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2 yr. ago

  • Yes, but generally not really harshly. I just assume they don't know any better or don't have the determination to live up to their ideals.

    Unless of course they genuinely are awful people, but in that event, there are signs far more relevant than merely not sharing my boycotts.

  • This is why Israel has systematically destroyed hospitals and blocked aid - this was their goal from the start.

    They intend to kill millions, and that was always their intent. But they know that even their legions of grotesquely corrupt and morally bankrupt defenders worldwide wouldn't be enough to protect them from the wholly justified backlash if they did it through mass executions, so they've very deliberstely arranged things so that starvation and disease will do it for them.

    We are witnessing, and western governments are at least tolerating and all too often openly supporting, pure, unadulterated evil.

  • Yeaaaahhhh... no. I don't think "stability" is really an accurate descriptor of what the Fed has done.

    Their "stability" consists of following policies explicitly and deliberately designed to generate an ongoing transfer of wealth up the economic ladder, and using slanted and incomplete indicators like GDP to create the illusion that their policies are of benefit to the country as a whole.

    I mean... yes, it is "stability" of a form- it's akin to the stability necessary to build a house of cards.

    But that stability is revealed to be a fleeting and ultimately ephemeral thing when the house of cards comes crashing down, as this one most assuredly will.

    That said though, I do agree that this is theater.

  • Yes.

    Data hoarders are going to really come into their own after the corporations start trying to paywall information - pretty much no matter what it is, there's somebody out there who has it squirreled away on a drive.

  • This could get interesting.

    Whether or not the Fed "operates successfully" is a matter of perspective - if you're fabulously wealthy, and particularly if you're a banker or investor or corporate executive, then yes, as a general rule it does. If you're anything else, then not so much so.

    And Trump's relationship with bankers et al is difficult, since he's never been able to browbeat them - he's always had to lie and wheedle and beg to get money out of them, then when he doesn't bother paying them back, they have the gall to come after him and try to force him to pay and even to drive him into bankruptcy. Again.

    So on the one hand, he likely wants to stick it to them.

    But on the other hand, when push comes to shove, they're likely still more powerful than he is, even now.

  • On the first point, I'm not sure. I definitely agree that left to their own devices the AIbros would just keep expanding and battling each other and chasing ever more pie in the sky. But I don't think they'll be left to themselves. I think the MBAs will move in and take over, and it'll shift to standard corporate tactics of buyouts and mergers and bankruptcies and liquidations, and inevitable consolidation.

    On the second, I agree. I think the web is actually going to effectively split into a commercial system of monolithic corporations and subscriptions and fixed hardware and a much less formal true web of small servers and self hosting and ad hoc networks.

  • Amusingly enough, The Economist illustrates what I believe to be the new business model that's already waiting in the wings for the internet.

    With admittedly no direct evidence to support it, my theory at the moment is that the "AI" players plan to consolidate and to continue to expand their reach and continue to gain users who rely on the "AI" for information rather than following links to the originals, then, once the "AI"s have killed enough clicks to collapse the ad model and drive the websites out of business (and give them the opportunity to buy up the remains of the businesses, and more importantly, their databases), they'll put all of the information of which they're now in sole possession behind paywalls.

    Broadly, the goal is to apply the most lucrative if least popular business model to information ,- to monopolize ownership of it in order to sit back and collect money as rent-seeking parasites.

  • It appears that every action is a reaction (or to use the more customary terminology, every action is an effect of some number of causes, and is in turn a cause for some number of effects).

    However, it must either be the case that there was a first action, which would necessarily be an uncaused effect, or that time is either a loop or is infinite in extent, such that there is no beginning and thus no need for an uncaused effect.

    And none of those possibilities is really intellectually satisfying, so it's an open question (which doesn't stop people from insisting on the nominal truth of one or another of them).

  • Imagine that...

    Of course, if the Dem establishment really wanted to analyze where they went wrong, all they'd have to do is talk to, and much more importantly listen to, voters.

    But then they'd run the risk of having to face up to the fact that they're the problem.

  • So the Russian asset is accusing the Obama administration of falsely accusing Russia of something that everybody knows they not only did, but do as a matter of course?

    It's not even as if the accusations are particularly noteworthy, They explicitly did not accuse the Trump campaign of seeking out or cooperating with the Russian interference - they just accuse Russia of interfering. As they do in every election (and as virtually every major world power does in virtually every election everywhere).

    Trump is really desperate to shift attention away from Epstein, isn't he?

    And Gabbard is really driving home the point that she has absolutely no integrity, principles or ethics.

    Just another day in the decline and fall of the United States....

  • My favorite ex-girlfriend is one. She's genuinely interested in what anyone and everyone has to say, and radiates that enthusiasm.

    The oddest thing about it is that even she thinks it's sort of weird and she actually wants to pull back a bit, but she can't. She says it's like a magnet - someone starts talking and she's just irresistably drawn in.

    She actually went to see a psychologist about it, and she said that during the session it slowly shifted so that he was doing most of the talking, then at the end, he told her there was nothing wrong with her and that he couldn't see her as a patient any more, then asked her out.

  • I always wonder about people like her. What is it like inside her brain? How does she see the world and her place in it?

    Broadly, she's obviously mentally ill - no sane and rational person could make the decisions she makes. But how specifically? Is she delusional? Does she just not live in consensual reality? If not that, then what is it? Is she amoral - entirely unable to even grasp the concept of morality? Or is she so pathologically self-absorbed that she has no principles or ethics? Or is she just so greedy and/or power-hungry that she ignores everything else? Or does she have some speck of principles or morals or empathy thatvshe silences with alcohol or drugs?

    I really have no idea, but I can't help but wonder. It's just so bizarre to me that any human being could be that utterly loathsome. What goes through their heads in those unguarded moments when they're standing in the shower or sitting on the toilet or laying in bed? How can they not have at least some awareness of how foul they are?

  • So charged for describing Israel accurately.

    Ironically, if one merely eliminates the common conception that whites are the master race and instead treats Nazism as a philosophy that can be held and exercised by any race that considers themselves the rightful master race, Israel is arguably the purest manifestation of Nazism ever.

  • Alternative Nation: The Fediverse's Alternative and Indie Music Community @lemmy.world

    The Mattoid - Slacker's Pain (2003)

    YouTube Classics @sh.itjust.works

    Op zoek naar Maria - Dans in het Centraal Station van Antwerpen

    YouTube Classics @sh.itjust.works

    Cybergoth Dance Party

    YouTube Classics @sh.itjust.works

    Touhou - Bad Apple

    YouTube Classics @sh.itjust.works

    Kasane Teto - Fukkireta

    politics @lemmy.world

    A twenty year old essay that's still relevant today: Thinking of Jackasses - The grand delusions of the Democratic Party by Marc Cooper

    politics @lemmy.world

    A seemingly valid reason to stick with Biden pretty much no matter what just struck me...

    Alternative Nation: The Fediverse's Alternative and Indie Music Community @lemmy.world

    Eels - I Like Birds (2000)