Traditional media is extremely salty over their lose of control in "opinion making" and creating consensus.
Dont get me wrong, FB is not much better, but at least it's much more open and direct then traditional media.
Russia had very little to do with DJTJ, EVERY country tries to influence election in other countries.
Whenever there is an election anywhere in the world. Traditional media in the US fill the airwave with opinion making - both domestically and in foreign press.
This is why so many countries are skeptical of allowing US media to operate freely within their borders.
Both FB and traditional media have big agendas, but FB's agenda of selling ads is much more benign then whatever the state department wants.
> FB's agenda of selling ads is much more benign then whatever the state department wants.
I disagree with this, actually. Facebook's agenda of selling ads is the very thing that makes them toxic -- not because selling ads is a terrible thing, but because Facebook is so insistent on using people's personal data to do it.
Even if you're right, and the State is way more evil than Facebook, how does that affect the fact that Facebook is still terrible?
If I were to say "Ted Bundy isn't that bad...look at how many people Stalin killed!", you would rightly say that that's a dumb argument. Similarly, just because you can find Entity A acting worse than Entity B, that doesn't imply that Entity B is good, and it doesn't imply that we shouldn't do something about Entity B, just because we can find something worse.
Weirdly they've had decent low end small cars in countries other than the US. It's very much "the US loves giant cars, so we won't sell any small cars there, even if they're popular overseas". I'm not saying anything about quality, as quality at the low end of the small car segment appears to be much more ... interesting? .. than at the high end.
> Emigrating to California was comparatively a mild culture shock. Turns out I had more in common with muslim Pakistani software engineers than farm boys from half an hour outside my home town.
Are you are Muslim ? If I dropped you in the middle of Pakistan I am pretty sure you would have nothing in common with most people in Pakistan.
BurningFrog is not Muslim. BurningFrog was pointing out that religious difference between BurningFrog and BurningFrog's coworkers (muslim Pakistani software engineers).
>If I dropped you in the middle of Pakistan I am pretty sure you would have nothing in common with most people in Pakistan.
That's pretty much the point BurningFrog was making. BurningFrog has a lot of similarities with software engineers willing to move to California even if they're of different religions and nationalities. But BurningFrog was very different from "most people in" "[BurningFrog's] small European country". And BurningFrog is similarly very different from "most people in Pakistan".
To be fair, one reason I got along so well with people from every corner of the planet writing software in Silicon Valley was just that I had learned about strangers in the military.
>Chinese HNWI are forced to redistribute their wealth among americans
I don't see that happen, but I'm seeing average minds are controlled more and more thoroughly with the assistance of modern tech, while the "woke" ones are rushing to America to give birth even if border officers told them they can no longer obtain US citizenship coz Trump said this or that.
They have the power to vote, arguably much more influential then money.
> They are too poor and too desperate to be unemployed for long
If they are too poor, they also qualify for food stamp and a bunch of other benefit that YOU are paying for ! Its a transfer of wealth from your work / pocket to rich Uber shareholders like Saudi Arabia.
> and many will be replaced with robots.
Unlikely, especially for last mile, and in cities ( where most people live )
> The gig economy is an underclass. They are serfs.
Most of us are "serfs" to somebody, unless you are retired or are living off your investments.
> Unless they rise up violently nothing will change.
Not really, they just need to vote, DJT is an example, Bernie maybe next.
What they mean is that due to a lack of intermarriage, their genetic makeup looks very different than what it would be it they were intermarried with other local tribes.
Presumably all other local tribes have already intermarried over many generations and the differences within them is minimal.
> The West (USA + Canada, EU + UK, Australia) could circle the wagons, form a trading bloc, essentially negotiate with China as a single entity and start a trade war if China did not bend. But even if they wanted to do so, the cost would be high in the short term and voters would punish them.
China depends a lot less on trade than NATO countries, something like 3% of their GDP is making stuff for Western consumers. If there is a serious Trade War their main concern would be their own real estate market instead of selling plastic toys to US consumers.
China's secondary trading block are near Asian countries.
The "west" collectively have a population LESS than China, and they cannot even hold the "EU" together.
China also has major cards, in a situation that you describe above does happen.
- The first thing China will do is sell their treasury holdings,
creating enough shockwaves in the bond market to wipe of the retirement saving of most boomers, (remember that the median US national has no saving).
