To save a click: It is a federal disability program that doesn’t literally keep them from getting married, but the loss on benefits that would come from being married is keeping people from getting married.
“It’s absolutely true that when you look at an individual campaign, it’s just as likely as not that it hasn’t had a huge amount of influence, which is why Russia just does it again and again, or in a different form, or targeting a different group,” the Digital Forensic Research Lab’s Carvin said. “It’s almost like producing cheaply manufactured goods and just getting it out there in the world, hoping that maybe one particular gadget ends up becoming the popular toy of the season, even if the others completely fail.”
Many researchers who study disinformation warn against seeing the hand of Russia as an all-powerful puppeteer, especially since so much of what its mouthpieces amplify is homegrown.
I think we’re severely underestimating the damage and impact of Russian influence, just as we’ve spent decades underestimating the damage and impact of Fox News propaganda.
Amplifying something “home grown” rather than creating a narrative whole-cloth doesn’t make it any less impactful. On a scale of 1-100, turning a fringe party from a volume level of 0.1 to 10 makes it seem like it is still low impact, but in fact it’s 100 times as impactful. It’s the difference between a fringe idea remaining fringe and it being accepted as a variation on “normal.”
That’s why thirty years ago, white supremacy was a fringe group that would be toxic to anyone even touched by it. Now, thanks to normalization by Trump and Fox News - and yes, Russia - there are open white supremacists (though they only occasionally say the quiet part loud) in Congress.
Russia is normalizing fringe right-wing, populist and totalitarian policies. I think they are not only having an impact, they are winning in recent elections. Yes, proving it is difficult, and that’s why no news source is ready to claim Russia caused it. But they are injecting poison into the veins of the world. You might say it’s “trace” amounts, but given a long enough timescale, it is going to be fatal.
I think we’re severely underestimating the damage and impact of Russian influence, just as we’ve spent decades underestimating the damage and impact of Fox News propaganda.
And just as we’ll underestimate the damage of the same garbage coming out of China.
It really is concerning that there’s so little understanding and reporting about the influence campaigns and interference by the Chinese government, particular when that’s much more often what users are running across these days online.
Russia really kicked the game off leading up to 2016, but China is the one running with the ball right now, and I’d say they’re being much more effective with how they create and steer narratives not just in the US but across Europe and South America.
China has silently managed to gain outsized influence within corporations like Google and other social media, not just in how the services finction within their own borders but you witness how thin the divide between Google’s “chinese” version and the rest of the world really is with the way they moderate political speech on their platforms. It wasn’t so long ago that they “accidentally” somehow banned a bunch of chinese keywords on western versions of the platform. And even now you will get shadowbans and comment removal for criticism of the CCP on YT, though it’s unclear exactly what keywords and criteria they’re using. Worst part is that it’s entire opaque.
It’s really weird how differently the media approaches Russian and CCP influence campaigns even though at this point, as Russia declines and democracies are wiser to their tricks, none of those lessons or research are being applied towards countering and educating the public as to Chinese influence to undermine democractic institutions.
It’s one thing to have hotels in the city do this for the millions of tourists, but to force this on the highest performing athletes trying to achieve peak performance at the absolute most important competition of their life is kind of shitty. It’s a two week event for about 11,000 people. I’m pretty sure the AC from that doesn’t put a dent on the AC from the rest of the tourists from the event or the tourists throughout the year in freaking Paris.
The emissions from ACs for 2 weeks likely isn’t close to the emissions from all the construction they did just to host . The whole thing is ridiculous. The corrupt IOC officials watching from box seats and staying in 5 star hotels are all going to have AC.
Yes, this is regularly seen throughout Europe for years.
You can buy such tags in bulk from China, they are very cheap at any scale really (and their use isn’t limited to just pricing).
But yes, I think some EU countries already have laws preventing price changes throughout the day or (to some extend) price differences between eg countryside and cities.
I think there should be an EU directive for this tho.
Also, because they are so cheap they just throw them out when the battery is empty instead of replacing the battery. It’s great for the environment! /s
I offer you a third option: at least one Lidl in Croatia uses blinking tags for stuff they really want you to look at.
