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http://www.dictionary.com/brow...

noun

    1. an opaque white or bluish-white liquid secreted by the mammary glands of female mammals, serving for the nourishment of their young.
    2. this liquid as secreted by cows, goats, or certain other animals and used by humans for food or as a source of butter, cheeses, yogurt, etc.
    3. any liquid resembling this, as the liquid within a coconut, the juice or sap of certain plants, or various pharmaceutical preparations.

Moron yourself: http://www.dictionary.com/brow..., or better: https://www.google.de/search?s...

Hey moron, a nation that sells a lot more coal plants than they do renewables is NOT pushing renewables. If the customer wants a coal plant, the seller is not pushing coal plants but supplying the demand.

And if you can not see that installing 700 new coal plants esp in nations that do not even have coal
What has the question if a nation has coal to do with it? Were is _your_ logic and intelligence here?

Grammar Nazi - even an AC one - should at least be correct. See definition 4.

Wrong. Whose stands in for both of whom and of which/of that.

You now owe me a €10 consulting fee for teaching you something you actually could have checked on your own in 30 seconds or less and thereby not made a fool of yourself by getting caught out making shit up.

Please make your payment for that amount within the next ten days to a charitable organisation that promotes literacy.

We appreciate your business! Välkommen åter!

Basically he was cramming in a lot of digits into a keyboard buffer, but the phone didn't even think about most of them. Meaning that even if he guessed the correct pin, it's most likely it wouldn't have worked because it would be discarded without checking.

Yes. My point was, that wasn't super clear from how this was reported.

While I'm nitpicking ... Apple didn't "refute" this either ... they denied it. "Refuting" would involve presenting some sort of proof, not just saying "you're wrong; check your work".

(Though I notice that Google has now added a second meaning of simply "deny or contradict" ... lovely.)

"acquiesced". Not what Obama did.

ICE is behaving in the most disgusting, despotic fashion right now.

It is? Do share, I haven't heard about that one.

You have no idea what these families are escaping, but I would love to put all of you on a plane, take your passports from you and drop you off in the countries they're fleeing.

If they're fleeing persecution then they can apply for asylum in the first safe country they reach. Did they do that, or did they continue onwards to America?
If they're not fleeing persecution then what's the fucking issue? They can't fix their own fucking country?

It's because of your shitty opinions that I hope America gets its ass kicked hard some time in the future, and I hope the winds don't carry the fallout too far outside your borders when your entire nation gets the nuclear incineration it brought upon itself.

Oh, you're a fucking saint you are. "Oh, I don't like these people enforcing their laws. Murder several hundred million of them, that'll show them" ?

Stop being dicks

There's a word you need to learn: http://www.dictionary.com/brow...

You have to go down 14 definitions of "hack" to get to to this:
---------
Computers.
to modify a computer program or electronic device in a skillful or clever way: to hack around with HTML.
to break into a network, computer, file, etc., usually with malicious intent.
http://www.dictionary.com/brow... ----------

Hacking may have been popularized to describe computer hacking, but it means MANY OTHER THINGS TOO.

An older non-computer definition was applied to computers originally. "Hacking" was just slapping thing together in a shoddy unprofessional way, albeit often in an experimental way, an exploratory learning way, but sometimes slapped together shoddily, unprofessionally, for expediency, time constraints.

"Hacked together" vs engineered.

You have to go down 14 definitions of "hack" to get to to this:
---------
Computers.
to modify a computer program or electronic device in a skillful or clever way: to hack around with HTML.
to break into a network, computer, file, etc., usually with malicious intent.
http://www.dictionary.com/brow...
----------

Hacking may have been popularized to describe computer hacking, but it means MANY OTHER THINGS TOO.

The word you're looking for is "piques."

http://www.dictionary.com/e/pique-peak-peek/
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/pique-vs-peak-vs-peek
https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/peak-peek-pique/

"Community" semantically and historically includes a notion of "fellowship" and "association". Your dictionary entry gives examples of communities but misses the essence of what they are. The dictionary.com definition is better:

community

noun, plural communities.

a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.
a locality inhabited by such a group.
a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists (usually preceded by the):

Dictionary.com disagrees:
http://www.dictionary.com/brow...

"excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance."

That's exactly what I meant. You get on top, you look down at everyone else and continue to do so even as you lose the top spot, or even more. Very difficult to recover from that.

