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Author Topic: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa  (Read 613564 times)

degrub

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Re: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa
« Reply #16640 on: December 25, 2024, 07:52:20 pm »

Depends on who is subsidizing who.  :o
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Rob C

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Re: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa
« Reply #16641 on: December 29, 2024, 03:07:09 pm »

https://channel.louisiana.dk/video/trevor-paglen-at-the-expense-of-everybody-else

The above link gives an insight into AI and how it is changing the way we see the world, how it can be used to manipulate and “extract value” from us as the conscious - or otherwise - users of the technology as applied in various forms of media.

At the very least, serious food for thought. I wonder how future new years will use it…

Robert Roaldi

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Re: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa
« Reply #16642 on: December 31, 2024, 10:09:30 am »

I watched a short clip of Trump's new deportation czar, whose name I can't remember, answer a question about the deportation budget, which he estimated at $86 Billion, to start. He said, "to start", that's not me being cute. And it was "billion" with a "b", but to be fair a short online search reveals estimated amounts that range all over the map. I can only conclude from that that none of them have a clue what this will cost and dare not say so out loud.

Sounds like a windfall for security contractors though. It will be fun reading future investigative stories about how they landed those contracts, if there are any journalists left to write them. Sooner or later though, the American public might awaken and be awfully ticked off to find out that their government blew that much coin to find and deport carpenters and landscape gardeners, while leaving the mob, bikers, crypto-cons alone and never touch those fintech fraudsters who take people's deposits and then disappear. It might annoy people that their government can't or won't do anything about those crimes. Mr. Trump might run out of distractions eventually but I doubt he cares.

I see in the news that there is another MAGA/Musk/Trump/Bannion internecine battle royale going on at the moment, this time about immigration. It is spectacularly lame. There was some surprise expressed that Trump might be backing Musk against MAGA in this one, although it's murkier than that. It's a social media based battle, might not eve be real, hard to tell. But if that is what is going on, it fits. Musk has money so Trump is attracted to that naturally. Ticking off his base might not matter so much now. Since he already had their votes when he needed them, at this point they are no longer any use to him. That's what being transactional means. I hope no one was expecting loyalty to a cause or idea. I mean, come on.

Meanwhile the barely coherent orange puppet at the top keeps making public comments about annexing Canada or Greenland or "taking back" Panama, well the canal anyway. I watched a couple of those clips too and from the cheers I gather that there are at least some Americans who think that the US has the right to do those things.

Happy New Year.
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Robert

Robert Roaldi

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Re: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa
« Reply #16643 on: December 31, 2024, 10:40:08 am »

https://channel.louisiana.dk/video/trevor-paglen-at-the-expense-of-everybody-else

The above link gives an insight into AI and how it is changing the way we see the world, how it can be used to manipulate and “extract value” from us as the conscious - or otherwise - users of the technology as applied in various forms of media.

At the very least, serious food for thought. I wonder how future new years will use it…

Thanks for the video link. The author Cory Doctorow has written a lot about the intersection between art creators and big tech. I am pessimistic. Big Corp has spent a century slowly buying up the US Supreme Court, first making corporations "person-like" and then allowing them unfettered access to political power. That was not a coincidence. Meanwhile, the much revered tech bros have convinced many that what they "think" is important, largely because they're rich and our culture assumes by default that what rich people have to say is culturally important. By amazing coincidence, what tech bros "believe" in tends to benefit them. Gosh, who saw that coming.
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Robert

Robert Roaldi

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Re: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa
« Reply #16644 on: January 08, 2025, 08:06:44 am »

When I saw the news stories come out yesterday that Facebook/Meta will get rid of fact-checkers at Trump’s insistence, I thought to myself, “Facebook has fact checkers?”  I’m not on it much but when I am I seem to spend a lot of time blocking nutcase posters, many of which are probably bots these days. Exerting influence on mass communications is usually one of the first things that coup leaders do in "shithole" countries.

I don't have a huge problem with this. If FB turns into another social media cesspool like X then eventually it will tank. It's a private company, I don't care what they do or what happens to them. We got along fine without them before, we can again. But I don't know why we have to keep re-learning that monopolies are bad for us.

