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PayPal Has Been Talking With Amazon on Payments, CEO Says (bloomberg.com)
A new feature could be coming to your Amazon checkout process. It's called PayPal. Amazon and PayPal are in talks about the possibility of the online retail giant supporting PayPal payments at checkout, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman said in an interview. While Schulman didn't say when -- or even if -- a deal might happen between the companies, he did tell Bloomberg that the companies are trying to determine how they can "use one another's assets to the mutual benefit" of their customers. From the report:"We're closing in on 200 million users on our platform right now. At that scale, it's hard for any retailer to think about not accepting PayPal," Schulman said.
So, PayPal will take a fee on the payment, and then the credit card in my PayPal profile will take another one. Can we make it even more complicated, please?
Did they magically become a cheaper credit card processor than the big three?
Amazon already handles payments for people who sell on Amazon. I can even make donations to third parties who participate in Amazon's services. Why would they want to accept Paypal too, unless just to allow people to spend their Paypal balance which they are foolish enough to keep at Paypal?
12:50 - press return.
From my eBay and paypal experience as a seller: buyer contests transaction, they loose on eBay side, but paypal sides with the buyer, you loose product and money. Google for issues people have with paypal/check consumeraffairs.com. Add this them as a payment to Amazon and I am gone from that market place.
I closed my PayPal account two years ago because I refuse their terms and conditions; which they updated all the fucking time and I have better shit to do than read dozens of pages - much of it the same shit - every goddamn time these assholes want to change shit. And it's ALWAYS to their benefit and fucks us over.
Cocksuckers.
And if Amazon does something stupid like uses them exclusively for payment, they can kiss my business goodbye.
"In talks" is such a hackneyed phrase. Are these people actually sitting down in one big room somewhere to negotiate a business deal? It seems like the old cliche gets trotted out whenever huge corporations with tons of money cooperate in any way. Sure man, "in talks" like I was "in talks" with my buddies about where to grab pizza later tonight. Oh sorry, our negotiation and compromise don't count unless we're billionaires. Take your bullshit phrase and shove it back up your ass please.
amazon should mediate between the reseller and the customer. Why should it be the resellers risk, what payment methods the marketplace offers?
I dont use paypal. Similarly,should amazon start using paypal for transaction processing... goodbye amazon. Doubtful such a complete implementation would ever occur though, as payl cant offer a more reduced processing fee percentage than amazon can get on its on directly from the card issuers.
"We're closing in on 200 million users on our platform right now. At that scale, it's hard for any retailer to think about not accepting PayPal," Schulman said.
Actually, it's quite easy to think about not accepting PayPal, once you realize that the number of people who use PayPal exclusively are likely a fraction of a fraction of a percent of that 200 million. Or put another way, how many of those 200 million are thinking "gee, if only Amazon accepted PayPal, then I'd shop there".
If you process less than $300/month, Paypal probably makes sense. You don't want to pay $35/month plus a percentage for a merchant account at that level.
If you process $3,000 / month, a merchant account makes sense.
If you're Amazon and you do $8 billion / month, you negotiate. Normal published fees don't apply. Buying a merchant bank might make sense.
Square fits in their somewhere, as does CCBill. It all depends on what you do and how much you do.
I know that we spend a little over 15% in fees and dishonest chargebacks when customers pay with PayPal. That's almost four times what taking a Visa or MasterCard costs for no gain. We're in Seattle so maybe the difference wouldn't be as great for somewhere with cheap labor since hassling with PayPal takes so much time each day versus only about seventy hours a month total for credit card transactions. The labor requirements at Amazon would just be massive to take PayPal.
...determine how they can "use one another's assets to their mutual benefit"
-ftfy
I would love to be able to just pay via my bank account instead of paying with the credit card and then repay it immediately.
...and competing with PayPal and possibly some smaller countries' national currencies.
There isn't much they don't sell so if you decided to accept Amazonians instead of Dollars for something, it's almost like it's not even a barter, but an actual usable currency.
