I think people saying that stuff are serious about advocating for political violence. I can’t imagine how it wouldn’t make things worse. Violence is a core element of fascist ideology, there’s clear utility in using the attention it brings for recruiting, the trauma it inflicts for hazing, the experience for training. I remember when I saw a particular famous clip of a nazi speaking in public and being punched in the face by a masked assailant, I had never even heard his name before then, but after that clip was all over the internet that changed for a lot of people, and it definitely didn’t get him to shut up. Maybe there’s situations where people need to be defended, or there is need for someone acting as a bouncer, but I suspect in many cases it’s some combination of useful idiots giving them what they want, or extremists on the other side who share their goals of agitating for armed revolution giving them what they want.

Could you elaborate? Does HOA mean something different in other countries?

Home owner’s association; when you buy a house and it is part of a HOA, you have to sign a contract to join the HOA as a requirement of buying, which means you have to pay dues and abide by the rules of the organization, and you have to require the next buyer to also join in order to sell your house.

Nope definitely not why would I do that to myself

IMO for some people arguing is a form of intimacy

So your claim is that states specifically don’t have this authority, only the federal government? What’s your reason for thinking this?

edit: Here’s an example showing that they do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Dakota_v._Wayfair%2C_Inc.

There’s also laws like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Act

The businesses that the CCPA refers to do not need to be physically present in California. As long as the business is active in the state and meets the requirements, they are considered to be under the CCPA

A number of state based internet regulation laws have recently run into trouble in courts, but that’s because of First Amendment concerns, not questions over whether merely being accessible to state residents gives jurisdiction to enforce them, which afaik it does.

The difference between what the laws are trying to enforce is a different issue though. The point is a website can be prosecuted just for being accessible when what it offers is against local laws.

Pretty sure it doesn’t work that way. Look at what happened to Binance; not a US website, not technically allowing US customers, still successfully prosecuted by the US government for not doing enough to prevent people in the US from using it.

Because refried beans are as you mention no longer countable, I think “refried beans” should be taken all together as a singular compound noun rather than the word “beans” modified by an adjective. So then “too much refried beans” is the correct way to say it because it isn’t plural.

I wonder if part of the reason for supporting this is that they like the secondary effect that all this information is now also available to governments

The profit they get from the sale of the television should be enough that they don’t have to make the television shit to get slightly more profit, why do people even buy these

But televisions cost hundreds of dollars at least

“each new connected TV platform user generates around $5 per quarter in data and advertising revenue.”

Sounds like a pathetic amount of money for betraying your customers with a shitty ad infested smart tv

The question was how to give it to friends, not how to invest it

If you have enough other investments to be comfortable, don’t especially want to change retirement timeline etc. and your wife is fine with it, I’d keep it as a potential hedge against a depression that crashes the value of index funds. I would not split it between whichever small crypto projects can sell you a convincing narrative that they have ‘moon potential’ when your financial circumstances mean you don’t really need that anyway and that is specifically what would open you up to the ‘scamminess’ of crypto.

The current administration has supported the position that merely writing and publishing open source tools can constitute a crime if those tools are then used by criminals. If they want to backpedal on trying to kill everything worthwhile about cryptocurrency, they should start by dropping the criminal charges against Roman Storm.

There has been significant growth of crypto as currency, particularly in the developing world with use of USD pegged stablecoins. It remains the only practical solution to make online transactions privately or when alternatives have been censored, potential pitfalls notwithstanding.

Centralized control is a threat, but it’s one that is taken seriously, and by practical metrics crypto has been largely successful in defending its integrity here. Other related values measures worth looking at are credible neutrality, permissionlessness, and trustlessness, also basically areas it continues to succeed. You submit a valid transaction to a major blockchain, it’s getting included, even if powerful people would rather it wasn’t. Transactions that are illegal as per US sanctions are treated more or less equally to any other. Miners and stakers are not taking control of the money printer dial for their own enrichment. And there’s reason to think this will continue, because in a lot of ways control is a liability, and giving it up is valuable; “CEO of Bitcoin” is not a sane title to aspire to because it would make you the responsible party and valid target for all sorts of legal threats and obligations, and just having it would destroy the value of what you control.

That said, as a means for the economic salvation of the median person like OP seems to be talking about, it was never going to do that on its own, no one who thinks honestly about it would promise that, and anyone who did is full of shit. It’s just a new type of p2p money with some cool properties, that obviously isn’t going to be enough to fix the mess that is the world’s economic and political systems.

I appreciate them in the cases where they subsidize a free game for me, when all they’re spending money on is some dressup doll equivalent

Well, what’s the modern equivalent of an Army explosives manual to remix into dangerous misinformation?

Being addicted to the internet