• atrielienz@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    They aren’t protecting you. They are protecting themselves from what you may give their enemies. Don’t think just because the federal government is doing something “for the people” that nominally it’s not about the government itself. National security is literally the government protecting itself by protecting its citizens.

    • Sakychu@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      17 days ago

      Pretty much this! Also it is much easier and cheaper to tell Google to stop offering tiktok in their app store then it is to build affordable housing where it is needed…

      • zephorah@lemm.ee
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        17 days ago

        Yea but where? There’s a push for it in my state. Drove past a new area that will be a neighborhood of cookie cutter SFH, probably with driveways too short to contain full size vehicles. And they’ll cost more than half a million so I’m not sure how that’s affordable. Anyway. It’s being built on the flood plain. 8/10 flood factor.

        • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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          17 days ago

          We really need more high density housing closer to urban centers, but Americans seem to be allergic to it. Everyone wants their single family house. Also too, without subsidies they’re is no profit incentive for developers to build the necessary housing stock, they all shoot for “luxury” housing because it’s the most profitable.

          • atrielienz@lemmy.world
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            17 days ago

            I’ve always wanted like… A townhome. But the problem is anything like that (even away from city/population centers but still near enough to commute is astronomically expensive.

          • Cuttlefish1111@lemmy.world
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            16 days ago

            If only we made a school for teaching people how to do the things we need most. It could be run by the government as a nonprofit. We could incorporate medical and all the other industries we are getting gouged by.

            • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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              16 days ago

              I mean, public state universities could fulfill this role if they could get past their admin rot

          • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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            16 days ago

            without subsidies they’re is no profit incentive for developers to build the necessary housing stock

            So cap rent. If a developer wants to build, they need to build what people actually need. You don’t need to hand them boatloads of money to make affordable housing more profitable than non-affordable housing, just ban the unaffordable housing nobody needs.

    • underisk@lemmy.ml
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      17 days ago

      Facebook sold personal data to a foreign organization called Cambridge Analytica who used it to influence our elections. If their motivations are to protect us via protecting themselves, why is Facebook not banned, and not even in the discussion of being banned?

        • underisk@lemmy.ml
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          17 days ago

          Did occurring in 2015 happen to make it less bad somehow? We sure as hell weren’t passing laws to ban facebook back then either, so I’m not sure what point you think you’ve made.

          • Nasan@sopuli.xyz
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            17 days ago

            We didn’t have the same stance on data privacy back then as we do today. GDPR wouldn’t be a thing for another year, not implemented for two more after that (2018). Legislators largely didn’t understand the risks associated with unrestricted exchanges of seemingly benign user data at the time. Yay for hindsight being 20/20.

            • underisk@lemmy.ml
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              17 days ago

              That’s great. Nothing has changed about Facebook so nothing is stopping them from banning it now for the same reason as TikTok. The only reason they wouldn’t is if they had a motivation that had nothing to do with protecting elections from foreign influence.

            • mightyfoolish@lemmy.world
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              17 days ago

              Aren’t they the opposite? Unless you are saying we should use past experiences to protect ourselves in the future then shouldn’t we still ban Facebook? Regardless of how you feel about tiktok, Facebook was never neutered.

            • underisk@lemmy.ml
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              17 days ago

              Foresight? We’re talking about the present and the recent past dude are you okay or do you just argue in weird slogans?

      • atrielienz@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        And we should ban them too. I love this argument. We need better user data privacy laws, and this whataboutism does not change the fact that China is a hostile foreign nation.

        I can appreciate that people view Google and Meta and so on as very similar in their transgressions. But as was pointed out in the original comment, this is a cost to benefit ratio type of analysis for the federal government and they gain more by keeping Meta and Google going and can enact other measures to prevent that from hurting them (usually reactionary), so to them this is fine. It is and always has been about what the US government can to do protect itself and enrich itself. Enrichment doesn’t always come in the form of monetary value.

        If you’re upset at your own government (or government adjacent tech entities) gathering this type of data from users, you should be for banning them too, not keeping tik tok.

