ZIRP is basically still a major factor. The cancer of ZIRP was with us for literally a whole generation, that is not simply just undone by stopping the consumption of the carcinogen.
Unfortunately for the majority of people, there are effectively zero good outcomes from any of this. Just like none of the previous promises and assurances of how {insert technology} would make things better for everyone, while always turning out to only benefit a few; so will the current lies of the same pattern result in the same output.
It’s something europeans don’t yet understand, that “diversity” has utterly destroyed community, trust, and tranquility in the US; mostly because it has been forced upon people against their will in direct contradiction of the core tenets of the Constitution and founding principles of America.
I realize hearing that or seeing that others may read that, may anger people who are deeply invested in the fraud that diversity is good, but all the legitimate research into the topic all tells us the same thing; that “diversity” is detrimental to any and all human communities all around the world, even for the very group that pushes it on others while aggressively rejecting it for themselves and their own.
edit: No amount of downvoting will change reality, whether you shoot the messenger or not. It's a shame, because good does not actually prevail, especially with brainwashed fools who assist those seeking the demise of others. Support of "diversity" is no different than the support of the genocide the jewish state committed and is to this day still committing in Gaza... the support of evil without the intelligence to understand that.
The civilization that created that must have been a wonderful place and probably was taught how to create such things by aliens.
Is sarcasm, but it may as well not be since that America is long dead and gone and has been replaced by an America that really needs to be renamed at this point.
No it’s not. It’s made very easy to vote and it has only been made easier and more people have been given the vote. That’s the whole point, so you on the one hand believe you have your say, and on the other hand the expansion of the vote was always for the purpose of drowning out the vote of intelligent, informed, smart, invested, productive people.
For every vote the most informed and well read and intelligent person has, whose family built everything there is in any democracy…every single year of your life there is one additional foreign, alien, hostile person that was just given the right to vote along with the 5 children they will have to your 1.5 to all vote against you.
That’s why the rich don’t vote, they got politicians, institutions, academics, organizations, etc. that’s our vote, we vote millions and billions of times with dollars, while importing millions of people who totally neutralize your vote and say every single time you go through that charade called voting.
It happens all the time. America and the EU are bought and paid for. The funniest part is that they’re being paid for with the very money the buyers plunder with the left hand, only to use the right hand to purchase the treasonous dominant class.
It’s like a sleight of hand magic trick pulled on an infant that is then gleeful for the deception.
That is true, but it also goes well beyond that. Much of the "US Gov't behavior" is largely related to trashing and panicked frantic moves because the consequences of its prior and long tailed actions over decades has now not only started bearing rotten fruit, but a previous strategy of world domination through "globalism" has also turned against those who control the Wizard of the USA from behind the curtain.
On the face of it the Greenland situation makes no sense on a national security level regarding a non-existent, fabricated Chinese or Russian threat, nor related to the fantastical grift of the "Golden Dome" that is even more useless against what Russia has recently developed, than it was for things prior to about 3 years ago.
What we are looking at here (you can tell your children that you heard it here first) is a strategic move to essentially take Canada and all of the NA continent, and eventually all of the Americas. Yes, Canada, you are indeed in danger as well as Mexico. I don't see how it could be any other way in the face of current developments; remember Trumps USMCA, i.e., a de facto North American Union?
Biden stated that he wants the USA to have 300 million more "immigrants" before he let in about 15 million in 4 years. Annexing Canada is about 40M by the time we do it, Mexico would add another 150M plus however many people would flood into Mexico to become "Americans". That bring us to a total of around 550 million by the time the North American Union comes around. Perhaps if the UK joins, we will just call it Oceania already.
It does not address the fact that China has 1.4 billion and India another 1.4 billion, but it puts us in contention, especially as Europe has about 700 million by that time if/when the EU absorbs most of Europe.
That also doe not take into account the Wizard of the USA wanting to take over all of South America for positive control eventually… another ~480 million by that time, putting the American Union of Oceania at about 1 Billion, ±100M.
These are real tabletop calculations and how things are seen at the top and discussed amidst cocktails.
It seems you are clearly understanding? You are likely just confused because you do not understand that the overarching objectives of the "uni-party" or "deep state" system hold fast, it's just that each political sporty ball team has to play things different and tell different lies in different ways to different cohorts in order to keep the system operating. So, e.g., Biden says we need 300M more immigrants and his team fans cheer because they support it, wile deporting more people than Trump; while Trump tells his team fans that he will deport people and does this whole theatrical ICE stuff to give the impression of deporting people to drive down costs and retain their support, but in fact barely moves the needle on deportations and committing to 600,000 more Chinese students and wanting to "staple citizenships to diplomas" for millions of Indians, etc.
