The way it’s written, it sounds like we could download it in the US, after the law was passed, for 180 days, and then do whatever we want with it. Unfortunately, after that point, the test of it being “developed” in China would probably be met for anything but a near-total rewrite.
This isn’t the first empire. Masses can be brainwashed. You can even have multiple layers of brainwashing, like how Republicans are extremely brainwashed, and Democrats are secondarily brainwashed to think they’re the moral opposition, while both of them unquestioningly support the undercurrent of global imperialism.
Literally the only escape is the entire population being fully educated on the nature of politics, economics, societies, history. A people cannot realize a free and just society without completely understanding what that requires. Until then you’re all just a fish flopping around on the floor of a boat.
You voted for Harris or Trump, you voted for genocide, whether you like it or not.
For Democrats and Republicans, clearly you all would have marched right along with them. I don’t want to hear another word about your moral purity when you voted for a genocide. The hypocrisy is stunning.
The mod here already banned me once, otherwise I’d let you know exactly what I think of that. How about you focus on what’s being said to you instead of coming up with bullshit like that about who you’re talking to.
The popularity of both of the imperial genocidal candidates is the result of centuries of conditioning and the collapse of the education system and free press. It’s a cyclical problem. We vote them in, they keep us stupid, we vote them in again.
The popularity of both of the imperial genocidal candidates is the result of centuries of conditioning and the collapse of the education system and free press. It’s a cyclical problem. We vote them in, they keep us stupid, we vote them in again.
I’m not going to sit here repeating myself. If you had any interest in justice or truth you would speak less and listen to people who know better. Despicable.
Honestly, no amount of careful planning and constitutional design will restrain a society where enough people have gone completely insane. Look at “Israel”. Even 100% direct democracy there would still be a genocidal nightmare. Gets to the problem of how culture is the real driver behind the shape of society. And in that case, how religion incinerates real morality.
I used to land at basically this analysis myself, but there are definitely some assumptions that need to be addressed. We can probably agree that to a significant degree “money is power”, or at least, money can elicit power, especially in terms of directing the actions of the desperate. We witness in our society - which is not pure “free market capitalism” - that inequality is rampant. There are theoretical explanations for this blaming both government intervention and just simply the behavior of individuals within the market that centralize wealth. And, conversely, there are theoretical explanations for how government can decentralize wealth, or how market participants can decentralize wealth (including boycotts, unions, etc.). The biggest challenge with this age-old “communism vs. capitalism” debate is that establishing overall tendencies for state vs. private actors requires exhaustive historical analysis, and is not even inherent to the nature of either actor, i.e., someone as a private actor, or state actor, can act in a way that either centralizes or decentralizes wealth. The only overarching principle you can even safely state is that the actions of a state are distinct from those as a private actor because of the “monopoly on violence” factor, i.e., the ability to enforce unfair demands that people can’t escape in practice (a behavior that leftie types usually accuse capitalism of, inversely, by pointing to corporate monopoly power - which of course, depends on the dictates of a state or equivalent body to enforce).
The only way I was able to resolve the problems with this whole analytical framework - communism, capitalism, state, private - was to reject this terminology entirely and perform the analysis in terms of individual behavior, actions, inanimate vs. animate, and the ethical properties deriving from those. A “state” is a useful abstraction at times and a confusing complication at other times. “Capitalism” and “communism” as terms have no universally agreed upon definition, resulting in unproductive, endless, circular debates. What we’re really trying to do is design a social system that maximizes outcomes for every criteria we like - equality, prosperity, individual wellbeing, health, lack of environmental externalities, etc.
That gets to the root of the problem. We have “checks and balances” designed around the idea that separate institutions would check the excesses of each other. Even if you don’t accept the “Republicans and Democrats work for the same people” theory, well, now all three branches of government are majority Republican, and not even in a way where there’s significant internal division or strife, so it’s just a bulldozer. The stupidity of not including popular recall votes in the Constitution - or really, just not having a mechanism for popular referendums, vetoes, etc. - is I think its biggest fault. The “representative democracy” model is inherently flawed because you can corrupt representatives, while corrupting an entire population, while not impossible, is a hell of a lot harder.
I reject their system. You play by their rules, they control you. That simple. A society of people rejecting their system ends their system, a society of people playing by their rules is dominated. You may think you’re being pragmatic, but you’re being manipulated.
Sure, if you say so.
Oh, now it’s owned by the Chinese military?
Which part of “freedom of speech” involves precluding us from ingesting content from a country our government decided it doesn’t like? Or electing to send our own device data or interactions to that country?
That unanimous decision made it perfectly clear that the government knows something we don’t,
Yeah, they know who pays their checks.
My bet is on the genocide being much worse than even TikTok was showing,
TikTok showed them incinerating an entire civilization. Not sure what you saw on there.
If that were true then they wouldn’t have given ByteDance the option to sell 80% to citizens and continue operating.
Except the entire point of that is the U.S. ownership would succumb to that pressure.
Sidestep providing the evidence and go straight for the personal attack. Nice.
Bytedance’s long-term hope is naturally to be able to continuing operating everywhere without violating any laws. Right? Therefore, their strategy is to stay as compliant as possible with various national laws (within reason), right? Therefore they have to take a conservative reading of the bill (PAFACA). So let’s look at the text of the bill:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521/text
(1) PROHIBITION OF FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATIONS.—It shall be unlawful for an entity to distribute, maintain, or update (or enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of) a foreign adversary controlled application by carrying out, within the land or maritime borders of the United States, any of the following: […]
Now, the actual distribution of TikTok is done by a U.S. corp, incorporated in California and Delaware. That corp has to stay compliant with these laws. Therefore, to maintain or update or enable the distribution of an app as defined in this bill, is legally punishable. Make sense? Particularly because the law mentions them by name, there is basically zero legal defense against it besides contesting its constitutionality. Which the horrifically corrupt Supreme Court upheld.
So, probably the only way they felt comfortable resuming operations in the U.S. was with some kind of written agreement with the Trump admin - as of yet undisclosed.
Yeah, but the ban passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, randomly jammed inside of the global military spending package including funding the Ukrainian war effort and the genocide in Gaza (which is a must-support bill for Democrats and Republicans alike I guess).
Anyone else see Reddit’s stock tank 20% yesterday?