There is little doubt each captured Nation is working hard on an effort of enforced censorship. Already happening in Canada under "protection against hateful & abusive speech". The way it will work is if you are anti-establishment they will find one comment you made back in 2015 that looks a little bit like hate speech like "I hate fascists", and then on that basis you will be banned. If you are pro-establishment your history will never be checked. Just like they are doing with all laws. Likely they will contrive a big Cyberattack to give them the excuse they need to establish total censorship.
So what is it we're doing here in the comments? "Anti-Social" media, I venture to say. Am I going to have to find every comment I've posted on Substack and delete them? I've certainly thought about that.
AMEN! I have always been careful what I post - I don't just share random crap, and I stand by it once I have vetted it. I don't do personal attacks, I come armed with facts. Which may trigger some, but too bad. Silence implies consent.
Well, I think that's why he's jumped in now before it's too late. He really wanted to focus on other things, but saw Twitter/free speech as cocking everything up in the next few years.
The establishment haven't responded quickly enough, and it will be fascinating as to when he/Twitter puts the code on GitHub as promised. I bet there's effectively a track-record of unconstitutional changes/algorithms/bans in the codebase. Up to and including things they actively did for the 2020 election.
Exactly. Not to mention the uncovering of the links between government officials and Twitter bans. This is like the government hiring a private security company to break into your house without a warrant and claiming no Fourth Amendment violation because "private company!"
The operators have tools that can reveal identity. A screen name just keeps Charlie from down the street from throwing eggs on your car because of something you posted. Some Nextdoor members learn about Charlie although they have gotten better at allowing females in particular to obscure names.
There's a list of things that could get seriously messed up by the monopolistic powers of Elon. I personally think he's great and has a 15 year public history of saying and doing ultra-based actions.
But if he is running a multi-decade charade and goes bad he has/will have:
satellites covering the whole world
a five year lead on AI (minimum)
Robots in every office and home (allegedly off-line)
Chips in hundreds of thousands of people's heads.
i.e. he could be 'the one' in both good and bad scenarios. Really what's needed is a greater amount of anti-trust powers wielded at ALL the big tech, big pharm companies. and if they can't live without that, then some smaller set of companies will figure out how to keep it going.
Take a look at Elon Musk articles on technocracy.news with search. Most important dot connect is historic, imho. His grandfather Joshua Haldeman oversaw the Canadian branch of 1930s-40s era Technocracy Inc, a large north American movement that sought to create a global totalitarian techno surveillance society but the tech was not developed enough. Musk has stated he wants a technocracy on Mars. There's also a good look at his odd business dealings by Common Sense Skeptic on youtube (links in next reply) with hundreds thousands of views. Neuralink and 5G satellites, his occult pagan girlfriend flashing signs, authentication the road to Digital IDs, etc.
Raising the cost of doing business will weed out any smaller players and put a crimp in the ability of the big ones to run their scams. Right now it’s worth it because it’s very cheap. They’ll at least have to reevaluate.
WayOfTheBern sub reddit has a novel.approach to bots. Its called the turtle tax. If someone is clearly just there to shitmix or is doing an awful lot of copypasta or otherwise seems bottish, they get the turtle tax imposed. They can't post without including "I like turtles" in the post somewhere. If they're a bot, they keep posting sans the passphrase, blissfully unaware their posts are getting held up. If not, they're just an asshole and can get it lifted by not being an asshole for a while. No one has to agree with anyone, but if someone is just there to spam the sub with abusiveness or cut/paste they wanted a way to also discourage that without outright censorship--esp since paid trolls operate that way. If they're not a bot or a paid troll, they often figure out a constructive way to communucate, get the tax lifted, and we have some good conversation. Even if we don't all agree.
Maybe not totally, but it would be a major discouragement. I also think the fake "trending" stuff (like Google biased search results) is extremely manipulative and actually doing major damage to society.
"In 2021, the company deployed solar energy systems capable of generating 345 megawatts (MW), an increase of 68% over 2020, and deployed 3.99 gigawatt-hours (GWh) ..." etc.
I sure wish uncle Elon could buy out the CDC and the FDA… Oh darn… I forgot… They’ve already been bought out. But it sure would be interesting to see who is pulling everyone’s strings behind the scenes…
Am I the only one that feels like we’re in a bad James Bond movie?! Something like Moonraker or such?? 🤦🏽♀️
If Musk pulls this off and actually lives up to his free speech comments, this will be a massive shock to the system. If he's really ambitious, he can then leverage twitter to support an entire ecosystem of free speech digital media with Substack, Rumble, etc.
