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[sluissa]

Listening to financial "expert" talking heads it's almost as if companies are complaining that their overseas prospects didn't pan out because China's economy is suffering... due to the tariffs.

Now I'm 100% for the tariffs. I'm 100% for hard action against China in the economic field. And I agree that it's too much to ask for sustained growth without some sort of cycle knocking it down a peg eventually.

But it's a little bit funny when you've got evidence that Trump's specific actions seem to have triggered an economic downturn. At least partially.

That said I'm not going to be too worried until the housing bubble bursts again. Given what's happened thus far we can survive it. It's just that expected growth didn't pan out and the markets are doing a little recalculating. Housing is looking almost identical to the mess it was in a decade ago though. It's going to be an interesting time if both hit simultaneously.

[Kagus]

What even is politics

[Hanslanda]

What even is politics

*scene: a darkened room, cigar smoke hanging heavily in clouds, four hooded old angry white Republicans sit around a large oak table*
1: Our attempts to get Crowley back in have regrettably not born fruit. Our attention must turn to destroying Ocasio-Cortez.
2: I concur. Perhaps some polonium tea again?
3: No, the Russians have more nerve gas we could use.
4: Gentlemen, gentlemen, I have a more elegant answer. Let us leave her alive. I have in my possession a video that would annihilate any of our careers, credibility, and leave us accused of senility, much less some child new in Washington.
1: Excellent... What does it contain?
4: She dances on a rooftop.
2: Ridiculous! Senators and Congressmen do not "dance"!
3: And everyone knows only plebian maintenance workers go on rooftops!
1: It is agreed. Contact some fanatical schlep to post it to Twitter... And I don't mean Trump this time damn it!

[smjjames]

What even is politics

Reminds me of the time when the Republicans attempted to humiliate Beto O'Rourke by telling people he was part of a rock band in his youth, which also backfired.

[Enemy post]

Maybe they really need the Bomont vote?

[MorleyDev]

Kids these days, with your dancing and rock and roll.... It's the devil's work, I tells yah.

[Iduno]

#1. False. Facebook, Apple, and Twitter all kicked Infowars from their sites at nearly the same time as YouTube. Literally all the major Internet companies kicked him at once. He's essentially gone from the Internet, because no-one will visit his site unless they are specifically looking for it.

So Free Speech now means Free Marketing? I don't think so. You're entitled to say what you want. You're not entitled to have the rest of (the internet, the country, the newspapers) give you time and space to get noticed unless you are running for public office.

The free market means the only recourse people should have to not liking what I'm saying is to "vote with their wallets" because "if they don't like it, they can just go elsewhere." And also, it means that if they vote with their wallets in a way I don't like, it's censorship. Simple.

[da_nang]

I guess sooner or later we'll have to move to crypto and an IPFS-esque internet because no-one with the resources and/or power wants to create a fucking fair and free system.

[Gentlefish]

...The hell do you mean? If you want a fair and free video hosting site, run it yourself. Literally the only thing stopping you is money. Of course, you'd better censor the really illegal things because not only with the uploader get in trouble, so will you. For hosting it. (Censorship!? oh no)

Youtube (and facebook, and twitter) cut Alex Jones because he pissed everyone off and railed against him. Also because he basically instigated pizzagate. That's not protected speech.

They're also private services. Just because they're massive doesn't mean they have to be public. You can get a lifetime ban from Walmart. Every store. Is that wrong? Should you always be allowed to purchase from Amazon because it's the "only real competition"? No, because that's bullshit.

Just because social media allows people to be connected does not mean it should be public, uncensored use.

...Wow. Didn't realize I could be this salty about how YouTube curates content. They do it terribly but it's well within their rights to do so. And it's so much better than a government-curated public service.

E: This is like railing against HBO because they cut a show of yours, or ended one, or are taking a break after a season. Not like an ISP throttling your speeds. The cable is utility, the content is not.

[Rolan7]

This is good for Bitcoin

[da_nang]

If you want a fair and free video hosting site, run it yourself.

For those not in the know, the IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) operates much like torrents. The web content is stored initially on the uploader's machine but then spreads out to other machines that are interested in that content. It's a bit limited for dynamic content at the moment, hence why I used "IPFS-esque". So pretty much "run it yourself", just without the huge server costs.

Crypto would then be there for financing the content, because apparently you cannot trust Patreon, PayPal, VISA/MasterCard etc to not be corporate censorship dicks.

[Rolan7]

Crypto would then be there for financing the content, because apparently you cannot trust Patreon, PayPal, VISA/MasterCard etc to not be corporate censorship dicks.

Are PayPal, Visa/MasterCard etc "'"censoring""" Nazis now?  Or is it just Patreon, which has nothing to do with cryptocurrency?

Those payment options don't allow payments to 4chan, but I don't consider that political.  It was the case before /pol/ got... how it is, and was a reaction to donations made with stolen cards.

[da_nang]

There's certainly a chilling effect if people are worried that they're not "kosher" enough to not get instantly banned the moment someone believes they shouldn't be able to get financing. I already know of one fanfic writer who is holding off on setting up a Patreon simply because he's worried he's too "right-wing" for Patreon (even though his writing is more-or-less apolitical).

Then there's the NSFW scene. We've had Patreon pressured into cracking down on it, we've had the Tumblrpocalypse...

Every day there seems to be fewer safe havens for user-generated content, for free speech.

[redwallzyl]

There's certainly a chilling effect if people are worried that they're not "kosher" enough to not get instantly banned the moment someone believes they shouldn't be able to get financing. I already know of one fanfic writer who is holding off on setting up a Patreon simply because he's worried he's too "right-wing" for Patreon (even though his writing is more-or-less apolitical).

Then there's the NSFW scene. We've had Patreon pressured into cracking down on it, we've had the Tumblrpocalypse...

Every day there seems to be fewer safe havens for user-generated content, for free speech.

All that has very little to do with some 'left' pc something or other and everything to do with what companies think will make them more money.

[da_nang]

Hence the move to crypto and an IPFS-esque internet.

Because fuck gatekeepers and their corporate censorship.