111–120 of 145 posts
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Regulations from previous administrations don't magically disappear at the end of their term.
It’s not about the regulations, it’s about whether the executive branch chooses to enforce them and how much.
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Such denials of service are due in part to the politics of the financial bigwigs, but are also due in large point to government programs [1] specifically designed to suppress "undesirable" business. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point
I doubt the current administration is targeting gun dealers.
> This operation, disclosed in an August 2013 Wall Street Journal story,[2] was officially ended in August 2017,[3] and the FDIC settled multiple lawsuits by promising to Congress additional training for its examiners and to cease issuing "informal" and "unwritten suggestions" to banks.
This program actually seems pretty sketchy. Government officials were having banks to identify customers in certain industries and subsequently "informally suggesting" that banks terminate these customers' accounts. Congress also criticized this program:
> Forceful prosecution of those who defraud American consumers is both responsible and admirable. However, Department of Justice initiatives to combat mass-market consumer fraud must be legitimate exercises of the Department's legal authorities, and must be executed in a manner that does not unfairly harm legitimate merchants and individuals.
> Operation Choke Point fails both these requirements. The Department's radical reinterpretation of what constitutes an actionable violation under § 951 of FIRREA fundamentally distorts Congress' intent in enacting the law, and inappropriately demands that bankers act as the moral arbiters and policemen of the commercial world. In light of the Department's obligation to act within the bounds of the law, and its avowed commitment not to "discourage or inhibit" the lawful conduct of honest merchants, it is necessary to disavow and dismantle Operation Choke Point.
Should the government be able to strip people of their ability to use banking services, even when they have committed no crimes? Sure, we may not like gun stores or fireworks or porn but the kicking people off of banking services without justification is quite authoritarian.
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The "firearms industry" is a subset of the "arms industry." "Firearms" are rifles, pistols, and shotguns. "Arms" include those, plus tanks, fighter jets, artillery, nuclear weapons, etc.
there is crossover but you might as well lump together stealth bombers and SUVs. the vast, vast majority of firearms produced by US companies are for civilians.
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The "firearms industry" is a subset of the "arms industry." "Firearms" are rifles, pistols, and shotguns. "Arms" include those, plus tanks, fighter jets, artillery, nuclear weapons, etc.
there is crossover but you might as well lump together stealth bombers and SUVs. the vast, vast majority of firearms produced by US companies are for civilians.
Saab comes to mind.
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It's the equivalent of sports gambling.
Are you also thinking of Fantasy Sports (virtual teams of real players) ? I don't see how E-Sports is different from Chess.
I have hold no stigma against gambling, I used to gamble professionally. I just think it’s important to acknowledge what is and isn’t gambling and to acknowledge society and legislation generally have a stigma against it.
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I think you have your stats reversed. Fivethirtyeight says about 2/3 of gun deaths are suicides. Around 1/3 are homicides. A surprisingly small percentage (to me) are classified as accidents.[0] [0]: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gun-deaths/
Im not entirely surprised accidents are low, the places with the most guns have strong gun culture who have learned and put into practice gun safety from a young age. Many of the older folks have taken shooting classes or done shooting sport while in school, many of the younger generation have taken hunter safety courses, and of course military service people throughout the entire time, and all would teach basic gun…
There are some guns for which the basic dogmatic instruction is probably insufficient. Notably glocks; in some circles "glock" has become a verb, wherein to "glock yourself" means to accidentally shoot yourself in the leg with your glock while holstering or upholstering it. More specialized training can reduce the chances of this happening, but for this specific scenario and some others like it, the standard basic safety instructions fall a bit short in my opinion.
[0] One example: http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/safe_sur/acts-tpto-eng.ht... Other rulesets often have the same ideas worded in slightly different ways.
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Science says that there is a distinction between the colloquial definition of "addicted" and the technical definition of a physiological / psychological addiction. Many people will also say that a delicious food, an entertaining game, or an enjoyable TV show is "addictive", but these do not actually constitute addictions either.
Sure, but science doesn’t say that, per se, because science is about quantitative measurement. We have no machine that can measure addiction. People with scientific backgrounds hypothesize all the time, and they have machines that can make brain scan images, but we aren’t very close to being able to measure addiction on a numerical scale. The best we have is listening to people, maybe analogous to how we listen to pe…
Hard sciences may be, but there are quite a soft science domains such as psychology. We do not yet know exact nature of addiction, but psychological, environmental impacts have not been ruled out, by most scientists.
I think the biggest win here is the marketing for Vice after putting together this $25M fund. This is totally on-brand for them, regardless of how business-viable these investments are. Plus, it’s not Vice’s own money they are playing with (which is good for them given their profitability struggles as a parent company). My inclination is that VCs don’t particularly not-invest in successful “vice-driven companies” due…
I don't think this is related to Vice media?
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What I find so interesting about Vice Ventures is how she has drawn a hard line on the weapons industry.
Yeah, its not that they have no moral compass, its just that it points in a different direction to many people. I don't have a problem with sex tech or esports but want nothing to do with addiction. I wonder if they would also fund email spammers if there was money in it.
the numbers tossed around in these articles always amuse me. I have worked extensively in the adult industry and can guarantee its no where near $97B. Print is dead, the internet and PPV in hotels and satellites bring in the bacon and it's not much.
> guarantee its no where near $97B Worldwide? What if you include brothels, strip clubs, "used" items (ie panties, gamer girl bathwater,) etc.? Here's the source for $97B, puts US at $10-12B - https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/things-are-lo...