Paypal needs Amazon a hell of a lot more than Amazon needs Paypal.
I've never wished on the Amazon checkout that they had a Paypal option.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Here's the simple answer. Paypall has bought their way out of having to comply with banking laws. Amazon has a lot of disputes, and they're trying to get away from credit card processors so they can keep your payment while you dispute, instead of the processor taking the money back. Paypall, being inherently evil, steals your money. Now, when there's a dispute between two paypal customers, they just steal the money, and might give it back to the aggrieved party eventually. With amazon, of course, they won't do that; for a cut, they'll let Amazon keep the money when you get ripped off, and maybe, perhaps, pay you back eventually
Paypall is as evil as the banks, perhaps more so, but without any consumer protection regulation.
"I am not American (neither I am living in the USA),"
Then feel free to STFU.
What does it mean to compete with smaller countries' national currencies? How would they do that? Would that mean when I buy from my local South African store something here I would use Amazon Dollars? Really? And the people and govt here would allow it? And why would it want to do it?
Then feel free to STFU.
So, cannot I have an opinion then? Cannot I talk to the USA citizens? Not even required: I can talk to everyone else around the USA/Trump.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
For some of us, everything he has been doing is beneficial. We are "fighting against stupidity." That stupidity just happens to be on your end. Now kindly stop spamming threads with your nonsense and hate.
I have had a few dozen PayPal accounts over the years, a few that were placed in forever limbo-land by PayPal and I'm sure are still counted though they can never be used.
I can't remember the last time I bothered using PayPal, they make life more difficult and provide zero advantages for the risk they'll put my money in 180 day purgatory for reasons they won't discuss. I prefer dealing with banks, at least until the current Congress succeeds in rolling back consumer protections.
Amazon's payment system is universal. PayPal functions differently in different countries Visa card in the U.K., uses a Visa card pop-up security message with PayPal, it would ask you a question like what is the fifth letter in your password what is the second letter in your password what is the seventh letter in your password. If you make 3 mistakes which is more than likely your Internet shopping capabilities will be suspended you will not be able to do any shopping even grocery shopping on the Internet without contacting your bank, security department for them to unlock your ability to shop online using your credit card or debit card.
The elderly and partially sighted under the discrimination laws can have the security pop-up message automatically answered as correct with shopping for groceries at Tesco's for example. PayPal with its pop-up Visa card security messages would have too many peoples accounts locked.
Amazon does not have pop-up Visa card security messages.
It is far too complicated for people to remember what their fifth letter is and what their third letter is and so on in their password. People remember their passwords from beginning to end the same as they remember their telephone number from beginning to end. The elderly and the partially sighted cannot cope with what is your fifth letter in your password what is the fourth letter in your password and what is the first letter in your password and so on.
The trouble I have had with banking companies over this problem especially with Santander. You have to listen to music for ages before you get through to security you have to get the elderly person to sit beside you they then have to answer security questions they then have to give you permission to listen to the conversation and then give you permission to act on their behalf to unlock the credit card or debit card.
Unless things have changed with PayPal what a fucking nightmare. Thank God for Amazon payment system.
The elderly and the end of life's are not feeling too great at the best of times and to have their Visa card, or credit card locked is just too much for them to cope with. The elderly and people coming to the end of life shop like crazy for some reason. They purchase things they do not need from shopping channels, from Amazon, from all types of places. They get very upset! when Visa card locks their card. they cry to people like me and it has nothing to do with me.. I am fucking sick of PayPal.. And fuck you Santander fuck you very much. they had me going for two days to reactivate a end of lifes persons card bastards.
stop spamming threads with your nonsense and hate
Sharing my honest concerns and asking for resistance is spamming and being hateful? This is certainly off-topic (and I do re-apologise about it), but I have written it right now after knowing about Slim's offer and I am posting it only once, here.
For some of us, everything he has been doing is beneficial.