I was thinking that Rumble should try to pick of some of the larger Youtube channels with exclusive deals. There are a lot of big channels and it would do some serious damage.
I think Rumble needs to work on their UI before trying to steal away content creators. Their design feels pretty outdated, and I don't understand why they've locked basic features like viewing comments behind a login.
I see it as a lifelong big city liberal who is tired of being lied to voting for a conservative candidate. What is there to lose? The current thing is FUBAR anyway.
I started worrying a little bit because every time I found someone interesting to pay attention to on Twitter, they shortly thereafter got banned. I already had a gift for blowing lightbulbs when I turned on the switch, so...
Anyway, though Elon's a villain in my books for, you know, that electric vehicle thingy and not leaving space alone, the imminent sobbing in Shrikeville's headquarters is gonna be the best entertainment in years. Really hoping he pulls it off.
Electric vehicles are a good thing and leaving space alone is a crazy idea. Both ideas are ones the Davos Bankster Malthusian creeps could fully endorse.
Tesla's are beautifully design and fast as hell, but I hear they are not very reliable. And current battery tech does not enjoy cold weather very much. I'd go to Mars, if I could.
Batteries do better in cold than ICE vehicles do. Batteries suffer more in high temperatures, but then so do ICE vehicles. Cold is not a problem for BEV's, at least if they are designed for cold weather.
I think after a decade plus of the right rolling over for the woke agenda, that the tide is shifting. More and more people are speaking up and saying "This is crazy!!". Never underestimate the R's to screw it up though.
The GOP and DNC are just two cheeks of the same corpulent, fetid ass that blows one flavor of shit or another on the rest of us, dressing it up in fancy clothes and scenting it with Chanel or Jovan Musk, depending on the socio-economics of the mob they are pandering too.
The rest of us are just vast herds of tax cattle, sorted into pens by red or blue ear tag, and plied with an endless litany of bromides and platitudes specifically designed to appeal to the emotional, reptilian part of the brain stem, to elicit everything from a soothing calm to a hysterical outrage, depending on the proclivities of the livestock in question and the evolving needs of the tax ranchers.
Above all, each bovine taxpayer must be convinced, and that conviction frequently reinforced, that his/her counterpart in the other pen, sporting the other color ear tag, is the enemy, which can only be defeated by supporting, ideologically and especially financially, whichever ass-cheek is most trusted and which shit sandwich is tastiest.
Meanwhile, the ranchers keep on stealing (er... I mean taxing, printing and borrowing) both herds blind, to the tune of 40%+ of their output, raking in trillions and "redistributing" the loot among favored cronies and constituencies, after, of course, taking a nice cut for themselves and laughing all the way to the bank.
It is kind of an old story, dating back to at least the Sumerians, and what the Romans called 'divide et impera'. But then, the ranchers don't teach the calves about that in schools anymore, instead being focused on far more crucial topics such as the virtuous beneficence of the ranchers and the overarching importance of the color of one's hide.
But all the bovines will just keep ambling around the pasture, looking for the fresh patches of grass as the farmer permits, mooing angrily at the cattle in the other pen, and gazing at the ranchers with big loving eyes, secure in the knowledge that they know what's best and have the herd's best interests at heart.
As a progressive since 2016, having cleansed myself of the blue koolaid, I realize the two have been working in harmony that whole time, creating an illusion of rivalry for us serfs so we stay in our tribal territories and never talk over the fence or worse, leave to find new territory or create a new tribe or tribes. The only actual rivalry they have is who gets to sit at the Right Hand of Corporate America and who has to play controlled opposition.
Which is why I do laugh at people here opining over "progressives" and "socialists" and "the left" when they're talking establishment Democrats. Because the Democrats are none of those things. I am, and though I disagree with right wing conservatives on many issues, I agree on the really big things like free speech and informed consent, and even when deep in the blue wing of the uniparty cult, hating and fearing those in the red wing, I never supported forcibly silencing anyone because you can't have a free society if only the "correct" views are to be permitted expression. Because too many things historically labelled criminal wrong thought turned out to be right, and even conservatives I deeply disagree with in most cases on WotB have offered things of value at times.