I don't know if any of you remember that moral panic a few years ago about sex workers advertising on "back pages" (can't remember its exact name but it doesn't matter). So the powers that be more or less killed that site, though it may still exist in some form. The irony is, and it seems to be an open secret, that many of those sex workers moved over to X, carrying on much as they did on "back pages".

The funniest headline I've seen lately is the one the other day where Musk was calling for volunteers to help people in the UK free themselves from their tyrannical government. I didn't read the details but I assume that they did something to tick him off.

Trump had another bizarre press conference yesterday during which he talked about annexing various places around the world in the name of security of the "free world" as he put it. I don't understand, I thought he was an isolationist. Does he plan to annex these places before or after deporting 10 million undocumented aliens? He also vows to not build any more wind mills because electric heat makes him itchy. As usual I could not sit and listen to much of the nonsense but on a highlight reel I heard a reporter ask him how he plans to plans to annex Canada, will he ask them (Canadians) to hold a vote. There was no coherent answer but it was the question that made me laugh. It's as if the reporter thought that Trump has the power to force another country to hold a vote on something. Trump also implied that he was willing to use military power in Panama and maybe Greenland. So he is reluctant to aid Ukraine that is in an actual war but wants to open up military fronts in friendly countries? I've lost track, what exactly is the problem that he is trying to fix?

A few weeks ago Trump referred to Canada being a supplier of fentanyl to the US illegal drug trade. There were a couple of posts here calling that idea into question in the context of the call for tariffs. A few days later there was an article about how the nature of fentanyl imports into Canada from the US were changing. The illegal drug industry was moving to importing precursors into Canada rather than the end product and that this was altering the methods of Canadian law enforcement. There was no mention of Canada exporting drugs into the US in that article.
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Rob C

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Re: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa
« Reply #16645 on: January 08, 2025, 10:47:07 am »

Robert, I think we are dealing with very malignant people using a screen of lunacy behind which to plot their cynical plots; I kinda wonder if any of those guys is actually mad, but, rather, is just playing the worldwide public like fish, knowing that if something is allowed to happen long enough, after a while the public stops noticing, thus allowing what was once absurd its current currency.

Of course, this is all because of social media. Before its advent, people still had some common sense and the latent ability to smell out fraudsters. Far from being that shining beacon of freedom and the exciting, liberating exchange of information, it has become the cesspool from which arise the toxic gasses that cost lives, manipulate, and destroy society.

Robert Roaldi

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Re: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa
« Reply #16646 on: January 08, 2025, 10:28:41 pm »

Robert, I think we are dealing with very malignant people using a screen of lunacy behind which to plot their cynical plots; I kinda wonder if any of those guys is actually mad, but, rather, is just playing the worldwide public like fish, knowing that if something is allowed to happen long enough, after a while the public stops noticing, thus allowing what was once absurd its current currency.

Of course, this is all because of social media. Before its advent, people still had some common sense and the latent ability to smell out fraudsters. Far from being that shining beacon of freedom and the exciting, liberating exchange of information, it has become the cesspool from which arise the toxic gasses that cost lives, manipulate, and destroy society.

I agree with you about social media. I think the negatives now outweigh the positives. In addition, outfits like Facebook have sucked all the ad money away from others so we don't have all the different classified ad sites or club bulletin boards or community newspapers or many other useful online sites we used to have. Imo, we're worse off. In some ways we're stuck now. My wife (an artist) is having an exhibit in early summer in Toronto. In the old days, she would get some exposure from local community newspapers, some of which had Arts Events columns. They're mostly gone now, so she will attempt to buy ads on Facebook to announce the exhibit. When you do that, which she did once before, you receive no proof that the ads were actually shown to anyone, you have to take them at their word. And there is no consumer protection authority that can address this because we've been told that we don't need consumer regulation and WE FELL FOR IT.

