I don't really understand why this is better than tap and pay with a card. Why would I want a single point of failure for both my communications and my ability to make payments?
I can imagine harms like that, absolutely. If I ran Youtube I'd work much harder to evict Nazi sympathizers and avoid ideological rabbitholes. But it's legal to broadcast things that will convince people of terrible ideas.
What I don't find plausible is the specific kind of harm alleged in the case discussed in the source article, where having videos attuned to your interests constantly fed to you causes you to become depressed and suicidal.
It might help you understand if you have a preteen or teenage daughter. They are extremely self conscious, prone to humiliation, have a very narrow view of the world, and don’t have all the rational capabilities of an adult.
I'm open to the possibility that I'm missing some key insight and if I ever do have a daughter I'll understand. But I think we also have to be open to the opposite possibility, that we don't like to see preteens and teenagers hurt so deeply and are highly motivated to search around for a structural lever we can pull to stop it from happening.
> What I don't find plausible is the specific kind of harm alleged in the case discussed in the source article, where having videos attuned to your interests constantly fed to you causes you to become depressed and suicidal.
Why couldn't it?
Start with funny videos, like clips of animals doing silly things.
Then have the occasional cringy video of a person being funny but slightly cringe in there, something akin to you've been framed.
Then have people who are being cringe but its carefully framed, a well edited video of some left wing student pushing for a policy but in a clumsy way, being embarrassing the way all teenagers are.
After a while longer, your feed is nothing but clips of BEN SHAPIRO PUBLICALLY EXECUTES THIS SOCIAL JUSTIC WARRIOR ON THE ALTAR OF FACTS AND LOGIC.
BEN SHAPIRO CLIP COMPILATION - OWNS THIS TRANS ACTIVIST- FACTS DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS!
Then you suddenly are getting people talking about their concerns™ about trans people in sports, how there might be unaddressed issues, and then Helen Joyce and the like are appearing in your feed, sounding calm and reasonable while they politely and civilly discuss how all trans people are inherently vile sexual predators engaged in a global conspiracy to sterilize your children.
More and more right wing content, drip drip drip, absolutely no one step that is that distinguishable from the previous, until eventually your feed is nothing but Q-Anon if you are lucky, and outright Nazism if not.
I think this is one of those things that only ever makes sense in the abstract. How would this rule apply to Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy? Would it make sense to tell Prodigy that they'll be immune from defamation suits if only they agree to make their offensive language monitoring opt-in and publish a new code of conduct permitting racial slurs?
I'm honestly not sure... it could also backfire with intentional social groups... such as someone created a social network expressly for progressives or conservatives, where repeated contrarian rhetoric is simply disallowed (for good or bad), for people who want to live in their bubbles, like MSNow.
(last comment regarding MS Now is meant for humor)
Yes. There's a number of people who have successfully defeated the Trump regime's attempts to oppress them by securing a piece of paper saying they're not allowed to. It doesn't work all the time, and you have every right to be furious about the times when it doesn't, but it's counterproductive to overgeneralize and conclude that legal rights don't matter at all.
I emphasize that I'm not defending the Trump regime, but do you know this friend well enough to be confident that she would tell you if her visa situation didn't check out? It would be extremely hard to stay in the US for 20 uninterrupted years on valid visas without permanent residency. O-1s are theoretically indefinite but require yearly renewal, and all of the other common visas I know of have maximum durations below 10 years.
Yes, I am 100% certain of what I said. These individuals have had valid visas in the US and been here for 10-20 years and intentionally have never become green card holders.
One was on a student visa for undergrad and then a student visa for masters for 6 years total (4 for undergrad and 2 for masters), then on a G4 diplomatic visa while working at the World Bank for 5 years, then back to a student visa for 5 years pursuing a PhD, then back to a G4 Diplomatic visa for 6 years while working at the World Bank. This person married an American about 10 years ago and still never pursued a green card out of choice.
Another was on a G4 diplomatic visa while working at the IDB for 3 years, then a student visa for 5 years while pursuing a PhD, then a visa while working at the Federal Reserve for a number of years (not sure of which, but either H1B or J1), and then on a G4 diplomatic visa while working at the IMF.
