281–290 of 318 posts
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What a depressing thought. It's inevitable we will live in a prison but at least you can choose the colour of the paint on the wall
AI is inevitable. Whether we will live "in a prison" is not.
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The problem is, the refactoring being done is optimizing for 1) destroying the capability of any agency that was potentially impeding Musk's companies e.g., by investigating illegal activities, 2) implementing cultural war measures to distract the populace, and 3) decapitating and threatening institutions that are normally independent in democracies to serve the executive, as in fascism Not exactly a healthy refactor…
I see where you stand, and I hear a lot of negative anticipation. What happens if things actually go well in the end? 1- I think the previous administration used various agencies to avoid justice quite a lot. Heard of a laptop maybe? If agencies were shields for the last admin’s messes, why assume they’re pure now? 2- I wouldn't say republicans started the cultural wars over progressive ideologies 3- The US still vot…
Seriously? Please read just a little bit of history and civics, and stop making false equivalences.
These moves are straight out of the bog-standard authoritarian playbook.
Under well-functioning democracies, the branches of govt (legislative, executive, judicial), and the branches of society (press, industry, business, academy, religion, sport, social, etc.) are all independent with a relative balance of power
Under fascism, all of these institutions are coerced or corrupted to serve the will of the executive.
Every move already done (not anticipated) is a decapitation or coercion attack on the institutions to force them to serve the will of the executive.
Over seventy moves already done have been challenged in court, and the judiciary, even those appointed by appointed by the same President, in the preliminary rulings have been ruled illegal.
No other administration has ever sued or prosecuted a Press organization or journalist for coverage they didn't like. This one already has in the first few weeks in office. That is not anticipating, that is observing fascist moves in real time.
The administration has already challenged the legitimacy of judges' rulings ("who are they to tell the executive how to rule?") and threatened to not follow judges' rulings. Again, in the first few weeks, and utterly unprecedented.
Russia and Venezuela also "still vote". The Rs have already introduced a bill, the SAVE act, which will disenfranchise most married women (require them to register to vote with a birth cert matching their current driver's license name). And that is only one attempt to disenfranchise anyone not a white male.
>> I wouldn't say republicans started the cultural wars over progressive ideologies
I would say they did. What you call "progressive ideologies" is simply living up to the ideals of the country — equal treatment for everyone. It does not take rights away from anyone, only allows everyone to have the same rights in public spaces, employment, healthcare, etc. It is the right wing who turned it into a culture war. It sure as hell was no one but the right-wingers who politicized and turned simple scientific public health measures like N95 masks and vaccinations into a culture war.
>>Fascists charm everyone
Seriously, the fact that Trump and Musk are not charming is your argument they are not fascist? You seriously think Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pol Pot, Chavez, Maduro, etc. etc., etc. charmed everyone? They managed to create chaos and barely get elected before corrupting their countries into their dictatorships.
Again, please get real, read some actual history, stop posting misleading nonsense and looking like a Useful Idiot (in the specific Vladimir Lenin sense).
As an European I can confirm this is partly true. I wouldn't say it's completely destroyed it's soft power, but politically we do feel betrayed so whenever possible people would be looking to switch to non-US product. However, in business we're so intertwined with the US that it's hard to tell right now if there ever will be a justified switch. In terms of pensions - I think 99.9% of us have a huge chunk the S&P, so…
Do you own anything made in China or have ever used oil and gas from Russia?
Switching search engines to what? AI-powered search also created by American companies? America's image is toxic to everyone right now (including its own citizens). But I don't really see that many valid alternatives. It's not like Europe has done much to cultivate any kind of relevant software industry.
That is evidently not true. You being unhappy, doesn't make the whole world unhappy too.
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I honestly believe the only way to get at "unbiased" sources is to triangulate all the bias. Mainstream publications are largely staffed by paid propagandists. To get at my opinion, you would need to hold all the propaganda in your mind at once, consider "qui bono?", and then find the point of common sense that all these positions are talking around. I would also avoid contemporary professional opinionators except as…
When I said, > If you just want to share your personal views, that is also welcome I meant your personal views on the topic (how Europeans view America lately), rather than your personal views on media bias. Not that you can't share those, too, but it doesn't add to the discussion about how Europeans view America lately, and to be honest, the talking points I saw were pretty tired. > I honestly believe the only way t…
I mean that quite literally. Go ahead and try it. Assume the devil's advocate for any contemporary sacred cow and see how far you take it before you reject the position as not merely wrong but absurd or declasse.
Are you European? Do you live in Europe? Tell me how "Europeans" view the US at the moment.
People don´t care, never did.
Example: after Jamal Khashoggi was murdered, people still suck up to MbS. Money rules the world.
After what we learned about Guantanamo Bay, nobody should be allowed to call the US a democratic country. But we all decided to ignore the facts, as watching Netflix is way to nice.
As an European I can confirm this is partly true. I wouldn't say it's completely destroyed it's soft power, but politically we do feel betrayed so whenever possible people would be looking to switch to non-US product. However, in business we're so intertwined with the US that it's hard to tell right now if there ever will be a justified switch. In terms of pensions - I think 99.9% of us have a huge chunk the S&P, so…
>> Personally I do feel betrayed as well and for the first time in my life I've started looking for where the product I consume come from. Do you own anything made in China or have ever used oil and gas from Russia?
I think it depends a lot on what happens in the elections 2 and 4 years from now. The world may forgive or may be very well justified in their turn. I’m in the enterprise space and there’s not a lot of open acknowledgement of changes yet. I don’t think my particular company thinks there’s a way this is good for them. To some degree I think it’s being treated as yet another line item in the long list of things that ne…
He already said before he won that this would be the final election. If we could rely on things going as they should then we could already rely on them listening to the courts for example. That's exactly why it's worrying, the rule book is being ripped up.
I am European and I've never even seen anyone talking about it outside the internet. Majority of people do not know and do not care.
I am also a European and I've seen people outside of my tech/privacy bubbles talking about moving for example off of WhatsApp for the first time.