"You should not pee yourself"
"You should not murder another human being"
"You shouldn't steal"

http://www.dictionary.com/brow...

Stop digging yourself deeper.

Wow, yet another instance of dishonesty.

http://www.dictionary.com/brow...

Accept (2) can be the consequence of not minding. But it is not used for gifts : which you used it for. Accept (1) is for gifts.

Do you never talk to educated people in person , who could catch your dishonesty ?

If we were discussing an organization with strong rightward leaning and I used the term "fake news" would you have a problem?

If you were using it as a pejorative, absolutely.

Leftist is a pejorative? And I thought it was a simple noun used in context to describe the general political leanings of a group.

""leftist
noun
1. a member of the political Left or a person sympathetic to its views.
adjective
2. of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or advocated by the political Left."
http://www.dictionary.com/brow...

"Leftists" is the label that is made up.

"leftist
noun
a member of the political Left or a person sympathetic to its views."
http://www.dictionary.com/brow...

Thank you once again for the assist in demonstrating the bubble's ability to reject uncomfortable truths.

You provided no objective observations

Other than facebook and google erring overwhelming to the left of the political spectrum in similar efforts, and of twitter having similar composition to those companies?

"Professional" means "you get paid to do this", and nothing else. He's not an math prof, so he's an amateur.

No, "professional" means you're a member of a government-regulated "profession". A lawyer who isn't practicing is still a professional. As is an electrician, a doctor, an engineer (the one that drives a train engine), a contractor, a pilot, etc.

Things that aren't professionals include professors, software "engineers", most other engineers (they're weakly and not universally regulated), and athletes.

Care to provide a citation for any of that? The closest definition here has "learned profession" as originally referring to theology, law, and medicine.

Well, again, I'm being facetious. So don't take it too seriously. And, yes, I'm aware that NASA uses metric measurements and the crash of the Mars Climate Orbiter was that a piece of hardware was generating non-metric measurements when NASA expected measurements in metric. The joke is that the US, which I am incorrectly stating is using non-metric units because they do so everywhere else, manages to land on Mars while the Europeans and Russians, which use metric units, can not.

That said, I'm not sure it's that big of a deal to a computer. Accurately converting between kilometers, meters, and centimeters is dead simple for us humans. Converting between, say, miles, feet, and inches is much harder for us humans. But it's not like it makes that much difference to a computer whether it's dividing by 1000 or dividing by 5280.

Amazon's job site has it right. The article author has it wrong. A principal is a chief or head, particularly of a school. Principal can also be used as an adjective meaning “first or highest in rank, importance, or value,” as in The principal objective of this article is to teach you the difference between two words. A principle, on the other hand, is “rule of action or conduct” or “a fundamental doctrine or tenet.” http://www.dictionary.com/e/pr...

No. Not if you consider the actual definition of ironic, instead of that Canadian chick's false definition.

Musk has (Ivy League) degrees in physics and economics. Gates, and I'm sure Hawking, have a deep understanding of what computers are (computers are devices that execute binary instructions. Also, they allow users to manipulate information encoded in those binary instructions). Gates built a compiler.

A device does not need to be conscious "like us" to be able to operate in the real world. It doesn't need to have physical systems like us. It just needs to process information and change its environment.

"Information processing" and "affecting the environments" are the keys here. It doesn't need to be "like us."

You can look at DNA as an information-archive. An inefficient, time-consuming gathering of information built over the eons. The forces driving the creation of DNA created humans. Humans are the only animal which can store information outside of itself. One of the common denominators of life is that it (net) increases entropy. Another is that it (slowly or quickly) gathers information, in DNA or otherwise. What if that information gathering is somehow a driving force in the universe?

Humans have a deeply-seated, deeply held core conceit: that we are separate and above the universe and nature. That's why we have the terms "man-made" or "artificial" versus "natural." But humans are a product of the universe as surely as beavers and birds are. And we don't look at their nests or dams as anything other than being natural - products of nature. Thus, human creations are also "natural" - but look at how the language holds back our thinking. The definition of "natural" is "made by nature" and the definition of "artificial" is made by man. There is no word to describe man's creations as being a product of nature, or natural in anyway. And this gap is an obstacle in understanding the universe and man's role in it.

So: tl;dr: Computers are dumb electronic machines totally unlike us. Doesn't matter. All they need to do is process information and change the environment autonomously to present a threat.

