His policies were terrible. He broke off several key international treaties. He instituted the family separation policy. He broke down federal institutions that could have helped fight COVID.
In what way was he better on spending? He managed to increase the deficit every single year, even before COVID.
> He might speak like a crazy person.
He does speak like a crazy person. He advocates for crazy policies. People from his administration are crazy people and advocate for crazy policies.
> Why is it always Tesla vs. ICE? Seems like a false dichotomy
Tesla is the largest EV-only manufacturer in Germany, and is the second-largest seller of EVs in the country [1]. (Also, unless there is a record of Tesla factories being unusually dirty, the protesters are protesting expanding EV production in general. That it’s owned by Tesla seems irrelevant, another manufacturer would raise the same stated concerns.)
There have been significant changes in culture and (at least perceived) job stability in the past two years specifically. See the significant layoffs in early 2023 and the surprising and completely unnecessary layoffs that just happened a week ago. Transparency about decision-making is now basically non-existent. The literal only communication from the CEO was that there will be more layoffs.
Travel budgets are also non-existent now.
All in all, it's still a good job. But it is significantly worse that before, and the trajectory does not seem great.
I understand your perspective, but I'm going to disagree with what I think you mean, which is that /only/ parents should be responsible for their kids, and that nobody else should have to do anything at all for them. I know that's not exactly what you said, but given the context it's what I am going to argue against.
Kids are a normal part of our society. We were all kids at one point. Our lives were all made better by reasonable accomodations that others made for our safety and wellbeing. If the outside world is only designed for adults, then there is an impossible burden on parents to raise children.
I think we can and often do make reasonable accomodations for kids. Like checking IDs at the bar or checking heights before letting people on a rollercoaster.
What that level of responsibility is for websites, I'm not sure. But it's not zero.
I think some of the blame towards Texas is due to many of their politicians denying that climate change exists. Texas is a major oil producer, and is on the higher end of CO2 emissions per capita. They should probably realize that their once reliable weather patterns are not going to be reliable anymore.
But when Dutch politicians neglect to prepare for extreme weather, they don't have as much blame because they pay lip service to climate change? This seems backwards; failing to prepare for a threat is made worse by you previously acknowledging the threat. The climate change deniers can at least claim to be earnestly surprised; anybody who previously acknowledged the threat already gave up that excuse.
I have observed the same thing w.r.t the people who always seem to lead "new city" projects. I think there's a lot of elite projection when a billionaire seeks funding from other billionaires. These guys ride in limos to work everyday and have no idea how good a well-built mass transit system could be, for instance.
That and, the whole thing will ultimately have to be a grift, right? How are they going to monetize their new city? Even with the best aspirations, this still becomes a corporate town centered around helping some oligarchs make their money back.
No idea in this master plan, inorganic cities suffer eventually the oversights of their designers. As to how to monetize a city, check out Santa Clarita, or before that San Clemente/Mission Viejo, or before the families that own Long Beach or Vernon. Oil.
They acquired the spanish land grants by hook or crook, kept the oil/mineral rights and the commercial properties as leases and sold the houses plots off (except Vernon which has almost 0 residential). This lets them perpetually gain rent and oil money. Some are even worse like Lennar who puts 'runs with the land' deed provisions that each sale/transfer you must donate a significant percent to their "Charity" which is run by the corporate owners of questionable administrative overhead and goals.
But forget it Jake, It's Chinatown.
I don't really see what aspect of this situation involves a false sense of victimhood, unless you are referring to the multimillionaire founder who is unwilling to add age verification to their website.
How is age verification supposed to work? I don't suppose users of the site are going to provide legal documents just to use it. It's tantamount to shutting it down.
I ask because there was a similar moral outrage around age verification for access to porn sites that I recall being a big issue a while ago. I don't recall exactly how it played out in court, but it appeared to amount to nothing, which I can't help but to feel was due to the fact that mechanisms to verify someone's age online are either trivial to circumvent or present such a high barrier to entry that no reasonable user would surmount it.
It's supposed to work perfectly. That was easy. Next?
But in all seriousness, age verification will soon be a legal reality. It's only "hard" because it's optional. When the government makes it required, they'll also have to make it possible - or those laws won't stand up in court. It'll probably require government issued digital IDs and MFA hardware.
I think it's likely just to result in offshoring of site, which is a net negative, imo, for constructive regulation of these sites. I think the effort for age verification is going to turn back the clock on progress that has been made in content moderation done by the bigger sites in the US, by pushing eyeballs to less regulated sites overall.
It's a defensive reaction to the fact the US has vague, crappy, outdated laws about everything. Litigation is needed absolutely everywhere because every situation falls through the cracks of the law, which obviously overwhelms the courts.
So what happens instead? Each company comes up with their own detailed, up-to-date, heavily skewed set of rules. And we agree to use their private court system or go to another company that does the same thing but slightly different.
I disagree. Courts aren't the only places where decisions can be made. In fact, courts rely in information found and published in reports like this to make their decisions.
I feel I have a right to make my decisions based on such information also.
That doesn't mean the publisher shouldn't have liability here also. They are damaging someone's reputation, and should be held responsible if the claims are untrue.
But if the claims are true, then the damaged reputation is warranted. That's one of the consequences of doing something bad. You only have a right to have a good reputation if you don't do anything bad.
In what way was he better on spending? He managed to increase the deficit every single year, even before COVID.
> He might speak like a crazy person.
He does speak like a crazy person. He advocates for crazy policies. People from his administration are crazy people and advocate for crazy policies.