China has TONS of internal problems. They have 300 million "modern" people, and one freaking billion poor peasants that they're responsible for. They have a Communist system that we know for a fact fails. The only reason they held it together after Tiananmen is that the USA stupidly admitted them to the WTO, thinking that for some reason democracy would break out in China. China has zero tradition of democracy and has always been ruled by emperors or chaos. Unsurprisingly, it didn't happen.
The Communist Party is scared shitless of the people. If the people knew what had been done in their name, they would rise up overnight and kick the bastards out. There are tons of restrictions on public gatherings, surveillance everywhere, and no free speech. These are enormous problems that can never be solved, not without destroying the Party's rule.
Then there is China's horrible strategic situation. They are hemmed in by three rings of American defenses in the Pacific, hostile neighbors, and the vastness of Asia. Who cares if they dominate the South China Sea, it's their backyard, it's like complaining that the Americans dominate the Gulf of Mexico. The US Navy sits on the Strait of Malacca, China's jugular vein. Cut that and China is cut off from its sources of energy in the Middle East. One Belt One Road I hear someone say? It's 15 times more expensive to transport goods by land than by sea. They're doing OBOR because they literally have no other choice. Africa I hear someone else say? Again, no other choice. All the good spots in the world were taken long ago by the West. We're not in Africa because China forced us out, we're not in Africa because it's hopeless, you can't help them, their elites steal everything that's not nailed down and return with crowbars to steal the rest.
China is utterly dependent on foreign trade and American tariffs can really throw a monkey wrench into their plans. Besides, the tariffs are less about slowing China's rise than assisting America's re-rise. China would trade their honor students and their (poorly) speaking English population in a heartbeat for any other country's situation.
U kidding? They're going to protect their computer systems, unlike America who left critical systems that should have been air-gapped on the public internet. A little-known fact is that the Great Firewall isn't just for keeping Chinese from accessing foreign sites, it also does a great job of keeping snooping foreigners out of Chinese sites. China has a mostly safe, secure playground for its own people. Don't be absurd, they won't fall for the same mistakes their opponent stupidly committed.
This is being measured entirely by patents. This is the wrong metric to use, although I'm sure the usual suspects are creaming in their pants to see another "America is going to get it" article. They hate our guts and dream of the day we'll be humiliated. What can I say, we deserve it, we're horrible people. Patents in the USA, particularly regarding software, are total bullshit. They shouldn't even be granted, and when they are, they're either for totally obscure ideas or for ideas obvious to anyone in the art. Patents in China are bullshit too, they don't have anything to do with actual progress. Hey, who cares though, journalists aren't experts and they love to distill complex topics down to a single number that they mistakenly regard like a sports score.
Majority? America is a center-right country, always has been. The Left has seized the megaphone, and makes itself look bigger than it is. By considering your countrymen as enemies, you are wholeheartedly serving Putin's plan. You might as well sign up for payment, because doing that kind of job for free is for suckers.
There was a study that showed that Americans trust each other a lot more than Russians trust each other and that impedes Russian growth. The study is the basis for the Russian strategy now -- cripple the US by making them distrust each other as much as Russians do. It's a really good strategy. It'll work, and you're helping them. Good job, Ivan.
Look at their front page, it's all LGBTWTFOMGBBQ and Big Coal and Trump bashing. You could fill a "Progressive Bingo" card just by paging down a few times. Of course their internal narrative is they're the good guys fighting the power, man.
Well, it's certainly nice to see journalists standing up to little people and defending the intellectual property rights of the entertainment industry! Speak truth to the powerless! Let's see who this "The Outline" is:
The Outline is a new kind of publication for a new kind of human. We made this thing because we believe that the right story told in the right way can change someone's life. But telling the right stories for right now - and telling them in a way that's meaningful and modern - isn't going to happen by itself. We have to make it happen.
Our foundational reason for building The Outline is that we're really excited about putting something into the world that wasn't there before. Our coverage focuses on three topics that are increasingly converging in strange and important ways: power (who has it, who wants it, and what do they do when they get it?), culture (the way we live and communicate), and the future (where weâ(TM)re going next).
So, they tell themselves the comforting lie that they're edgy and on the side of the people...while cozying up to evil megacorporations. It's doublethink, the ability to hold two mutually contradictory thoughts at the same time without experiencing crippling cognitive dissonance. This talent is distressingly common among the chattering classes today.:( It used to be something rare and special, but now we see it all the time from publications that are supposed to know better.