You have to understand that there is the theater of the political sport ball arena where the different sides are set against each other like WWE/Football, etc. but in the background it's just actually all more or less rigged and the truth is written in policy and strategic papers that are implemented over 20+ years, across presidents and their wrangling and herding of their constituents in this charade called "democracy".
But with WWE/Football there is an overarching company that controls the narrative. I don't see that with the dem/rep spectrum. I just see cowardice and incompetence.
This is quite obviously written by someone with no intelligence experience.
> On the face of it the Greenland situation makes no sense on a national security level regarding a non-existent, fabricated Chinese or Russian threat, nor related to the fantastical grift of the "Golden Dome" that is even more useless against what Russia has recently developed, than it was for things prior to about 3 years ago.
Power projection in the arctic is weak. Russia has made multiple tactical movements towards soft projection in the arctic. You have zero idea what submarines are on station. Taking greenland is arguably stupid, boosting it's defense to prevent a Russian incursion is not.
> What we are looking at here (you can tell your children that you heard it here first) is a strategic move to essentially take Canada and all of the NA continent, and eventually all of the Americas. Yes, Canada, you are indeed in danger as well as Mexico. I don't see how it could be any other way in the face of current developments; remember Trumps USMCA, i.e., a de facto North American Union?
No evidence. Unless you're arguing while NAFTA was around this was a way to create a "United America".
> That also doe not take into account the Wizard of the USA wanting to take over all of South America for positive control eventually
No evidence. Most think-tanks have recognized that maintaining positive control of south america would be disastrous. If anything, Maduro and his friends were probably happy the US decided to black bag him. It is well known that whoever was going to attempt control over Venezuela in particular was going to be responsible for spending the money to rebuild it.
> These are real tabletop calculations and how things are seen at the top and discussed amidst cocktails
>> Yes, Canada, you are indeed in danger as well as Mexico.
> No evidence. Unless you're arguing while NAFTA was around this was a way to create a "United America".
Trump recently posted an image on Truth Social of a White House meeting in which a map is displayed, of north america with the US flag superimposed on Canada, Greenland, and Venezuela. [1] He has repeatedly suggested that Canada is the 51st American state. [2]
What is it about this 16 y/o cutoff that seems to be the focus everywhere? Why not 18?
It almost seems like this will make SM attractive by making it a kind of forbidden fruit and/or a social standing status indicator for impressionable, malleable minded, underdeveloped minds of teens seeking to feel like adults.
In other words, if I didn’t know any better, I would have guessed that it might actually be the likes of Facebook pushing these controls internationally (not the least because they seem so coordinated all across the planet) in order to manipulate target users into coveting having a fb/SM account again.
Tell me you think Facebook, the same Facebook that was caught running uncontrolled and illegal psychological manipulation testing on its users, would not do such a thing!
I agree with you that this would create a forbidden fruit, and a combination of social media becoming more desirable to under-16yo and teenagers binging social media as soon as they become 16. But the solution to that is to push the age limit down, not up. 14 or 12 would be much more reasonable ages. That gives parents a clear cutoff when their kids have to be ready for social media, and prevents bans in the phase where teens are most rebellious
It seem to me the obvious counter is that the current age of things like FB is 13. Short of legislated controls, guardrails, limits on that access (e.g., parental responsibility for any and all online activities with parental notifications, reports, and clandestine surveillance abilities, limitations based on immediate proximity or same school attendance, limitations based on age difference, i.e., only +/- 1 year, etc) I don't see how the current state is ideal.
The problem now is arguably that parents are not really good at "teaching" children about SM, to a large part because they aren't "good" at it, don't underestand it, and it constantly changes too (Looking at FB here).
I would agree with you if there were some kind of solid, public input crafted specification and standard for SM to not just handle minors, but even transportability across SM/sites, and also hard user data protections and ownership laws. The idea being that possibly anything but boring BBS basically dying out because the data cannot be captured, collected, and sold like harvesting humans in the Matrix.
This was an argument that was used to not ban smoking for kids in the UK back in the day. From the parliment debate...
> [banning smoking would] afford a direct encouragement to children to smoke. Most boys of a tender age who might be seen smoking in public places did so, not because of any attachment to tobacco, but because they considered it a practice in advance of their years, and something moreover which their elders told them not to do, affording them, therefore, the added pleasure of disobedience which was so dear to boys of their age.