Musk has (Ivy League) degrees in physics and economics. Gates, and I'm sure Hawking, have a deep understanding of what computers are (computers are devices that execute binary instructions. Also, they allow users to manipulate information encoded in those binary instructions). Gates built a compiler.

A device does not need to be conscious "like us" to be able to operate in the real world. It doesn't need to have physical systems like us. It just needs to process information and change its environment.

"Information processing" and "affecting the environments" are the keys here. It doesn't need to be "like us."

You can look at DNA as an information-archive. An inefficient, time-consuming gathering of information built over the eons. The forces driving the creation of DNA created humans. Humans are the only animal which can store information outside of itself. One of the common denominators of life is that it (net) increases entropy. Another is that it (slowly or quickly) gathers information, in DNA or otherwise. What if that information gathering is somehow a driving force in the universe?

Humans have a deeply-seated, deeply held core conceit: that we are separate and above the universe and nature. That's why we have the terms "man-made" or "artificial" versus "natural." But humans are a product of the universe as surely as beavers and birds are. And we don't look at their nests or dams as anything other than being natural - products of nature. Thus, human creations are also "natural" - but look at how the language holds back our thinking. The definition of "natural" is "made by nature" and the definition of "artificial" is made by man. There is no word to describe man's creations as being a product of nature, or natural in anyway. And this gap is an obstacle in understanding the universe and man's role in it.

So: tl;dr: Computers are dumb electronic machines totally unlike us. Doesn't matter. All they need to do is process information and change the environment autonomously to present a threat.

Not the GP, but maybe you should read something other than twitter from time to time;

apocryphal 1. of doubtful ... authenticity
ravings 4. irrational, incoherent talk

You got schooled.

Not the GP, but maybe you should read something other than twitter from time to time;

apocryphal 1. of doubtful ... authenticity
ravings 4. irrational, incoherent talk

You got schooled.

Launch :
http://www.dictionary.com/brow...

Notice there are 7 meanings for launch and only the very last one applies to this occurrence. Again I state this is a poor usage of that word, I did not say incorrect, but demonstrates poor grammar. I can launch a rock at someone which predates your ship reference and still more correct than what was used in the article.

So man is natural, but the things man makes are not natural. Birds, monkeys, beavers, etc. are natural, and things they make are natural too. In other words - we're screwed, we can never do anything that is "natural".

And what exactly are we screwed about? It's a fucking word. Words have meaning. What the fuck did you think the word "artificial" meant?

"Made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, especially as a copy of something natural."
https://en.oxforddictionaries....

"Artificial objects, materials, or processes do not occur naturally and are created by human beings, for example using science or technology."
https://www.collinsdictionary....

"humanly contrived (see contrive 1b) often on a natural model : man-made - an artificial limb -
  artificial diamonds"
https://www.merriam-webster.co...

"made by human skill; produced by humans (opposed to natural): artificial flowers."
http://www.dictionary.com/brow...

they will pick convenience over security
And what would be an example for that?

Anyone who's ever used a ChromeOS device. Especially the public school students, who have a choice between:

1. Do all of your school work, especially those opinion pieces, on a device that will track and upload everything you do to the world's biggest data broker just because it makes the IT staff's jobs easier, and has less of a financial TCO for the school system.

OR

2. Automatically fail every assignment you'll ever get and spend most of your afternoons in detention, let alone your parent's punishment, for at least 12+ years.

The world's privacy and security wasn't given away, so much as taken away by the laziness and penny pinching of others.

Why should convenience be automatically insecure?

Because it's the polar opposite of security. Convenience means 1. a quality or situation that makes something easy or useful for someone by reducing the amount of work or time required to do something

To contrast, Security means 5. precautions taken to guard against crime, attack, sabotage, espionage, etc.

Emphasis mine.

You can't reduce the amount of precautions taken without making something less secure.

Further, you don't even have convenience when the people making the thing say "No, you can't do that." There's nothing less convenient than no ability at all. A criticism that ChromeOS in particular takes in stride.

Additionally, you have no security as Google decides for you what will be considered "trusted" / "secure". You have no input into that equation, and you can't even review much less revoke what code runs or doesn't run on the device. It's effectively a machine owned and operated by Google, you just so happen to be using it, at their will. They could just as easily revoke your access by terminating your Google Account. An act made more likely with the passing of crap legislation like SESTA, and the kinds of ToS changes that some others have made in preperation.

