hector

@hector@lemmy.today

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Blocking Threads⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  That is definitely it, they made it technically possible to say they are competitive and not a trust, and then sabotaged it so it’s actually not workable. As our regulators and courts are captured that obvious slight of hand is enough of an excuse for the authorities to pretend to believe them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Germany’s CDU Pushes Real-Name Social Media Mandate and ID Checks⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  I got a violation, a second one I think, a 3 day ban, at which point I abandon accounts and never log in again, 1 year back, for suggesting Musk be aboard one of his spaceships. That’s it. I guess in the context of them blowing up all the time it’s a call for violence, which is how they labelled it. I quit for a couple of months before starting another account, between them right now too, went through like 4 last year, while I took at least 4 months off.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Germany’s CDU Pushes Real-Name Social Media Mandate and ID Checks⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  As if, this is probably all about Israel somehow. One wonders if there is a german equivalent of Epstein.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Germany’s CDU Pushes Real-Name Social Media Mandate and ID Checks⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  How else are they going to, let me check notes, can’t read my writing here, stamp out anti salmonism? What a joke, a dishonest system wants everyone’s information to let palantir type organizations create social scores and threat asssessments based on half baked and dishonest metrics, with ways for their authorities to make sure you get a bad score even when it’s not warranted by their rules.

  All done in secret, used against you in secret, and promulgated to business, to be used in deciding jobs, loans, what prices you are offered, even what search results you will be shown online. How the police treat you, the courts treat you.

  This is surrendering their citizens to tech, no matter what they tell you, for a cut of the information and a position to direct the all encompassing surveillance past despots couldn’t dream of, they are surrendering all of your information to tech, that will export all of this data no matter what they tell you, no matter how it’s supposed to be secure. Their data banks will get it, and the US government will get it.

  The entire system will be vulnerable, by design I suspect, to hackers, foreign intelligence agencies, oligarchs and their security contractors, criminal groups, religious groups, and any organized group with axes to grind on someone(s.)

  To allow this, by these constitutionally dishonest people helming a government losing control in real time to a far right intent on fixing elections with the help of the US and Russia is just astounding. This kind of arrogant betrayal of the population will all but guarantee the far right wins sooner than later. While the lawmakers passing this think the plutocratic rot will continue with sold out parties continuing indefinitely, as if they aren’t already bleeding support and credibility. Get popular reform.

  Either you give them popular reform, or the far right, in the service of Russia and the US, will give (fake,) popular reform, and the formers will help them fix themselves in power just as they have done and are doing themselves. The republics are in mortal danger, liberal democracy is all but doomed because the plutocracy’s death grips on political parties.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Acciracy⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s the reefer madness. East Asia takes a very hard line against drugs. As late as the 70s people in Japan would get 30 years in prison for possession of marijuana. Dealing drugs is often the death penalty across the region.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Borrowing money against their stuff to get more stuff to borrow money...⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Property taxes are regressive, but having state income taxes doesn’t preclude them, the states just spend the extra money. Here some cities have income taxes, the state, and the feds. And counties do property taxes through the township levels. The state will spend every penny they can get their grasping hands on, currently for pet projects of lawmakers and tax breaks and incentives and money spent to improve locations to lure big business to set up here.

  While the small business both parties pretend to care about like yourself pay through the nose, that money is taken from us and handed to the richest companies in the world to set up here without paying those same taxes.

  It’s all about leverage, and alone we have none. It’s never been more clear we need to organize, on our own forums, around what we agree on, no matter what we disagree on. On existing social media we are simply turned against each other on issues, oh that person from the other side that rejected their party and came over to our side? They once said this and still say that so fuck them they aren’t pure, even as the people making those arguments originally are the biggest pieces of shit in the world.

  Social media is rigged, we need our own forums set up to not be rigged, to not be hooked by government and big business, and providing clear rules enforced fairly. Federated sites on general forums allowing people to cooperate publicly and privately as they see fit, and move between social medias on the same account. Where violations can be appealed all the way to a jury trial of members to prevent the rich, government, and moderators perverting it or abusing their power.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Borrowing money against their stuff to get more stuff to borrow money...⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  When the US was at the height of prosperity, when the working class had the highest standard of living, and disposable income, the highest ever in history of any working class hands down, in the 1950s, and until the 1970s when it declined precipitously in the late 70s, obscene incomes were taxed at 90 percent. The first so much was taxed at lower rates, above a certain amount the rest at 90%.

