I am good man, think whatever you want.

By all metrics (product performance, market share, capitalization/stock price) they are in free fall and have been for half a decade.

No need to be overly pedantic.

If Apple (or another one of the companies you listed) massively collapsed from their leadership position, it would also be a point of discussion around whether stock buyback was justified.

Mind you, I don’t think nationalisation is likely to help Intel or that it is a desirable outcome, I am just sharing the reasoning.

He is refering to Intel spending large sums of money on stock buybacks instead investing it in their business.

Call it word salad, mashed potatoes or Peruvian causa, makes no difference to me.

The fact remains that libertarianism is an American oligarch polemical strategy aimed at enabling corruption and keeping local plebs in line (because Americans respond particularly well to certain keywords and copytext).

Denying that doesn’t give you much credibility! Just think for a second how it makes you look!

I saw all I needed by clicking a random article on the Cato’s frontpage. It’s is clear that they are demagogues and malicious.

And I am willing to bet if we look at their funding, it is all run by oligarch/criminal groups.

I am not going to deny basic facts about life “follow the money” based on some half assed rehortic.

We good?

Yeah, it’s pretty small, but it had a few tech communities that were neat.

minnix.dev seems to have been abandoned:

!sbcs@lemux.minnix.dev

Admin hasn’t posted in 5 months and images aren’t working for me.

Got to admit, this is extremely annoying with the threadiverse, especially in context of people pushing for decentralization too much.

I am all for decentralization, but you need a functional, long-term foundation first.

Violence and historical conceptions of servitude aren’t the only way to violate rights. Rejection of externalities does not require violence or servitude; yet it is arguably a fundamental aspect of libertarianism.

I don’t mean specific instructions, I am talking about philosophical perspectives too. Perfect freedom of association does not exist in a universe (reality) with externalities.

No it’s not and it isn’t. Very easy to call it that now, when the oligarchs themselves “confirm” it, but 10 years ago oligarchs themselves just loved liberal democracies with left traits, because those made laws convenient for them. Your memory seems a bit short.

I would disagree, be it in the American context or in other countries. In other countries, oligarchs don’t bother since libertarian polemics aren’t the best tool for the job. I lived in the US under Bush and Obama, I can’t say that US oligarchs from the time “just loved liberal democracies with left traits”.

“It’s a war,” Schwarzman, [chairman and cofounder of the Blackstone Group], said of the struggle with the administration over increasing taxes on private-equity firms. “It’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.”

Some other examples come to mind (no web searches, just going from memory).

Yes, it doesn’t, but the closer the better usually. Nobody claims it does. Nobody relies upon that.

While on a general level, I agree that “the closer the better”, individuals who associate with libertarianism almost universally reject personal responsibility by leveraging polemics about “free” association.

Even casually opening the Cato website (did it as an experiment), reveals a clear disregard for reality and tons of open corporate propaganda. Demagoguery; undeniably pre-meditated dishonesty.

Can’t speak for Khemer Rouge, but I agree that oligarchy is not some sort of isolated element and it is a reflection of challenges within a society.

The theory of libertarianism sounds good on paper, but it does not reflect reality. The reality is that it is an oligarch ideology aimed at providing polemical cover to corruption and criminality.

Perfect freedom of association does not exist in reality. There are informational asymmetries, externalities, natural monopolies (makes no sense two build two set of water pipes to a house) and whole host of other issues.

It’s like with communism, good in theory, but the individuals who went about implementing it all turned out to be brutal and authoritarian.

From my perspective, it’s the same with libertarianism. Lots of pompous musing about freedom, but when it comes down it, it’s just a type of brand of polemics favoured by the American oligarch regime.

The Cato institute solved the problems of externalities? Wow, this is news to me! How did they do it?

I would argue that’s part of the (unfortunate) effectiveness of libertarianism as an oligarch polemic.

From the perspective of a foreigner who has lived in the US, libertarianism is very much a scheme created by local oligarchs.

Americans think they are special and it’s only in other countries that people can fall for propaganda and schemes.

Even more dependence on corrupt American oligarch gangs.

Relying on American companies is a liability in of itself.

While there is corruption everywhere and on a standardized basis, there are of course countries with higher levels of corruption, the US is the #1 source of corruption and criminality in the world. Additionally it’s the ideological centre for global oligarch/criminal gangs.

Microsoft’s monopoly in Windows and Office alone results in extraction of hundreds of billions of dollars from companies and individuals all around the world.

Wasn’t a thing when I lived there, but that was pre-COVID. ))

We don’t have this with the delivery services (Glovo, Bolt, Uber Eats).

payments for user-submitted photos.

Didn’t know this was thing. Is this US-specific?

ICP has a podcast?

Man, what is the world coming to?

It makes sense that you would have a lot of IDM style tracks for a playlist called “writing music”.

Theregister is a top notch technology news source. I don’t work in enterprise IT and I find their enterprise coverage very insightful both from a business and a tech perspective.

The irreverent and playful attitude is the cherry on top. :)

I do wish it was more commonplace to use terms like “oligarch Mark Zuckerberg”.

“strategic autonomy”

Wow, this sounds like a terrible UX.