Who the Hell want to live in a society of inbred ideas, be those ideas progressive or conservative? Even if you never agree with the other side, without a robust public discussion how would you even know why you reject those views?
Btw, Renacci in Ohio has introduced legislation to ban vax mandates for school, employment,etc. He will probably be the first R vote I ever cast in my life.
Social media will still be a malignant cancer. But Twitter may be more benign of Elon takes the reins. I had considered rejoining if he wins the bid, but then my common sense took control. No.
I continue to be skeptical about Musk. I just saw a video that Tesla is working on “printing” mRNA vaccines … for all. It was a promotional video. And he suddenly changed his position on the cvd vx this year. It’s very suspicious. Further, the cruel experimentation done on primates and pigs for his neurallink has to make you think that there is no capacity for human feeling in this, which may be the goal - no human feeling … no feelings at all? From what I gather, it is one of the goals of transhumanism to eliminate those pesky unpredictable feelings, at least of the plebs.
The enemy is the State, and all who support and benefit from it at the expense of the rest of us.
All its labyrinthine schemes can be understood via the ancient question succinctly posed by the Romans:
Cui bono?
"It is the state that is robbing all classes, rich and poor, black and white, worker and businessman alike; it is the state that is ripping us all off; it is the state that is the common enemy of mankind."
If the enemy is the state and all who support and benefit from it at the expense of the rest of us, how does this not include Elon and the tax subsidies that we pay so that the wealthy can drive their Tesla’s and get a massive kickback?
The state is operating at the will of the wealthy and unaccountable corporations who pay them. Basically, the capitalists bought the state apparatus long ago, starting with the regulatory agencies, and recreated the rules so they could get away with anything up to and including mass murder. That's why they can get away with bringing products to market that they know will kill people and why our supposed protectors dont care. Profit-making Uber Alles is woven into every aspect of our public institutions including those laughably referred to as "socialist" (I went to uni and there was nothing socialist about it--everything catered to the importance of making profit, starting with the exorbitant tuition and fees, which largely funded only the sports and economics departments, while all else was left to crumble).
The only thing that's helped is the handful of state actors who aren't having it--like the judge who forced the FDA to release the damning Pfizer docs and rejected that 75 year plan. That the rich haven't entirely bought out every level of the state is the only thing that gives came any hope at all that we, the people, despite our differences, can change anything.
There's a word for the merger of state and corporation, and it ain't "socialism".
The parasitical symbiotic relationship between the State and big business is not capitalism and did not arise from capitalists, but from progressives.
Murray Rothbard, in his book *The Progressive Era*, explains how this occurred in extensive detail.
In short, for decades large businesses, particularly railroads, had attempted to create private cartels that would fix prices at a level higher than would occur with open competition.
Time after time, however, one or more cartel members would surreptitiously lower prices and increase market share and the cartel would be broken.
Unfortunately for us, when the progressives rose to power, big business saw the opportunity to use the State to create a legally enforced cartel, and shortly thereafter, regulatory regimes that created barriers to entry, thus limiting competition from pesky startups.
Progressives, being just another flavor of collectivist, were more than happy to oblige as it perfectly dovetailed with their ideology of centralized control of society and economy.
Future historians may conclude, as I have, that the beginning of the end of American liberty and prosperity began in 1913, when progressives imposed the income tax and established the Federal Reserve, the two greatest engines of mass theft in the history of the world.
The most amusing thing about progressives is that everything they wail and gnash about is the inevitable, and rather obvious, result of their own ideological imperative of creating an omnipotent State.
And, speaking of mass murder by corporations, leftists of one flavor or another slaughtered some 200 million souls just in the last century or so.
I daresay that all of the "mass murders" by corporations and religions combined would constitute a good afternoon's wet work by leftists such as Mao, Stalin and Hitler.
Finally, the merger of State and corporation we currently enjoy is absolutely a form of socialism. Mussolini and Hitler were both self-declared socialists and the acronym NAZI stands for the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
The idea that fascism is not a form of socialism, and instead is some sort of "right wing" ideology is perhaps the most laughably preposterous gaslighting attempt by the left of all time, and that is saying something.
"We are socialists because we see in socialism, that is the union of all citizens, the only chance to maintain our racial inheritance and to regain our political freedom and renew our German state."
~ Joseph Goebbels, 1933
We can only become truly civilized when all forms of collectivism share the same stigma as national socialism.