  The majority of taxes came from businesses too, 90%, today it’s flipped and 90% is individuals.

  Whatever problems existed in those decades, a minimum wage job paid for a family, bought a house, a cheap car, health care, food, incidentals, going out for a burger even. Just one of them. And that is the issue people care most about, having enough money to live with dignity.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Borrowing money against their stuff to get more stuff to borrow money...⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  A wealth tax wouldn’t apply to normal people below an obscene threshold. And you wouldn’t tax a primary residence at all, as is already the case with our tax code on near every score. You wouldn’t tax a baseball card collection.

  But if a person put a bunch of paypal stock into an IRA account, and it turned into 5 billion dollars later, you would find a way to tax most all of that. If bezos’ worth increased by billions, then a portion above an obscene level would be taxed, often exempting the first so much then graduating higher levels, as is customary in taxation here.

  You are excusing the super rich from taxes by associating it with hypothetical unfair taxations against normal people for smaller amounts. Which is the same way they got rid of the estate tax, by lying about who paid the estate tax, claiming family farms and small business paid it, when it was only obscenely rich people that paid it.

  Now, no one pays it. An heiress just inherited 200 million on her 19th birthday or something, not the entire estate just a piece of it, without paying a dime in tax, thanks to the dishonest arguments mirroring the ones you made on this in the first half of your piece at least.

  Bezos paid 600 dollars in 2020, a year his net worth skyrocketed, and where he spent an incredible amount of money he got without getting a paycheck. He paid less in taxes than we do, not just per capita, total. He claimed the child tax credit. When your net worth increases by millions above millions, it needs to be taxed, whether it’s when they borrow against the value of that which is where they now realize much of their income that is tax free now, or whether it’s regardless of it being realized.

  If the value they were taxed on an increased price of an asset fell later, they would be able to subtract that back 3 years and forward ten years to offset other taxable income, that’s the way it’s already set up, itself quite unfair as working people get no such consideration to only pay taxes on profits, which would be akin to only paying taxes on wages after paying all of your core bills.

  In 1950, the majority of taxes, like 90 percent, came from businesses, now 90 percent is ripped from working people, and the richer they are, the less they pay above a certain threshold, something has to change.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Borrowing money against their stuff to get more stuff to borrow money...⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Vietnam joined the WTO and exploits it’s workers for Wall Street corporations outsourcing from even china to save an extra buck. How is that communist, whoring for wall street?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Borrowing money against their stuff to get more stuff to borrow money...⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  All capitalist countries have elements of socialism, a mix is probably the best scenario, and indeed to have private benefit corporations and co ops to fulfill needs the private sector is unwilling and unable to provide the needs for equitably.

  The idealogues of the right talk a lot of shit, but capitalism doesn’t work without controls, the free market destroys itself, and leads to consolidation, to one company, becoming sort of communist as the opposite ends come back together in a circle between free market and controlled economy. Somalia should be a free market paradise according to the dogma of the billionaires funding libertarianism and the republican party’s think tanks.

  Capital is too greedy to do what’s in it’s own interests and will destroy itself like yeast in a wort producing alcohol that will kill that yeast above a certain percentage.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This past week, Lemmy has gotten really good⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Influence operations, mechanized troll divisions and supporting units, were also deployed en masse to back up the democratic annointee that was chosen without contest in 2024 in July with over 4 months to go. Many just getting shitty with anyone calling for a challenge, an electable candidate that wasn’t at 30% or less approval all term and hadn’t won a single state in the primary of the previous term, and anyone calling for a winnable strategy otherwise. Shadowy groups, many right aligned, russian types, many oligarchs that don’t want a strong reform minded democratic leader to revoke their newly acquired license, and out and out aligned with the Republicans that want an opponent they could beat, all surely have influence operations across social media, and interfere into democratic nominations.

  As I was saying at the time, Bannon must have been high fiving his jailers, (turns out they were also high fiving the mobsters in the prison, that’s whose table Bannon sat at, he palled around with the Italian mobsters in there, to the surprise of no one that’s been paying attention,) when they chose her without contest, when their influence operations got on left aligned groups online to level vitriol at anyone arguing for a winning strategy. The democratic establishment hire their own influence operations as well in service of keeping control of the party for the aristocracy/donors.