I am not complaining about the results, but about the means. Do you consider that he has been acting right? That his behaviour so far is acceptable? This is how the POTUS should behave? The kind of image that you, as an American, want to represent you and your country? A pushy person arbitrarily imposing whatever to whomever? Do you think that this the best medium-term policy for your interests? Then, ignore my call, but some other people might like it :)
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Paypal has made it clear to merchants that it is Paypal's policy to be worse for merchants to work with than the credit card industry. Their only assets have been they are more convenient for small websites to use than a credit card processor and consumer trust of using Paypal over providing a small website their credit card details.
However, Amazon doesn't need the benefit of any of these assets. They already have direct credit card processing working and have been able to gain consumer trust. Also, why would an Amazon customer that has already trusted Amazon with their credit card details directly want to later go through Paypal? It is not like using Paypal will then hide the credit card details which have already been provided to Amazon.
Paypal selected policies to be an eBay-first company and to lock out anyone that was considered competitors of eBay including Amazon. They shouldn't expect the bridges they burned to suddenly reappear. Paypal for Amazon benefits no one other than Paypal.
The kind of image that you, as an American, want to represent you and your country? A pushy person arbitrarily imposing whatever to whomever?
Well yes we were treated as being that way with Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush again, Reagan, and so on. If we must suffer the consequences, might as well get the benefits of the actual act.
We are the only superpower after all and the only heavily militaristic country in history that has had an overwhelming advantage yet has not tried to annex every spit of land they can grasp yet still called warmongers. I think it's time we stop spending on other nations and start taking care of ourselves if we are so unappreciated. The rest of the world might have to finally take responsibility for themselves. I know that is not in your best interests. You would rather keep the US spending and in a trade deficit, but some of us are not falling for your scams anymore.
Because no pay pal.
Fuck that.
As an Amazon Prime member I now get 5% cash back on my shiny new aluminum Amazon Prime Rewards Signature Visa credit card for eligible purchases on Amazon.com. If I used that card anywhere else, which I don't, I'd get 2% or 1% back, depending on where I used it. What does PayPal offer other than funneling more money from the retailer to more corporations in the form of processing fees?
--- Keep the choice with the user..
What does it mean to compete with smaller countries' national currencies? How would they do that? Would that mean when I buy from my local South African store something here I would use Amazon Dollars? Really?
That's exactly what it means, people start using Amazon dollars instead of [small country money].
And the people and govt here would allow it? And why would it want to do it?
Because the government barely can manage a currency, don't move quickly enough to outlaw it, or just don't care. Why would you want to do it? Because you can put Amazon money in a bank and not worry about 20% inflation the next year. Things like that.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Well yes we were treated as being that way with Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush again, Reagan, and so on.s
I don't recall any of these presidents (or any other president ever) threatening (with taxes, walls, etc.) companies, countries and media so openly and systematically.
ourselves if we are so unappreciated. The rest of the world might have to finally take responsibility for themselves
I think that quite a few people in places like the Middle East would be very happy if the USA decided to apply these ideas on the military front; not likely to happen though.
In any case, we currently have the small issue of the globalised economy; for example, your Lehman Brothers bankruptcy provoked problems everywhere. Now, everything affects everyone everywhere and a so big player going autarkic would cause lots of trouble, also to yourself; although this is certainly your decision (and your error). The whole point of my post was asking for resistance against the aforementioned pushy ways.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Have you ever thought that the 95% of the world who isn't living in the USA are past "Peak Trump" and really don't want to hear shit about him any more? The guy flip-flops all the time, so any coherent discussion is impossible from the get-go anyway, so we don't want to encounter your publicity for his shitty reality show. And that if you believe everything he says, you need to seek help?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I don't recall any of these presidents (or any other president ever) threatening (with taxes, walls, etc.) companies, countries and media so openly and systematically.
Then you weren't paying attention. Perhaps you are too young to have been listening to the news of embargoes, taxes, and so on.