I dont know where that idiot gets his ideas,but neither I nor any other progressive I have ever known favors centralized everything. What you dictate is not even remotely associated with our "ideology". Literally the only people I have ever seen who support anything like that are capitalists who have no problem with monopolies or civil rights violation as long as they're "private companies" and are just fine with vax mandates if the "private" company "chooses" to force it. This sounds like the usual convoluted attempt if a hardline capitalist "no regulations for the rich" libertarian trying to paint anything that contradicts total wild west economics as the "communist" devil.
Literally talking about rich assholes accumulating masses of wealth based on an anti-regulation " free market" ideology then purchasing the entire state to centralize and enforce their own power and you actually think progressives, who have been at the forefront of fighting absolute centralized control whether state or private and who have never been "in power" anywhere unless you count corporatists co-opting the term after it became popular, are
I think you have " progressives" confused with "communists" or "fascists" (as Mussolini stated, fascism is the merger of corporation and state", the direct opposite of the values espoused by literally every progressive I have ever known.
But typical libertarian capitalist, when something works, its always capitalism and when it fails, it's always socialism,even as they watch capitalism implode around them.
"To the average American or Englishman the very name of anarchy causes a shudder, because it invariably conjures up a picture of a land terrorized by low-browed assassins with matted beards, carrying bombs in one hand and mugs of beer in the other. But as a matter of fact, there is no reason whatever to believe that, if all laws were abolished tomorrow, such swine would survive the day. They are incompetents under our present paternalism and they would be incompetents under Dionysian anarchy. The only difference between the two states is that the former, by its laws, protects men of this sort, whereas the latter would work their speedy annihilation."
Or engineers and assembly line workers at (take your pick of defense contractor). And gun manufacturers are responsible for Chicago's murder rate. The big three auto manufactureres are responsible for thousands of deaths caused by drunk drivers every year.
The DOJ will find a way to blow this deal up. They CANNOT allow Musk to take over and expose all the shady shit that's going on under the hood.
There is little doubt each captured Nation is working hard on an effort of enforced censorship. Already happening in Canada under "protection against hateful & abusive speech". The way it will work is if you are anti-establishment they will find one comment you made back in 2015 that looks a little bit like hate speech like "I hate fascists", and then on that basis you will be banned. If you are pro-establishment your history will never be checked. Just like they are doing with all laws. Likely they will contrive a big Cyberattack to give them the excuse they need to establish total censorship.
This is why I ducked out of social media in 2020 when I realized it was literally the Ministry of Truth. :(
So what is it we're doing here in the comments? "Anti-Social" media, I venture to say. Am I going to have to find every comment I've posted on Substack and delete them? I've certainly thought about that.
Stand tall in your beliefs. Don’t run and hide.
I say, Bring it.
AMEN! I have always been careful what I post - I don't just share random crap, and I stand by it once I have vetted it. I don't do personal attacks, I come armed with facts. Which may trigger some, but too bad. Silence implies consent.
bottom line to any and all such protective measures: it's April 2022, a.k.a. WAY TOO LATE.
I read the fine print...what we like and what we write is their property. Sobering.
Well, had I not been scrolling public tweets and threads when that was possible without an acct., I'd never have found all of you.
I guess there is some silver lining ;)
I'm not really a fan of "moderation" but "balance in all things" seems like a good idea.
Well, I think that's why he's jumped in now before it's too late. He really wanted to focus on other things, but saw Twitter/free speech as cocking everything up in the next few years.
The establishment haven't responded quickly enough, and it will be fascinating as to when he/Twitter puts the code on GitHub as promised. I bet there's effectively a track-record of unconstitutional changes/algorithms/bans in the codebase. Up to and including things they actively did for the 2020 election.
This could be the story of the year.
Exactly. Not to mention the uncovering of the links between government officials and Twitter bans. This is like the government hiring a private security company to break into your house without a warrant and claiming no Fourth Amendment violation because "private company!"
and most of the facts may well become "The suppressed story of the year" ~
I agree. Let's open up the Twitter DM's of all government employees!
With help from their friends the CIA, FBI, etc.
Yes, "pending regulatory approval."
This way the board can say they did everything they could :/
Agreed.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/14/elon-musk-make-a-massive-proposal-offers-to-purchase-twitter-for-41-billion-with-plan-to-take-company-private/
it'll be limited by the requirement of verification, this is another step to the digital id thing
i do not think that's what that means.
i suspect it's to prevent bots, not to ensure they know who every anon acct is nor a basis for digital ID.
that's not elon's style.
i think it's being misrepresented to sow dissention and FUD.