I should have been more explicit, if I understand you. I support not just making it illegal for any minor to be on any big SM, but also creating standards and specifications for data ownership, controls, collection, and privacy that are hard and accompanied with extreme punishments, i.e., per intentional, negligent, or reckless violation; per data point, not incident. Make the companies aware that a single event can crater the whole corporation if the corporation cannot prove that its officers did not act in violation of the corporation and are therefore personally responsible, and they will keep the rules.
In the UK, 16 is the age of consent for medical treatments, driving licenses, joining the armed forces, etc, so it's generally the age when a child can lawfully make many of their own decisions.
You need to be 15 years and 9 months to apply for a provisional driving licence, but 17 to drive a car, in most cases, though I think there's an exception for some disabled people. You need to be 13 to give consent for processing of personal data. The age of criminal responsibility is 10 in England and Wales, but higher in Scotland, I think. It used to be 16 for getting married, with parents' consent (or without, in Scotland), but I think that's been raised. You can leave school on the last Friday of June in the school year (Sep-Aug) in which you turn 16, or something like that. There are lots of different age limits. I think the real answer to "Why 16?" is basically "Why not?".
You think Meta secretly wanted to remove 4.7m Australian users while saying:
> "We call on the Australian government to engage with industry constructively to find a better way forward, such as incentivising all of industry to raise the standard in providing safe, privacy-preserving, age-appropriate experiences online, instead of blanket bans,"
because ultimately they think it will attract more users to their platforms?
> What is it about this 16 y/o cutoff that seems to be the focus everywhere? Why not 18?
Some studies have found that puberty is the peak problematic age for people to be on social media and 16 is the rough point by which mostly this is finished. There is a book, "The Anxious Generation" that covers this pretty well.
I'm not sure if you are trying to mock the idea, but it would not be the first time that something like that would work and although not sure, it seems that FB would not be above any of that given their history (having some inside knowledge from very early on) and that the demographics seem to be going against them in a major way.
This feels like a conversation about irrelevant matters the App Store ad design at the advent of AI integration? I see the future being AI suggesting or responding with an app or extension to add specific abilities or features based on stated objectives, i.e., just a package manager behind the scenes. I don’t see myself going to some App Store. I haven’t even “browsed” one in years because they all seem extremely static, having reached a peak saturation and static state.
Frankly, Apple could have probably just totally replaced the App Store a long time ago if they were not slaves to financial reports by simply integrating app search into spotlight more closely or prominently… pull down, search “ai app” (or whatever) and you’re provided with a list of app results that includes an install button.
App updating could and should have been integrated into the settings app.
These kinds of things will only increasingly start biting the Apple as Google has been forced to face the abyss of the death of the common search they’ve dominated for decades now. I don’t think Apple has faced that existential Grim-reaper yet… what do you do when the app ecosystem, OS UI/UX advantages, and even hardware quality has vanished through the cascading integration of AI? I don’t know that Apple has faced that yet or at least has been left blindsided, considering what I’ve been seeing from them.
What this brought to mind for me is that you are quite literally at the mercy of a different company when you do not control your OS as a computer/server company. All the wonderful design makes no difference when you’re at the mercy of the likes of Microsoft/Windows.
Inversely, I am convinced that is largely what has made Apple so successfully at the core, controlling the OS did not limit them to all the technical reasons that, e.g., windows OS based scrolling and the track pads were/are so horrible, resolution limitations, and inconsistent design and styling of the OS that subordinated the value or beauty of any hardware design to the OS level that users interacted with… subordination to Microsoft.
It’s essentially unconscionable that they likes of IBM, Dell, HP, etc did not get together and at the very least develop their own OS and also aggressively counter the de facto monopoly stranglehold of Windows on government, which then caused the domination among corporations.
Similarly unconscionable is also the European failure and subordination to the USA/Microsoft by not fostering at least an alternative to Windows that its corporations and governments can operate on. There has been nothing but talk and tiny little forays into adopting open source, but absolutely nothing that could even rise to being a real alternative to Windows or even MacOS.
> the European failure and subordination to the USA/Microsoft by not fostering at least an alternative to Windows that its corporations and governments can operate on. There has been nothing but talk and tiny little forays into adopting open source, but absolutely nothing that could even rise to being a real alternative to Windows or even MacOS.
Yet.
The current US 'situation', combined with US tech spying means those little forays are getting seriouser and seriouser.
It's going to be somewhat slower due to languages, and induvidual governments wanting 'their' version (of spying on their populations), but the beginnings are begun.
Unfortunately for the majority of people, there are effectively zero good outcomes from any of this. Just like none of the previous promises and assurances of how {insert technology} would make things better for everyone, while always turning out to only benefit a few; so will the current lies of the same pattern result in the same output.
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