  Social Media is just too corrupted, the companies can’t be trusted to moderate in good faith, powerful groups have their hooks in them and get them to moderate dishonestly, they not only ignore connected influence ops, they dishonestly violate real users not breaking the rules to any reasonable person standard, on the words of these influence operations, be it homeland security sending lists of accounts to find random reasons to ban, or by them mass flagging an account with their armies of bots until something sticks.

  Everything is overrun now, over half of users are estimated to be fake accounts now, and over half the content on the internet is written by machines. Half of the websites, those enshitified search results you get since 2021? All machine written to hit search engine results. Every organization with money, every country, can hire these well developed industry of buggering reality, be it russia on wikipedia or groups conning people into throwing an election by choosing the wrong person, or an industry that systematically poisons entire watersheds and populations to save a marginal amount of money on waste disposal. And it works, all of it works. Without leadership and organization in opposition the organized interests of big money wins every time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trigger warning - This Epstein stuff is making me sick...⁩ ⁨⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh shit, I knew about Hoover, I should’ve thought of that. I’ve been accusing the president of being a career blackmailer since his first term, in a hoover-esque trove. Although besides King I didn’t know specifics of any of his blackmail just that he had a huge trove.

  The president’s birthday note to epstein all but said they were both blackmailers. The creepy one written inside the outline of a pre pubescent girl, not so subtle if you ask me. Such an enigma. A child raping enigma.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This past week, Lemmy has gotten really good⁩ ⁨⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  The vast majority of bots, and it’s more accurate to say influence operations as real people direct fake accounts with bots, and now chatbots, sophisticated ones for some issues, are working for commercial interests. Trade groups of all types. Any toxic chemical they use has keywords scramble a response to any mention of it. Real agents cycling through accounts backed by bots. AI, actually Indians, in many cases, as they’ve good english and can work for cheaper.

  But the State Actors are getting worse, the US aligned ones exploded in number and visibility after the Venezuela operation I noticed. I’m sure the build up to the next forever war with Iran because Israel first has armies of bots. I’ve seen some influence operations on lemmy here in regards to that reddit must be overrun by it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This past week, Lemmy has gotten really good⁩ ⁨⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  How so? I check that one occassionally, am fairly new to lemmy, I didn’t notice all that much different about that one but idk.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This past week, Lemmy has gotten really good⁩ ⁨⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  You think there are a lot of bots on here? I noticed a few influence agents pushing israeli bullshit, forget the instances. They had a suspiciously large number of votes for them. Others are grinding axes, hard to say which might be influence agents necessarily, but plenty that could be, pushing wrongheaded opinions that when challenged with reasoned arguments reply with personal attacks and obscure the issue with slander. But that is learned behavior from the top down so it could be they just emulate rotten people.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rage for the machine?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  I dragged the democrats into the topic of globalism predating the right co-opting it for malign and ad hoc reasons, and it being a left issue going back to the 90s and before, as in the WTO protests in seattle, and not limited to that, and as in Union opposition to building factories in low wage countries, buying their machines, and exporting our technology there to save money on labor and environmental costs to undercut wages in the developed world, because the democrats embracing globalism, and neo liberalism in the Clinton model, allowed the Right to do an end run around the democrats and seize the issue under cynical arguments to win over enough low information voters to win the elections.

  It worked and America First worked, because the democrats have become the status quo and allowed the republicans to adopt the mantle of reform, a change of roles from the great depression that saw democrats as the party of popular reform and representing workers, that was upended when the democrats were captured by monied interests after the 1971 business roundtable had big money make the first iteration of the long game to undo the gains since the new deal and to kill the republic in all but name, project 2025 being the newer iteration of that same game plan. Amongst the many campaigns they started, from infecting labor with the mob and law enforcement; changing numbers like the CPI to understate inflation, 2-3% from 5-8% average just by 2008 for 50 years prior, several rounds of changes to understate it; to corrupting the democratic party, turning it into a creature of the rich, working for the donors, whose goal is to play good cop to R bad cop, (even as R’s are now playing hitler they continue as it’s 1990,) and to crush popular reform in the cradle, making sure democratic leaders are weak, and won’t upset the license the rich continually grant themselves, ratcheting the country to plutocracy, and a police state and it’s erosion of liberties.