Let's be real, if the They want to know the identity of an anon, They will find it, and likely enough They already know it.
that isnt the point. the point is to get people used to digital identities
Quite possibly.
The operators have tools that can reveal identity. A screen name just keeps Charlie from down the street from throwing eggs on your car because of something you posted. Some Nextdoor members learn about Charlie although they have gotten better at allowing females in particular to obscure names.
It also keeps employers from being able to screen you out of the running for jobs because they dont like your political or religious views.
i hope youre right, it just feels like another little step
There's a list of things that could get seriously messed up by the monopolistic powers of Elon. I personally think he's great and has a 15 year public history of saying and doing ultra-based actions.
But if he is running a multi-decade charade and goes bad he has/will have:
satellites covering the whole world
a five year lead on AI (minimum)
Robots in every office and home (allegedly off-line)
Chips in hundreds of thousands of people's heads.
i.e. he could be 'the one' in both good and bad scenarios. Really what's needed is a greater amount of anti-trust powers wielded at ALL the big tech, big pharm companies. and if they can't live without that, then some smaller set of companies will figure out how to keep it going.
Take a look at Elon Musk articles on technocracy.news with search. Most important dot connect is historic, imho. His grandfather Joshua Haldeman oversaw the Canadian branch of 1930s-40s era Technocracy Inc, a large north American movement that sought to create a global totalitarian techno surveillance society but the tech was not developed enough. Musk has stated he wants a technocracy on Mars. There's also a good look at his odd business dealings by Common Sense Skeptic on youtube (links in next reply) with hundreds thousands of views. Neuralink and 5G satellites, his occult pagan girlfriend flashing signs, authentication the road to Digital IDs, etc.
Common Sense Skeptic Debunking Elon Musk
part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=c-FGwDDc-s8&ab_channel=CommonSenseSkeptic
part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DopFo1rjAr4&ab_channel=CommonSenseSkeptic
I think charging user fees would go a long way to ridding the platform of the bots.
Bots are paid. Their paymasters will pay the fees too.
Raising the cost of doing business will weed out any smaller players and put a crimp in the ability of the big ones to run their scams. Right now it’s worth it because it’s very cheap. They’ll at least have to reevaluate.
WayOfTheBern sub reddit has a novel.approach to bots. Its called the turtle tax. If someone is clearly just there to shitmix or is doing an awful lot of copypasta or otherwise seems bottish, they get the turtle tax imposed. They can't post without including "I like turtles" in the post somewhere. If they're a bot, they keep posting sans the passphrase, blissfully unaware their posts are getting held up. If not, they're just an asshole and can get it lifted by not being an asshole for a while. No one has to agree with anyone, but if someone is just there to spam the sub with abusiveness or cut/paste they wanted a way to also discourage that without outright censorship--esp since paid trolls operate that way. If they're not a bot or a paid troll, they often figure out a constructive way to communucate, get the tax lifted, and we have some good conversation. Even if we don't all agree.
That's probably the only surefire fix.
Maybe not totally, but it would be a major discouragement. I also think the fake "trending" stuff (like Google biased search results) is extremely manipulative and actually doing major damage to society.
Verification granted with every Neuralink implant!
Neuralink is a fringe idea, of zero relevance to anything. Highly likely it will go belly up like Elon's Solar business.
"In 2021, the company deployed solar energy systems capable of generating 345 megawatts (MW), an increase of 68% over 2020, and deployed 3.99 gigawatt-hours (GWh) ..." etc.
68% annual growth isn't quite belly up.
345MW is peanuts and from what I've read they only exist because Musk keeps bailing them out (bailing out his brother).
lol
I came here to post exactly that. I shall metaphorically retweet instead.
Are all the blue checks verified already?
ive never used twitter so couldnt say but i guess we dont all get blue checks?
I think they pay a small amount. Maybe a bluecheck can answer.
I sure wish uncle Elon could buy out the CDC and the FDA… Oh darn… I forgot… They’ve already been bought out. But it sure would be interesting to see who is pulling everyone’s strings behind the scenes…
Am I the only one that feels like we’re in a bad James Bond movie?! Something like Moonraker or such?? 🤦🏽♀️
Someone please post the “it’s a trap” gif, please.