The current state of affairs is crap, but never assume that convenience is "secure". For every bit of convenience you get / have forced on you, you give up / lose some security. Often in ways you might not think about at the time, and may not be able to mend later.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/...

http://www.dictionary.com/brow...

Gun nuts will start bleating about the Constitution. Guess what, you AREN'T part of a well regulated militia.

As far as well regulated militia, you are aware that the word "well regulated" does not mean what you think it means.
This is one of the down-sides of writing the Constitution in a living language.

See meaning 4 below:
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/well-regulated

Or this for more context:

"I am unacquainted with the extent of your works, and consequently ignorant of the number of men necessary to man them. If your present numbers should be insufficient for that purpose, I would then by all means advise your making up the deficiency out of the best regulated militia that can be got."
--- George Washington (to MAJOR-GENERAL SCHUYLER 22 October, 1776) (The Writings of George Washington, pp. 503-4, (G.P. Putnam & Sons, pub. 1889))

Within less than two decades it will be cheaper to operate robots in US factories than hire workers in Africa

Speaking as someone who runs a manufacturing plant and who has bought robots, this is complete bullshit. Anyone who actually believes this has no idea of the costs involved or the capabilities of robots or manufacturing automation. There is PLENTY of headroom in labor intensive industries for people to be employed in manufacturing including in Africa. Robots simply are not that cheap or capable and are in no danger of becoming so any time soon for most tasks.

Robots are economically viable for high volume and/or dangerous work. They are not nearly as flexible or capable as many people imagine them to be and they certainly aren't cheap. There are some industries and products where they make a lot of sense and many more (especially low volume production) where they are not economically viable. Most automation actually doesn't come in robot form either for that matter.

The problem Africa has in getting into manufacturing comes in several parts. 1) A lot of corruption, 2) extremely bad infrastructure, 3) An inexperienced talent pool for workers. All these are solvable problems but aren't easy ones either. Automation is far down the list of obstacles to manufacturing in Africa.

I wouldn't call it a habit of the Lancet per say...

<pedantic> per se </pedantic>

No, it doesn't. You are allowed to protect yourself from imminent danger and threats. It's not a murder, it's self-defense. It is actually defined to what you claim it isn't, and has a legal standard which fits. If you believe you are imminent mortal danger, and can reasonably prove that your belief was valid, then it's self-defense and not murder. And being half the size of an attacker can easily grant that. You do not need to be armed to be deadly...

If this were to go into affect in say any five eyes countries, I would expect a whole series of web sites open up about gaming the system. Consider this game, am I being tracked. So register with a web site and make a whole lot of anti US government post and hmm flavour of the month, pro Russian government posts and then start exhibiting random digital behavioural acts, phone location and on or off state. So if you can, travel to a location near a Russian embassy and switch off you phone and have lunch. To score points, take photos of police vehicles that mysteriously pass by you when you phone is off, or a helicopter flying overhead, or a compact SUV following you around the block et al various scores for various on noes we can't track them digitally anymore interactions, those with the highest scores win.

Due to digitally monitoring everyone all of the time, you are gaming databases to get yourself flagged, not that hard and once flagged, upping the ante by showing erratic digital behaviour, like repeatedly switching your phone off near a Russia embassy. They want to bullshit us, we should not feel one skerrick http://www.dictionary.com/brow... of guilt for bullshitting them. Get a high score and yeah, you know exactly what is going on and trolling the government is always fun, don't get carried away though, you want them to know before it gets silly that you are fucking with them, they might visit but they wont raid. Ahh the professionally paranoid fucking with them is all too easy, especially in the digital age, just don't get carried away with yourself.

The subtle news in this article is social media is struggling because it's marketing model, just delivers diluted marketing that sells nothing. When their claims of results are checked for actual sales, that means Google and Facebook, their real customers the advertisers are finding they are shit. Soon the demand will go to Google for full time banners, else they can go fuck themselves with the diluted advertising model that sells nothing except fucking paying for ads, adwords. Proof in the last US election, Google in the most democratically corrupt fashion imaginable was in the tank for Clinton and lost big time, seeing as all the other major companies, main stream media companies, the deep state and shadow government as well as in an extremely corrupt fashion the White House and it's crew of blackgaurds http://www.dictionary.com/brow... (heh, heh), that loss was proof positive of their lack of ability to actually sell anything, except of course themselves and the scam of targeted adwords.

