WTF… Portland had the winning recipe already - those little micro homes on parking lots were working great

Fucking hell, why would you destroy the shanty towns before you give them somewhere better to stay??

I was about ready to fight you and all… Why can’t we have nice things…

Billionaires have publicists. Forbes itself was basically made to glorify the ultra wealthy. Every last part of her story is sanitized for the public, I think the Walmart family were actually the trail blazers of the practice

A billionaire isn’t a person. They’re an avatar for their wealth. I mean that literally - they are slaves to their own dragon hoard.

Their wealth isn’t real, it’s speculative - so if a Walmart heir gets drunk on video and it goes viral, on paper their whole family loses money on paper. As do the other shareholders…aka, the other billionaires.

And so, they don’t go out in public without careful preparation - instead, the ultra wealthy spend most of their life in places with tight information control. They don’t get to go outside freely, but they can fly across the world on a whim to visit these places

And so, their social circle is made up of people they interact in those places - namely, billionaires who are also sitting on similar ephemeral dragon hoards. Ones that overlap with the other hoards

And that’s why there’s no good billionaires - they’re interdependent. They can’t just wake up and decide to go off script… They’ll be shunned at best, maybe have their wealth cut off, maybe literally put on house arrest or straight up assassinated… It’s not like the law applies to billionaires

Anyways, the point is this:

She’s a fucking dragon. Sometimes dragons are useful, sometimes they’re pointed at your enemies. Sometimes they even do good things

But dragons aren’t persons. They don’t love like people do, they don’t have morals like people do. They don’t walk among us or care if we die horribly.

When a dragon is on your side, no they’re not. Their hoard always comes first

I think that’s giving her way too much credit… She’ll never be one of us

But the purity tests are a very real problem. Everyone moving the right direction today gets a pass. When they break off, they’re fair game

Simple as that, we have to care about winning a hell of a lot more

I’m not sure, someone should ask taco belle

Lol… Trump isn’t Putin. He hasn’t consolidated power, he hasn’t sent assassins after political enemies, he didn’t even have the balls to have a stand off with the courts (once his ratfuck strategies got blocked)

He’s a sleazy real estate developer with a melting brain, he’s not playing 5D chess - he’s openly taking bribes and making world shaking reactions to getting his feelings hurt

There’s a plan, but Trump just signs what they give him. The shit he does on his own is just impulsive

Why loathe to admit it? I’m cheerfully reminding everyone that will listen that it’s always been an option. The government can revoke a corporate charter whenever they want, for whatever reason they want… If Trump wants to set a precedent that emergency powers can do that, I’d love that for us

Win or lose, maga would no longer be politically viable, and it would make corporations fear the government more, as they should

There’s a neat little concept called the keys to power. A totalitarian dictator doesn’t hold all the power power - they must share it with generals, officials, oligarchs, aristocracy - many people who extend their control. A president has even less, they need to spread it wider

If you lose the keys to power, your own power dwindles. Trump had the oligarchs, and the apparent head oligarch (Musk) has been ousted. What does that say to the other oligarchs? Most of them were threatened into compliance… If Musk breaks with Trump without consequences, his authority dwindles. If Musk gets deported or something, Trump’s value as an ally is depleted

They’ll stop THC beers from being an alternative at bars… Which didn’t seem like a good thing, but it is a thing

An iPod nano can’t play over USB, you need to use the aux port

I mean… We’re in fascism times. If you have the power to do something, you can do many subtle things or one big one before they replace you

This would be a dumb hill to die on… As stupid and wasteful as it is, no one (should) actually die from it

I’m increasingly convinced that we’re already in hell and being taught a lesson

Yeah, it takes longer

It’ll be a bit late then.

I know how compliance works, and this is setting off all my alarm bells, and the EFF and privacy community agrees… This has truly horrifying implications

If you’re going to let human rights be further erroded because it came in a pretty explanation, not much I can do. But when the next patriot act comes back to bite us, remember one thing… When they say it’s about the children, it never is

That’s what they say it does. What it really does is make sites responsible for “harmful content” shown to minors

It’s all completely vague. You say it just affects the kids mode accounts… The bill doesn’t say anything about that. It doesn’t provide any guidance on how to properly comply, just like the porn id laws.

You can’t assume the government is going to use this for what they say they will. You have to look at what this would let them do as written

Ultimately, this gives the government censorship powers over what is allowed in the “open” Internet, and to IDs users in the “adult” Internet

Because that’s not what this is. It’s just like the porn site laws

How does a site comply? Maybe they use AI to look at your face, maybe they have you send in your license. The law isn’t clear what’s enough to prove it.

How long until third parties step up? Nice convenient orgs that can sell the collected data that can guarantee compliance, because they sell the data to the government directly. Or even first parties… Facebook and Google are happy to sell this kind of info on their users

This isn’t about protecting kids, it’s about identifying users. What they say this is for is good, what the laws actually do is far removed from that

Well, “just asking questions” is different from asking questions - the one in quotes isn’t actually a question, it’s a dishonest way to slip in a point and (at a vibes level) “win” a debate with no desire to learn or seek truth

The term comes from Tucker Carlson I think, he’d make baseless accusations against people but phrase them as questions

And unfortunately, things are just that fucking crazy these days. Most political discourse (in general, it’s somewhat better here) is done in bad faith at this point, I think your question would have been interpreted differently not that long ago

People are scared and angry. It helps to proactively signal you genuinely want to engage… At least somewhat

“Just asking questions” is a dishonest tactic the right has been using for a long time now. You asked “how did they subvert the will of the people if they won the vote?”

That question contains multiple assertions. For one, it’s repeating the mandate of the people narrative - the actions of an elected official are not the same as the will of the people. Democracy is a political system meant to serve the will of the people, it’s not itself the will of the people.

It also assumes that no subversion took place… And you can’t know what you don’t know, but it’s giving “change my mind”

That sets the starting line for arguing the will of the people wasn’t subverted by disputing facts, moving goalposts, or some whataboutisms. It frames the conversation in a way that sneaks things in as default assumptions

If you don’t want to be mistaken for doing this, you can word your questions more neutrally/open ended, or be more explicit in requesting information. Adding “am I missing something?” To something that isn’t adding up makes it come across far more neutral and good faith. It’s also just less confrontational, which is good if you don’t have the full picture yet

I read it and I still have no idea what this is

Propoganda fucking works, simple as that

Billionaires just buy good press and publicists to manage their image, it’s so effective they believe it themselves

Civilized countries don’t let people die because they can’t afford to live

There’s not many of those, are there?

We’re all living in a distopia, no one is safe from the sickness… It spreads across borders