        • underisk@lemmy.ml
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          17 days ago

          I am for severely restricting the ability for all corporations to gather and sell user data. You think I’m making a whattaboutism or whatever debate buzzword you want to conjure up; what I’m taking issue with is the argument that the reason they’re getting banned has anything to do with that data collection or “national security”. If that had any truth to it, Facebook would have gotten the same treatment, or at the very least would be in the conversation now since they do the same exact shit. If this was about data collection they would pass regulations about that instead of targeting one specific site to unilaterally ban.

          • atrielienz@lemmy.world
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            17 days ago

            I think you brought this up as a *whatabout" to something I said as a rebuttal rather than an agreement so maybe check your tone. You didn’t say anything in your comment necessarily agreeing with the original comment at any point.

      • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        Wrong. They let Cambridge collect it on their platform. Huge difference.

        The rest of your post is irrelevant.

        • underisk@lemmy.ml
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          17 days ago

          Their justification for banning Tiktok is that it allows the Chinese government to collect on their platform. It’s the same fucking thing.

  • Prison Mike@links.hackliberty.org
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    17 days ago

    I’m on board with the sentiment but are we really defending TikTok? I haven’t kept up on the issue but personally I wouldn’t cry if TikTok went away.

  • Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee
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    17 days ago

    *40 year inflation brought on because the government wanted 14 years of free money for Corporations.

    Monetary policy and Corporate price gouging are the drivers for inflation. Everything else is noise.

  • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    Ok but fuck tik Tok. Ban that shit. This comment is basically saying that banning tik Tok takes the same effort as giving your people healthcare.

    • xenoclast@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      The amount of time and money the American government and associated propaganda agencies (they call them news ) have spent on anti TikTok (really just a racist anti China campaign) would definitely have made a huge difference if spent on their social safety net.

  • sweetpotato@lemmy.ml
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    17 days ago

    Ok because I see a lot of stupid shit in here, you don’t get to talk about banning tiktok if you don’t talk about banning Instagram, Reddit, X and YouTube, who use the same formula, with equal fervour.

    Now please talk about healthcare, climate crisis, the Palestinian ethnic cleansing by that cancerous, land grabbing, terrorist Israeli state and the shrinking buying power of the people all around the world.

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    Then you should have voted blue, idiot. This situation exists because of apathy and antigovernment sentiment.

    • mlg@lemmy.world
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      17 days ago

      Did Clinton ever undo all the load of crap Reagan and Bush gave us?

      • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        Clinton was 30 fucking years ago and Republicans have been stonewalling ever since then on every since one of these issues.

        What the fuck are you talking about about???

        • sakodak@lemmy.world
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          17 days ago

          Clinton signed into law a whole raft of neoliberal policies that were started by Bush, and the cumulative effects of those policies over those decades are what we’re feeling right now and what we warned about back then. The frogs have been boiled while the populace bickers about which neoliberal corporate shill sits on the puppet throne. They’re after all our money and they’re getting it by distracting us with the political circus and dividing us with wedge issues.

      • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        Clinton is one the few presidents in the last 100 years that has operated on a SURPLUS. Meaning he’s the only president to lower the national debt

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        H. W. actually fought against the Reaganomics himself, so while the two didn’t agree on foreign policy there wasn’t much that had to be undone between Bush and Clinton.

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        House is 220 R to 212 D

        Senate is 51 D (+I) to 49 R

        The last time there was a Dem Supermajority was over a decade ago and it lasted about a month.

        And the Supreme Court is stacked with Republicans with lifetime appointments. That supreme court has been taking bribes and they can’t be removed without a supermajority vote.

        But yes the blue currently in power that tried multiple times to cancel student loan debt, enshrine reproductive rights, protect and expand healthcare coverage, raise the minimum wage. The current blue that successfully ended several huge corporate mergers, fined companies for raising prices of goods, and has a housing plan to add 3 Million available units. Literally everything the meme cares about and more is as simple as voting correctly for your interests.

      • roscoe@startrek.website
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        17 days ago

        Holding one of three branches is not “in power.”

