What better way to manipulate someone with self-worth issues who must flaunt his “power” and “wealth” to “prove others wrong” than stroking his fragile ego?
Small pp energy. Or rather, botched pp energy in this specific case.
Same for the Trump and co. axis of evil - a bunch of adult children with ego issues wanting revenge on the world that belittled or thwarted their constant schemes, all banded together.
Damn, for a lake bragging about making things wet that was some sick burn.
Nice EU win, imo. Rampant apocalyptic capitalism has no place here. We are still capitalistic, but with regulation to it. Tech is here to serve the people, not just to fill the elite’s pockets without regards for citizen rights.
These Zuck’s, Musk’s and Bezoes over here trying to be the digital equivalent to your average grocery store sleazebag trying to label horse meat as beef or pork in order to make a higher profit by dishonestly squeezing the consumer to the bone. We have standards and regulations for a reason - to protect consumers.
Cue tech billionaire tantrum about EU being “out to get them” in 3… 2… 1…
Fine by me. So long as he doesn’t come crying later when the EU starts properly taxing US-based digital products used by Europeans, in addition to extra tariffs on them. Which something we’re reluctant to do but should absolutely be willing to do if push comes to shove.
I just hope EU sticks to its word of standing strong and doesn’t chicken out when it starts to hurt. Hope we give him the China treatment.
We might hurt temporarily but we are not strangers to suffering or fascist aggressors as many of our cities still bear the scars of war, and we’re also making up for lost time and trust by investing more in our own geopolitical independence, pharma, science and defense. And we have the free world on our side.
We might avoid conflict whenever possible, because we know better through experience, but we will also make sure our aggressors get left in worse shape, and for much longer.
So bring it on, homeboy.
Things like that do tend to make me lose a bit of respect for people.
Oh noes! However shall I live without your “respect”, my dear anonymous paragon of righteousness? I depend on it like living creatures need water to stay alive! /s
Ironically for someone who claims to value respect to and by others you certainly didn’t do much to garner any of it - which makes it quite hypocritical to expect others to assume mistakes they made on your mind only, while you yourself adamantly refuse to acknowledge your toxic attitude, and what you get wrong. Which to be clear, I don’t mind at all, unlike you - how you choose to view the world and if you wanna live in self-delusion is entirely a you problem and does not affect my self worth in any way.
You don’t have my respect either, for that matter. Now look at me, being a hypocrite just by replying to you after telling others to not bother with your sad excuse for an existence. Anyway, really moving on by blocking you this time since I’m not a source for your self-validation or dopamine needs, cheers.
Seriously my dude. No point in arguing with this person, it’ll only wear you down.
I’m not even joking or exaggerating - look at their beautiful lemmy rep sheet, full of bans for the most braindead stuff - such as blatant trolling, genocide denial, spamming and misinformation - and starting not long after account creation. Truly a pitiful state of existence, and that’s coming from me, a neurodivergent.
They’re here only to vent rage on others for whatever straws they can grasp and spread around their own personal misery, nothing else. They get their dopamine fix from this.
Anyways, cheers and stay well!
Yup. Context always matters. In this case “peace” is code for “let’s wrap this up ASAP so Russia can move on, rebuild its economy and properly regain economic ties to Trump’s US, as well as benefit the Trump admin and Trump family”.
Screw the very real possibility of another incursion later on to take anything left from Ukraine, or other countries close by, and before moving on to the rest of Europe.
The lives of the people actually living it, or the whole point of this war, be damned.
I agree. United we stand, divided we fall. When are these leaders make the jump from talking a big game to actually acting on it?
Appeasing 👏 to 👏 bullies 👏 leads 👏 to 👏 more 👏 bullying.
This goes to any other leader doing the same. China may not be a role-model for many things, but they at least had enough of a backbone to fight Trump until he forced his own hand into lowering his stupid tariffs. They can’t win a trade war against the entire world, when said world can trade between itself anyway.
You can’t look at a madman threatening you by saying “Do what I say, or I’ll shoot myself in the foot!” and give him power over you.
What? Where do I even hint that I would deny “Qatar’s human rights are of significant concern”? Or that I am surprised that Trump is accepting bribes?
My statements on this matter have pretty much been: Trump openly takes bribes -> Trump should be held accountable -> Regardless of where the bribe takes place or from who it comes. And one commenter starts derailing it because “Hurr durr Qatar and Syria are not the same place”, while another goes “why are you denying Qatar has a human rights problem”, both of which don’t even come near the point I was making. Can’t we just agree what Trump is doing is wrong and not look elsewhere for excuses to nitpick and create chaos? Are the internet points for having “good obvious opinions” really that important?
Literally nothing to do with defending wrongdoing from anywhere or trying to justify it- which is just twisting words to make them seem like something else and go from there to create needless drama - which in turn is why I ignored the other commenter in the first place.
I mean, every apologist and defender of capitalist apocalyptic hellscapes will have that view, sadly. So long as it makes them an extra buck it’s good for them, consequences to society or environment be damned.
As an European who does advocate and see value in the use of AI, but not at any cost, I’ll take his opinion as a compliment. As they say, “I want AI to do my dishes while I create art, not for me to do the dishes while the AI produces insta-art”.
And eventually if AI gets capitalistically out of hand and leads to many people in service-based economies to poverty and unhappiness we’re sure to see a revolution to restore balance, as many times in history when a few elites made things unbearable for the rest of the population. AI is here to serve humanity, that’s where the value is, not to serve only a select few.
