FriendOfDeSoto

You’re right, you used to be able to do that but it’s been a while since it stopped.

https://www.lifewire.com/view-instagram-without-account-5271416

Just as an aside and in addition to the other comments here:

There is a phenomenon called regulatory capture. It can take many different forms but the short version is that agencies and policies get perverted to only benefit one group. When the intention should be society at large.

There is a process where the big players, say OpenAI, call for regulation of their industry, not because they feel it needs regulating but because the regulatory hurdles will keep competitors at bay. Meta pulled a stunt like that as well with social networks. So big hype company calling for regulation in their field is a red flag, accompanied by a loud alarm bell.

A good faith argument kind of presupposes that all people constantly objectively question their convictions. And I don’t think we humans do that. We’re very happy with the way we think. And very capable of holding opposing viewpoints at the same time.

It is easy to be caught up in jingoistic fervor. It’s easy not to register all the incremental changes that go against your ideals. It’s easy to overlook atrocities that are committed “by your team, for the cause.” It only takes mental gymnastics we’re perfectly capable of as a species.

You’re trying to apply conventional logic to this. Stop. They only want more power and money and they would say anything to get it.

Obama benefited from being barely in office in 2009 when he got the prize. I imagine the committee in Oslo regretted their decision later.

I would say the powerfulness of the narrative remains strong. The big corporations find ways to the cheapest way of doing business like most rivers find the sea. It doesn’t have to be switching from a developed country with socialist tax code going to a developing country where labor is cheap. You can see it in the microcosm of the EU. The Republic of Ireland has favorable taxes and a less harsh data security watchdog so big tech companies headquarter there. Amazon sits in Luxembourg for similar reasons. Wages are cheaper in the East so manufacturing jobs tend to move there (or, sadly, the workforce moves west and gets paid cents on the Euro working in Central and Western Europe). If a government increases labor costs by demanding more benefits for workers, you reach a tipping point where companies pack up and move. Not all at once but after a while the creek becomes a river. That’s the spectre haunting Europe these days. It’s not just about a billionaire wealth tax, it’s also about the levies in employment, etc. They all need to be similar in the tax codes for the equal playing field the EU apparatus idealizes. When they’re not you move the mountain range out of the way for the river to find the sea more directly.

Trump’s terrific tariffs are supposed to create a pull effect, making the US attractive to manufacturing jobs. I think he will fail because be will drive up the cost of living so much that market demand will not rise along with his expectations, making investing in factories in the US ultimately not enticing enough. Never mind the fact that corporations fear uncertainty more than the Beelzebub.

If my glib comparison is what you jump onto here, then have at it and virtue signal to your heart’s content.

You know who has the government’s ear? Ultra rich people. And they feed the legislators the horror scenario that higher taxes would mean they take their money and all their business and all the jobs attached to those to somewhere with lower taxes. And then they won’t get more in tax revenue while at the same time increasing benefits spending. It’s the billionaires’ lose/lose scenario. It’s a powerful narrative. The only way to fix this is to have all countries adopt similar tax codes. And that is about as likely as Putin getting the Nobel Peace Prize.

If you want to know where it is going in the short-term, have a look at Orban’s Hungary. Rightwing populist voted in and then got to work at dismantling the state. Control judges appointments, curb the power of the judicial branch, silence critical media, pick a group to scapegoat, buddy of Putin. The list goes on. Democracy only works if people defend it and from my outside POV there aren’t enough people doing that just yet. It’s worse in Trump 2.0 because this time he came prepared.

There are already horror stories about people being caught up wrongly in the deportation efforts. That’s using very mild language for very traumatic events here. It’s come to a point where erstwhile allies of the US are advising their citizens not to travel to the US. Because they have lost faith in the rule of law there. Take a minute to let that sink in.

If you’re a US citizen, resist. The free state is under threat. If you’re an immigrant, be careful.

Not being asked a version of this question every other day or so.

Inflammable

If you don’t know what you’re doing I suggest you don’t buy a jukebox online but at a local store. That way you’re probably on the safe side. The link one looks like the German version and your post pic is France/Belgium. They’re not (edit: always) compatible. Plugs are a non-EU-standardized mess.

Being asked anyway.

Remind me never to cross you.

Not being asked a version of this question every other day or so.