Of course, these are not your typical situations for the average immigrant. Admittedly, I live in a bit of a bubble surrounded by economists in Washington DC from the World Bank, IMF, IDB, etc who are mostly on G4 diplomatic visas.
My point is it is still possible and one shouldn't presume.
From what I can tell you're right, but this seems like it's 100% the fault of the United States and 0% his. Why would you issue a document certifying authorization to work in the United States that does not imply authorization to be in the United States?
Most of the mentioned narratives are largely products of Radio Free Asia and the broader Western government propaganda complex. There's not much daylight between London and Washington when it comes to China.
You're misunderstanding the analogy. The US's operation in Venezuela was itself a violation of international law, which the international community widely condemned and many countries wish they could have stopped. But there's no button they can push to make the US return Maduro, just as there's no button anyone can push to make China free Jimmy Lai. The only options are a variety of escalatory steps which implicate the relationship between one's own country and China as a whole.
> Which ratified treaty did the US's operation in Venezuela violate?
Even if it hadn't violated a ratified treaty (it did violate several, starting with the UN Charter and OAS Charter), it would still violate international law; the US has recognized (among other places, in the London Charter of 1945 establishing the International Military Tribunal) that the crime of aggressive war exists independently of the crime of waging war in violation of international treaties.
E.g. at least 2 children were executed by Maduro for protesting against him, along with at least hundreds of adults. Mass political arrests by masked men have been common since Chavez came to power, there have been executions of entire families. Torture of prisoners. It goes on and on and on and on, and all of it violates the core of international law: the Geneva convention.
Maduro's violations of international treaties include attacks on neighboring states (Maduro's "war on terror" (yes, really) included raids on Columbian territory, plus his promise to attack Guyana). Maduro's violations of international treaties includes, ironically, abducting foreign nationals.
And before you say "but ICE". First, this started more than a decade before ICE, it is actually about far more people than ICE, and with ICE there is at least the allegation that those people violated US law (immigration law). So no, it is not the same. ICE comes disturbingly close, true, but this is still a LOT worse.
So what is your point? Obviously Venezuela since more than a decade did not respect international law. Is your point that since international law exists, Venezuela should have been attacked way sooner, in fact as soon as it became clear what Chavez was doing? Or do you argue that US/Trump's attack is fine since international law can be ignored anyway?
Including Maduro's abduction I think it's very easy to argue that the US behavior is much more in line with international law than Venezuela's. So what is your point?
I mean, what reasoning, exactly, leads to your conclusion that Venezuela/Maduro is the victim here? Or should I put it differently and state the obvious: that your reasoning only makes sense if it defends the idea that Maduro's regime is allowed to kill and attack, and the US is not.
I would hazard to say that most people are upset because a single person decided the fate of our country, and in a manner contrary to the outlines defined in the constitution. And your description of the events there really do clarify just how awful things here are as well - executions in broad daylight, masked men kidnapping people extrajudicially, allegations of laws being violated as a pretext to detail lawful citizens.
It's all horrible and shocking to say the least. And it makes people question whether our actions are justified or the outright thuggery of a wanna-be dictator.
Putin doesn't need the US providing precedent to do that (and even if he was, there was plenty of that before Maduro), killing or capturing Zelenskyy in a decapitation strike was attempted more than once near the beginning of the 2022 escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian war. He wasn’t stopped by international law.
> Next time Putin will kidnap Zelenskyy with the exact same reasoning.
Putin DID do that. He ordered him kidnapped. And it wasn't international law stopping him, it was the Ukrainian army and apparently some regular Ukrainians.
Putin has tried to kidnap him at least twice, and sent out murder squads for him probably several dozen times now.
Putin did not face consequences for this, in fact a number of countries that profess to respect international law protected him against International law: South Africa, China, Mongolia, Belarus, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Azerbeidjan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and India.
Also, as I pointed out, "international law" didn't stop Maduro from committing warcrimes, he also sent out murder squads that even killed children, it didn't stop Putin from doing the same. Nothing at all changed for international law at all.