However, things are changing in small ways. Some excellent news and analysis web sites and podcasts are emerging everywhere. We have several here in Canada, some doing local coverage, others dealing with wider topics. More and more paid subscriptions to them are available, which is a good thing. I used to pay for daily newspapers and news magazines, why shouldn't I pay for online content the same way, it's not the paper and ink I was paying for. They are slowing gaining in popularity and we know this because politicians and big money attacks them, a dead give-away that they're doing a good job. (I'm thinking here of Canadaland, Tyee, The Walrus, and others.) When Trump/Musk et al start talking about suing news outlets in an effort to chill them into silence, that's the signal to start reading/listening to those very outlets. You can't get a better referral than the threat of a lawsuit.
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dreed

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Re: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa
« Reply #16647 on: January 09, 2025, 06:44:38 pm »

When I saw the news stories come out yesterday that Facebook/Meta will get rid of fact-checkers at Trump’s insistence, I thought to myself, “Facebook has fact checkers?”  I’m not on it much but when I am I seem to spend a lot of time blocking nutcase posters, many of which are probably bots these days. Exerting influence on mass communications is usually one of the first things that coup leaders do in "shithole" countries.

It is the first thing that authoritarian leaders do, yes.

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I don't have a huge problem with this. If FB turns into another social media cesspool like X then eventually it will tank. It's a private company, I don't care what they do or what happens to them. We got along fine without them before, we can again. But I don't know why we have to keep re-learning that monopolies are bad for us.

facebook exists more to provide comms amongst friends than groups or the public - or at least that's how I see it. twitter has always been about you broadcasting to the world. I put things on facebook for family/friends that I don't see every day type thing.

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The funniest headline I've seen lately is the one the other day where Musk was calling for volunteers to help people in the UK free themselves from their tyrannical government. I didn't read the details but I assume that they did something to tick him off.

The UK government isn't conservative.

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Trump had another bizarre press conference yesterday during which he talked about annexing various places around the world in the name of security of the "free world" as he put it. I don't understand, I thought he was an isolationist.

Think of it this way: when everywhere is the USA then there's nothing to isolate from. Greenland is a mineral resources thing. Panama is a security concern but he's obviously got shipping companies in his ear too.
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Robert Roaldi

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Re: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa
« Reply #16648 on: January 15, 2025, 11:01:19 am »

It's not that easy finding discussions about immigration and (or) mass deportations that are worth listening to but Patrick Boyle's latest youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfbfaA8kriI was both interesting and educational. He examines the history of immigration at USA's southern border giving some historical statistics and explaining differences in the approaches taken by several administrations. The bottom line is that deporting such a large percentage of the working force will cause major disruptions to the economy and he also provides some evidence that the commonly held belief that undocumented aliens are stealing jobs from American citizens may be suspect. Not once did he bring up that undocumented immigrants eat pets.

I could only stomach watching a few clips of Hegseth's Senate questioning. I wouldn't hire the guy to run a hot dog stand but my opinion about his competence is irrelevant. There are plenty of people on youtube to make that case. Part of the reason that I could not watch it in full is because of the questioning itself. It should not be that difficult to demonstrate that the guy should not be Sec of Defense but the people asking the questions seemed to me to be playing for the cameras too much. I understand that it's important to provide sound bites to the media if you want coverage, but I thought the questioning should have been more clinical, more pointed. Maybe some of it was and I just missed the better parts by skipping past them, but it's exhausting watching the continuing shit show. If Trump's first term is anything to go by, most of his appointees and proposed appointees will end under a bus sooner or later. I'm having a difficult time imagining that serious and senior military leaders will work well with this guy.

I can't remember exactly, but isn't it Hegseth that does not believe in the "germ theory" of disease? I remember a report but I am just not sure if that was about him or someone else. It's pretty arrogant to think that your "beliefs" matter. But hey, if he doesn't want to take vaccines or antibiotics, so be it.
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Robert

Robert Roaldi

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Re: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa
« Reply #16649 on: January 17, 2025, 09:36:53 pm »

Any critiques of Trump's newly released official portrait? Must be a few portraitists on here with opinions. Looks like he was aiming for the tough guy mug shot appeal.
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Manoli

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Re: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa
« Reply #16650 on: January 18, 2025, 02:18:43 am »

Any critiques of Trump's newly released official portrait?

The BBC …
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4mmrr7j8mo
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dreed

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Rob C

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Re: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa
« Reply #16652 on: January 18, 2025, 09:16:15 am »

The ‘17 snap is more in the vein of how he used to appear in Spanish Hola magazine: rich cat enjoying the pleasures that impossible riches will provide. (I discount the fear of losing it all overnight.) The guy looked capable of laughter, and even of moments of good humour.

The latest shot reveals that time waits for nobody. I see a much older man, profoundly disillusioned by it all, attempting to disguise the once open attitude with a veneer of toughness predicated, of course, on an entire, national power structure behind him to support the facade.

