In the Dune universe, the Butlerian Jihad was a crusade against intelligent machines (e.g., computers, not hydraulic presses). All intelligent machines were destroyed, and religions adopted rules such as “Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.”

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice encompassing a range of health and healing practices. Some popular practices from TCM include acupuncture, the consumption of herbal remedies, and tai chi. Some Western scientific authorities have described TCM practices as pseudoscientific.

Since Xi Jinping came to power in 2013, China has stepped up its promotion of TCM as a legitimate branch of medicine on equal footing with Western medical practices. Xi often refers to TCM as a national treasure, and the CCP white paper on TCM issued in 2016 called for China to "actively introduce TCM to the rest of the world." As a result, the global use of TCM has greatly increased, and the World Health Organization now recognizes the global use of TCM as primary healthcare.

Argentina has a long history of economic instability and a dysfunctional exchange rate system. Recently, Argentina has been suffering from runaway inflation. Javier Milei is the President of Argentina. He has spearheaded major spending cuts (e.g., eliminating many subsidies) and market-friendly reforms (e.g., eliminating price controls). Dollarization takes place when the U.S. dollar is used along with or instead of a country's domestic currency.

Ashley Madison is an online dating service. It is specifically marketed towards people who are married or in long-term, committed relationships and designed to help them cheat on their significant others. The site currently has over 60 million users. Its slogan is "Life is short. Have an affair."

A genius hacker has just hacked into the user database of Ashley Madison. They now have access to the real names, email addresses, Ashley Madison search history, and credit card transaction history of every single user of the site.

The 2025 Chinese New Year tasting menu at three Michelin star Shanghai restaurant Ultraviolet by Paul Pairet cost 2,950 USD per person. Piaget's Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon—released last year to celebrate the brand's 150th anniversary—would set you back 500,000 USD.

GiveWell, an American charity, estimates that a 3,000 USD donation is enough for the most cost-effective charities to save one child’s life. “Dead Children Currency” converts the cost of an item into the number of children that an equivalent donation could have saved (i.e. for the purposes of this debate, the meal at Ultraviolet costs 1 dead child, the Piaget costs 167 dead children).

Broadly speaking, electoral systems with proportional representation (PR) seek to ensure that, if a party gets X% of the total votes, it gets X% of the seats in parliament. However, many PR systems have electoral thresholds (e.g., if the threshold is 5% and a party gets 4% of the total votes, then it gets 0% of the seats rather than 4%).

In Japan, concert tickets are sold on a lottery basis. Instead of tickets being sold on a first-come first-serve basis, fans enter the ticket lottery by purchasing a specified item (such as an 1,500 Yen, or 10 USD, album or other merchandise) which provides a code to enter the lottery.

If you win the lottery, you must then pay for the price of the ticket, which usually is around 10k Yen, or 68 USD. The application requires lottery members:
- to have a Japanese phone number,
- to apply in Japanese,
- to pay in cash or with a Japanese credit card, and
- that each ticket holder's identification matches exactly their name on their government ID (More recently, concertgoers have had their faces scanned upon entry to make sure it matches their ID.)

An applicant is permitted to purchase as many lottery codes as they want, so long as the restrictions mentioned above are met.

All tickets cost exactly the same amount, and seat allocations are random (though you will be able to stay with the group you applied with).