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I both agree with the sentiment, and believe it won't happen because the USA is past the point of no return.

I mean this with no direspect or cynisism, and hope I'm wrong, but I think that country has rotted too much for saving. You let it go too far for too long.

Then again the UK (repeatedly) went through some very dark times, and whilst not exactly a bastion of justice, we're doing a lot better now.


Correct me if I'm on a limb here, but didn't the UK truly embrace stupid, only after it lost its Empire status? While the US does it at its peak, which seems much more dangerous for, well everybody actually.

Hopefully. Everyone copied Apple without pausing to consider; "hey, does this make things _less_ usable?". Hint: yes, yes it does.

And now they're following Apple into maximalism again making it even less usable. As someone who did accessibility, minimalism did make it easier, it's hard to do maximalism right, one needs to use component extension and extensive styling rules for overlaps and bounding boxes versus a simple vector rectangle with revolved corners. I do miss the 2000s steel/gradient/font/faux 3d icewm-ish looks, they were pretty easy to pull off and didn't really hinder usability

I don't think people feel entitled to free entertainment, they're just tired of being so badly ripped off.

It used to be that you'd pay one company a little extra, and get all the extra channels you actually wanted. Now you pay multiple companies _a lot_ extra, and still might miss out on what you want.

Many people still remember the original deal.


They very much do. There's an Australian streaming service called Stan that bought the rights to the English Premier League this year. They post highlights videos to YouTube.

Every single video they post is full of comments about how short the video is, how it didn't replay this or that important moment, and finishes with an ad for Stan.

Compared to 20 years ago where the only highlights you could get for free were in a news program that might spare 1 minute for just the most important match if you were lucky, these videos are incredible.


Yes, I remember when Netflix was going to "save" us all from the cable company.

When there is only one streaming service, being subscribed to that streaming service means you get everything. Now there are 15 different ones to choose from, each licensed to show a different set of content.

Watching NHL hockey in Canada is a strange situation right now, but I'm not sure how it compares to the original cable situation.


Isn’t this every “disruption” story in a nutshell? The value being converted into consumer benefit is always a temporary situation.



"Disruptor" = temporarily embarrassed monopolist.


If that's sarcasm, it's British levels of dry.


> "Genocidal" is not an order of magnitude; it's a description of purpose. What's going on in Iran is an atrocity, but it's not "genocidal."

Oh, well that's alright then. Hey fellers, we got off on a grammatical technicality.

> We're not the world police.

It's your mess, now clean it up.


It's not a "grammatical technicality" to misuse a word. Iran is not carrying out a genocide.

>It's your mess, now clean it up.

The US is under no obligation to the people of Iran whatsoever. If we take action in Iran, it will be solely to our benefit, and it may or may not improve those peoples' lives. In all likelihood, it will be another Libya or Afghanistan situation in which we take what we want and leave a power vacuum in our wake.


> It's not a "grammatical technicality" to misuse a word. Iran is not carrying out a genocide.

10,000 dead in 2 days.

> The US is under no obligation to the people of Iran whatsoever

Nobody can make you do anything, but the moral obligation is there. People say things like "we're not the world police", as if overthrowing the elected government of a country is nothing. It cuts both ways.


>10,000 dead in 2 days.

Again, "genocide" doesn't have to do with the scale of the killing. It's a specific word with its own meaning.

>Nobody can make you do anything, but the moral obligation is there. People say things like "we're not the world police", as if overthrowing the elected government of a country is nothing. It cuts both ways.

Governments don't have "morals". They do whatever is most expedient. We have never done something because it's the moral thing to do, and we never will. That's just not how hegemonic powers like the US work.


Better than any ayatollah


>"It's your mess, now clean it up"

Yes sir.

On a second thought - who the fuck are you to tell the country with the biggest dick what to do. We'll be putting 100% tariffs on you.


Talk to some Iranians. We would _welcome_ "imperialist" intervention.

The black and white "west is bad" narrative you're being fed isn't accurate.


Definitely seems the majority viewpoint of people from Tehrangeles


How can you welcome imperalist intervention when the imperialists are the ones purposely causing (to a large extent) the economic instability?

Just trying to understand.


They are not. It's the eastern imperialists that are causing this. And if it's a choice between eastern imperialists (China and Russia) and western ones, it seems that Iranian people by far prefer the western ones.

For three main reasons.

1. Culturally Iranians are way more aligned with west.

2. Western imperialism results in more democracy. Not 100%, but not this bad.

3. Economically countries under west's influence do much better. Iran is extremely poor right now.


Interesting perspective!

Why do you think China and Russia are causing the economic instability? I thought it was because of US sanctions and currency manipulation.


Do you also think that the Iranian people supported the 1953 coup?


Ask Poles.

Some "west bad" rhetoric is that the fall of communism was orchestrated by Americans and not of organic local origin.

In reality the communist regime protected by Russian/ soviet violence had no legitimacy or support from the population.

Perhaps Poles could not free themselves without the western , maybe Cia played active role in organizing solidarity movement.

If this is true then we Poles are forever grateful for orchestrating regime change in Poland in 1989.


What can we do about it? Genuinely want to know your thoughts.

I'm in agreement with everything he says, but I've struggled to see eye to eye with anyone not in my age group. How can we have a constructive conversation about this, come to a consensus that things are not okay now, and move forward?


> How can we have a constructive conversation about this, come to a consensus that things are not okay now, and move forward?

How can it be a constructive conversation if you have presupposed the outcome?


I guess try to improve stuff? There are experiments going on with banning social media to kids for example. I'm a member of actionforhappiness.org and figure we should emulate societies that people are happy with.


Yes let’s give the governors more power in our lives. What could possibly go wrong.


The problem is that they are both correct _and_ they were young back then. What happens then, is their arguments are dismissed because of the latter.

Another issue is it's difficult to explain something to somebody that has no frame of reference of experience of it. He talks of "delayed gratification" a few times. Try explaining how not getting everything you want is good for you to anyone under 40.


Agreed, but good luck with that.

When you try to highlight how some things could be better by going "backwards", you're accused of wearing rose-tinted glasses, or being out of touch.


Except I was there during phase 1 and 2, and still feel everything's fallen apart. I saw what it was, what it was becoming, and what it's become.

This isn't nostalgia or granpa shouting at clouds, many important things are objectively worse now.


you imply you're in phase 3 now, having been through phases 1 and 2, and that is the phase where everything feels falling apart.


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