Notices by Daniel Marks (profdc9@mastodon.social)

@benroyce Trump has no plan and is not making any kind of offer. He does not have a coherent enough foreign policy to engage in diplomacy. At best everything is for optics and the next news cycle, so even if Trump actually offered Zelensky some concessions his words are practically meaningless. The world regards him as a dangerous buffoon now and holds him at arm's length. He's not even useful to his Russian handlers because he's too stupid and unpredictable.

@WarnerCrocker Concentration camps had a section for visitors to see to demonstrate that the "occupants" were being treated well. God knows what happens to Abrego Garcia when he goes back to the real prison.

@petergleick This puts us closer than ever to a coup, probably a military coup, as many people will likely accept unconstitutional despotic authority over superficially constitutional but despotic rule. Trump's rule is weak because he has been a buffoon and a cunning leader might seize control of government from all of these cowardly sycophants and opportunists. The regime consists of a small group of idiots and a demented man and could be easily rounded up.

@br00t4c In other news, the Canadian government has to educate Americans as to what tariffs are.

@brianmerchant Everything is just going to become a Xerox copy of a copy of a copy of a copy until everything is an unrecognizable gray blob. And because we will have lost the ability to distinguish any features, the gray blob will be the product.

@cindyweinstein Scottish billionaire author of book series about magical children intolerant of transgender people helps get vagina museum funded is not something I filled out on my Madlibs cards.

@tante I think "confabulation" is a more accurate word than "hallucination." Confabulation is the stitching together of facts and memories into what seems like a sensible whole when the connections are not there.

@jeffowski How could Christianity be the religion of the meek and oppressed after it became the state religion of the Roman Empire? In order for it to be accepted by the rich and powerful of Rome, the literal interpretation of the "camel passing through the eye of a needle" would have had to be rejected. So like so many other aspects of Christianity, compromises were made.

@WarnerCrocker The Dems will cave because they don't want to be the face of the shutdown and don't want to be the face of the opposition either.

@WarnerCrocker The worst part of that joke is that AI is favored because we prefer mechanical slaves to live humans.

@WarnerCrocker From now on, if anyone's going to be scamming seniors, it's the government.

@bruces I beg to differ. Many more people have seen the future optimism of Star Trek over any of the classic cyberpunk dystopia stories or series. I don't think science fiction has overall promoted a dismal future; it is the media that has propagated pessimism it to sell ads. In a lot of ways science has made life better but we believe it is worse and succumb to learned helplessness.

@pluralistic @gp How do you write such a law? For mobile phone providers, bandwidth allocations limit competition and justify regulation. For internet providers, obtaining the rights of way limits competition. How about social media? What is a social media site, does it just pass third party traffic? Is the barrier of changing to another service limiting competition sufficiently to justify regulation? Is every online forum or chat room a social media site? I don't see how this works.

@pluralistic @gp The vulture capitalists and equity holders don't provide services out of the kindness of their heart. It is wishful thinking to believe anything but contractual obligation or legal coercion would be required to not have them maximize their profit and exploit the consumer. That is why enshittification occurs and goodwill is just another asset to be exploited for profit eventually. Interoperability would be great but users must be willing to shun services that don't provide it.

@pluralistic @gp Explain the precedent for that! I am not saying people get what they deserve, but for example I use Gmail, and I totally realize that today Google could nuke my account or make the contents of the email public. What's the law regarding social media or other free internet services? Why not propose a law requiring social media companies to adhere to a code of conduct? I bet they would then charge for their services. And people only use these services because they are free.

@gp @pluralistic If you're into something you're afraid to walk away from, you should never have joined.

@Gargron With Mastodon you're already quite accomplished for that age!

@WarnerCrocker @GottaLaff The problem is that heeding this message would require heeding Jesus's message about the peacemakers, the meek shall inherit the earth, etc. Trumps followers have their false god and don't need Jesus.

@Gargron The CBC is an organ of the Canadian government and is probably reluctant to call the dear friend of the President of their much more powerful southern neighbor a Nazi. Though it's probably not going to matter in the long run anyways, appeasement doesn't work.

@jwz Sorry, ok. Everyone's been about the TikTok thing lately, I don't see it as a big loss.