I’m of two minds on that… On one hand, yes, this is closing one of the final relief valves
On the other hand, this is a powerful way to manufacture consent… They get to control what people get to talk and what they hear. They can put their plants to ask questions, and a lot of people will buy that the majority supports Trump and Musk, which was never really true and will only become less true
Citation needed. He definitely holds the record for spewing shit, but nearly every literal thing that comes out of his is a lie and I think he used to talk a lot faster
Although if we account for how shitty the shit is, I could believe it
They censored mainstream media. They boost and censor mainstream social media. They lie constantly, so fast we can’t keep up. The Democrats were neo liberals, they seemed like they were going to shift more progressive but now they’re becoming neoconservatives
Lobbyists write the laws they may tweak before voting on. The Democrats let the conservatives stack the court, while refusing to do the same
The electorial college, voter suppression, and “it’s whatever we give you or the orange guy who wants to destroy the country” has stolen our power
The system is rigged. Almost none of us want this, not just what’s happening now, but the destruction of the middle class, the impossibility of housing, the enshitification of everything, healthcare that cripples you to use (if insurance doesn’t just delay until you’re also physically crippled)
No, this isn’t us. We’re not in control, our democracy has been hacked by a small number of very powerful people. We have to fix it - but this isn’t our fault
We’ve been railroaded if not cheated every step of the way. It’s not our fault, though it is our responsibility
I mean you can say that, but were houses/rent getting cheaper? Were median wages rising? The cost of groceries was actually falling slightly, but still way higher than a year ago
Yes, the numbers are worse and so is everything else. There’s some amount of correlation, but when everything crashes in the coming months that won’t prove the metrics are accurate…
The metrics will crash when our economy does, but that doesn’t prove they’re good metrics
I mean the metrics were good, for rich people
Now it’s just worse for everyone, although the rich will get even more after they buy up everything once we’re in full recession
Suspensions doesn’t really work well in this context, they’re temp bans - an account being suspended means frozen
That’s not what happens here. It’s effectively temporarily removed - subscriptions aren’t paused, they’re refunded
Suspended also might come with implications - maybe something is under review, maybe you haven’t used it for too long and have to reactivate it, maybe you are limited to things you can do with it. It implies action on your part
Ban means go away. Temp ban means go away for a while. And they want that message - they don’t want people to appeal or their followers on twitch to mass email them
I think the real problem is bans get lifted, we hear it happen fairly often. So we have perma bans, which means “seriously, you’re banned forever, we’re destructively altered your account”
So ban is now gaining a conditional implication
I don’t think of Congress under Nixon when I think about Watergate. I don’t think they’ve even crossed my mind until just now, even collectively
That’s the most frustrating part to me. They tell you what they’re going to do by projecting it on Democrats, then when you try to have a conversation with someone who watches mainstream media it’s near impossible to find common ground
He’s on a world tour, convincing our allies they need to band together against the US
On a personal level, I have trouble maintaining any respect for people who voted for him… But that’s one thing
We still have to understand. We have to understand the why and the how, otherwise we’re basically giving up - these people believe someone who’s every accusation is an admission, so obviously that I can’t even appreciate the absurdity anymore
It helps me to remind myself that propaganda works, that if you hear something enough you internalize it - we all do to differing extents, and most people are unable to examine their own beliefs. It helps me to imagine how they’ll feel when they finally look at things clearly. It helps me to think this isn’t all for nothing, that the sheer amount of suck coming our way will galvanize us all to fight for meaningful change
You don’t have to forgive, but you’ve got to understand why, and use that
It’s because Trump is so out of pocket on any given day that he has interpreters.
When he says “maybe if we put the sunlight inside the body it could kill the virus, we should look into that” they explained it as “well actually there was an idea of using uv light to clean the blood, so it’s not as crazy as it sounds even though there’s no substance to it medically”. And there’s not just one interpreter, there’s different messages for different audiences
So when he said “were going to put tarrifs on our largest trading partners” the message to people who understood tarrifs was “this is an intimation tactic to get better trade deals, he’s not going to actually do it”
Canada is putting a 100% tarrif on red State liquor, among other things. Which is hilarious and I love it
I mean… They’re not exactly hiding it. The expressed purpose of belts and roads is to invest in their infrastructure and partner with them to build industrial capacity. Conveyer belts and roads. They openly state they’re doing it to build up trading partners and global influence
It’s literally the same thing… Will they be better partners? Hopefully, it’s not exactly a high bar
They’re not Marxist-Leninists at all though… They’re just a highly regulated form of capitalism.
The government doesn’t own Tencent, they just keep a strong grip on them. They have their own billionaires, the factories have owners, companies bid to fulfill government contracts, you apply for a job and get paid what they offer. It’s just capitalism
Their government does a lot more than in the US and has a lot more influence, and they do influence the market more… But that’s just regulation and public services
They basically do what we did to tik tok. The US government can revoke a corporate charter for any or no reason, China just actually uses this authority actively
Yes, the World Bank and the IMF. I’ve even seen it personally, which is what led me to dig down the rabbit hole - I got interviewed by a world Bank employee to explain why I was installing a system for an airport, and they kept trying to guide me to explain why it was helpful…I couldn’t, because it was only useful if the Internet is down, and if that happens it’s probably not useful because the system had to be taken down if there’s bad weather, and the airport regularly flooded during storms anyways
They were constant protests and news coverage of projects being pushed on them, and it was an open secret for the airport workers. It was for things they didn’t need or want, even though they had plenty of infrastructure in disrepair already
Argentina is the classic example, they resisted and had their currency destroyed, which makes international trade hard. Other countries go so deep in debt they have IMF officials installed in their government to implement austerity measures, some even are forced to hand over their currency printing powers
Sometimes countries get into our good graces, like Peru, and they are let off the treadmill in exchange for beneficial trade deals. That’s after having their resource rights sold off and letting in foreign investments to extract wealth moving forward, but mostly they’re kept in perpetual debt as leverage
It’s a wild and very deep rabbit hole. The information isn’t hidden, it’s just spun in a positive light
Belt and roads is China’s attempt to do exactly what we’ve been doing with the global south, invest for influence and put them on a debt treadmill. Build infrastructure, pressure them to take on more debt with new projects, say it’s time for austerity, open up more foreign investments, use pressure to buy up raw resources, etc
It’s worth mentioning Coca-Cola… You can get American products everywhere, opening them up as a new market isn’t a different strategy, it’s part of the process
Soon! By immediately relaxing regulation and doing everything to make sure bird flu happens, eggs are about to get cheaper
Ah, fair enough. Out of curiosity, what’s the context?