I don’t think they know for sure where it will end up but no matter what it will be, it will be brilliant, it will be the greatest, and it will have been the plan all along.

Rich people like to keep their money. So the only objective right now is to dismantle the oversight within government. It’s not government efficiency they’re after but removal of impediments to big business interests. That’s the Melon side of the plan. It’s his ROI. It’s also is MO. Tabula Rasa everything and then build anew. It didn’t work for Twitter. I don’t think it will work for a federal government. We’ve already seen lots of unintended side effects. Oops, we fired the guys who look after the nukes. Lives will be lost here and there but, cynically, not enough to mobilize the masses.

It is of course worrying that Trump said as much as wanting to enlarge the US again. I’m not sure yet if that’s just a dead cat he’s thrown on table to distract us from Melon or if that’s really the plan. It worried the US NATO ally Denmark enough to massively increase their defense budget over Greenland. Trump likes to be contrarian. He feeds off the stir he causes. He never built the wall, Mexico never paid for it. But he reveled in the reactions. Greenland could be a similar thing but I’m not sure yet.

It’s worrying me the amount of sh!t the lgbtq+ community is getting, especially the T. There is danger there. I don’t think Trump cares an awful lot about this issue, he just likes it as a way to unite the sleepy, the anti-woke behind him. But there are people behind him and with power now that do care, that do want to please their leader. And that creates a maelstrom of zealous a-holes trying to one-up each other with cruelty to score browny points with the boss. When I think this through, I fear citizen liberty is most under threat here.

I don’t believe a world war with nukes is what they’re after. You cannot really prosper as a corporation if the planet is barely habitable due to the radiation and the nuclear winter. It would be bad for Wall Street. But they wouldn’t mind a few conflicts comparable to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. While nukes have been threatened, they haven’t been used. So it’s a conventional war and that’s good for arms manufacturers.

In simple terms, Trump’s cozying up to Vlad actually decreases the threat of a world war III, at least in the short term. It reduces the number of trouble hotspots. There were big ones between the US and Russia (until January 25) and between the US and China. Trump parroting Kremlin talking points and showing the rest of NATO the middle finger reduces hotspots with Russia. Russia is on relatively friendly terms with China and could probably meditate issues between China and the US. At least in the short term, that’s not a bad thing. But it isn’t stable. It remains to be seen if Europe plus Canada plus X can fill the vacuum and that would reignite hotspots with Russia again.

I do agree that climate change poses a threat. I don’t think the billionaires worry so much about it beyond buying New Zealand and blanketing it with villas with bunkers. But it is a threat to maintaining order when the people get hit with more severe tornados, droughts, etc. Best way to maintain order is an authoritarian government.

All those wrinkles tell the story of his recalcitrant first officers who refused to go to a four-shift rotation.

Lovely artwork, big fan.

Can the other developed nations mount a credible pandemic response without the resources of the USA?

Yes. Just to show you an example from the other end of the developmental spectrum: even North Korea made it through COVID virtually without any resources.

You speak English. There is an at least partially English speaking country to your North. There are more English speaking ones scattered around the world. Most cutting edge research in anything will eventually end up in an English version if it was from somewhere-elsistan originally. The US is/was not the only country with something like the CDC. If you google their counterparts I would not be surprised if you found a warning about a measles outbreak in Texas. The research will be done elsewhere; the US may only lose its leadership position in the field.

BTW I would call the US response to COVID-19 just as shambolic as any other country’s. The only difference was maybe they could throw more money at the problem. And that they could do again.

No country will be fully prepared. Ever. We don’t know what the next pandemic will be, we don’t know when it will happen. The lab coats will have an idea but it’s too vague to build policy around that in a world, where there continues to be no glory in prevention. Stockpiles will perish, emergency plans will gather dust, and we will all be shocked and surprised again.

Humanity was sort of lucky that two Turkish scientists were quick to realize they could use a DNA something something method, that was not held in the highest regard in scientific circles before COVID hit, to make a vaccine in record time. They did that in Europe.

If we take “old allies” not so much as old friends but more as “previously allied with:” Japan was on the side of the allies in WW1 but was axis in round 2. Nazi-Germany invaded the USSR in spite of their peace pact. Napoleon and tsar Alexander of Russia were on somewhat friendly terms before Alex clandestinely rejoined the coalition against the French.