- They will unilaterally stop following any sanction / not officially , but unofficially they will sell whatever Iran / NK / Russia want to buy from them.
Iran alone has enough oil reserves to meet their energy needs, not to bring up the cozy relationship between Putin and Xi.
- 1970 style inflation in western countries that have outsourced all their electrial engineering work to China, the west doesn't have a collection of mega city that is the Pearl River Delta - China's greatest asset.
There is no way greater New York will be able compete directly with PRD.
It will require infrastracture spending at a level that would be unprecedented in US history comparable to WW2 - putting inflation pressure on resources. Not to mention major displacement of workers - who might not want to go back to working in a factory floor.
All this will be painful to both the "West" and China.
> What might stop China is if another large country such as India, Indonesia or Nigeria decided to position themselves as the ethical alternative: cheap labor and manufacturing without the rampant state sponsored IP theft.
Try starting a tea shop in India and then come back to me - I know I tried.
You will have to pay bribe to 3 government bureaucrats, 5 state bureaucrats, 2 local mafias leader, leaving aside politians who will come at our door if your business gets big enough.
India / Indonesia are democracies with all the mess that democracy involves. Most MNCs rather put their money in Saudi Arabia then invest in unstable democracies.
India / Indonesia will industrialize on their own terms and will mostly stay neutral since they dislike being pawns between great powers.
"Andy Wong, an export manager of Guanya Lighting, said that his company, which mainly sells desk lamps, is struggling to make adjustments to the new global trade reality, in which bulk orders for thousands, or even tens of thousands, of lamps from US and European retailers have disappeared, replaced by small orders from smaller buyers in “Belt and Road Initiative” countries in Asia and Africa as part of China's plan to grow global trade."
“We used to set a minimum order of 1,000 units. Now we take minimum orders of 20 units,” he said.
It is more like Chinese companies are now gobbling up trade share of US in the world. No longer smaller countries have to buy US branded Chinese goods. They can simply buy direct.
As someone living in Indonesia for almost 4 years from the US and no plans to leave any time soon, and having learned a lot of the realities on the ground and in the political scene:
- Indonesian's will never let the Chinese run over them like they have, like for instance, Sri Lanka, etc. Sure, they will buy cheap Chinese goods begrudgingly when something else better may be priced out of their range, but make no mistake, the government will continue to sink Chinese fishing boats encroaching into their waters and the people, if called upon within their religious communities (esp from groups like FPI which has fringe connections to not only the fmr general under the 30 years president [and some US 3 letter agencies through him]), many will go to every suspected Chinese house/business) and rob/steal/rape and kill (1960's and 1990's).
- In Indonesia, this is very much not the case how they perceive western governments (or people), though they very much want to pursue what is best for them on their own terms but the political establishment understands that needs to come from an economic standpoint first and foremost. One way they do this now is by managing foreign denominated liabilities through strict import policies.
If you haven't noticed, major manufactures in the world over the past 20 years have been increasing their operations in Indonesia…
Cant speak for India, but the biggest tail risk for any Indonesian government is the lack of ability to bring some of the economic wealth from the bigger cities and tourist attractions to those places that lack it because there are some pretty big logistical challenges with all of the islands and lack of incentives (outside of the gov partnerships with some western companies for natural resource extraction) for big corporate and political parties alike (they like to show up during elections and disappear until the next one) to do anything sustainable.
Most of this "spies" are trying to escape China ! all the regime did was offer them more money / opportunity than what they went to the West to find.
China could have achieved it through "turing" normal white citizens too / but I guess they are the real patriots ? Mark Zukerburg learnt mandarin for god's sake.
Its a game among capitalists and most of us regardless of nationality will switch sides to whoever gives the most value.
> Most of this "spies" are trying to escape China ! all the regime did was offer them more money / opportunity than what they went to the West to find.
Your second sentence directly contradicts the first. The "spies" aren't escaping China - they're playing whatever side has more money to throw at them.
> Speak for yourself there. Not everyone is driven by money above all things.
Considering most people spend 8+ hours a day working for money, I'd say yes, everyone is driven by money above all things.
Just look at the millineals, I mean, excuse me, new college grads. They shit talk Facebook's ethics, but the moment they receive a $100,000 job offer from Facebook, their ethics go out the window and they accept the offer from this "shady-ass" company.
Facebook employs about 35,000 people. The millennial generation includes about 71,000,000 people. How the former can be used by you to represent the views of the later is a mystery to me.
