with chinese goods has been that the "garbage quality stuff that breaks easily" is usually the very cheap stuff made to compete on price and nothing else. In which case, an equivalent thing from anywhere would be the same way. Anything I've bought from a Chinese manufacturer at a typical price for it's product type and from a company with a proper brand that isn't a random string of letters has been decent enough quality. Granted that's been electronics and not guns, but still, it's not like the knowledge of how to make stuff doesn't exist there somehow.

Especially when one of the opponents has several times our population and all opponents are oceans away, besides two of the three being nuclear armed and the third being close. Even with the size of our military, I don't think that's a war we would stand a reasonable chance in.

I've been pretty happy with how the instance I use has been run thus far, but it is focused around furries, so it won't be something most people outside that subculture like I expect. Still, the fandom is big enough that someone in it looking for an instance might look at this thread, so I mention it anyway.

The issue I can see with that model is that, depending on how exactly it is implemented, it might end up spilling into places that involve people who were doing nothing unreasonable. For example, suppose a criminal makes a pipe gun, or a 3-d printed one, and uses that in a crime. If we're always looking down the chain, do we also hold responsible whoever sold them the pipes, or the printer, or other machining tools? The easy enough answer is to except steps that don't usually have to do with firearms I suppose (where the people involved would not generally have reason to expect the purchaser is using what they buy for those purposes), but in taking that obvious step, one would create a situation where acquiring guns through less traceable and safe means becomes easier than the ways that can be tracked, which is rarely a good thing if you want rules to actually be followed.

Personally, I think that, rather than the guns themselves, the focus of gun control measures should be on the ammunition they fire. It doesn't last as long as a gun potentially can, and is disposable, meaning that the large number of guns already in circulation poses less of an issue, and is harder to manufacture at home due to the requirement for explosive chemicals. Further, most "legitimate" civilian uses for a gun either don't require all that much of it (like hunting), or can be done in a centralized location that can monitor use (like sport target shooting at a professionally run shooting range).

What I would do, is put a very restrictive limit on how much ammunition a given person may purchase in a given year, and only allow exceptions to that limit if the person can provide proof that an equivalent amount of their existing allotment has been fired, returns old ammunition for exchange, or purchases the extra at a licensed range that as a condition of the license must monitor patrons and ensure those bullets are either fired or refunded before the shooter leaves.

I wonder if Putin is jealous about having to share...

Probably some of the very smallest ones, like the Marshall Islands or something