Isn't asking resistance against anything the same pushy ways? Of course it is, you are asking for a foreign government to favor you against its own people. You are of the same mindset as Trump wanting Mexico to pay for a wall except you think that behavior is good when it favors you.
The recent hour of hate against der fuher Trump is because he isn't flop-flopping and doing precisely what he said he was going to do. Right now it's just like AmiMoJo calling for the UK, his own country, to be hit with sanctions and penalties just to ensure that he was right about brexit being a bad idea. Some people just want to watch the world burn instead of being proven wrong. They would rather people suffer with malice instead of realizing people with differing opinions might get the opportunity to prove themselves.
The Republicans did it to Obama by blocking the campaign promise of closing Guantanamo Bay and the Democrats are doing it now with literally every campaign promise. Except the past administration with his "I have a pen and a phone" has given justification to the idea that the president can do whatever he wants.
Personally I hope for the best and plan for every scenario. Whomever might be in power, take advantage of opportunities presented and mitigate risks incurred. Hedging isn't just for your investment portfolio.
Why would any company that give half a crap about customer satisfaction do any deal with Paypal. My rule for paypal has been (when advising clients) is that you use paypal because your bank hates you and other services don't yet trust you. But as soon as you establish a good revenue stream and can show that you are real, dump paypal like the turd it is.
And that if you believe everything he says, you need to seek help?
As what usually happens with fanatics, you don't understand things as they are meant (but as your needy requirements expect them to be). Believe what? I will do a quick summary for you (and other people with limited understanding capabilities): Trump is acting as a bully with everyone, by bluffing and threatening everyone; the ones obeying his bluffs right away (unfortunately, quite a few people) are the ones believing anything. All what I said was that nobody should fall for that and waiting for the actual actions to come (what will never happen). Lastly, another personal observation: lots of people have told you to seek for help, right? (Ironic, don't you think).
publicity for his shitty reality show
?! Sharing my opinion about something which concerns me is giving publicity to that person?!
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
The recent hour of hate against
If this is for me?! I don't feel hate (not now, not never or virtually never); isn't that clear in my profile bio? I am an extremely practical person (although quite passionate some times, usually with what really matters) who always accepts the reality as it is and adapts his behaviour accordingly. I never liked Trump and did expect problems since his election, but mostly secondary ones or eventually a recession (perhaps because of not being too used to how a presidential system really works). In fact, right after his win I wrote a post here against a fearful person trying to extend ignorance-based fear, because I think that (unmotivated) fear is the root of all what goes wrong everywhere (including Trump's election). I am a very patient person who will never support any kind fear-/hate-/ignorance-based whatever, but things are clearly going in a direction which is bad to everyone. Nobody is used to deal with someone like Trump in certain areas and some people don't seem to be aware of it.
Certain positions (like being the POTUS) are usually associated with a given set of positive prejudices, what makes his decisions to be almost immediately accepted (e.g., what a not-knowledgeable person does with the decisions of an expert in the given field). The problem now is that all this system doesn't work anymore. Trump is an outsider to all these positive prejudices and the (internal and external) system doesn't seem to be adapting to this reality as it should. In fact, this outsider seems to be somehow changing how the system is supposed to work. The reason why I wrote the first comment was knowing about the Slim's proposal (a billionaire offering himself to intercede for a country!!), because I understood it as a new peak in this weird direction.
want to watch the world burn instead of being proven wrong
One new quote (quite a few already, wow!) completely misunderstanding my intention and the meaning of my words?! Seriously, properly-understanding Slashdoters could you please participate in this discussion? So, I want to watch the world burn?! I see the president of the biggest economy in the world tweeting arbitrary orders to everyone (persons, companies and even countries), I call this behaviour out and that makes me to want the world burn? You mean that I was expecting Trump to be respectful to everyone and to follow the rules everywhere, his behaviour has proven me wrong and that makes me angry?! Could you please make a tiny effort to confirm that the generic sentences you use to define me are even slightly applicable to the specific situation?
