alvvayson @ alvvayson @lemmy.dbzer0.com

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Joined

2 yr. ago

Remember when Joe Lieberman basically mangled the ACA to ensure profitd for his insurance buddies?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Good find. I am convinced Tesla is the Enron of our day.

The scheme only works as long as most people keep holding their stock. Once they start selling, it will be a very quick road down.

Sorry to disagree.

It's not about Amazon or Temu. Here in the Netherlands, we actually did protect our market and two Dutch online stores are more popular than Amazon.

There is just a huge shift to online shopping due to convenience and cost. There is just less demand for physical stores.

Some of the online shops do open physical showrooms. Relatively small stores (think Apple store) where people can see some of the more expensive stuff before buying.

But huge malls and department stores will only be a thing for the largest cities and for outlets, to attract people who like to physically shop.

The smaller malls and department stores just aren't needed anymore and will forever disappear from our landscapes.

I'm pretty sure they were serious when they said 2024 was going to be the last election.

I predict a Republican supermajority in the midterms. They will just hack the voting machines or remove all democratic voters from the rolls.

People have the memory of a goldfish nowadays.

I was alive during the 2000 and 2008 market crashes, but also the 2020 non-crash.

It could be that Tesla really has cracked autonomous driving by summer, as Elon claims, and then they will recover a lot of market value.

But more realistically, as the saying goes, even a dead cat bounces.

Markets never go down in perfect lines. There are dead cat bounces along the way.

People don't realize how fucked Tesla is.

If protestors burn just 0.1% of Tesla cars on the road every year, then that means insurance companies will need to charge an additional $200-$500 per year to insure a Tesla compared to a similar car of any other brand.

If they burn 1%, then it's more like $2000 per year in extra insurance costs.

They will become uninsurable.

You have no idea what they did or did not do.

You have no idea what they went through in the USA.

Look, I get you. I come from a family that actively resisted the Nazi occupation with guns, smuggling and at great risk.

And if it ever came to it, I would stay to fight. That's just my nature.

But it's not for everyone.

Dude, I understand your frustration.

But these people just want to be safe and raise their kids without worrying that some neo-nazis are going to harm them or their kids for having the wrong race or creed.

They aren't necessarily affluent, though not poor either. Just middle-class progressive people that need to have both parents working to afford a house, car, groceries.

Yes, I am sorry you got f-d by the medical costs. I really wish it were different.

I'm European, and I get miserable reading about the USA.

It's also quite telling that I see so many American expats here nowadays. It used to be quite rare, usually if you met an American living here they would be either working for an American company, or have a relationship with a local.

Now, I'm just meeting a lot of super talented and smart Americans who took a major paycut just to not live in the US anymore.

To my knowledge, both eMule and DC++ are still active, but I think private trackers have become the more dominant technology for file sharing.

Of course, I think that's implied.

The US cut funding, so there will be no offices or personnel in the US to influence anything.

Liberal world, not progressive world.

And TBH, that's what they campaigned on.

Drain the swamp and all that.

It really is on their voters that can't distinguish fact from fiction.

Fair enough, maybe I was too harsh.

Thanks for doing the research.

Or he just doesn't really love her and maybe he already has his sights set on some new lady.

I wouldn't even rule out that he or a close family member might have been the one to call ICE.

I read that Ubuntu is trying to solve this with the Snap Store.

But to be honest, I'm just not the target demographic for that.

I honestly think if the EU had continued with rolling out Mandrake and SuSe to public sector employees 20 years ago, Linux would be dominant today. Microsoft lobbied hard to stop it.

And I think the way forward will be to have a handful of big customers making the switch. Either China or the EU will probably drive this.

Maybe Huawei might sell MacBook alternatives based on Linux. Or the EU might revisit that old SuSe/Mandrake strategy.

I agree, except that I wouldn't classify Israel as a top intelligence power.

Their dependence on the USA is immense.

For European purposes, Egypt (Suez) and Turkey (both Bosporus and the land link to Asia) are the most important regional allies. Both or very populous and could become a new source of cheaper labour, now that Eastern EU countries are becoming more expensive.

Iran, Iraq and the Gulf countries are important as long as we can't have Russian and/or American fossil fuels. But even then, Turkey and Egypt are the broker between us and them.

I agree, which is why I advocate for reform, not abolishment.

Perhaps AI companies should pay a 15% surcharge on their services and that money goes directly into the arts.

It just so happens that in AI it's about copyright and with margarine (and most other technologies) it's about patents.

But the point is the same. Technological development is held back by law in both cases.

If all IP laws were reformed 50 years ago, we would probably have the technology from 2050, today.

Sam Altman is a grifter, but on this topic he is right.

The reality is, that IP laws in their current form hamper innovation and technological development. Stephan Kinsella has written on this topic for the past 25 years or so and has argued to reform the system.

Here in the Netherlands, we know that it's true. Philips became a great company because they could produce lightbulbs here, which were patented in the UK. We also had a booming margarine business, because we weren't respecting British and French patents and that business laid the foundation for what became Unilever.

And now China is using those exact same tactics to build up their industry. And it gives them a huge competitive advantage.

A good reform would be to revert back to the way copyright and patent law were originally developed, with much shorter terms and requiring a significant fee for a one time extension.

The current terms, lobbied by Disney, are way too restrictive.

We will have to see.

Apple can charge $400 more, but if Samsung doesn't, then they will lose market share.

And the EU is still one of the worlds three biggest markets.

So I am not really concerned.

And worst case, I switch to a Fairphone, which might not be bleeding edge, but it is still a better phone than my previous gen flagship Samsung or the flagship iPhone that came before it.

I see it as just running 2 years behind.