311–320 of 384 posts
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The idea that all billionaires work together is hilarious. No real adult could possibly believe such nonsense.
Nobody said anything about ALL billionaires. You are the only person suggesting that. The idea that an aggressive handful of them can't, won't or don't work together is even more preposterous than your strawman that all of them do .
Whether they meant all or most, those words certainly don't mean a handful.
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I may have issues detecting sarcasm. I hope to god this is sarcasm… because these kinds of takes are rampant on this site.
> Poe's law is an adage of Internet culture which says that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, any parodic or sarcastic expression of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of those views. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
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1. Cameras don’t prevent porch pirates. They give you a video after the fact of a masked person taking your package. Small theft is prevented by more equality in society, and a stronger safety net. (Source: the lower crime rate in other countries) 2. Lost pets are not being found by drone and camera surveillance. They could, but the system doesn’t give a shit about your dog. Children, maybe. I guess i’m ok with deplo…
Porch pirates are not stealing because they're hungry. They're antisocial asshole criminals.
But even if you disagree, you must still agree that antisocial asshole criminals will find ways to steal and get away with it, cameras or no.
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I don’t carry a phone most of the time, it stays at home, and I don’t have a Google/Apple duopoly device either. I don’t drive a modern car with built in cell tracking. I don’t use “smart devices” in my home. I’m opposed to mass surveillance in all forms.
* slowly backs away *
I find it amusing. Your complaint seems to be that people aren’t really against mass surveillance because they accept it in other areas (even though dumbphone sales are going crazy, showing that many people do care). Then you’re presented with someone who’s done the difficult work to have reasonable privacy, and your reaction is to pretend that the privacy guy is “cringe” or “scary” or something.
It’s almost like you don’t believe your own arguments, and you’re actually just hostile towards the concept of privacy in general. You’re making arguments in bad faith because you actually want a panopticon.
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>if tomorrow 75% of the people in any country decided No kings protests was a very respectable effort....peaked at 2.3%. Even the current administration inept as it is is basically home free on this one. Senate neutered, Courts sidelined, Treasury subjugated, loyalist in charge of military, JAG core silenced, secondary personal goons squad established and lavishly funded, Social media captured, Stats department disma…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3.5%25_rule no kings only 2/3 of the way there
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Please cite specifically what the Biden administration did to curtail people’s right to freedom of speech. I’ll wait.
Lololol ok: Biden: The Biden Administration's promulgation of a Title IX interpretation that, among other things, would have compelled certain kinds of speech: https://speechfirst.org/case/title-ix/ One example of many: it would have been a punishable offense to refuse to use someone's preferred pronouns. This is what's called "compelled speech", and it's when someone says to you, "Say $THING or else ". It's very rea…
Most of what you cited is about what a policy might imply or what someone’s rhetoric might lead to. Also, I don’t know if you knew this, but Walz was never part of the Biden administration.
Are you similarly bothered by the actual First Amendment violations the Trump administration has carried out?
The White House excluded AP reporters because the AP wouldn’t adopt its preferred “Gulf of America” wording. A federal judge found that unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination: https://www.ap.org/media-center/ap-in-the-news/2025/ap-wins-...
The administration targeted pro-Palestinian students and faculty with visa revocations, detention, and deportation efforts because of their political advocacy. A federal judge ruled that unconstitutional: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-backed-targeting-pro-...
It targeted Perkins Coie with loss of federal access, contracts, and security clearances over the firm’s clients and political associations: https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-temporarily-blocks-tr...
It canceled more than 1,400 humanities grants based on viewpoint. A federal judge found that violated the First Amendment: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-judge-rules-huma...
It canceled billions in Harvard research funding in an effort a federal judge found violated Harvard’s First Amendment rights: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-unlawfully-canceled-h...
Many of these Trump cases involve the government actually imposing penalties on people or institutions because of protected speech or association, not just an argument about what a rule might eventually imply.
This is not something you get to pretend is equivalent across “both sides”.
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I believe the parent is implying that we sit uncomfortably at home, silently, rather than uncomfortably marching through the streets, demanding. Yet, I say that while uncomfortably sitting in my home, typing on a screen
Mass demonstrations are common and frequent, more than ever. The thing is that these are mild pressures at best. What came from Occupy Wallstreet? The George Floyd protests? The No Kings marches? Anti-ICE demonstrations? They're not nothing and we should continue to have them and participate in them, but we have to recognize them as what they are: background radiation. On their own, they don't affect change or bring…
Non-violent (peaceful, loud, signs) protesting does little to nothing. Historically speaking, what does work is violence, and a lot of it.
Even in the USA, our own labor battles were effectively wars, with the US military fighting against the people. It's where the Pinkertons were created. And it was bloody as hell, until FDR had some sense in making the NLRB to *curb the violence* with peaceful grievances.
When those in power forget the peaceful paths were a compromise, don't be too surprised when violence rears its ugly head.
This is how you get healthcare CEOs gunned down, or ol Scam Altman's house firebombed, or city council person get their house shot up after voting for a data center, or Flocks (YC17) getting destroyed en masse.
I'm just sitting here. And it definitely is getting worse and worse, for everyone. And some people, when you corner them, do unimaginable things.
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CVS has to lock up products because society has failed to reward hard working people with a living wage. Claiming a society exists while at the same time claiming "fuck you, i got mine", isn't so much a society as "every person for themselves", which, ironically is what you're actually complaining about.
Okay comrade. It's society's fault when people start committing petty thefts even though unemployment is low.
You are quite good at making nice little sound-bites that don't hold up to scrutiny. Are you part of the propaganda or just an ignoramus who parrots it?
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The culture wars are explicitly a tool of the right to provoke fear, anger, and hate against others. The left gets trapped in it because every single culture war issue (LGBQT+, racism, feminism, reproductive rights, freedom from religion, etc) are responses to the rights reactionary drive to claw back rights from everybody who is not a white male christian.
> The left gets trapped... Nevermind the wedge driven when moderates who think of themselves as being on the left agree with the idea that past weak attempts to nudge things leftward "went too far", or that there actually is an issue with "government waste". Sir/Ma'am - you are complicit in moving the Overton window to the right.
> moderates who think of themselves as being on the left agree with the idea that past weak attempts to nudge things leftward "went too far"
Examples please? Not a challenge, I just am not pickup up what you're laying down.
As for "government waste" of course it exists but to various degrees and in various areas. For example, Medicare fraud is estimated $60 billion to over $100 billion annually. That doesn't mean we should get rid of it -- it means we'd be well served to invest a fraction of that amount in preventing such numbers.
And as far as shifting the Overton Window to the right, that has been the Right itself, via culture war bullshit.
Look, sir/madam, I have no tribe, no political party, no religion, no beliefs that I'm unwilling to change when presented with compelling evidence. I've tracked US politics likely longer than you've been alive. I understand how the game is played and this Red vs Blue is a master class in political manipulation. And the culture war is the key tool used to render it.
So you telling me that I'm the reason why the Overton Window is shifting right is a tell that you're the confused one.
> One of the many legacies of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 I see this more as an excuse used by a small corrupt elite wanting to enslave the people. The problem is that you do not have a real democracy in the USA. The current orange clown brigade shows this best (corrupt to the core), but it is not really much better with other roleplaying administrations. Sooner or later people will realise this too, even the n…
There are certainly governments outlawing political opponents in the first world, but that's not the US.