Sometime soon we’re gonna have to invent a spam filter for real life. Hey, maybe that’s the use case that the Vision guys at Apple have been looking for?
This way they can spend more time rearranging the store so nobody knows where anything is, in turn making us walk past a bunch of stuff we don’t need in an effort to try and induce an impulse purchase!
Seriously, how are people not seeing this??? We have liberal justices pushing 70, who refused to resign before the “most important election of our lifetimes”.
We have fascists having their old ones resign for young bootlickers while Dems are about to repeat RBG twice.
Oh let me guess, waah the dems didn’t have a majority, how could we expect them to utilize the weapons of politics, waah.
Oh except those times we did have a majority but it doesn’t count because here’s always one spoiler vote that can’t be whipped. Guess we just have to keep watching the slide into fascism as Dems claim to be the great protector of democracy no matter who wins.
And yet some people have the audacity to call it a BotH SiDeS argument.
You know what we called people like these Democrat leaders in times of strife?
Collaborators.
And yes, I am am voting blue. So fucking tell me, blue MAGA, what are the dems going to do to stop the slide into fascism?
Absolute bullshit move. If we’re going to help Ukraine, it shouldn’t be by forcing them to take a loan when they’re at their lowest, at their moment of highest need. They should just be given the Russian assets and be called a day.
In case anyone wants to argue we aren’t “forcing them”: if your only options are living amongst the rubble for years and selling your future, you are going to have to sell your future in order to be able to eat today.
France, Germany and the ECB worry about Russian retaliation targeting European assets, and also the potential impact on financial stability and the euro’s status as a reserve currency. There’s concern that depositors from emerging economies may be encouraged to pull money out of western banks, fragmenting the global financial system.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen downplayed such risks in February, arguing that “there are not alternatives to the dollar, euro, yen.” She said that if the G-7 acted together then the group would be representing half of the global economy and all of the currencies that really have the capacity at this point to serve as reserve currencies.
I agree with you, they should just be able to tap the assets directly. Basically some European countries are worried about the effects seizing assets could have on the Euro. Most of these assets are held in Europe as euros. The loan is actually an improvement over the original proposal though. Originally France Germany, etc were pushing only for the 3 billion in interest a year on the assets to be given to Ukraine. The loan solution was pushed by other countries who wanted to give them more cash from the Russian assets as a way to give $50 billion in cash immediately, with those yearly interest payments from Russian assets being used to pay off the loan.
I do believe a loan is a sign of good faith. Like a “we’re here for you. Don’t turn on us later, you owe us. Don’t forget that.” kinda move, geopolitically. It’s not like there exist international debt collectors that act on behalf of nation states.
Like socially, I agree with you. But the global stage isn’t a highschool cafeteria. That “loan” isn’t like a payday loan to a McDonald’s employee trying to buy a car.
You have to accept these pieces of paper I printed out instead of me paying off my credit card debt because I invoke USC 420.69 Hocus Pocus Debt Begonus.
I had to laugh when I was talking to some young con at my university who was beside himself that someone…gasp!..burned a flag on campus in protest. He thought whoever burned it should be in prison.
I first asked him - what about the First Amendment? He didn’t GAF - not “that kind” of free speech, that’s too far! I asked him if he knew what the proper disposal of a flag was? I told him the right way was to BURN it, and so what should happen to those people who are disposing of flags under this new law he wanted that banned burning of flags? He didn’t believe me and was aghast that I’d even say such a thing. LOL.
I also asked him what he thought should happen to old shirts, shoes, and every other random item the flag is plastered all over - if someone tosses those in the trash, and they get incinerated, who goes to jail for that? At this point, he was kinda worn out…
For the clothing thing, Isn’t the rule just that you can’t turn a flag into clothing. You’re allowed to make clothes with patterns from flags as long as the material didn’t come from a flag.
Unfortunately, they already peddled their lies, made their money, and will find another lie to peddle next. Another half-apology that will never reach half the number of ears their lie has. Put that asshole in prison.
Just for the people who want to defend a nearly 100 year old tragedy for some reason. Here is a document from the US armed forces calling you a fucking idiot.
Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945. Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war. and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated. - The United States Strategic Bombing survey (European war) (Pacific War) …us.archive.org/…/unitedstatesstra00cent.pdf
Not as a quote but the picture painted is extremely clear. They knew the war was unwinnable. The high command knew it and the emperor knew it.
I will say the idea that we weren’t saving a million lives by nuking them depends on hindsight. We had just gotten done with some of the most brutal fighting in the world’s history. We had no reason to suspect they would just lay down their arms.
Reading it over, I can see that scenario would have involved continued fire bombing campaigns, which had already killed over 300,000 people and left over 8 million homeless. It also suggests that many of Japan’s 2 million troops and thousands of planes would have been destroyed before surrender.
It says the vast majority of people surveyed in Japan at the time were willing to continue fighting the war, and the political structure made surrender particularly unlikely.
What do you think the US should have done in 1945?
When Hiroshima was erased in less than a second, the Japanese navy had been eradicated.
The status of their mainland holdings was irrelevant, because they were under blockade.
Their air force was out of planes, oil, and pilots.
Their mechanization program basically never happened in the first place, and their tanks were irrelevant to a military that had marched to Berlin.
Their miracle weapon programs were failures or still in development.
They’d lost 2 million troops trying to conquer China, Korea, and the Philippines and killing 20 million people in the process.
They knew from the start that victory against America alone was impossible. The warmongers just thought the filthy gaijins would surrender if they sank enough of the Pacific Fleet.
They had agreed to abide by the Geneva Conventions and then immediately broke their word.
They had already seemingly refused a conditional surrender offer.
The person writing the paper that council of academics pulled their ideas from has been repeatedly found falsifying documents and denying the Rape of Nanking.
The USA waited three days between bombings to give them time to surrender in the face of power even the most delusional could not deny.
Do you know what happened instead?
The military tried to launch a coup to stop the surrender after the second bomb, the Kyuju incident. The War Minister tried to enlist the rest of the government to help against the wishes of their literal God Emperor.
Get fucking real with your “They were going to surrender anyways.”
Now if want to argue the Allies should have just starved them out instead…
Maybe. How many peasants do you think the most zealous military cult in history would have let die before admitting defeat?
How much would you have spent offering mercy to an enemy that had none of their own?
“the military launched a coup”. Really? The whole military? All against Hirohito himself. Musta been a Chad to single handedly stop the entire Japanese military from couping him.
What you meant to say is a cadre of young officers attempted to storm some government buildings before being put down quickly by the Japanese military.
But ya know what they say. Grain of truth and all that.
Hey, have you ever looked into the Japanese negotiation strategy for peace against the “unconditional terms” we ended up giving them? I’ll save you the trouble, they are identical. The problem is that by refusing to negotiate and demanding unconditional surrender, you don’t care about stopping the war and saving lives. You care about making your years of jingoistic demands seem legit. We demanded unconditional surrender not because we didn’t like their terms, but because we needed to embarrass them for political points back home.
That is not worth nuking 2 cities for.
Imagine killing two urban centers worth of civilians for the sole purpose of proving a point. Scum.
I think the civilian target is hard to justify, but that ship had well and truly sailed in that war at that point, so it’s interesting that it gets singled out. Presumably because it was only two bombs, versus hundreds of thousands. Fact is, it did happen, and plenty more besides. I think we can agree none of it was ideal.
Interesting fact about this document is that from what I recall, the air force pushed hard on the idea that bombing alone would be sufficient to win in an effort to secure funding when the US military downsized post-war. I’d fake its findings with at least a little grain of salt.
Also, it’s not like we could really have simply sat on our hands until December…the American public wanted results and the cost if the war was astronomical already, so adding on months of mobilization and war economy to “save the lives of a few Japs” (to use the relatively widely held stance of Americans at the time) was never going to happen. To say nothing of the toll on human lives regular strategic bombing and famine conditions would inflict…
Wow, going from a daily pill to a biannual injection seems like major progress. I feel like we’ve almost solved HIV; now it’s just a distribution issue.
npr.org
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