Let me use a more graphic example. This is like a poker player entering in a top scientific research facility and starting using his "knowledge" with the PhDs working there. Even though they might be more knowledgeable, rational and their positions should eventually prevail, the poker player might get some starting advantage because of dealing with people who aren't used to his behaviour. That starting advantage might mean a lot and this is the whole point of my post: be aware that this person behaves differently. Your usual approaches don't work here, adapt yourself to the new rules which aren't that difficult. Is this idea clear to everyone? Excellent. Someone finds any of this helpful? Excellent too. Quite easy to understand isn't? Where is exactly the hate, the world burning, the lack of acceptation of reality, etc. in my intention? Because I used expressions like "dumb bully" and this is a hate-speech sample which invalidates everything else I wrote or what?
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Perhaps you are too young
This is very relative. I am too young for the Cuban missile crisis, but certainly not for the Iraq war. Additionally, I have rarely been too interested in politics (not even now). But I don't think that anything of this is relevant as far as the differences between now and always seem quite clear to me. One thing is being secretly pushy via diplomatic or even sneaky/illegal means for months and even years to impose your position; and a quite different story is giving orders openly, publicly and almost randomly up to the point of making a billionaire to feel like offering his help to negotiate in the name of a country.
Is the financial power controlling the world? No doubt on that. Actually, they are the only ones interested in controlling it. Have certain countries (like USA) a quite aggressive exterior policy, what ultimately provokes their decisions to affect other countries, companies or media? Again, no doubt on that. But the fact that all this is the reality doesn't make it an ideal reality. Don't facilitate all this crap. If they want to sneakily do whatever they want, make the process as difficult and dirty as possible. Would Slim be one of the persons (or perhaps the only one) talking to Trump to decide what to do on the wall front (= the compromise allowing both parties to not completely lose with such a stupid nonsense) anyway? OK. But don't support the already-corrupt system by allowing corruption and sneaky deals to be normalised, public and open.
Isn't asking resistance against anything the same pushy ways?
The first difference is that I am nobody whose opinion is exclusively based on reason, fairness and good-to-everyone goals. I am not imposing anything on anyone because I cannot (and wouldn't do it even in case of being in such a position). Additionally, resistance means reaction (= an action had already occurred), is a passive way to protect your interests against those trying damage them. Pushy is the starting action, not the resisting force.
Of course it is, you are asking for a foreign government to favor you against its own people.
Favor me, how exactly? By modding my comments here up? This is too much power even for the POTUS, LOL. No, I am not asking for anything; I am plainly sharing what I am seeing which might eventually be helpful to someone thinking like me who hasn't realised about it yet (again: I am mostly concerned about the means, about the general rules being jeopardised). If you mean this because of my aforementioned reference to autarky, perhaps I wasn't clear enough. Note that the bigger the economy the bigger the impact of such a policy everywhere. If other countries have problems, the USA would also have problems (your companies are the most globalised ones). My concerns aren't egoist about my country/situation, but about everyone losing. In fact, I don't think that there is a real risk on this front (Trump and his friends would lose a lot with it). Out of all the empty promises made by Trump, these are the emptiest ones. This was a pretty irrelevant remark. As said, I am mostly concerned about this new way of being pushy.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
You're giving shit advice. Paypal takes a smaller slice than credit card processors, and many shoppers look specifically for etailers who support paypal because they (we, actually) know that they are competent. Most small sites have horrible payment handling and I'd rather just use paypal. You're actively telling people to leave money on the table for someone else to take.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Simple rule of thumb: If something is great for corporate profits, then it is almost never good for the public.
Corporations in no way serve public interest; they serve their 1% elite investment masters. If they really were people, we'd lock them up as dangerous sociopaths.
Why do I say this? Paypal and Amazon alone are already some of the most evil corporations out there. Makes me ill to my stomach to see them uniting to boost profits and increase the fees you pay for goods and streamline the data harvesting and public profiling profit centers they operate as side businesses.