  As such, and I explained it somewhat but since you asked so reasonably, the democrats failing to oppose shipping or jobs, technology, and capital, to brutal autocracies that enslave millions, thousands of millions, of people to 6 days a week, 12 hour a day factory jobs, working for starvations wages, while they dump their pollution in the ditch, no protections, no social services to speak of. In china many aren’t even citizens in the cities they work in, they are illegal immigrants in their own country. Forced off of their family farms in the Great Leap Forward where smallholders, a majority of the population at the time, were forced off their land and into the cities to feed the industrial meat grinder, to use the greed of the west against it, to get their technology, and their factories built for free, and to get a veritable veto in many respects with the ability to nationalize any of the factories over there on 99 year leases.

  The non citizens of the city aren’t legally allowed to be in those cities, they can be beat up, arrested, fired, and run out of town on a word from their employer, after being forced off of their family farms prior.

  It’s a system that only benefits the ruling classes. It sold out American workers, started a race to the bottom, both in wages and regulations, and in quality of products, sold out the workers in the countries they shipped the jobs to, that perhaps got the worst end of the stick, and then dump goods here for cheap, with no tariffs to compensate for undercutting labor and the environment to force our remaining companies to follow suit or go out of business.

  By not calling that out, and representing the interests of workers, it allowed the president to pretend to do so, and win. It’s not hard to understand and frankly I feel at this point anyone claiming ignorance at this point is doing so willingly to distract from the issue, whether it’s to excuse their own miscalculations about supporting and trusting the wrong people, or whether they are actually the enemy manipulating us, or whatever else possibilities there could be. The republicans can only win as such because the democrats are captured. There is no way out under their leadership, and they continue to blame others, the voters, the “left,” for their loss, to justify staying in power to do it again. Even as those arguments are not logical, they knew the candidates and platforms would lose, but forced them anyway, and because they allege they lost due to bigotry it’s ok to have thrown the election? Based of a false premise it’s a nonsensical point.

  So that is why it has to be brought up, because they are fixing elections now and the succession fight in 2028 might be the last chance to take it from them, and these democrats are unwilling and unable to do so. Everyone knows they are being screwed if not by whom, we all know what the electorate is, ignorance is no excuse. We need reform for it’s own sake too, the plutocratic rot is visible on the surface and the rot is throughout the body politic, everyone sees it’s sick, and without popular reform we are going from treating with leaches and mercury to surgery with Dr Goat Balls. (A doctor that pioneered a method to switch out man testicles for goat testicles, had the most powerful radio tower and station in the country, and then in mexico right across the border promoting it, until the AMA, newly formed finally put a stop to him.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Given the obviously wide reaching implications of the Epstein files why arent other world governments demanding access or copies?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  It would apply to cia intelligence. But this epstein thing is so high up in the chain, with such a critical mass of baby rapers in positions of power, that there would’ve been pressure to hide the information, to not record it as such in the first place perhaps. And or restrict the information from those allies.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Given the obviously wide reaching implications of the Epstein files why arent other world governments demanding access or copies?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s true, and what else is true although not widely known is the 5 eyes alliance is in large degree an end run around laws we have preventing our intelligence agencies from spying on their own citizens. We have our allies do it, then share the information back with us. Even if it’s the US initiating the investigation/operation, doing all the work itself. They put an ally on the letterhead and forward the information there and back and call it intelligence sharing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Given the obviously wide reaching implications of the Epstein files why arent other world governments demanding access or copies?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah they have to play the victim to justify their fascism. Don’t insult our intelligence pretending we don’t know the truth.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Given the obviously wide reaching implications of the Epstein files why arent other world governments demanding access or copies?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  And or are supplicants of the US. Beholden to the US for security, for their economy. The US undergirds all of their currencies, controls world trade, etc. The sanctions regime is secretive and capricious, and they are not afraid to abuse it. Not even before this administration, and obviously these new guys are unbound by any past restraints. Not just the president, the party, this is the new thing it doesn’t go back to normal with our new supreme leader, presuming the democrats fail to take it back, a safe presumption at this point seeing as the same people are in charge of the party.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rage for the machine?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  You didn’t make a reasoned argument no, I don’t think you’ve done that in any interaction we’ve had online, you respond with personal attacks to reason. Which is to be expected as none of your opinions stand up to reason. So obscuring the issue with slander is the only way you can “win.” The same way the president “wins” arguments, or the politicians that copy him. All the way down the line to prole at lemmy, emulating the leader. Talk about sad.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rage for the machine?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Pathetic, your argument is basically the same as excusing all epstein conspirators because Q co opted it.

