people with significant money in art assets have it documented and insured. if he had 30 pieces just by warhols and additional, we’re likely talking millions of dollars of assets.

nobody leaves millions of dollars lying around without some sort of insurance

to be honest, this is a great opportunity for him to cash out of all his expensive art in one fell swoop. i would be elated if I were him

Corporations only have one goal. To make as much money as possible.

There is nothing else. There is no moral obligation. There is no social contract. There is nothing but making as much profit as possible at all costs.

This is why capitalist democracy will always devolve. If I’m a large corporation that is powerful enough for meaningful political influence- I will always try to manipulate the system into a) eroding the free market so I have less competition and b) influencing the government to enact policies that subsidizes my operations. Eventually you end up with a system like 1930s Germany or modern China- where the state picks and chooses some favored corporations and allow them to dominate the market in exchange for cooperation and subservience. Like Volkswagen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen#/media/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-H06734,_Grundsteinlegung_für_Werk_des_KdF-Wagens.jpg

So when a company says something about how much they love X or Y or Z and inclusion and diversity and whatever other buzz word of the month- they are saying it in order to maximize profits and they will stop saying it the moment the calculus changes.

$$$ insurance payout

I disagree with this. I think we are in a game renaissance right now with many great games being released all the time.

What I agree does suck are Triple A games. Why do they suck? Well, they cost a lot of money to make. You need a team of dozens of people working over a long period of time along with lots of marketing. Millions and tens of millions of dollars can easily go into a modern AAA game.

So when you have millions of dollars of investor money behind you- you’re not going to take many risks. You’re going to be as conservative and formulaic as possible so that you can better predict what you will bring in through revenue. This is why there’s a new Call of Duty, FIFA, and Assassin’s Creed every single year. And they’re all virtually the same game with slight changes.

In my opinion if you want to see actual innovation and creativity, you (generally) have to look outside of these types of games. Not even necessarily niche indie games, but smaller scale developers. They don’t have nearly as much overhead and they tend to have passionate individuals with a vision. This gives them more flexibility.

So as a general rule of thumb, you’ll find more ambitious games coming from smaller developers. And with ambition comes both great successes and failures. But the cream rises to the top.

I beg to differ. The situation was MUCH better in this regard in Western Europe 15-20 years ago when being openly far-right would get you socially ostracized for the most part, and media didn’t routinely bring far-right mouthpieces on national TV.

the question we need to ask is why was being right-wing socially unacceptable back then?

why is it OK for a politician like Trump to say “immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country” today whereas just 20 years ago that would immediately end a political career?

it’s not because we had more censorship.

the why is what we need to address. without economic security and legitimate institutions, we are lost.

censorship is not the solution and in fact it’s actively harmful. any mechanisms we create for a government to start censoring will inevitably be taken over by fascists when they come to power. and I think we only got a few years left at best

True, the far right has lost of lot of ground since musk took over twitter

we aren’t talking about some social media platform. we’re talking about a nation state censoring speech. these are two radically different things.

having said that, even on social media platforms with modern machine learning algorithms you can’t effectively censor. Look at how the far-right uses memes and secret symbols to communicate even through algorithms. for example the pepe the frog memes, the 88, the hand symbols, etc.

you can’t say “rape” on youtube or tiktok so people just use “grape” instead. the Chinese do similar things on their internet. censorship is always going to be a losing battle.

Hanging Nazis was really a mistake post war

executing people who committed war crimes and genocide versus a country censoring speech. again… two radically different things.

Giving them parlement [sic] seats is the best way to take power from them.

explain the connection between “giving” seats to Nazis (last I checked we had elections) in the current discussion about a country censoring speech.

(Yes, this is how stupid you sound)

you are free to spend your time on the internet saying anything you like. if making these weak appeal to ridicule comments makes you feel stronger, I support you

Censoring the far-right doesn’t make it go away. It just pushes it underground where it becomes even more radical outside of the moderating influence of the mainstream.

The solution is not censorship, but to understand what is causing the rise in right wing radicalism and address the root cause.

That root cause is the total loss of faith institutions coupled with economic insecurity felt by the working class. When people are scared and angry, they will turn to those who give them simple solutions and an easy scapegoat. It’s a tale as old as time.

You can try and censor all you want, it won’t ultimately make a difference.

neither US and China need to aggressively invade countries to expand and maintain their power base. modern imperialism is propagated economically, through proxy wars, and fought in the ideological space. all things the US and China both work very hard to accomplish

but we are talking about the economic systems of both countries. the fact that large corporations are becoming increasingly chummy with the state. we are starting to look more like China as China has liberalized and looks more like us

The propaganda here is being pushed generate profit.

when large tech companies invest and support specific political candidates and take certain politically minded moves- it’s for profit.

but if i’m acting in a political manner for profit versus i’m acting in a profitable manner for politics - what is the functional difference?

there is less difference between the chinese system and the US system than many would like to think. the main difference is where the source of the power lies. in the US it’s corporate - in China it’s the state. but what we have been seeing in the last couple decades is both of them are experiencing a convergent evolution into a merging of corporate and state power. coincidentally it’s what many scholars identify as one of the major tenants of fascism in Germany & Italy

That’s the thing about state media from China & Russia & Iran. Yes, they are censored in the sense they aren’t going to be critical of their host country.

