That’s not something to joke about in these crazy times. It’s disgusting.

they are throwing out the mainstream press in favour of OANN and Breitbart from the Pentagon for example. They are building a “new media”, pushing thousands of random influencers and podcasters to drown out established news outlets.

It’s new that politicians take conspiracy zines seriously. It’s up to the people not to take them seriously and be suspicious of any politician who prefers them over journalists.

Trump is extorting CBS for billions just because he can.

I head he effectively took a bribe of millions by their settling a bogus lawsuit. Decades ago this would have been a huge scandal. Anything where a politician even appears to use the office to get money in their pocket looks horrible to me. I don’t understand why MAGA supporters abide this.

Institutions are being actively dismantled, some could resist, but the OPM is in serious peril. They are basically planning to replace everyone and building a new state apparatus.

I do not approve of the illegal way in which they’re doing it, but I have long wanted to decrease the size, intrusiveness, and cost of government. I want government to be more nimble. I have hope that they’re doing this because an illegal blitz, sold to the masses who pay little or no income tax as being anti-anti-bigotry, is the only practical way to shrink government. That’s me hitting the copium hard. It could be an effort to consolidate power.

We’ll see what he’ll do once he sees that Canada won’t do an Anschluss.

If Trump threatens Canada militarily, you will be proven right, and my hope will be proven to be unjustified.

They did it here in Canada to the trucker protestors.

It reinforced the need for non-central-bank digital currencies.
I never understood exactly what they did? Did they freeze all their assets, including stock portfolios, lines of credit, etc? I would have thought that would never happen in the US, but who knows. I wonder if they could freeze access to offshore accounts, e.g. Switzerland. I’m guessing Canadians affected by the freeze have moved a lot of their assets to offshore accounts now.

I think the most likely the despotism and the scenario @[email protected] describes will not happen. The thing is if they do happen, they are disastrous. It’s similar to how in Russian roulette you’ll probably be fine. I don’t know what level of risk justifies a armed rebellion. At this point an armed rebellion would turn a disaster that might happen into a certain disaster.
I am not saying to appease them or not protest. I am still hoping the US can be saved without violent rebellion.

Protests are not going to work when they’re holding all our money,

To my knowledge they haven’t frozen any critics’ assets, although I put nothing past them.

I believe in the 2nd Amendment, but certainly NOT to overthrow the government for light and transient causes. I don’t take Trump lightly, but he hasn’t turned into a total despot yet. There is grave risk, but there’s also a chance his abuses will lead to reforms that limit Executive branch powers. I think many non-Republicans like our guns as much as Republicans, but we don’t bluster about them and unlike Republicans we don’t rebel because our candidate lost an election.

We don’t want to do it but it is the only way to deal with a bully. I think tariffs are bad for the people of the country that levies them. If another country puts a tariff on things my country sells, I’m for unilaterally disarming. Let the other country’s people enjoy the dubious industry-protecting benefits of that tax, and let us enjoy the benefits of buying whatever is a good deal.

I think it’s nonsense to think that when people freely trade money for goods, the person receiving the money “wins” and the person receiving the goods “loses”. They made the trade because it was good for both parties.

I’m American, and we’re pursing the opposite of what I think is good policy.

This is one of the first claims I remember reading about Star Trek on BBSs linked by FidoNet. It’s funny how it hasn’t changed.

I just don’t see any of this. I think he said and done so many horrible things. I think his only interest is in getting attention, regardless of what for, and regardless if his actions harm others and the US. It wouldn’t surprise me if at age 78 he has some medical problems and dementia, but I don’t see these subtle signs in the video.

I wish it said what the effective yield will be for bond purchases if they sell for the expected price. Is that yield consistent with other bonds with similar ratings?

It sounds right in content and in him not knowing that lay is a transitive verb.

The people in China, and to a lesser extent Russia, want to have a word with you about how the government can control the internet. It’s not happening year yet. I’m hopeful that people will just go around the censors to get the content they want. I’m concerned that when Tiktok shut off its service and some people wrongly thought the gov’t “blocked” the packets, many Americans were okay with that.

I use YouTube and don’t get much far-right content. My guess is it’s because I don’t watch much political content. I use a podcatcher and websites for that. If I watched political content, it might show me some lurid videos promoting politics I disagree with because that tends to keep viewers engaged with the site/app longer than if they just showed videos consistent with the ideology I seek out. That gives people the feeling they’re trying to push an ideology.

I made that up without any evidence. It’s just my guess. I’m a moderate libertarian who leans Democratic because Republicans have not even been pretending to care about liberty, and for whatever reason it doesn’t recommend the far-right crap to me.

That’s if we’re lucky and he doesn’t transform the US into a full blown dictatorship with president for life status.

I may be hitting the copium, but I feel like this will not happen. It feels like having influence over social media platforms is really powerful, but the Internet is still there. It’s easy to send or find information if you want to, much easier than before the Internet. It’s much easier for set up or use a new information outlet than it was to start a TV station or newspaper. I thought no retailers could beat Sears, until Walmart came. People protested Walmart saying if they don’t like your CD for political reasons, people just won’t buy it. No one can touch Walmart. Then came Amazon. I think social media platforms will be even more short-lived in their influence, especially considering how easy it is to “change the channel” or start a new “channel”.

I read some of it, but I find it funny because it should be a joke for the bar to be so ridiculously high for a new technology: understanding human history.

We need to find a way to teach people to sort out information, to put their immediate emotions on pause and search for information

This entire comment and @[email protected]’s comments are so powerful.

I think people have two modes of getting information: digging into a newspaper article and trying to figure out what’s going on and seeing a lurid headline in the tabloid rack. Most people do both ends of the spectrum and a lot of in-between. Modern technology lends itself to giving tabloid-like content while we’re waiting in line for a minute. This is why Tiktok is concerned about being removed from the app store, even though it’s easy to install the app yourself, easier than signing up for a newspaper delivery subscription was. But Tiktok isn’t more like a lurid tabloid that most people would not go two steps out of their way to find, but they might read it waiting in a slow line. I’m hopeful that people will learn to manage the new technology and not keep being influenced by tabloid entertainment.