Got news for ya: these "Western democracies" already filter the internet. An unfiltered internet is harmful and leads to negative outcomes. The Wise in the government know better than you and can make better decisions than you can. Best to let them decide.
The next time you call for bipartisan cooperation in America and long for Republicans and Democrats to work side by side, stop it.
The best way to understand politics in America today is to reframe it as closer to civil war.
Is it any wonder that Twitter bans so many conservatives? Their CEO considers them as enemies!
It's good that Trump has a way to bypass the media and talk directly to the people, though. Th media abuses their gatekeeper position to manipulate the news in a direction favorable for their political goals. It's so harmful to democracy to do that. I can't even believe we have a media with political goals, but here we are.:(
"Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. l could SMELL the Trump support."
"Yup. Out to lunch with --------. We both hate everyone and everything."
I want to be there and hate with you,
or charm you back to happy. Looked for the two trump yard signs I saw on the way out to take a picture, but couldn't see them
"Scratch an intellectual, and you find a would-be aristocrat who loathes the sight, the sound and the smell of common folk."
-- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
Yaknow, I get the idea you're so far to the left that anyone to the right of Mao Zedong looks like a fascist to you. Let's do a quick sanity check with a verifiable answer: is the New York Times a liberal newspaper? If you answer wrongly, we can safely discard your opinions.
BLM was cheered and we were told we needed to listen carefully to everything they said, and if they had to burn things down to get us to listen, then it was only justified. Come on, were you in a coma during their time in the spotlight? Saint Obama himself spread inflammation of racial tensions as he supported BLM, with racial relations sinking to lows we haven't seen in decades as whole cities from Baltimore to Ferguson burned.
What, so you can call me deplorable? No thanks. I don't want my skull caved in by a bike lock. Banish the identity politics and we might be able to talk - but I doubt it. There's just too much to lose, and the demonization of ordinary Americans for the crime of being ordinary has just gone too far. The tipping point was years ago. Remember that NASA scientist who got ripped a new asshole for wearing a shirt the Left didn't like? Who cared that he was announcing that humanity just landed on a comet? Get rid of that bullshit very loudly and publicly. Get rid of the Twitter CEO who endorses a cold civil war. Then we might be able to talk.
"Deleted". Sure. No, Facebook does not delete anything. There is just a flag that is set that says "don't show this to anyone but Facebook employees." All the data is still there and will never be removed. All your photos, all your facial recognition, your relationships with friends. It's still for sale as it ever was, and if you ever get politically active it will be used against you by our scary intelligence agencies.
Right wing identity politics! OMG the Left invented identity politics and used it as a club to beat the crap out of us. It worked, too. They encouraged the BLM riots and cheered as people were attacked and neighborhoods burned. They encourage and PAID thugs to attack Trump supporters at rallies. They celebrated paid goons and Antifa shutting down free speech. America is more divided than ever, and the Left is at the forefront of it all.
Vinyl is about the status conferred by being seen to use vinyl. It's not about the music or the technology. People, especially men, will go to great lengths to attain status. Buying vinyl is relatively mild.
Empty ideology? WTF? The NATO countries aren't spending enough and America contributes 75% of all spending. They're freeloading cheapskates. To say nothing of the $150 billion we pay them every year for the privilege of trading with them. It's high time this came to a screeching halt. We're done with defending the borders of other countries while leaving our own wide open.
Yes, because I should vote for a Left that is beyond convinced that we are greedy, racist, sexist, homophobe morons who hate science and love Hitler. All the leftist sects agree - they have found the revealed truth, and imposing it upon the benighted normals like us is so transcendently important that they are relieved of any moral limitations. They *hate* us. Look at Twitter. Look at Facebook. Twitter's CEO retweeted this article and commented "Great read".
The next time you call for bipartisan cooperation in America and long for Republicans and Democrats to work side by side, stop it.
The best way to understand politics in America today is to reframe it as closer to civil war.
If we ever voted you bastards in you'd use the power to put an end to us. No thanks, I prefer living in a free America, not Venezuela 2.0. Democrats have been in power for decades in places like Baltimore, Detroit, and San Francisco and have run them into the ground. Why would we want you to do this to all of America?
Then there is the hatred. It turns out berating a bunch of struggling, working class white families about their "white privilege" and then circling back around to mock them for being poor and uneducated isn't likely to get them to vote for you. Who could have known!