The phrase from the summary: >> they can "use one another's assets to the mutual benefit" of their customers. is Orwelian doublethink / double speak.
And yet Trump HAS flip-flopped - a LOT - in his first week. The CIA are lying - the CIA are great. We'll build a wall and the Mexicans will pay for it - We'll build and pay for a wall, and get the money back from the Mexicans (somehow or other). Hillary Clinton is a crook - Standing ovation for Hillary Clinton. We're going to kick out all illegals - We're going to kick out all illegals who are criminals (far from the same thing). The ACA needs to go - Some parts of the ACA probably need to be preserved. And there's more.
Trump's policies are like a bus - wait 15 minutes, another one will come along. And this is like EVERY SINGLE PRESIDENT before. Not one of them has been 100% steadfast in their policies. It's part of the job - just that it's now much more transparent.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
As a way to somehow (but not completely because I still think that you shouldn't have criticised me so blindly) apologise for the too-hard-tone of my previous message, I recommend you to take a look at his last ban of refugees.
It is easy to forget (I kind of did) that the USA is a presidential system, where the president can do quite a few things. Trump is using such a power already and, what is much worse, is starting to change the way in which everything is supposed to work (I wrote some ideas in other comments in this thread that you might want to read).
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
So what if Trump is acting like a bully? He's only doing openly what past presidents have done, perhaps with a bit less tact. Bullies lie. Clinton, with her "public vs private stance" was also a bully - look at her war hawk stance that has led to how many deaths in the middle east because of her screw ups?
The people who fall for bluster are the ones who are responsible for their own stupidity. Nothing anyone else can say or do will change that - and believing otherwise is equally stupid.
The sky is not falling - at least not any more or less than it has under previous administrations. Look at the whole fake Missile Gap under Kennedy, which as Senator Kennedy he pushed for political motives - he wanted to get elected and the truth was collateral damage, sacrificed for the win.
His push to get ahead of the non-threat of a massive fleet of non-existent nuclear-tipped Soviet ICBMs was what destabilized the world since WW2. The Russians had no choice except to start building the very fleet that Kennedy claimed to be worried about - and to make it appear in a very public fashion that they were trigger-happy.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
So he banned refugees from 7 Muslim countries, and that is supposed to raise alarms, when various European and Asian countries have done far worse? Japan rejects more than 99% of all refugee applicants, and nobody is getting their panties in a knot except the UN, and Japan told them to go suck an egg.
The numbers for 2015: Out of 7,586 refugee applicants from all over the world (not just the Middle East), they accepted 27. That's one out of every 280. The prime minister has told the UN that henceforth he will not accept ANY Syrian refugees - he needs to boost his own country's work force first.
Asked by reporters at the UN General Assembly last September whether Japan would join other countries in accepting Syrian refugees, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe replied that his country needed to boost its own workforce first by empowering more women and older people to work.
"As an issue of demography, I would say that before accepting immigrants or refugees, we need to have more activities by women, by elderly people and we must raise [the] birthrate," he said, according to the official translation of his comments.
"There are many things that we should do before accepting immigrants."
Some problems are not fixable. What are you going to recommend doing when two billion people are going to be seeking refugee status because of over-population and war and famine and disease over the next 35 years? At some point you need to do triage.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
The people who fall for bluster are the ones who are responsible for their own stupidity
So, if you think that you can avoid a person to make a mistake, you wouldn't do it. You would let that person make the mistake and learn from the error? In principle, this seems an acceptable proceeding to me in quite a few scenarios; but when talking about potentially very serious global-scale problems, I do prefer to be in the safest side and warn, just in case.