The only thing victimized is people's illusions about international law. Maduro is himself a war criminal! So using international law grounded arguments to protect him ... fuck that, even if you're technically right.
How does any of this make sense? Other than your first sentence (sorry about that, of course you're right, he tried) every claim is bogus.
> The point of international law isn’t protection but to distinguish wrong from right.
It is actually explicitly stated in almost all international law (mostly except human rights/Geneva convention, which would be the one Maduro violated and Trump didn't) that the ONLY point of international law is international cooperation. International law is completely voluntary for states and consists of individual treaties you can join ... or not join. Don't join or decide to leave? That bit of international law doesn't apply to you anymore.
> What do you think why even Putin made some bogus claims why his actions are justified?
Because Putin always does that. Even decades back, when he was backing gangsters, he did that. I'm sure at one point it was necessary, and now the guy is 73. His habits won't change anymore. Besides, his idol, the Soviet Union, also did that.
> In which war did Maduro commit war crimes?
No war required for that. Besides what even is a war? One of the older "international law" treaties which nobody remembers that a war is only a war when declared by at least one state. Very few declared wars in the last decades. Israel-Palestine? Not declared (according to hamas that's just how things are forever and Israel just defended I guess). Sudan? Not declared. The 123818th conflict between India and Pakistan? Not declared. Iran-Israel? Iran-Syria? Iran-Lebanon? (more like Iran-everyone) Turkey-Kurdistan? You get the picture. The only war that was declared was Russia attacking Ukraine.
> Law protects also criminals to a certain degree because the alternative is anarchy, chaos and global wars.
Unless you mean an extremely minimal degree law does not protect criminals against the state. And any amount of force that is required to get a criminal to stop is legally justified essentially everywhere. In fact, in the countries most humans alive live in, no law protects you against the state, criminal or innocent.
> International war was a lesson learned from the world wars.
Actually the history goes back quite a bit further than that. And if you consider international law is just treaties between countries/factions then ... The most famous bit of international law, the convention of Geneva, was a lesson learned in the holocaust.
> Seems like we need to learn again the hard way.
Why? "We"? Venezuela was not respecting international law before this happened. Neither was Russia. Neither was ...
> Tue right way of doing those things is rarely the glorious, it’s bureaucratic
I doubt Ukraine, or any other actual victims of war crimes will agree on that one. For instance, international law is clear that hamas must surrender to Israel, and obviously they should deliver anyone that had anything to do with taking hostages to the ICC (since both hamas and the PA signed the Rome treaty). The ICC doesn't even want that to happen. Could you explain how this can be achieved in a bureaucratic way?
The US agreed in Article 2 of the UN Charter, which they ratified on July 1945, that they would refrain from the use of force against the political independence of any state.
The reason you rarely see people cite the exact provision is that it's pointless to cite, because the US foreign policy establishment does not care and will not be swayed by persuasive arguments about their treaty obligations.
I just don't think that this is an accurate description of modern clothing. Cotton is not typically grown in unsustainable ways, and cheap 100% cotton clothing that will last for years is widely available at a variety of retailers.
But a lot of people don't want that. They want comfortable stretchy clothing, accepting or not realizing the inherent tradeoff with durability. Or they want thinner, lighter styles at the very edge of what a 50/50 polyester blend can hold together.
> For example, it's possible to make hiking boots that last a lot longer than others. But if the requirement is to have it last for just 20 miles, it's better to pay less for one that won't last as long.
Sure, but the OP's concern is whether this chokes off innovation. Is there some better kind of hiking boot, longer-lasting and cheaper and maybe more comfortable, that we've never found because the shoemakers who'd be able to invent it are too busy optimizing Nike production lines?
Exactly: is the local max or min for (hiking boots) currently the global max or min. And does the way LLMs work limit future exploration because it increases the activation cost of getting out of the local min/max due to the effects on society/workforce/corporate direction caused by LLMs?
I have custom hiking boots but they're very heavy. I have plastics for winter that are both very heavy and not very comfortable relatively. I rarely wear either.
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