You are right. But here’s the key difference:
while the entire government for the last 50 years has been bought and sold with lobbyists and business owners
A President enriching others who support him (as opposed to “doing what’s best for the nation” generally speaking), while still wrong, is not the same as personally enriching himself and this blatantly. The US has always been like this and many would have loved to do what Trump is doing, but didn’t dare go this far and so recklessly. Trump is merely a product of his country, and it kind of surprises me it took this long for someone like him to get his paws directly on this kind of power.
Instead of being a businessman currying favor with the President, he skips the middle man entirely and becomes President himself, to his own personal benefit.
First of all, not american, and me “mixing” them up is entirely another assumption of yours - which you are free to make, as I can’t control what you decide to think or how you interpret things, and that’s a-ok with me. I’m in fact considerably closer to Syria and Qatar.
Secondly, this rather seems a personal and touchy subject to you, as your willingness to insult, dismiss and assume (ironically) indicates. This is further reinforced by your posting history, which clearly tells me you’re a very combative person who loves to disagree for the pleasure of it, and doesn’t mind spending a lot of time trying to one-up others disagreeing with you in any way, I assume with ego as a driving force. So with that in mind, no real point in arguing with you, right? Even though it would seem we’re mostly aligned when it comes to the bigger picture.
So I hope whatever is going on gets better, but this is where I stop engaging in toxic rants, regardless of what you may think of me.
Ok? What does it have to do with the fact that “Trump has opened the Presidency up for business/loves his bribes”? Feel free to narrow context outside of the point of my statement, as if either bribe is completely disconnected from the other, but the plane is still a really important catalyst for the rest - it’s what signals “Qatar quid pro quo, then Syria quid pro quo, then somewhere else quid pro quo”. I won’t even say “quid pro quo with anyone”, because that line is already being crossed right here with a terrorist, so that would be moot.
Way more effective to cut the whole evil right at its root, where its most blatant, in order to stop the rest from spreading.
I really hope for once Congress does its job and MAGA actually fights him on this, since some have already been saying this is too much even for them, starting with the plane.
Let it be on the record yet again that Trump does not have a luxury plane retrofitted with millions in taxpayer money - not because he refused the bribe, but because he was barred from accepting it. Refusing a bribe =/= Having a bribe forcibly taken from your hands.
Let him not gain anything from it or this, but still have that ethic shitstain smeared all across his face as he tries to gaslight the world with his lies. Not that he wouldn’t try to claim that since he doesn’t have the plane, it means he “refused” it, or “it was a joke all along”.
I have an idea: Poll all the pro-authoritarian people in other governments, like Trump, Vance, Putin, Kim, Xi, etc. on their opinion about AfD being shut down.
Do the opposite of what they say.
I know we must defend free speech, and everyone has a right to their opinion. But even more importantly, “my freedom ends where other people’s freedom starts”.
Free speech =/= hate speech, and hate speech disguised as free speech should always be restricted. Because the point of said hate speech is usually to restrict opposing ideas once it takes control. And Germany knows that better than most. Never lose sleep over silencing hate speech.
It never ends at “I am free to hate others if I don’t act on it”. If given the chance to hate without real repercussions the hateful ones will always take any excuse to act on said hate. That’s the one irony about unrestricted free speech - it tends to find a way to eventually restrict itself again through festering hate, in time.
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So how long until real criminals start following suit and impersonating undercover ICE agents? Not like there’s much distinction between either “career” now, is there?
And then how long until ICE agents start showing up with holes on the ground because property owners “thought” they were real street thugs trying to rob them? Is there even a way to tell the difference? ~wink wink~
So he’s willing to be dependent on Russia, especially as EU loses the reliability of one of its greatest historical allies, which also is the same one with the biggest arsenal.
If it’s a matter of how quick it can be done, I understand that for some countries 2027 is too soon to adapt to such a big change, and wouldn’t mind some form of leniency on the matter for such cases. But if by the time the contract ends in 2034 Slovakia doesn’t think of an alternative along with other countries relying on Russian gas, it may as well invite Russia into it.
We’re also not in an ideal position in terms of autonomous defense, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t find ways to be a more self-reliant continent who trades with others not because it needs, but because it wants.
Console gamer here as well, though with a PC and redeeming my weekly Epic Games since a few years back. I sometimes play on my PC, but mostly games I don’t have on my console.
Most of what I hear I believe it’s mostly due to the Epic Launcher being quite a bit behind standard, and the store not having great costumer service policies. I think Epic’s games with timed exclusivity don’t garner a lot of respect from the gaming community either, as they rather have freedom of choice to purchase their games on their main storefront.
Now, I think it’ll be obvious, but all of what I mentioned is further impacted by the comparison between Epic (or most other launchers, really) and Steam. Steam might as well be called the “default launcher” at this point, and naturally not everyone can compete (or they don’t want to) with the numerous and consistently good business decisions Steam tends to have, which keeps it in the top.
Not only that, and even though I still benefit from it, I’d say Epic’s strategy of offering weekly free games might feel like a sort of ‘obvious bribe’ to some, a cheap way to try and vainly make gamers turn on their main competitor. Which isn’t really moving the needle that much, because gamers preference for Steam isn’t due to free games, but good and consumer-oriented business practices.
I’m sure from gamer to gamer there’s more depth to this, but I’d say that’s the gist of it.