Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.
It's been very frustrating to watch SO MANY people just... let Trump and his admins do whatever the fuck they want. So many people who DO have power in this situation have just laid back and been...
It's been very frustrating to watch SO MANY people just... let Trump and his admins do whatever the fuck they want. So many people who DO have power in this situation have just laid back and been complicit. Especially tech execs. I watched Obama say to GWB "How do we stop this?" (This was from a tiktok video of a deaf person lipreading their interaction at Trumps latest inauguration). How do you stop this? DON'T FUCKING SHOW UP. Your just here to play nice and hand the reigns to someone we KNOW is intent on destroying democracy? The literal LEAST you could do is NOT SHOW UP FOR THE TEA PARTY. THREE PREVIOUS PRESIDENTS. FUCKING DO LITERALLY ANYTHING. Biden shakes Trumps hand and gives him the keys. You could just have not shown up.
And I understand individuals not feeling like they can speak up and do what's right. Your livelihood is at risk. And anyone you're responsible for, your family. Our collective power has been systematically destroyed for multiple generations at this point. We've been headed for bad times for decades. I guess it's finally time to pay up.
This sets off my spidey senses for misinformation for a few reasons: Even deaf people who try to lip read all the time say it's not very accurate. From a quick Google, the estimates of how much of...
I watched Obama say to GWB "How do we stop this?" (This was from a tiktok video of a deaf person lipreading their interaction at Trumps latest inauguration).
This sets off my spidey senses for misinformation for a few reasons:
Even deaf people who try to lip read all the time say it's not very accurate. From a quick Google, the estimates of how much of English speech can be discerned from lip reading seem to be in the 30% to 45% range (source 1, source 2, source 3). Out of curiosity, I looked at the video of Barack Obama speaking and it's a side profile of Obama's face with his head actually angled away from the camera. You can barely see his lips.
Even if this sentence were 100% accurately lip read, we wouldn't know the context or the intended meaning of Obama's words. We could try to guess or infer it, but we might be wrong.
The source is TikTok and the quality of information on TikTok is absolutely abysmal. I think TikTok is great for comedy videos, jokes, sketches, improv, etc. if you find the right people to follow but the idea of someone trying to get factual information from TikTok or reasonable analysis is scary to me. (One investigation concluded that about 20% of TikTok videos contain misinformation.)
No reputable news source picked up on the story. A few unreputable sources that uncritically share popular posts or videos from social media published articles about it. This is only weak evidence, but if the claim that Obama said this were credible, I would guess some journalist somewhere would show the video to a lip reading expert and see if they can confirm what the TikToker claimed. From the absence of any reputable article about this story, we can infer that either no journalist investigated the story or they did and found the TikToker's claim was not credible.
Edit: One small thing people can do to strengthen liberal democracy in liberal democratic countries is to stop using TikTok as a source for factual information, especially information about political news. That means either not using the app at all or tuning your algorithm so that your feed is only funny videos, cute animal videos, beautiful nature videos, personal vlogs, etc. And then skipping any "informational" videos (a high percentage of which will be misinformational) that slip through.
In practice, I've found it hard enough to retrain my algorithm when it got in a bad place that I created a new account. It was a pain, but it worked in the end.
It also bears mentioning that TikTok is ultimately under the control of an authoritarian government and there is some evidence to suggest that this authoritarian government may be using TikTok to influence political opinion in democratic countries in a way that serves its interests.
For sure, I don't think your wrong, which is why I included that disclaimer. However, that wasn't the structure of my argument, just an anecdote. My frustration with people who have power and...
For sure, I don't think your wrong, which is why I included that disclaimer. However, that wasn't the structure of my argument, just an anecdote.
My frustration with people who have power and influence, and attended the inauguration, still stands.
Wow, I hadn’t looked at it this way. They are liquidating the government.
DOGE’s approach is much more of a “private equity play,” said Samuel Hammond, chief economist for the right-leaning tech policy think tank Foundation for American Innovation. “It’s sort of liquidation nation,” he said, referring to the way private equity firms strip companies down for parts.
Wow, I hadn’t looked at it this way. They are liquidating the government.
I don't really understand the complete analogy - private equity liquidation is turning non-liquid assets into cash, or getting rid of liabilities, for the purpose of turning a company's balance...
I don't really understand the complete analogy - private equity liquidation is turning non-liquid assets into cash, or getting rid of liabilities, for the purpose of turning a company's balance sheet green (in the short term) so it can be sold at a profit. I get that DOGE is treating all these parts of the federal government as liabilities and cutting them loose, but what's the purpose here? Mindlessly following some libertarian-ish ideology?
For the liquidity analogy, I’m mostly looking at what they’re doing right now. I’ve been through acquisitions where the company is seen as useless but they have a thing of value, this is exactly...