"It's called CIMON, an acronym for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion, and it's headed to space to do science stuff."

C rew
I nteractive
M obile
C ompanion

looks like it spells CIMC to me. If they really wanted it to have a name out of an acrony why not CARLIE for Crew Autonomous Robotic Lifelike Interactive Entity?

I was wondering that too, but it's an acrostic, which is definition 3:

C rew
I nteractive
MO bile
companio N

But the real question is "Is it a bum looker"?

In regards to what is defined as a monopoly, I gave you a link to a dictionary. Please provide some evidence or link to something which shows the word monopoly means something different. Otherwise, you're just talking about your own personal definition, which may mean something to you, or some obscure some-people-use-it-this-way definition, but it isn't what the rest of the world typically means by the word. You talk about monopoly price, but again, the linked source states explicitly "A monopoly price is set by a monopoly. A monopoly occurs when a firm is the only firm in an industry producing the product, such that the monopoly faces no competition."

To answer your second question, yes, I'd prefer the opportunity for legal electrical distribution competition. That way if it makes financial sense for two market participants to make an electrical distribution deal, they legally can, while if it doesn't benefit them, they don't have to. It's called freedom. If it's truly a natural monopoly, then we'll be right where we are with the regulators preventing it, but with the bonus that if they try to make too many monopoly profits, or their customer service sucks too bad, or whatever the issue becomes, someone can decide it's worth competing with them. If it's not a natural monopoly (and in at least some cases, it's not, like where someone puts in a local solar or gas plant to serve a specific need and wants to sell the excess to their neighbors), then people will benefit. What's wrong with consenting adults making market decisions about what they want for themselves?

Microsoft has a monopoly in enterprise desktop computing. It isn't a 100% market share, but it's enough.

If it isn't 100% market share, if it's not exclusive, if there is more than one place you can get it, then by definition it's not a monopoly. You may need to revise your terms to be clearer about what you mean, as the word monopoly has a specific definition. Perhaps you mean something like "market leader", instead?

In terms of being granted a distribution monopoly, you can get a legal overview here, but while the process varies a little from State to State and the Feds get involved if it goes interstate, you can't compete in the market because the Public Utility Commission (PUC) in the State must permit your actions first and they set your prices for you. While some PUCs allow competition in generation, AFAIK, none allow actual competition in distribution.

So the cost of developing software is distributed across the entire economy for use by the entire economy in order to substantially reduce the cost post development and avoid wildly inflated licence costs based around monopoly control of segments of the digital market place.

This further extends into a properly founded education model. Where as students learn, they can contribute to existing open development software, to learn, demonstrates skill and gain employment opportunities. This is crippled by a lack of standards in operating systems and coding languages, standards that should be able to be applied internationally in order to create a sustainable, secure, stable, low costs international digital infrastructure. Computers should enhance the economy, not be a vampiric drain upon it, a destructive one, like the eg. M$ (not only exorbitant extortionate licence fees but poor business practices, invasion of privacy, attempts to control society via compulsory software install, corruption of standards, a generally practice of lies and deceit, poor software security, forced very expensive upgrades not just software licences which is a fraction of the cost, but retraining, document conversion, installation costs, the hah hah suckers costs, paying huge costs so M$ can get a tiny percentage of those capital losses as profit).

Open source software is very much a locavore model http://www.dictionary.com/brow... ie from M$, eat your own dogfood. The developmental control shifts to any local body able to sustain it ie a coalition of universities, sustaining, maintaining and developing the code with government funding at a fraction of the cost of the current model because even though the local effort is controlled locally (do you really want the US government to have a off switch on your digital economy, or any other country), the development effort is shared internationally, good for peace and stability.

That does not make them 'backed' ... get it: fiat money is not backed.
http://www.dictionary.com/brow...

The GDP isn't lessened by switching to robots.

The word you're looking for is "reduced". This is /. not reddit. Pull yourself together, man.

you defined a drug ( which are sometimes synonymous with medicine) . However , Medicine generally is a broader term, covering all practices which make people healthier.
http://www.dictionary.com/brow...

"B-b-but it wasn't *true* socialism."

lol

You fail definitions:

socialism
noun
a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

If it doesn't include the "whole," it ain't socialism.

According to these idiots insults are hate speech:
http://www.dictionary.com/brow...
noun
speech that attacks, threatens, or insults a person or group on the basis of national origin, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.