So, now that America is fucked, where will you be headed? You obviously can't participate in such a vile country. France? Canada? If you're a leftist you'll want to go to a country that shares your political views, like Bolivia, Venezuela, or Cuba. Wherever you end up, it will be better than shitty old slavery America. Good luck and bon voyage!
But it lacks prestige. Half the reason people go to Cannes is the status increase associated with being associated with Cannes. It ain't about the films. Netflix doesn't enhance status of anyone.
Negative. Only a few nations spend the minimum, Britain, Poland, Greece. The others free ride and spend the savings on their own people. Germany is at 1.2% and flat out refused to increase.
LOL bankruptcies happen all the time in business and they're nothing to be ashamed of. Slick Willie put the draft dodging thing to rest decades ago. We need to get out of the World Bully role, all it does is create enemies. Making profit for megacorps needs to come to an end.
Oh absolutely China considered itself a student. Economically. Confucianism, you know. One is either a teacher or a student. Right up until 2008. Now they feel they have something to teach us and we're the ones who need to listen. Everyone in the world could see that Clinton was the right choice and Trump was a joke candidate that got out of hand. Failing to have the proper safeguards in place to prevent the negative outcome made America a laughingstock. Sure Mueller will get Trump soon but having a Deep State operation take down an elected president is not a ringing endorsement for American democracy.
If the election had come out the correct way, Russia would have been utterly crushed by now and Putin would be hiding out like Khadaffy. China would be next. The TPP would have been signed and well on the way to implementing the first real transnational government, and would have finally superceded that boat anchor of a constitution. Immigration would be up to 4 million a year plus 11 millions amnestied and able to vote. America blew it.
The whole world is pointing to him as to (1) why democracy doesn't work and isn't the best system, and (2) avoid the American model, they can't even do it right themselves. Hell, China used to look up to America as a teacher - right up until the financial crisis. Now they think we're morons who could have easily avoided that outcome. Whoda thunk that Bill Clinton repealing Glass-Steagal would have ruined the economy in a decade? Everyone, including the Chinese.
The vaunted American system that Americans never shut up about was supposed to prevent populists and ensure the election of the most qualified candidates. We had an obvious populist against the most qualified candidate ever to run for office in US history, the entire media dropped their last pretense of objectivity to cheerlead for her, and the result sill came out wrong. China and the rest of the world noticed, bigtime.
Slashdot Mirror
China has TONS of internal problems. They have 300 million "modern" people, and one freaking billion poor peasants that they're responsible for. They have a Communist system that we know for a fact fails. The only reason they held it together after Tiananmen is that the USA stupidly admitted them to the WTO, thinking that for some reason democracy would break out in China. China has zero tradition of democracy and has always been ruled by emperors or chaos. Unsurprisingly, it didn't happen.
The Communist Party is scared shitless of the people. If the people knew what had been done in their name, they would rise up overnight and kick the bastards out. There are tons of restrictions on public gatherings, surveillance everywhere, and no free speech. These are enormous problems that can never be solved, not without destroying the Party's rule.
Then there is China's horrible strategic situation. They are hemmed in by three rings of American defenses in the Pacific, hostile neighbors, and the vastness of Asia. Who cares if they dominate the South China Sea, it's their backyard, it's like complaining that the Americans dominate the Gulf of Mexico. The US Navy sits on the Strait of Malacca, China's jugular vein. Cut that and China is cut off from its sources of energy in the Middle East. One Belt One Road I hear someone say? It's 15 times more expensive to transport goods by land than by sea. They're doing OBOR because they literally have no other choice. Africa I hear someone else say? Again, no other choice. All the good spots in the world were taken long ago by the West. We're not in Africa because China forced us out, we're not in Africa because it's hopeless, you can't help them, their elites steal everything that's not nailed down and return with crowbars to steal the rest.
China is utterly dependent on foreign trade and American tariffs can really throw a monkey wrench into their plans. Besides, the tariffs are less about slowing China's rise than assisting America's re-rise. China would trade their honor students and their (poorly) speaking English population in a heartbeat for any other country's situation.
U kidding? They're going to protect their computer systems, unlike America who left critical systems that should have been air-gapped on the public internet. A little-known fact is that the Great Firewall isn't just for keeping Chinese from accessing foreign sites, it also does a great job of keeping snooping foreigners out of Chinese sites. China has a mostly safe, secure playground for its own people. Don't be absurd, they won't fall for the same mistakes their opponent stupidly committed.