Right here. Haha. (I have some Musk memes in this one). And yeah. I think it IS a trap, as much as the momentary woke mob screeching is fun.
https://themariachiyears.substack.com/p/meme-dump-monday?s=w
These days you have to grab at any little pleasures that come along.
Everything becomes a trap, eventually. All those traveling bards got us here. Really, it's all Homer's fault...
Which is to say, always do look a gift horse in the mouth.
To see if it is full of hoplites.
Personally, I like the saga of Tor's wedding better. Same moral, just funnier.
(PS: I really am baking brownies today. Elon put me in the mood fer shure!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIcSWuKMwOw
The prospect of actual free speech in the avian public square... be still my unjabbed, non-myocarditic heart.
Free speech is terrifying to weak minded people with weak ideas.
If Musk pulls this off and actually lives up to his free speech comments, this will be a massive shock to the system. If he's really ambitious, he can then leverage twitter to support an entire ecosystem of free speech digital media with Substack, Rumble, etc.
I was thinking that Rumble should try to pick of some of the larger Youtube channels with exclusive deals. There are a lot of big channels and it would do some serious damage.
I think Rumble needs to work on their UI before trying to steal away content creators. Their design feels pretty outdated, and I don't understand why they've locked basic features like viewing comments behind a login.
I’m not convinced that this is all it’s billed to be. The “billionaire as savior” is one step away from a cult of personality.
I see it as a lifelong big city liberal who is tired of being lied to voting for a conservative candidate. What is there to lose? The current thing is FUBAR anyway.
I started worrying a little bit because every time I found someone interesting to pay attention to on Twitter, they shortly thereafter got banned. I already had a gift for blowing lightbulbs when I turned on the switch, so...
Anyway, though Elon's a villain in my books for, you know, that electric vehicle thingy and not leaving space alone, the imminent sobbing in Shrikeville's headquarters is gonna be the best entertainment in years. Really hoping he pulls it off.
Electric vehicles are a good thing and leaving space alone is a crazy idea. Both ideas are ones the Davos Bankster Malthusian creeps could fully endorse.
You may want to leave space alone, but space won't always be leaving you alone...
I could care less about electric cars, but you'll have to pry my eMTBike from my cold, dead hands.
Why the Tesla hate, they are fantastic cars. What’s wrong with colonizing Mars?
Tesla's are beautifully design and fast as hell, but I hear they are not very reliable. And current battery tech does not enjoy cold weather very much. I'd go to Mars, if I could.
Batteries do better in cold than ICE vehicles do. Batteries suffer more in high temperatures, but then so do ICE vehicles. Cold is not a problem for BEV's, at least if they are designed for cold weather.
cat, your writing is a fancy feast of the most felicitous feline phrases. NO NEED for opposable thumbs on your perfect paws.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Go Elon.
I think after a decade plus of the right rolling over for the woke agenda, that the tide is shifting. More and more people are speaking up and saying "This is crazy!!". Never underestimate the R's to screw it up though.
Rs and Ds are on the same team. One's wearing "home" jerseys, the other "away" jerseys.
The silence by official R-dom against Brandon's demand for mandates was deafening.
The GOP and DNC are just two cheeks of the same corpulent, fetid ass that blows one flavor of shit or another on the rest of us, dressing it up in fancy clothes and scenting it with Chanel or Jovan Musk, depending on the socio-economics of the mob they are pandering too.
The rest of us are just vast herds of tax cattle, sorted into pens by red or blue ear tag, and plied with an endless litany of bromides and platitudes specifically designed to appeal to the emotional, reptilian part of the brain stem, to elicit everything from a soothing calm to a hysterical outrage, depending on the proclivities of the livestock in question and the evolving needs of the tax ranchers.
Above all, each bovine taxpayer must be convinced, and that conviction frequently reinforced, that his/her counterpart in the other pen, sporting the other color ear tag, is the enemy, which can only be defeated by supporting, ideologically and especially financially, whichever ass-cheek is most trusted and which shit sandwich is tastiest.
Meanwhile, the ranchers keep on stealing (er... I mean taxing, printing and borrowing) both herds blind, to the tune of 40%+ of their output, raking in trillions and "redistributing" the loot among favored cronies and constituencies, after, of course, taking a nice cut for themselves and laughing all the way to the bank.
It is kind of an old story, dating back to at least the Sumerians, and what the Romans called 'divide et impera'. But then, the ranchers don't teach the calves about that in schools anymore, instead being focused on far more crucial topics such as the virtuous beneficence of the ranchers and the overarching importance of the color of one's hide.
