Putin is openly anti-communist.

What about the fact that many large VPNs are owned by (the same) ad companies / data mining companies? Despite the technical discussion, aren’t we ultimately placing our trust in the hands of the untrustworthy?

Tariffs can be paid by the export country, indirectly. They usually have to lower the price of the commodity to make it competitive under tariffs.

Under Fordist economics the domestic industrial boost would lead to increased wages and buying power.

Under neoliberalism the domestic industrial capitalists gain a larger market share and then don’t pay their workers more. Then they are faced with the problem of what to do with products that are unaffordable.

Propaganda is usually truthful or exaggerated truth. It’s the framing that is important. Some facts are focused on. Some facts are omitted.

I acknowledge that Russia, China and the DPRK have made mistakes and even done things that are deeply questionable. But I’m interested in comparing their mistakes or misguided actions to those of the most powerful military empire on earth. The one involved in hundreds of military actions and dozens of coups since its inception. The one with the largest per capita prison population on earth. The one which controls many of the world’s financial levers.

There is a difference in the scale of their mistakes or bad actions. Propaganda distorts that difference of scale. It focuses on the crimes of the “enemies” / “axis of evil” / “rogue states” but doesn’t examine context or culpability of the empire. They’ll choose one conflict, downplay 9 others, and give a one-sided view of that one conflict.

That’s how propaganda works. Every state produces propaganda. One state produces billions of dollars of propaganda each year.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty is straight up State department propaganda.

Calculator?! Those thieving, energy-sucking piles of garbage! Abacus till I die!

But seriously, AI is insidious in how it data mines us to give us answers, and data mines our questions to build profiles of users. I distrust assurances of anonymity by big data corpos.

Would be funny if Boeing started cutting corners with their hitmen, too.

Apple is also super good with software updates on old hardware.

Except for that time they deliberately slowed down older phones with software updates so people would buy new phones.

What if we didn’t even have ads on the internet?

That’s because you haven’t tried cool ranch yet

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