As I said in another comment, the reason to not get on their bad side is the fact they’re a highly insular and powerful gang that just so happen to be in charge of his protection detail for his entire (hypothetical) term.

It’s easy to tweet the truth to power until that corrupt power is the only thing stopping the next Maga nut from taking a shot at you. Whole situation is completely unsurprising and not a mark against his character for me.

It’s more pragmatic because the NYC police are a legal mafia. Be a shame if there was a “lapse” in his protection because some officers were a little upset at his bluntness.

Your cost per person is probably off. National Guard is supposed to be supplemental, so they call up people from their normal life for higher pay. If keeping a standing army is cooking at home then calling up the National Guard is Uber Eats, not a big deal if occasional but not very sustainable.

And a ton of money is spent on the military, not even necessarily run of the mill corruption. Keeping those giant knock off Batmobiles running daily probably requires special servicing and parts, procurement and logistics have specific markups, long term lodging and food were unplanned and thus expensive, etc…

Dude get a hobby

Weird way to “listen” by suppressing their voices. Zero Covid was the “right call” in a narrow lens of limiting direct disease transmission, but it was completely untenable as a true long term strategy and had no foresight.

The protests weren’t due to solely to the restrictions on personal freedom, it was also the total lack of sane administration and fallback plans. The enforcement, quarantine logistics and vaccine rollout were entirely scattershot. The government had no realistic approach to the problem beyond rigid policing.

When their authority to enforce the policy was stretched to its limits they did an about face and pretended the problem didn’t exist, leaving their vulnerable populations in the lurch with no offramp. The core problem of inept administration was completely unaddressed. I wouldn’t give them credit for “listening to the protesters” any more than I would give Tsar Nicholas credit for listening to his striking workers.

COVID lockdowns when minor protests broke out

“Solve” is an interesting verb for suppression of legitimate mass discontent at being physically locked into their apartments. That “solution” worked so well for those “minor protests” that they decided to do a 180° turn from the Zero Covid policy to no restrictions overnight.

Truly a bastion of free speech, except for any real discontent is labeled capitalist subterfuge so we’ll just disregard that.

I have! Have you been on it in China? Have you contrasted the foreign feed to a citizen’s? Have you seen the coordinated response to genuine spreading political discontent vs mundane petty scandals? Because it kinda sounds like you haven’t if you think that’s a killer response.

Never claimed to be any kind of China expert but it’s absurd to claim “much more open discourse” if you’ve spent any appreciable amount of time in the countries being discussed. You can literally just walk + talk in public and see the difference.

Like all these asserted freedoms it just magically happens better and free’er but you definitely can’t verify it because “media”. The open political discourse I see and hear in major EU/US cities pales in comparison to the uh… hidden… open discourse in T1/T2 Chinese cities? Definitely heard some first/second hand political discourse but it was never, ever, ever a public forum.

By all means, give me evidence to the contrary. Maybe I just keep catching China with a bad case of the Mondays. Have you been? Can you point to any discourse on domestic politics? Where is the asserted diversity of opinion on hotbed issues? Can you show me any strong opposition to the party line on a public stage?

Crazy how you can literally just look this stuff up and find out what’s true instead of discarding arguments.

Independent trade unions are illegal in China. The single, state sanctioned trade union is widely criticized by international trade union orgs for not faithfully representing its workers. By most accounts it exists to funnel labor disputes through a bureaucratic meat grinder of mediation to maintain the status quo. With the exception of a handful of actions for international leverage, all strikes are wildcat.

If you’re actually interested in labor relations in China I’d recommend this article for starters. It’s older but the situation hasn’t improved under recent leadership.

Complete list of banned books in the US

Lmao what? Do you know what “banning” a book means? It’s just not on offer in schools or a library for that specific state. It’s completely normal to just buy it for yourself and there are even organizations dedicated to distributing banned books.

It’s hilarious to try and dunk on America with this of all things. Media restricted/censored in China is entirely unavailable. It’s actually very interesting how the censorship manifests in daily life, but I imagine any .ml reader will discard those anecdotes (or any verifiable reports) and try to redirect back to the West somehow.

I’ll take “things foreigners say when they’ve never been to China” for 500 Alex

Dudes probably just at a private golf outing or a child sex trafficking party or out hunting endangered animals to extinction

There’s a lot of comments about how digital devices are viable/helpful for note-taking and just as good as a pen. I think that’s missing the crucial point: virtually every device we own today is designed as a distraction machine.

A pen + paper isn’t going have any notifications or reminders or updates or emails or texts or ads or alarms or alerts. If there’s any device without those that’s as reliable and as cheap as a notebook, I’ve never heard of it.

Old sci-fi be like

We’ve discovered a technology that explores the fundamental truths of human nature, gaze into the black mirror and reflect upon your modern folly.

…Also all the scientists are straight white men and we invented new ways for our women to cook dinner.

Edit: To be clear, old sci-fi is genuinely great. Merely pointing out the funny juxtaposition of nerdy white guys not fathoming any social change in their generally progressive and thought provoking works.

This looks like when you see a weird, unflattering picture of a celebrity. Earth just woke up and hasn’t put its makeup on and you put it on blast like this

But it’s not possible to get unbiased content on the internet. Everything exists with an agenda behind it, for the sole reason that hosting anything is going to constantly cost money.

This wasn’t a huge deal when individuals were paying to host and share content to a small audience, it was a small amount of money and you could see their motives clearly (a forum for a hobby, a passion project, an online store, etc…).

Social media is different because it presents itself as a public forum where anything can be shared and hosted (for free) to as many people as you want. But they’re still footing a very large bill and the wide net of content makes their motives completely opaque. Nobody cares that much about the headaches of maintaining a free and open public forum, and any profit motive is just another way to sell manipulation.

Because nothing says socialist utopia like a dynastic presidency

This seems like wishcasting. More likely, they’re watching their own back by getting orders in writing when possible. If the noose ever starts to close, all truly incriminating official records will be destroyed just like Berlin in 1945. It will be their word against anyone else’s.

I wonder how chicory (and optional caffeine pill?) emissions stack up against the coffee equivalent. It’s close enough to coffee for me 🤷