I think one factor is that Democrats and Republicans actually hardly differ in many fundamental positions. I think the fact that an unscrupulous business man like Trump, who was once a member of the Democratic Party, can switch party affiliation just like that illustrates what I mean: there are no real alternatives, which is why election campaigns in the US need to be emotional rather than rational. That favors baseless fear mongering and empty finger-pointing that misses the real problems. I supect that many US citizens have become so accustomed to these empty election campaigns that they lost the ability to identify the lesser evil in this charade of mutual accusations far away from rational discourse. So in short I think Trump was just the better demagogue which is pretty much all that matters when reason or actual arguments are not part of the “election show”.

The PACs. I think this practice should be considered blatant corruption in any democratic system as it enables large corporations and wealthy individuals to predetermine which candidate or party has even the slightest chance in elections. In my home country, of course, there are private political funds as well but those are not nearly as important in our system as there is solid public funding for political parties based on past election results. I might be wrong but I always thought that the insane amount of private money that fuels US elections boils down to the US being a plutocracy rather than a democracy.

Probably not too many, but she seems to have landed a good job with this degree regardless.

Idk, but Disaster Girl has apparently made a good deal including a 10 percent cut on any future sales. Not that I think that this NFT has sold again for even near the original price but she will still get “royalties” from any additional sale for the looks of it. Good for her that she used this bubble in time.

I was wondering about that as well. We’ll probably never know. Anyway, I’m glad that her unwanted internet fame in this timeline hasn’t ruined her life and that she seems to have benefited from it instead - at least financially. That’s nice, because she really deserves to be compensated for the joy she brought to the internet over the years.

How time flies. Sorry to break it to you, but Disaster Girl is now 24 and apparently working as a Smart Cities & IoT Analyst at S&P Global. Somehow even Side-Eyeing Chloe is 13 by now…

Absolutely right. But the thing is that many so-called leaders will no longer have a raison d’être if there are no more unnecessary meetings and all that fuss. Many of them do nothing all day but sit in meetings, achieve nothing and still feel very important. That’s the misery of the world of work: it’s not usually the best who get into management positions, it’s not the most qualified and certainly not the ones who work the hardest. It’s the most unscrupulous, those who pass off the work of others as their own, people who would never achieve anything on their own or in a small company that can’t afford to waste salaries on froth-mongers. LinkedIn makes it clear how this all works, I think: there, too, it is not the competent people who really understand their work who have the most success, it is the busybodies, the networkers and narcissists. If the competent people set the tone, there would be no discussion about office duties in an IT company. It’s only held on to so that managers can live out their fantasies of omnipotence and post nonsense on LinkedIn.

Don’t clog the toilets. It’s not the c-suites who have to clean that up.

I know that I know nothing, said Socrates thousands of years ago. So I’d say it’s beyond clever to teach yourself things and learn from your experiences. That is very smart in my book.

It could easily have been the same for me, as my father is a Protestant pastor. Fortunately, my family has always been very tolerant and open-minded. That’s how my parents brought me up, for which I’m still very grateful to them today. It’s good to hear that you’ve found your own path, which certainly wasn’t easy. Respect, my friend.

I’m sorry. I hope you are alright.

Again: Til

Til

When I was working on data protection issues, I asked a specialist lawyer more than two years ago how something like this could be reconciled with the GDPR. He couldn’t answer the question, but said that with the best will in the world he couldn’t imagine that this would be OK under data protection law. Nevertheless, this approach is now common practice for the vast majority of news sites in Europe and also in the EU, which has strict regulations regarding tracking, at least in theory. I still don’t know the legal details, but at least I know that there are no serious penalties whatsoever if there is no distortion of competition involved - and since none of the news companies would sue another in this matter, this has become common practice even in the EU.

Yes, and while Charles Darrow, who became the first millionaire game inventor due to the game’s success, profited substantially from royalties, Lizzie Magie, the original creator of the game’s concept, sold her patent for just $500 and received no royalties.

It’s not some anonymous force forcing you to act like many of your fellow citizens do on social media. It’s what the US believes, I’m affraid. Even on Lemmy. It’s all “I don’t like Trump” but strangely enough many still agree to some of his key positions when his name is not mentioned. It’s weird.

You might want to check out the Patriot act (especially section 215) and how that plays into your believe of your constitutional rights. If there are any questions, just ask Clarence Thomas - he knows his stuff. I really don’t get how you could be so blind to issues like that just because this post is about China. This is not a popularity contest - it is not US vs the world. This is about your rights, your data and your democracy. I’m from Europe and I’m kinda getting tired of reminding people from the US that your blind patriotism is just that…a blind spot that is used against the US citizens on every corner.

1984 is already a reality - in every country of the word, especially the US. Apple’s famous Superbowl commercial from the same year, which suggested that data privacy (…) was important with regard to their strongest competitor at the time (IBM), does nothing to change this. On the contrary - none of this was even halfway true even back then. I really don’t get why people think this is just an issue in China. It is an issue all over the world. For years and years.

That is certainly not wrong. However, I believe that it’s not just the Chinese but that the US government (and other states around the world) has very far-reaching access to its citizens’ data as well. Among other things, the Patriot Act makes it very easy to demand user data from companies without appropriate checks and balances, if the NSA is not already aware anyway. Without somewhat decent legal regulations such as those that exist in the EU for example, citizens have to trust that the state will not abuse this largely unregulated power. With regard to the question of who will form the next US government, I see a significant problem in this context: I think that Trump’s right wing GOP will use this power against their political opponents and also, as a precaution, against ordinary citizens. I don’t think they would shy away from setting up a surveillance state based on the Chinese model - the conditions for this are certainly met in the current legal situation.

I think the only way to solve this problem for good would be to tie social media accounts to proof of identity. However, apart from what would certainly be a difficult technical implementation, this would create a whole bunch of different problems. The benefits would probably not outweigh the costs.