But all the bovines will just keep ambling around the pasture, looking for the fresh patches of grass as the farmer permits, mooing angrily at the cattle in the other pen, and gazing at the ranchers with big loving eyes, secure in the knowledge that they know what's best and have the herd's best interests at heart.
Pathetic.
Sadly the case :(
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/democrats-have-gone-crazy-but-freedom?s=w
This.
As a Democrat for 16 years (https://caucus99percent.com/content/i-feel-so-free-thank-you-hillary) I always saw the supposed left rolling over for the right wing agenda, ever since the Clintons took over the D party in the eighties.
As a progressive since 2016, having cleansed myself of the blue koolaid, I realize the two have been working in harmony that whole time, creating an illusion of rivalry for us serfs so we stay in our tribal territories and never talk over the fence or worse, leave to find new territory or create a new tribe or tribes. The only actual rivalry they have is who gets to sit at the Right Hand of Corporate America and who has to play controlled opposition.
Which is why I do laugh at people here opining over "progressives" and "socialists" and "the left" when they're talking establishment Democrats. Because the Democrats are none of those things. I am, and though I disagree with right wing conservatives on many issues, I agree on the really big things like free speech and informed consent, and even when deep in the blue wing of the uniparty cult, hating and fearing those in the red wing, I never supported forcibly silencing anyone because you can't have a free society if only the "correct" views are to be permitted expression. Because too many things historically labelled criminal wrong thought turned out to be right, and even conservatives I deeply disagree with in most cases on WotB have offered things of value at times.
Who the Hell want to live in a society of inbred ideas, be those ideas progressive or conservative? Even if you never agree with the other side, without a robust public discussion how would you even know why you reject those views?
Btw, Renacci in Ohio has introduced legislation to ban vax mandates for school, employment,etc. He will probably be the first R vote I ever cast in my life.
Social media will still be a malignant cancer. But Twitter may be more benign of Elon takes the reins. I had considered rejoining if he wins the bid, but then my common sense took control. No.
I continue to be skeptical about Musk. I just saw a video that Tesla is working on “printing” mRNA vaccines … for all. It was a promotional video. And he suddenly changed his position on the cvd vx this year. It’s very suspicious. Further, the cruel experimentation done on primates and pigs for his neurallink has to make you think that there is no capacity for human feeling in this, which may be the goal - no human feeling … no feelings at all? From what I gather, it is one of the goals of transhumanism to eliminate those pesky unpredictable feelings, at least of the plebs.
Yes. I wrote an article on my Substack about how Elon Musk was on the Joe Eogan podcast
talking about the elimination of human language in 5-10 years.
It’s not happening. But... 👀
I don’t care who owns it, as long as I can get my tickets for El Gato Strikes Back.
Show me a billionaire who doesn’t consider himself above the law…
And I’ll show you a mirage.
Show me a politician who doesn't consider himself above the law.
How many innocent women and children has Musk incinerated in the MENA with drone strikes?
Let's try to keep things in perspective and remember who the real enemy is, shall we?
I only wish I had a full understanding of who the enemy actually is and what all their labyrinthine schemes.
The enemy is the State, and all who support and benefit from it at the expense of the rest of us.
All its labyrinthine schemes can be understood via the ancient question succinctly posed by the Romans:
Cui bono?
"It is the state that is robbing all classes, rich and poor, black and white, worker and businessman alike; it is the state that is ripping us all off; it is the state that is the common enemy of mankind."
~ Murray Rothbard
If the enemy is the state and all who support and benefit from it at the expense of the rest of us, how does this not include Elon and the tax subsidies that we pay so that the wealthy can drive their Tesla’s and get a massive kickback?
I see where you answered my question below.
The state is operating at the will of the wealthy and unaccountable corporations who pay them. Basically, the capitalists bought the state apparatus long ago, starting with the regulatory agencies, and recreated the rules so they could get away with anything up to and including mass murder. That's why they can get away with bringing products to market that they know will kill people and why our supposed protectors dont care. Profit-making Uber Alles is woven into every aspect of our public institutions including those laughably referred to as "socialist" (I went to uni and there was nothing socialist about it--everything catered to the importance of making profit, starting with the exorbitant tuition and fees, which largely funded only the sports and economics departments, while all else was left to crumble).