The sky is not falling
Not saying the contrary. Just highlighting that everything is getting weird, what isn’t precisely ideal when talking about something which might potentially affect so many people. It seems like an excellent context to be over-cautious and warn ASAP. You know? All the serious problems which have ever happened started and grew inadvertently, while people was thinking that this wasn't that important! What is the worst thing which can happen to me? Being proven wrong? Too alarmist? OK, I can live with that. I am not planning to start a rampage against Trump by writing posts in all the Slashdot articles. This was a one-time thing. I might share my thoughts about all this at a different point, but "attention! Weird things ahead" posts like this one aren't likely to be repeated again.
His push to get ahead of the non-threat of...
As also said in one of my other comments, what is happening now isn't similar to anything what has happened before. Corruption, egoism, tricky deals, etc. have always existed (and will always exist), but never so openly. This was the whole point of my post: fighting against the normalisation or, at least, immediate acceptation of what isn't right.
I do re-apologise for being a bit too aggressive and re-invite you to read some of my others comments, because I will not be repeating everything here.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
- Green-card holders included in ban.
- Muslim travellers turned away from US after Donald Trump's ban as Google 'recalls overseas staff'.
- President Trump's Muslim ban excludes countries linked to his sprawling business empire.
- Donald Trump bans citizens of seven Muslim majority countries as visa-holding travellers are turned away from US borders.
- In Twitter, #muslimban has been quite active during the whole day (although its worldwide trend status is a bit unstable).
Without coming into the assessment of all this (including media coverage), my point is that things can happen very quickly and with the sole participation of Trump.
I have already written a lot (other comments in this thread) and think that my position is very clear. So, I hope that you will not mind me stopping the chat here.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
I wrote my answer below.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
(Apparently, the right indentation of nested Slashdot comments stops being applied at some point. I didn't know about that because this is my “deepest” Slashdot conversation ever. LOL.)
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
(Better: the negative right indentation or positive left indentation or indentation towards right)
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
You can't convince someone who has an irrational belief by using common sense. It's just a waste of time. Applies both to the Clinton and Trump camps, who seem more fixated on destroying each other than in trying to do anything constructive. They will have to convince themselves - from the school of hard knocks. You or me trying to beat them with a clue-by-four will just make them more stubborn.
The next 2 decades are going to be awesome (probably awesomely horrible ... or worse ... but it will be what it will be). :-)
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
but it will be what it will be
Certainly, but there are some things which can be changed. For example, if a meteorite will hit the Earth in 10 years and kill half of the population no matter what anyone does. Better not knowing about it or trying to just ignore a so inevitable destiny and living happy lives. What Trump (or any other person) can do is perfectly avoidable. I don't need to convince or reason with Trump, because he has some power but not all the power.
People have much more power than what Trump or any other person will ever have. Not just citizens in the USA, but also in any other country who, through their representatives, might avoid Trump doing what he shouldn't. My comments can be a small (insignificant) contribution, but might also be helpful.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
The election is over, so Trump will do what he wants, doesn't matter how many protests, how many negative news stories there are. And logic, or even enlightened self-interest, doesn't work either.
Also, some of the things Trump is doing need doing. For example, even if it costs consumers more, manufacturing (even automated manufacturing) needs to be brought back on-shore, or when it comes to a pissing contest, China can just stop shipping critical components (or even just threaten to) and crater the American and global economies as well as make it impossible to maintain existing infrastructure.
Russia isn't the big threat now - it's China, and they're feeling their oats over Taiwan and, indirectly, Japan, plus the rest of Asia. Either those two countries get nukes and delivery systems or they're goners.
MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) works. Right now the Russians have an advantage - they could take over NATO members Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia in less than 60 hours (RAND Corporation report) and there's nothing NATO can do about it - but Putin doesn't. He knows the end result will be nuking the Kremlin. Russia has sufficient land that there's no population pressure - whereas China is severely over-populated, and losing a chunk of the population would almost be an acceptable trade-off ... indeed, if it gave them territory to expand into, it would be seen as more than worth it if push comes to shove.
China wants to expand - into Asia, and into Africa. Not just economically either.