For the liquidity analogy, I’m mostly looking at what they’re doing right now. I’ve been through acquisitions where the company is seen as useless but they have a thing of value, this is exactly what happens. People and departments are removed without paying much attention to what they do or what value they might bring. The company was purchased because they had value doing x, everything else is seen as a liability.
There’s absolutely more maliciousness here than in a typical takeover, certainly there must have been a lot of glee when the irs was downsized.
I'm sure a lot of the industry is against it but powerless. But thars probably because their leaders are at best trying to stay impartial (somehow) or at worst are spearheading and cheating this...
I'm sure a lot of the industry is against it but powerless. But thars probably because their leaders are at best trying to stay impartial (somehow) or at worst are spearheading and cheating this on.
Maybe that will change as they lose millions, billions from recent actions. But who know.
From the oft-quoted On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder:
It's been very frustrating to watch SO MANY people just... let Trump and his admins do whatever the fuck they want. So many people who DO have power in this situation have just laid back and been complicit. Especially tech execs. I watched Obama say to GWB "How do we stop this?" (This was from a tiktok video of a deaf person lipreading their interaction at Trumps latest inauguration). How do you stop this? DON'T FUCKING SHOW UP. Your just here to play nice and hand the reigns to someone we KNOW is intent on destroying democracy? The literal LEAST you could do is NOT SHOW UP FOR THE TEA PARTY. THREE PREVIOUS PRESIDENTS. FUCKING DO LITERALLY ANYTHING. Biden shakes Trumps hand and gives him the keys. You could just have not shown up.
And I understand individuals not feeling like they can speak up and do what's right. Your livelihood is at risk. And anyone you're responsible for, your family. Our collective power has been systematically destroyed for multiple generations at this point. We've been headed for bad times for decades. I guess it's finally time to pay up.
This sets off my spidey senses for misinformation for a few reasons:
Even deaf people who try to lip read all the time say it's not very accurate. From a quick Google, the estimates of how much of English speech can be discerned from lip reading seem to be in the 30% to 45% range (source 1, source 2, source 3). Out of curiosity, I looked at the video of Barack Obama speaking and it's a side profile of Obama's face with his head actually angled away from the camera. You can barely see his lips.
Even if this sentence were 100% accurately lip read, we wouldn't know the context or the intended meaning of Obama's words. We could try to guess or infer it, but we might be wrong.
The source is TikTok and the quality of information on TikTok is absolutely abysmal. I think TikTok is great for comedy videos, jokes, sketches, improv, etc. if you find the right people to follow but the idea of someone trying to get factual information from TikTok or reasonable analysis is scary to me. (One investigation concluded that about 20% of TikTok videos contain misinformation.)
No reputable news source picked up on the story. A few unreputable sources that uncritically share popular posts or videos from social media published articles about it. This is only weak evidence, but if the claim that Obama said this were credible, I would guess some journalist somewhere would show the video to a lip reading expert and see if they can confirm what the TikToker claimed. From the absence of any reputable article about this story, we can infer that either no journalist investigated the story or they did and found the TikToker's claim was not credible.
Edit: One small thing people can do to strengthen liberal democracy in liberal democratic countries is to stop using TikTok as a source for factual information, especially information about political news. That means either not using the app at all or tuning your algorithm so that your feed is only funny videos, cute animal videos, beautiful nature videos, personal vlogs, etc. And then skipping any "informational" videos (a high percentage of which will be misinformational) that slip through.
In practice, I've found it hard enough to retrain my algorithm when it got in a bad place that I created a new account. It was a pain, but it worked in the end.
It also bears mentioning that TikTok is ultimately under the control of an authoritarian government and there is some evidence to suggest that this authoritarian government may be using TikTok to influence political opinion in democratic countries in a way that serves its interests.
For sure, I don't think your wrong, which is why I included that disclaimer. However, that wasn't the structure of my argument, just an anecdote.
My frustration with people who have power and influence, and attended the inauguration, still stands.
Wow, I hadn’t looked at it this way. They are liquidating the government.
I don't really understand the complete analogy - private equity liquidation is turning non-liquid assets into cash, or getting rid of liabilities, for the purpose of turning a company's balance sheet green (in the short term) so it can be sold at a profit. I get that DOGE is treating all these parts of the federal government as liabilities and cutting them loose, but what's the purpose here? Mindlessly following some libertarian-ish ideology?
For the liquidity analogy, I’m mostly looking at what they’re doing right now. I’ve been through acquisitions where the company is seen as useless but they have a thing of value, this is exactly what happens. People and departments are removed without paying much attention to what they do or what value they might bring. The company was purchased because they had value doing x, everything else is seen as a liability.
There’s absolutely more maliciousness here than in a typical takeover, certainly there must have been a lot of glee when the irs was downsized.
I'm sure a lot of the industry is against it but powerless. But thars probably because their leaders are at best trying to stay impartial (somehow) or at worst are spearheading and cheating this on.
Maybe that will change as they lose millions, billions from recent actions. But who know.