Truth of the matter is that predicting and determining when the stock market crashes or if a recession already happened is hard. Saying definitively “there were warning signs and I should have sold my shares” is hindsight bias. When COVID happened, everyone thought that a recession will occur and pulled out their investments. The COVID-induced recession didn’t happen and we have come with a better economy than before thanks to good handling of the economy by governments across the world. Those who sold their investments have to re-buy their shares but it is now at higher price than when they previously bought, and they missed out on potential higher profit had they stayed.

Of course, the world is not black and white and not all circumstances are the same. It is always a case by case basis and there are variables always at play. We came out well after COVID because we know that we definitely had a good leadership back then. But with economy under Trump, there is a higher chance of recession happening for obvious reasons, not just with AI bubble burst. In that case, it is still bad idea to sell all your shares because you would have to re-buy them at now premium price, but you could diversify your investments to safer countries or sectors in preparation for the high likelihood of a market crash. I have divested from US stocks and bought more European and Japanese ones, and invested in energy sector because it is more resilient even during economic troubles. I might have to rethink about my US healthcare stocks, however.

I love Mission Impossible Fallout after watching it in cinema, then it occurred to me that Cruise is a Scientology and I just paid money to give it to them. Since then I just torrent his movies.

That’s what I am thinking, Nvidia has near monopoly, they’ll be fine if the bubble burst, and so are TMSC and AMD because of having similar status. I only have those three AI companies invested in.

Many people invested in as many AI companies as possible, and the problem is that if the repeat of dotcom bubble bursts but with AI, it will take another decade and half to recover except for certain companies with better fundamentals.

If Meta actually gave a shit, they would make an actually secure app instead of putting on a play in the courts.

Yeah, you don’t hear this kind of thing about Signal.

It’s funny that Trump acknowledges China thinks in decades, but hey, money speaks.

Give me all your AI training data!

Your life will be much better if you avoid commercials

Yes, but far too many people don’t know better, and they are the majority. They love targeted ads and especially that’s why so many of them are radicalised by targeted political propaganda. That’s why it’s a Sysiphean task to tell people about this, tell them to dismantle capitalism because we’re heading to its logical conclusion-- fascism. I didn’t think that Brave New World’s soma (the digital devices in our case) will directly lead to 1984’s Oceania. And what a great combo!

I didn’t catch it, despite watching 1989 Batman several times, until someone pointed out that Bruce in his mansion was looking bored and listless, until the bat signal turned on, and he looked very much animated.

The Labour under Starmer is closet Tory. I wish that the popular Manchester Labour mayor (whose name I forgot) takes his place as PM, which actual leftist politicians try to make him to be. Although this will be a Sysiphean task under the ruthless politicking in British politics and Labour Party’s own strict rule on who could become PM.

Politicians: That’s the point.

Joking aside, now that I think about it, what difference does does it make if companies are stealing infos and spying on you with government mandated age verification checks, and hackers stealing your government mandated age verification info? This just reinforces my view that governments (and companies) are nothing but glorified gangsters.

And these 1/3 are perfect horde for fascist brainwashing and consolidate the power of techno-fascists. The fascists will tell the jobless that immigrants took their jobs and not robots.

I’m talking about the Star Wars prequels. George Lucas touched upon alienation and loneliness, which is what Anakin was feeling and then exploited by Palpatine. It is starkly prescient and parallel to real life.

Sure, Mr or Ms “I knew it all along”. But even most respected analysts thought the first Trump term was “fascist-adjacent”. Even though Slavoj Zizek was correct that voting outsiders is the correct thing to do to shake up the corrupt status quo, he was wrong to say that Trump isn’t fascist until the second term. Hindsight is 20/20.

I haven’t read it but I will, eventually. But I must ask, I wonder though if George Lucas read the book and drew inspiration from it? Even some of the themes on how the republic fell and rise of the empire has kinda happened in real life. The toxic masculinity and alienation has real life parallel contributing to the decline of democracy, aside from the more obvious such as institutional corruption, wealth inequality and complacency. I also think Lucas was inspired from Hannah Arendt’s book, Origins of Totalitarianism, where she concluded that loneliness is precursor to totalitarianism. Anakin’s downfall is because he is lonely and alienated, and essentially told to “suck it up”. There is parallel to his experience and those in real life who have turned to the far right/dark side.

I did have an argument in my head that it always comes from within, although that’s not exactly the case with countries invaded by fascists before and their governments installed with puppet fascist counterparts.

Fascism is the natural end stage of capitalism. Plenty of businesses that have no core connection and competency with the military are embedding themselves into the military. For now, most of the US top brass loathe the Trump administration, but eventually they will be replaced by loyalists. We might get a real life Enclave if something isn’t done to rid the fascists.

It’s understandable from law enforcement perspective that it’s important to snoop on actual criminal communications. The EU has pretty reasonable measures and good at cracking down on continental-wide criminal activities. However, can we trust authorities that they won’t over reach with the chat control and violate privacy and freedom of speech? Like, come on, nothing good ever came from spying on communications. Catching criminals and/or terrorists is a convenient excuse to spy on dissidents.

We’ve seen it happen in America with the PATRIOT Act. People dismissed the opposition to it with “nothing to hide” thought terminating cliche, or accuse you of pedophile or terrorist for not wanting spying on communications. Then twenty years later, Americans have a fascist government who allowed a corporate asshole to steal information from the federal government. And those information will be used for surveillance capitalism. The same will happen to us in the EU if we don’t push back hard on this Orwellian desires of politicians.

Haha! Do it if the EU does not give up on their Orwellian control!

Wait, I’m in the EU and I use Signal!

How old are your parents? If they are retired, that might explain a lot. People say you become broad minded, wise and knowledgeable if you have ample time to read and educate yourself, instead of working more (that’s why many people say society’s obsession with work is a distraction tool to prevent people thinking that the system is rigged). However, it also goes the inverse towards extreme radicalisation.

I don’t have a practical advise to give to de-redicalise your parents, but typically radicalisation is not just you have too much time to consume so many contents, but also loneliness is a factor which most people overlook. Hannah Arendt made a conclusion in her book, Origins of Totalitarianism, that loneliness is a precursor to totalitarianism. The far right (and far left as well) sell the snake oil that only they can bring people together again.

A lot of old people who are lonely are vulnerable to extremist propaganda because their minds are not in the right place. This is something to consider imo when you have to interact with your parents. Genuine human connection is the missing ingredient. A friend of mine has also become far right. He moved to London many years ago, and my guess is that because big cities tend to be individualistic, this made him lonely. The far right rabbithole created a sense of togetherness and purpose for listless individuals.

Edit: wording

I don’t like the authoritarianism, but I kinda like China’s approach to reorient the economy depending on the needs. Too much economic growth at the expense of public investment, and they will reorient towards more public services and vice versa. This sounds similar to Keynesian economics and I am an old school proponent of Keynesianism.