  Too dumb to refute but here we are. I recognize your name too, this isn’t your first wrong-headed opinion backed by personal attacks when questioned. Which makes sense because you can’t use reason.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The U.S. Is Launching a Regulatory Assault on Drone Users | New restrictions try to shield ICE from being watched from above.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Even moreso because the president and china are in bed together, despite using each other as foils domestically. US corporations are over their heads investing in China on 99 year leases, factories they built with western capital, and brought over western machines and technology, to take advantage of low wages and environmental laws, and sell out the unions and higher wages here.

  As such China has a veritable veto on the US, they could take that massive investment in whole or in part, and the US president is Wall Street’s bitch as much as any before him. The Chinese are known for pursuing their expatriates that have been critical of the country too, so the us administration would be perhaps more likely to falsely accuse an expatriate on the outs with their regime than otherwise, as they are just using each other for domestic politics while inextricably linked economically.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The U.S. Is Launching a Regulatory Assault on Drone Users | New restrictions try to shield ICE from being watched from above.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  The administration would just love to find some american of chinese extraction to accuse of spying. It doesn’t matter if it’s demonstrably false, look at Pretti and Good. We had irrefutable evidence and they still called them terrorists, and never admitted they were wrong, even as they backed down for the time being. They didn’t charge the agents that murdered them in bad faith either, as the States didn’t either abdicating their duty and surrendering the 10th amendment, but that’s another story.

  The administration doesn’t care how demonstrably false the accusation is, their segment of the population believes them, or pretends to, and it includes most of the judges and prosecutors. Last term we saw a bunch of bad faith prosecutions as I recall of academics. Spying by China does happen, but a lot of these weren’t that, the administration, and the party, doesn’t care about truth or justice, they will use and abuse anyone, they believe in nothing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The U.S. Is Launching a Regulatory Assault on Drone Users | New restrictions try to shield ICE from being watched from above.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  The government has a shitload of them all ready to roll out. The NJ thing in 2024 was a test project, that was clearly homeland security fuckery given the US denied knowledge but also insisted they weren’t a threat. SUV sized drones with flashing lights and whatever else.

  We need to think about defenses against drones. Perhaps kamikazee drones, with thermite ramming heads even. It’s an uphill battle but the sooner we think about it, the more we will be able to protect ourselves when the social order breaks down. Although I would advise biding your time until that happens and not giving yourselves away during the reign of terror that will precede the social collapse.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rage for the machine?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Your condemnation of globalism as bigoted because the right co-opted it is like excusing the epstein list because of q. It is too dumb to refute, one would think, but here we are. Have fun pushing the electorate into a doomed to fail strategy, and blaming everyone else for it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rage for the machine?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Who gives a fuck what you think?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rage for the machine?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  You don’t get to cancel entire left issues because the right cynically co-opts it. You better hope so anyway.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rage for the machine?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  By keeping establishment democrats in charge you guarentee the republicans will win. How do you not get that?

  But no, keep blaming the voters for rejecting the candidates with the platforms they’ve made clear for decades they will reject and only grudgingly choose every other time only as a rejection of the other party. Feel free to get worse every cycle and coast off of browbeating everyone into voting for the less bad option, even though we know that won’t reliably win, and republicans are planning on fixing elections, meaning they only have (had, thanks pal,) to win once.

  What is the word for when you keep doing the same thing expecting different results? That seems to describe you here. As you pass the blame for doomed to fail strategies to justify keeping those same people in power to fail again, in perhaps the last chance before elections are fixed beyond recall, and make no mistake, they already are fixed beyond whatever milquetoast democrat playing to a mythical center voter that wants to get fucked by corporations but with crumbs allocated to them and kinder words.

  Maybe you can run with Liz Cheney as VP!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rage for the machine?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  You have no idea what you are talking about, globalism has been used for 30 years, and there were huge left protests in Seattle and elsewhere as such.

  Bottom line, you think you know things without having learned them, meaning you have no credibility, and that you can be tooled by malign interests to manipulate your fellow citizens to ill outcomes.