However they are also a means by which certain anti-establishment voices from the West are able to get a platform. For example RT will historically interview people like Chomsky. It’s not because Chomsky ideologically aligns with Russia. It’s because “enemy of my enemy is my friend”. So just because something is censored in one direction, it does not mean everything else on the platform is false.

So if we go to TikTok, China is perfectly fine with certain leftist anti-establishment media whereas it would be algorithm’d away on the other major social media sites.

Again, it has nothing to do with TikTok being pro China. It has everything to do with the US government not being able to control what is on the platform for their own interests. TikTok does not have to answer to the US, and instead of us being OK with that because we’re a free country- we’re cracking down on dissent because we are becoming increasingly authoritarian.

Yeah let’s follow China’s lead and become just like them! I support restricting political freedoms and a giant firewall and a social credit system too.

They are obviously the superior system and therefore we need to emulate them.

this means they can propaganda individuals so hard it will make your head spin.

Until you have an open source algorithm then any organization controlling a social media site can push propaganda. Just like they do here in the US.

The reason that Tiktok is being banned has nothing to do with data. We know this because you can just buy data about Americans legally from data brokers. This isn’t about Chinese propaganda either. The real reason is that Tiktok is not easily put on a leash by the federal government. The real reason is that Tiktok has a large amount of popular leftist and anti-establishment voices. The real reason is that the US wants to funnel people into the social media sites that jump when the government tells them to.

But is that not the same way with “how”?

How do objects fall to the ground? → the Earth exerts a gravitational force on them

How does Earth exert a gravitational force? → All objects with mass create a gravitational field that attracts other masses

How do objects create a gravitation field? → Mass warps spacetime and this curvature directs objects to follow paths towards the source of the mass

and so on, etc

The difference between “how” and “why” doesn’t seem very meaningful to me. For example- why does water boil? It boils because molecules gain enough energy through heat to transition states.

In that same sense, OP’s question

why there is something instead of nothing.?

There’s a non zero chance that we eventually understand the mechanisms behind the big bang and can explain how nothing turned into something. Therefore we will be able to explain the why, no?

Not fucked. Of course I have some cringy stuff on MySpace from when I was in my early teens. But generally speaking, over the last two decades or so I don’t post anything I wouldn’t be OK with everyone finding out about

People go to fast food places because while it isn’t good, you know what to expect. It’s going to be mediocre food for a relatively quick wait.

You just need to figure out your meal quickly without too much effort or thought? Fast food.

You could always go to a new restaurant but you don’t know if they will take forever to serve you, if the food will be good, etc. But everybody knows what to expect from fast food brands.

it’s a foot in the door for online surveillance. has little to do with porn

lol what? tariffs and protectionism have been the policies of the republican party and conservatism forever

since Reagan it’s been the party of pro-business and free market capitalism. it wasn’t until the right wind populism that slowly started during the tea party and eventually led to Trump that we started seeing protectionism

And I have a bridge to sell you

I’m not claiming he is going to do this, I’m saying I think he has an opportunity to do it. The fundamental question is what Trump has in mind. Is his goal to just extract as much money as possible for him and his friends while keeping everything else more or less the same? Or does he have a more radical vision?

Certain individuals connected with the new Trump administration (looking at Vance and his financier Peter Thiel) have some radical beliefs in a new sort of technocratic authoritarian state. If this is really their goal, I think universal healthcare is a useful stepping stone to popular support for more radical items.

I’d probably prefer a laptop with a larger battery capacity than weight. Ultimately though what are you using it for? To check your email? Are you gonna be browsing youtube on your wifi hotspot? I’d probably not bring a laptop at all and instead prefer just the phone unless I’m planning on making pitstops at places with wall outlets and wifi.

Trump took over GOP. It’s not the same party as before.

Tariffs and deporting millions of people are both quite radical changes of the status quo. Illegals have been a fundamental part of our labor market for decades. GOP historically has been pro-illegal immigrants even if they’ve kept mostly quiet about it. It’s good for business. Reagan, the GOP quasi-religious symbol, legalized millions of illegals.

Tariffs fly in the face of established free market capitalism economics. Milton Friedman would be turning in his grave. You are artificially repressing the market through strong government regulation. Again, a radical reshaping of American policy.

I think Trump actually has a short window of action for very dramatic change. For example, if he comes out and says he believes we need universal healthcare because of the corrupt elites and whatnot, I think people will rally behind him. His popularity would jump up 20 points overnight. I think his voters are actually expecting some type of radical change.

The country is hurting and when people elect populists, it means they’re at the end of their ropes. Some of the class consciousness needs to be released with a pressure valve otherwise we’re headed for some murky and potentially ugly consequences.

People like Bannon understand this. I think they see the way the winds are blowing and want to be in a position to benefit