Websters seems to have it simplified down to a literal state which could be fine:
https://www.merriam-webster.co...
Definition of Hate speech
: speech expressing hatred of a particular group of people

Wikipedia is all over the map but at least seems to only report on various countries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

These people are subjectively confused thinking "any form of expression regarded as offensive":
https://definitions.uslegal.co...
Hate Speech Law and Legal Definition
Hate speech is a communication that carries no meaning other than the expression of hatred for some group, especially in circumstances in which the communication is likely to provoke violence. It is an incitement to hatred primarily against a group of persons defined in terms of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and the like. Hate speech can be any form of expression regarded as offensive to racial, ethnic and religious groups and other discrete minorities or to women.

These people get it:
https://www.urbandictionary.co...
  Hate speech
A highfalutin' way of saying "I disagree with your meticulously-researched, irrefutable facts, so I am going to organize a social media campaign to demonize you and ruin your life. But don't forget to donate to my Patreon."
Sane, rational human being: "I sure do loves me some grapes!"
Filthy SJW bacterium: "OMFG GRAPE HAS 'RAPE' IN IT THAT'S HATE SPEECH! RAAAAAAAPE CULTUUUUUURE!"

Disparaging a social group is hate speech to these people:
https://www.thefreedictionary....
hate speech
n.
Bigoted speech attacking or disparaging a social group or a member of such a group.

Why do technology people and groups give foolish names like "Rust" to what they create?

"Lisp" is a speech impediment.

"Gimp" is a person who limps or is lame.

Why restrict technology names to only 1 alphabet? LaTeX uses Greek letters, also, and requires two paragraphs in the Wikipedia article to explain the name.

Or... Go with the flow? The next time you create open-source software, call it "Garbage"? Or "Feces"? Or maybe "Vomit"?

It's been a while since I taught in kindergarten.

I already demonstrated how religion and theism are independent. Further :

1. Anything one is devoted to, could be a religion . http://www.dictionary.com/brow..., definition 6.

2. spiritual : definition 2 from http://www.dictionary.com/brow..., to some extent definition 1 too :
An attitude that one's body, or the physical reality is not as important as one's spirit, in, say, fighting a serious disease. Since one may not be devoted to this attitude , it may or may not be religious.

It's been a while since I taught in kindergarten.

I already demonstrated how religion and theism are independent. Further :

1. Anything one is devoted to, could be a religion . http://www.dictionary.com/brow..., definition 6.

2. spiritual : definition 2 from http://www.dictionary.com/brow..., to some extent definition 1 too :
An attitude that one's body, or the physical reality is not as important as one's spirit, in, say, fighting a serious disease. Since one may not be devoted to this attitude , it may or may not be religious.

Yes.

And by other definitions, it means something else.

1. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki...
2. http://www.dictionary.com/brow...

If the leaders of a democracy

Uh, oh, you did it now. You summoned the retards.

Let's just knock them all out in one post:

democracy: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections

democracy: government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.

democracy: A democracy is a country in which power is held by elected representatives.

democracy: government in which the people hold the ruling power either directly or through elected representatives; rule by the ruled

The word "republic" is a bland word that means nothing more than the government is a public thing subject to laws. There many totalitarian governments that can accurately be described as republics that cannot be called democracies, yet all democracies are necessarily republics. You could make an exception with constitutional monarchies with elected representatives, though without supreme power being in the hands of the people, it runs afoul of most definitions of democracies.

A lot of dumb people have built a weird religion around Federalist #10, which is ironic, considering that these poorly educated conspiracy theorists whipped into a frenzy by populist demagogues are precisely the sort of people Madison was worried about. And for all of that whining about mob rule, it was the electoral college that gave us the stupidest person to ever hold the office of President.

If it was one person, it was not "their" meal, but his.

Pedantry fail. Here's the definition of "their"; see the second case.

1. a form of the possessive case of they used as an attributive adjective, before a noun: their home; their rights as citizens; their departure for Rome.

2. (used with a singular indefinite pronoun or singular noun antecedent in place of the definite masculine his or the definite feminine her): Someone left their book on the table. It's good for the teacher to have high expectations for their students.

Mandate is an official order to do something. Definition of Mandate

In this case, that means companies are forced to not discriminate.

Back to my original point. Without Net Neutrality, it is a slippery slope into censorship.

--
"What's Papa gonna sell our steers for?" - Arliss Coates