This is being measured entirely by patents. This is the wrong metric to use, although I'm sure the usual suspects are creaming in their pants to see another "America is going to get it" article. They hate our guts and dream of the day we'll be humiliated. What can I say, we deserve it, we're horrible people. Patents in the USA, particularly regarding software, are total bullshit. They shouldn't even be granted, and when they are, they're either for totally obscure ideas or for ideas obvious to anyone in the art. Patents in China are bullshit too, they don't have anything to do with actual progress. Hey, who cares though, journalists aren't experts and they love to distill complex topics down to a single number that they mistakenly regard like a sports score.
Majority? America is a center-right country, always has been. The Left has seized the megaphone, and makes itself look bigger than it is. By considering your countrymen as enemies, you are wholeheartedly serving Putin's plan. You might as well sign up for payment, because doing that kind of job for free is for suckers.
There was a study that showed that Americans trust each other a lot more than Russians trust each other and that impedes Russian growth. The study is the basis for the Russian strategy now -- cripple the US by making them distrust each other as much as Russians do. It's a really good strategy. It'll work, and you're helping them. Good job, Ivan.
Yeah, I thought you were far far left. Just about anyone not in your tiny world looks like a crazy wingnut to you.
"Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper? Of course it is." Source: New York Times.
Look at their front page, it's all LGBTWTFOMGBBQ and Big Coal and Trump bashing. You could fill a "Progressive Bingo" card just by paging down a few times. Of course their internal narrative is they're the good guys fighting the power, man.
So, they tell themselves the comforting lie that they're edgy and on the side of the people...while cozying up to evil megacorporations. It's doublethink, the ability to hold two mutually contradictory thoughts at the same time without experiencing crippling cognitive dissonance. This talent is distressingly common among the chattering classes today. :( It used to be something rare and special, but now we see it all the time from publications that are supposed to know better.
Got news for ya: these "Western democracies" already filter the internet. An unfiltered internet is harmful and leads to negative outcomes. The Wise in the government know better than you and can make better decisions than you can. Best to let them decide.
Is it any wonder that Twitter bans so many conservatives? Their CEO considers them as enemies!
It's good that Trump has a way to bypass the media and talk directly to the people, though. Th media abuses their gatekeeper position to manipulate the news in a direction favorable for their political goals. It's so harmful to democracy to do that. I can't even believe we have a media with political goals, but here we are. :(
"Scratch an intellectual, and you find a would-be aristocrat who loathes the sight, the sound and the smell of common folk."
-- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
Yaknow, I get the idea you're so far to the left that anyone to the right of Mao Zedong looks like a fascist to you. Let's do a quick sanity check with a verifiable answer: is the New York Times a liberal newspaper? If you answer wrongly, we can safely discard your opinions.
BLM was cheered and we were told we needed to listen carefully to everything they said, and if they had to burn things down to get us to listen, then it was only justified. Come on, were you in a coma during their time in the spotlight? Saint Obama himself spread inflammation of racial tensions as he supported BLM, with racial relations sinking to lows we haven't seen in decades as whole cities from Baltimore to Ferguson burned.
I bet this describes you to a T: Liberalism explained: "You think America's good? We've found something that's going to make you not believe that any longer."
What, so you can call me deplorable? No thanks. I don't want my skull caved in by a bike lock. Banish the identity politics and we might be able to talk - but I doubt it. There's just too much to lose, and the demonization of ordinary Americans for the crime of being ordinary has just gone too far. The tipping point was years ago. Remember that NASA scientist who got ripped a new asshole for wearing a shirt the Left didn't like? Who cared that he was announcing that humanity just landed on a comet? Get rid of that bullshit very loudly and publicly. Get rid of the Twitter CEO who endorses a cold civil war. Then we might be able to talk.
"Deleted". Sure. No, Facebook does not delete anything. There is just a flag that is set that says "don't show this to anyone but Facebook employees." All the data is still there and will never be removed. All your photos, all your facial recognition, your relationships with friends. It's still for sale as it ever was, and if you ever get politically active it will be used against you by our scary intelligence agencies.
The American right wing owns the media. OK. LOL! What, like the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, and all the rest? Those are all right wing? OK buddy, sure. I think you represent some kind of tiny splinter group that has zero traction. The Left is about sound economic policies? It's about borrow and spend to buy votes.
Right wing identity politics! OMG the Left invented identity politics and used it as a club to beat the crap out of us. It worked, too. They encouraged the BLM riots and cheered as people were attacked and neighborhoods burned. They encourage and PAID thugs to attack Trump supporters at rallies. They celebrated paid goons and Antifa shutting down free speech. America is more divided than ever, and the Left is at the forefront of it all.