Is there an unintended, subliminal message? I think so: as with so many of us, ignoring nature’s warning that always comes the time to quit, we should, instead, pay heed and take the rest of the time off.

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Rob C

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Re: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa
« Reply #16654 on: January 20, 2025, 05:07:25 pm »

I like this one better. 

Better Portrait


Well, one thing you can say, with no chance of refutal, is that the linked article is a master class in tautology.

That, believe it or not, cometh from the venerable BBC! it’s where our modern systems of education have led us. However, I must plead guilty to a bout of split infinitives in a recent post, so I guess I had better shut up!

;-(




digitaldog

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Re: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa
« Reply #16655 on: January 20, 2025, 05:25:40 pm »

The "lazy" right eye is new.
Maybe a sign of an approaching stroke.  :P
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The photo appeared to use "monster" lighting, he added, to dramatically illuminate the president-elect from below and make his eyes pop.
Appropriate!
« Last Edit: January 20, 2025, 05:28:52 pm by digitaldog »
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TechTalk

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Re: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa
« Reply #16656 on: January 20, 2025, 07:16:16 pm »

Any critiques of Trump's newly released official portrait? Must be a few portraitists on here with opinions. Looks like he was aiming for the tough guy mug shot appeal.

I immediately heard "you damn kids get off my lawn" stirring from some part of my memory when I saw it.

Hey Mister, Can We Have Our Ball Back?
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Robert Roaldi

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Re: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa
« Reply #16657 on: January 22, 2025, 08:28:53 am »

Here's an interesting development. Trump pardons the creator of the dark web's Silk Road https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7e0jve875o.
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Robert Roaldi

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Re: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa
« Reply #16658 on: January 24, 2025, 10:22:07 am »

Trump is trying to bully a bishop now because she dared enunciate some Christian principles. That will go well, I'm sure. In one of his statements he criticized her for meddling in politics instead of sticking to religious topics and demanded an apology, as if he were a sovereign monarch or some such. Coming from someone backed by the religious right and "Christian nationalists" (whatever they are), the irony was pretty rich.

He's getting a lot criticism online for setting up that "meme coin" thingee because it is widely viewed as an opaque and easy way to solicit bribes, which of course he would never do. There are numerous videos online outlining those dangers. But the howler to me was that some in the crypto world are not happy about his entry because they're worried it might make their industry look bad. A bit late guys!  I know very little about crypto but I thought that blockchains were public so it should be easy to track inflows even if individual "investors" cannot easily be identified.

I also saw that he gave a speech to financial leaders in which he acted more or less as if he were CEO of the world. He wants to be an isolationist he says, he may get his wish. During that speech or maybe a later one, he stated that Canada was difficult to deal with, which must be one of his stupider pronouncements and it's not as if his bar is set very high. I'm still mystified why he wants to destroy a mutually beneficial multi-decade alliance. What's the upside?

I listened to video clip in which the hosts mentioned that the administration has frozen grant applications at NIH. I wonder why he thinks that relinquishing the USA's leadership in things scientific would be good for the country. If research grants are slowed or stalled to accommodate MAGA anti-vaxxers or other similar stakeholders, a lot of world class researchers will be welcomed with open arms by numerous other countries.

There has been a lot of loose talk about jailing or deporting people because they annoyed Trump or MAGA. I read about veiled threats about "jailing" Zuckerberg or "deporting" that bishop. Now I understand that the US President has the power to issue pardons but I did not think that it was ok for him to just throw someone in jail. To arrest and/or indict someone, don't they have to break a law first? Am I out of date on this?
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Rob C

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Re: Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa
« Reply #16659 on: January 24, 2025, 04:01:45 pm »

Well Robert, it’s a commonly held idea in Europe that Americans don’t do irony. This may or may not be based on any valid research, but if American leaders are anything to go by, then the Europeans would appear to have a point.

Perhaps one such example of not recognising irony might be that in a country that prides itself on its bustling youth, it ended up with both Biden and Trump. They don’t usually get leaders as old as that in the “West”; I sure wouldn't be happy with anyone my age being top dog in any country as powerful as the US of A. I think this generation, of which I am unavoidably part, carries just too much baggage.
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