Joke is going over my head can you explain?

It is, eg lidocaine patches. It has to be injected to really do much. Not aware of any injectables that are over the counter.

Taiwan next!

This guy could have gone trach/vent 60 years ago and been mobile on wheelchair.

+1 for obsidian! Have you tried out text generator plugin? Uses GPT api's. Haven't gotten into D&D but seems like it'd be a great tool for DMs to help make content.

I commend you for recognizing to dispute the sovereignty of Taiwan it helps to start with a definition. Unfortunately for you the definition you provided is vague and at ends with more formal definitions. I’ll reference you to the indisputable democratic source of knowledge wikipedia (feel free to edit the page if you it can be improved):

Sovereignty can generally be defined as supreme authority.[1] Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states.[2] In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the person, body or institution that has the ultimate authority over other people in order to establish a law or change existing laws.

The PRC and the USA do not pass and enforce laws in Taiwan. The Taiwan government, elected by the people of Taiwan does. They are self sovereign.

You’ve brought a lot of good points which I ought to go through in detail, but briefly: Vietnam great analysis but different country. Military - is Japan sovereign based on reliance on US? Are there only a handful of actually sovereign states (the superpowes) in your schema? Regarding not provoking PRC no shit they don’t want to get slaughtered. As has been pointed out they have organizations and relationships that are de facto diplomatic if they are not called that because of the gun to their head.

Curious, what’s your stance on Palestine’s sovereignty? I think they can be considered sovereign, I don’t see that spectre of other powers potential influence as taking that away. I don’t see why all you guys need to make the bar seem so high, if you individualize it this much the word changes its meaning. A nation doesn’t need to be uncontested among all other nations to be sovereign. If its not the Taiwan government who is sovereign there? Your position would require there be an “unsovereign” condition, unless you actually believe its the PRC sovereign there. Unless its contested within the borders I don’t see how you could make the argument a nation is unsoverneign.

I appreciate this last comment in contrast to the former which glibly compares 24 million peoples national identity beliefs to religious views. Belief in a national identity manifests the identity whereas the other are supernatural sky fairies.

and true enough a lot of that works out to semantics

Not sure what the dispute is then. As things stand, a much more powerful nation uses its influence to deny another representation on a world stage. That doesn't make them "not a country." They rule within their borders and those that live there by and large consider themselves Taiwanese. The OP I replied to was denying this, I think you and I made good points that they are self sovereign.

I agree the polling is a bit different, I don't think it contradicts the DPP study though. Setting aside the question of national identity (not addressed in the NCU study) vs national policy goals, NCU went 32/28/21 for status quo maintain/decide later/move toward independence. 1.6 wanted status quo + move toward unification. 21 > 1.6. Thanks for providing further evidence!

Sounds independent to me. Forget your pedantic nonsense.

As does Taiwan to me, and right back at you comrade.

So if a predator locks a victim in a closet, does that make lockmakers morally reprehensible?

Nah it was always an energy capacity and density per $ issue. Battery technology doesn’t improve as fast as compute but it has followed a steady ~10% yearly increase. Seems that when one tech plateaus another picks up. Solid state will get us to 4-500 mi/charge. Even electric planes will eventually happen.

Campaign within the Democratic Party for those positions- they already have a lot of support.