Vinyl is about the status conferred by being seen to use vinyl. It's not about the music or the technology. People, especially men, will go to great lengths to attain status. Buying vinyl is relatively mild.
Empty ideology? WTF? The NATO countries aren't spending enough and America contributes 75% of all spending. They're freeloading cheapskates. To say nothing of the $150 billion we pay them every year for the privilege of trading with them. It's high time this came to a screeching halt. We're done with defending the borders of other countries while leaving our own wide open.
Yes, because I should vote for a Left that is beyond convinced that we are greedy, racist, sexist, homophobe morons who hate science and love Hitler. All the leftist sects agree - they have found the revealed truth, and imposing it upon the benighted normals like us is so transcendently important that they are relieved of any moral limitations. They *hate* us. Look at Twitter. Look at Facebook. Twitter's CEO retweeted this article and commented "Great read".
If we ever voted you bastards in you'd use the power to put an end to us. No thanks, I prefer living in a free America, not Venezuela 2.0. Democrats have been in power for decades in places like Baltimore, Detroit, and San Francisco and have run them into the ground. Why would we want you to do this to all of America?
Then there is the hatred. It turns out berating a bunch of struggling, working class white families about their "white privilege" and then circling back around to mock them for being poor and uneducated isn't likely to get them to vote for you. Who could have known!
So, now that America is fucked, where will you be headed? You obviously can't participate in such a vile country. France? Canada? If you're a leftist you'll want to go to a country that shares your political views, like Bolivia, Venezuela, or Cuba. Wherever you end up, it will be better than shitty old slavery America. Good luck and bon voyage!
So did you just come here to be angry and rant about a situation that came straight out of your imagination?
But it lacks prestige. Half the reason people go to Cannes is the status increase associated with being associated with Cannes. It ain't about the films. Netflix doesn't enhance status of anyone.
Negative. Only a few nations spend the minimum, Britain, Poland, Greece. The others free ride and spend the savings on their own people. Germany is at 1.2% and flat out refused to increase.
LOL bankruptcies happen all the time in business and they're nothing to be ashamed of. Slick Willie put the draft dodging thing to rest decades ago. We need to get out of the World Bully role, all it does is create enemies. Making profit for megacorps needs to come to an end.
Oh absolutely China considered itself a student. Economically. Confucianism, you know. One is either a teacher or a student. Right up until 2008. Now they feel they have something to teach us and we're the ones who need to listen. Everyone in the world could see that Clinton was the right choice and Trump was a joke candidate that got out of hand. Failing to have the proper safeguards in place to prevent the negative outcome made America a laughingstock. Sure Mueller will get Trump soon but having a Deep State operation take down an elected president is not a ringing endorsement for American democracy.
If the election had come out the correct way, Russia would have been utterly crushed by now and Putin would be hiding out like Khadaffy. China would be next. The TPP would have been signed and well on the way to implementing the first real transnational government, and would have finally superceded that boat anchor of a constitution. Immigration would be up to 4 million a year plus 11 millions amnestied and able to vote. America blew it.
So far it hasn't been too bad!? Here's a piece by Madeline Albright, not an alarmist: "Fascism poses a more serious threat now than at any time since the end of World War II." Anne Frank's stepsister, in a January essay to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, accused Trump of "acting like another Hitler." Ex-Mexican President Fox: Donald Trump reminds me of Hitler. Yale history professor: Here's why it's useful to compare Trump's actions to Hitler's. Even comedian Louis CK says 'Insane bigot' Donald Trump 'is Hitler'.
These are all sane, levelheaded people and you're saying it's not too bad? Who's in a better position to know, you or them?
The whole world is pointing to him as to (1) why democracy doesn't work and isn't the best system, and (2) avoid the American model, they can't even do it right themselves. Hell, China used to look up to America as a teacher - right up until the financial crisis. Now they think we're morons who could have easily avoided that outcome. Whoda thunk that Bill Clinton repealing Glass-Steagal would have ruined the economy in a decade? Everyone, including the Chinese.
The vaunted American system that Americans never shut up about was supposed to prevent populists and ensure the election of the most qualified candidates. We had an obvious populist against the most qualified candidate ever to run for office in US history, the entire media dropped their last pretense of objectivity to cheerlead for her, and the result sill came out wrong. China and the rest of the world noticed, bigtime.