The only thing that's helped is the handful of state actors who aren't having it--like the judge who forced the FDA to release the damning Pfizer docs and rejected that 75 year plan. That the rich haven't entirely bought out every level of the state is the only thing that gives came any hope at all that we, the people, despite our differences, can change anything.
There's a word for the merger of state and corporation, and it ain't "socialism".
The parasitical symbiotic relationship between the State and big business is not capitalism and did not arise from capitalists, but from progressives.
Murray Rothbard, in his book *The Progressive Era*, explains how this occurred in extensive detail.
In short, for decades large businesses, particularly railroads, had attempted to create private cartels that would fix prices at a level higher than would occur with open competition.
Time after time, however, one or more cartel members would surreptitiously lower prices and increase market share and the cartel would be broken.
Unfortunately for us, when the progressives rose to power, big business saw the opportunity to use the State to create a legally enforced cartel, and shortly thereafter, regulatory regimes that created barriers to entry, thus limiting competition from pesky startups.
Progressives, being just another flavor of collectivist, were more than happy to oblige as it perfectly dovetailed with their ideology of centralized control of society and economy.
Future historians may conclude, as I have, that the beginning of the end of American liberty and prosperity began in 1913, when progressives imposed the income tax and established the Federal Reserve, the two greatest engines of mass theft in the history of the world.
The most amusing thing about progressives is that everything they wail and gnash about is the inevitable, and rather obvious, result of their own ideological imperative of creating an omnipotent State.
And, speaking of mass murder by corporations, leftists of one flavor or another slaughtered some 200 million souls just in the last century or so.
I daresay that all of the "mass murders" by corporations and religions combined would constitute a good afternoon's wet work by leftists such as Mao, Stalin and Hitler.
Finally, the merger of State and corporation we currently enjoy is absolutely a form of socialism. Mussolini and Hitler were both self-declared socialists and the acronym NAZI stands for the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
The idea that fascism is not a form of socialism, and instead is some sort of "right wing" ideology is perhaps the most laughably preposterous gaslighting attempt by the left of all time, and that is saying something.
"We are socialists because we see in socialism, that is the union of all citizens, the only chance to maintain our racial inheritance and to regain our political freedom and renew our German state."
~ Joseph Goebbels, 1933
We can only become truly civilized when all forms of collectivism share the same stigma as national socialism.
I dont know where that idiot gets his ideas,but neither I nor any other progressive I have ever known favors centralized everything. What you dictate is not even remotely associated with our "ideology". Literally the only people I have ever seen who support anything like that are capitalists who have no problem with monopolies or civil rights violation as long as they're "private companies" and are just fine with vax mandates if the "private" company "chooses" to force it. This sounds like the usual convoluted attempt if a hardline capitalist "no regulations for the rich" libertarian trying to paint anything that contradicts total wild west economics as the "communist" devil.
Literally talking about rich assholes accumulating masses of wealth based on an anti-regulation " free market" ideology then purchasing the entire state to centralize and enforce their own power and you actually think progressives, who have been at the forefront of fighting absolute centralized control whether state or private and who have never been "in power" anywhere unless you count corporatists co-opting the term after it became popular, are
I think you have " progressives" confused with "communists" or "fascists" (as Mussolini stated, fascism is the merger of corporation and state", the direct opposite of the values espoused by literally every progressive I have ever known.
But typical libertarian capitalist, when something works, its always capitalism and when it fails, it's always socialism,even as they watch capitalism implode around them.
Let anarchy roll then, I guess.
Yes.
"To the average American or Englishman the very name of anarchy causes a shudder, because it invariably conjures up a picture of a land terrorized by low-browed assassins with matted beards, carrying bombs in one hand and mugs of beer in the other. But as a matter of fact, there is no reason whatever to believe that, if all laws were abolished tomorrow, such swine would survive the day. They are incompetents under our present paternalism and they would be incompetents under Dionysian anarchy. The only difference between the two states is that the former, by its laws, protects men of this sort, whereas the latter would work their speedy annihilation."
~ H.L. Mencken, "Friedrich Nietsche", 1913; Transaction Publishers edition, 1993, pp. 196-197
Ok, so you want anarchy.
I don’t.
Or engineers and assembly line workers at (take your pick of defense contractor). And gun manufacturers are responsible for Chicago's murder rate. The big three auto manufactureres are responsible for thousands of deaths caused by drunk drivers every year.