SmirkingRevenge

4 ms·

1.
by SmirkingRevenge 9d ago
Well, he did lose some data centers. Those aren't cheap. The sort of global instability that is being created by all this is bad for everyone. It generally isn't good for business either. We're so unstable and capricious now
2.
by SmirkingRevenge 10d ago
> You don't see the EU causing a war with Russia? Putin is launching and provoking wars, not the EU. > you will probably still blame America No, we would blame Putin, because he's the blameworthy party. As for Iran, Trump (a
3.
by SmirkingRevenge 10d ago
It was always a bad bet for billionaires like Bezos to become Trump enablers. You weren't buying a seat at the table, or the privilege of being left alone, you were just signing yourself up to be force-fed shit sandwiches over and over
4.
by SmirkingRevenge 10d ago
Those aren't slurs
5.
by SmirkingRevenge 10d ago
Political Twitter is a radical far-right amplification machine now: https://protos.com/nate-silver-says-x-is-rigged-musk-cries-b...
6.
by SmirkingRevenge 11d ago
Even though its fairly cartoonish, when you see the life size gore of dead bodies with face huggers on them, etc - it hits really different in VR, at least at first. Now imagine how intense that will become with even more realism. It coul
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by SmirkingRevenge 22d ago
those things are fscking relentless
8.
by SmirkingRevenge 24d ago
This is a puff piece. They are always a bit icky, but they're common and I don't think you'll find any outlet of renown that doesn't succumb to these from time to time. In this case, it reads like their way of stroking t
9.
by SmirkingRevenge 24d ago
Point (1) is why news institutions that cover a wide range of interests and have a broad audience have tended to fare better. Depending too much on a particular niche audience leads to audience capture. WSJ and Fox News have the same owners
10.
by SmirkingRevenge 25d ago
If the theory is that advertising makes conflicts of interest more transparent, I don't think I agree. Advertisers can be stakeholders across diverse ranges of concerns - conflicts of interest are often indirect. They can influence wha
11.
by SmirkingRevenge 25d ago
Radical right-wing infotainment propaganda is a specific set of things (like Rush Limbaugh, Fox News), not "everything I don't like"
12.
by SmirkingRevenge 25d ago
News reporting and journalism has always mostly been a for-profit enterprise. And no matter what business model one might choose (ads, subs, charity, etc) there will be perverse incentives working in conflict with pure truth seeking and new
13.
by SmirkingRevenge 26d ago
Trump winning the popular vote really scrambled things All these big tech capitulations are their bets that the rule of law will not protect them, but kissing the ring will It's a bad bet, ultimately - b/c the benefits and protect
14.
by SmirkingRevenge 26d ago
Just absolutely pathetic. Tech quislings
15.
by SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
> The more people stand to lose, the more they fear losing it? shocking. No - the less real exposure a person has to immigrants and their communities, the more dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric has a chance to substitute for real expe
16.
by SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
Migrants don't really depress wages, except by a very marginal amount at the lowest skilled rung. That's because adding people to the economy creates more demand In times of recession, things might be different - but immigration t
17.
by SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
In the US, anti-immigrant sentiment is often the highest in regions with relatively few immigrants, far away from the border. The less that immigrants are part of peoples daily lives, the more people seem to fear for their "culture&quo
18.
by SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
> But corporations have abused the system to unnecessarily employ immigrant labor in lieu of American I'm not going to say this has never happened, but in general I don't think it's common or widespread. Generally, busine
19.
by SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
Tariffs hurt domestic manufacturing for a number of reasons, but one of the major ones is because something like 50% of our manufacturing inputs are imported.
20.
by SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
Also FWIW - the US is the second largest manufacturer in the world, only behind China due to it's larger population. Our productivity per worker blows China away (though they are catching up) and is the best in the world. We manufact
21.
by SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
I mostly agree, except that trade imbalances are not problems and don't really cause problems. Buying and selling don't need to be equal between buyers and sellers, and it's really just an incoherent idea.
22.
by SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
That is definitely a flatly wrong statement. Unfortunately, it reinforces the Trumpian disinformation that tariffs are fees that other countries pay us... or something. Trump is taxing Americans when he imposes tariffs. Canada is taxing Can
23.
by SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
FWIW, I've found it to be far less toxic as a lurker. Most people act sane and fairly nice. Bluesky at least has really robust blocking features. Using them really reduces the toxicity that bubbles into your feed. I think guys like Sin
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by SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
What's funny is that people who use social media to drive traffic seem to consistently say they get more real click throughs to their content from bsky than twitter, despite having a fraction of the follower counts and post engagement
25.
by SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
They're pretty well known for lawlessly purging bureaucracies of experienced, civil servants loyal to the rule of law, to make way for cronies and regime loyalists. They're pretty well known for scapegoating and persecuting immigr
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by SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
Turns out draining swamps is actually a bad thing.
27.
by SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
One such example - he's using his massive wealth and influence to support fascist political movements that promise mass deportation and "remigration", and even supporting these policies explicitly himself. In the US, his poli
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by SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
Lots of those people complaining about population decline aren't really talking about the absolute number. They're dog-whistling about demographic replacement - the idea that minorities are reproducing too fast and whites are repr
29.
by SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
Half of America thinks the only way to solve Republican-caused disasters is to elect more Republicans
30.
by SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
It becomes sort of like the dystopian future imagined in William Gibson's "The Peripheral" - most of the human race has died off, but technology has advanced so that the elites can self-sustain anyhow. Big cities are haunted

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