But neither of us is going to be able to do anything about any of this. Even if we were to produce a mathematically 100% provable solution to all the world's problems, it won't change anything. You'd need to change people - and unfortunately, only they can change themselves. So it's a waste of time, mental masturbation exercise, whatever, but nothing either of us says will have any effect.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
but nothing either of us says will have any effect.
Only small drops in the sea, no doubt on that. But thanks to internet, it is possible to create something very big from small drops easily and quickly. The problem is different than ever before, but also the weapons to fight it. I am sure that public opinion (in the USA and worldwide), social media, citizen actions, etc. will have a very important effect on the way in which this whole Trump situation will evolve.
As said, I think that we should better stop the chat because our positions are very clear and no (further) agreement seems possible. It was nice.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
What a bunch of horsepucky. The Internet has enabled slacktivism - but that in turn is a failure. Look at the failures of the Internet-enabled Arab Spring democracy uprisings as just one example. Egypt is once again a dictatorship. Libya? Syria? Yemen? Real beacons of democracy now, thanks to Internet protests - except they're all dangerous shitholes, not flourishing democracies.
Even the organizers of the 1% protests admit they failed. And online petitions are so ineffective (and such a pain in the ass when signing one gets you continually spammed about others) that they're just a distraction.
You want to change things, you've got to do stuff in the real world. Petitions to the courts against those you oppose, not petitions to those you oppose. Run for office, not beg favors from those in office, who have to think about their lobbyists. The Internet is a failure when it comes to effecting social change. It still has to happen in real life. Court judgments, not the judgment of faceless people on the internet, change things. One or two people going to court can effect more change than 1 billion signatures on 1 million petitions.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
PayPal is still suffering from the reputational problems that came with the inevitable mistakes accompanying its pioneering role in the payments space, but it seems to have stabilized as well as any of the other payment processors that you've never heard of used by huge numbers of eCommerce sites. I still wouldn't let them hold my money interest-free, and I don't like anyone storing my credit card numbers (including Amazon). But PayPal has a security feature that nobody other than hardcore financial institutions do, namely the use of out-of-band one-time security codes for payment confirmation.
Anyone who's been keeping up with security technology knows that passwords are stupid these days - they're easily harvested by fake websites and lost to criminal hackers regularly. Amazon needs to get rid of passwords, even if they impair the frictionless "don't think, buy now!" experience. Interfacing between websites and old-timey phone technology like SMS text messages is practically a black art anymore - most people can't imagine how complicated it is behind the scenes. Using PayPal might well get them there faster and quicker, and with years of experience driving out bugs and attack-proofing, than trying to create their own system from scratch.
Taxation without representation is tyranny! Statehood for DC, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands & Pacific Territories!
All my calls to resistance in this set of comments were meant to be based upon honesty and good-for-everyone basic principles. Becoming a bully as a way to fight a bully back is a tremendously bad idea. Any version of fanaticism, blind/hateful group-thinking, unfair/invasive/pushy actions (even by being reactions to a previous one) is equally bad.
I have seen quite a few attacks against Trump and their supporters on those lines, which are plainly helping them (an overall dishonest opposition was IMHO the main reason why Trump got elected). Nobody likes dishonesty/unfairness, not even the most dishonest/unfair people. There are lots of reasonable, fair and honest reasons to be against Trump. All the impatient, misinterpretation-based, dishonest actions against Trump give him and his supporters all what they need: new excuses to justify their otherwise-unjustifiable actions for a bit longer. They feed from the most basic fears (e.g., bad people = those lying), proven in the most basic and childish ways. And what is the point of bringing attacks to a personal level? This is the bulliest behaviour ever! Why don't you just focus on attacking his actions, motivations, expectations, etc.? What is the point of criticising anything else?
Don't feed the bullies! Don't be a bully yourself! Be fair and honest! Don't attack arbitrarily! Be rational and see it as a problem which has to be solved! Forget about irrational hates, make sure that each single lie around comes from them and then just be patient.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.