        All spending bills have to originate in the republican controlled house. Anything the administration tries to do on it’s own has to survive a heavily politicized Supreme Court. A Supreme Court that would be radically different without the Trump presidency. We’ll be dealing with those Trump appointees for a generation and they’ll do far more harm than he ever did. Not enough people voting blue in 2016 is going to have very long lasting consequences.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          17 days ago

          Are you aware of who controlled the House, Presidency, and Senate from 2021-2023?

          Hint:

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/117th_United_States_Congress

          Not enough people voting blue in 2016 is going to have very long lasting consequences.

          Hillary’s people trying to shove her down America’s throats and propping up trump in the primary because he was the only one she had a chance to beat is going to have very long lasting consequences.

          And letting those same people run Kamala’s campaign and still the DNC is still fucking shit up.

          When the only metric for DNC leadership positions is how much bribe money from billionaires total legit donations we shouldn’t be surprised the party and chosen candidate keep favoring money over votes

          Rather than yell at voters to accept it, maybe we should restructure the DNC so the people in charge know how to win an election against a candidate as terrible as trump?

          Edit:

          And for a fair comparison, trump also had 2 years with both houses than one split.

          Same as Biden.

          • roscoe@startrek.website
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            17 days ago

            And? What does 21-23 have to do with who is “currently in power”? And how many SC justices has Biden appointed?

            Maybe you should read the entire conversation, it’s not long, instead of knee-jerking to one comment.

            Edit: You know how you “restructure” the DNC? You show the fuck up. The average local office would only need 5-6 people regularly showing up, every meeting, not just the last few months before a presidential election, to shift resources and voting recommendations to more progressive primary candidates.

            • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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              17 days ago

              Because most of the ones still in office right now (obviously including Biden) were also in office during the 117th Congress when Dems held both majorities?

              But this doesn’t feel like it’ll be productive for some reason.

              • roscoe@startrek.website
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                17 days ago

                Still don’t know how that makes 21-23 “current.” Just going to double-down on refusing to read the comment chain and make it about what you want, are you?

        • ddplf@szmer.info
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          17 days ago

          Not the case but nice try, random person from the internet

          I’m not even an American. To my knowledge, democrats are currently in power. Other guys did a good job explaining the actual situation, you on the other hand…

          • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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            17 days ago

            You don’t understand the government or its current state but confidently commented on it.

  • mhague@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    How can Steve ban tiktok if Doug won’t let him mitigate homelessness? Why is Bob talking about housing when Alex is gung-ho on genocide?

    Sorry, I meant to ask: how can the government ban tiktok when the government won’t do anything about homelessness? How can the government be proud of mitigating homelessness when the government supports genocide?

    Citizens United must be a curse from a Greek god. A funny little jab to highlight our tendency to oversimplify.

  • JaggedRobotPubes@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    Im down with the idea of social media being a threat to citizens for so long as the algorithms optimize for anger.

  • shalafi@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    Mostly agreed, but is anyone really getting minimum wage? Walmart pays double that to start in my little town.

    • Ms. ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml
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      17 days ago

      Idaho has federal minimum and iirc laws preventing county or city minimums to be higher than the state minimum. Lots of service and farmhand jobs there are at minimum wage. One of the places I used to work was saught after in the town because they pay higher than minimum. I made $7.50/hr

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      17 days ago

      Go to places like KY, IN, TN, WV. Probably LA, and MS. They regularly start people @ minimum wage, and the rents are about 2/3 what I would pay in San Diego.

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    I think the funniest thing that happens if Trump wins is everyone is all the journalists being forced to make truth social accounts. Then they can ask the worlds oldest president to clarify his new ban on cat ladies and trans people.

    • MisterD@lemmy.ca
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      16 days ago

      If he does win, he will be removed within 2 weeks after inauguration if not sooner. Trump is losing his marbles fast to dementia. Anybody who votes for Trump better love Vance.

  • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    When did they protect us from TikTok? They didn’t. Other than that it would be a great point

  • ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ@lemm.ee
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    17 days ago

    “a genocide” LOL…this palestine propaganda is really getting out og hand. it is one of the many current genocides. russians wiping out cultures and nations, china on tibet or the uigurs, shit syria on aramaics and assyrians, fucking turkey on kurds and armenians. but yeah…it is “one” genocide now. kids are fucking stupid.