This needs to be pinned at the top: only a Nazi goes out of their way to put an 88 in their username. He thinks he’s clever by putting it in binary so people don’t immediately call him out. Nazis get off on that kind of “clever” dogwhistle.
This is at the same time:
- a novax level conspiracy
- a completely idotic assumption that not only doesn’t stand Occam’s razor, but not even basic common sense.
- racist and showing a colonial mindset, clearly prioritising what is relevant in YOUR culture (superior, more important), compared to what is relevant in that person’s culture.
Please can someone tell me how this attitude is fundamentally different from people who are in other cults (maga, novax, etc.)?
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But that’s how dogwhistles work: they can hide behind a veil of plausible deniability.
If it’s really plausible, then you’ve got no way to tell it’s a dogwhistle.
Your comment is equivalent to “I can’t prove that Jews rule the world, but that’s because they’ve worked for plausible deniability, I know they do”.
But he is swiss, and here we know that 88 is for prising Hitler
He is from Taiwan, studies in US and then moved to Switzerland.
only a Nazi goes out of their way to put an 88 in their username
Yeah, I’m gonna need a citation for that. I was born in 1988.
When was he born? Not everyone knows all the “secret” signs for stuff. How 18 is A.H or how 81 is H.A (Hells Angels) 1% biker clubs have surprisingly much of such codes. 8 is also the number of Khorne in the Warhammer fantasy/sci-fi setting. And before we start with that there are surprisingly few Nazis who play, but the few are very vocal.
Years ago I saw a guy in a crocery store in Norway wearing a “Combat18 Böhmen” hoodie. Buying ingredients for tex-mex taco incidentally. And when I pointed him out to my wife, she said that you are probably the only one in here to know this, and spot him for what he is.
So if Andy was born in 1988 I hope it’s why he has 88 in his username.
When was he born? Not everyone knows all the “secret” signs for stuff.
I don’t care when he was born. Who puts their birth year in their username? “Here, internet. Here’s one less piece of information you need to steal my identity!”
No. “ItS mY bIrF YeEr” is just what nazi shit says when they get called out on being nazi shit.
Tbf I’ve put my birth year in my username before when I was a kid who knew next to nothing about privacy. I’ve seen other people do this too. So it’s not totally implausible. But yeah it is a bad look for Andy regardless.
Tbf I’ve put my birth year in my username before when I was a kid who knew next to nothing about privacy. I’ve seen other people do this too. So it’s not totally implausible.
It’s one thing when you’re a naive kid or a clueless boomer. It’s quite another when you’re the ceo of a privacy-focused company.
Yes, a public figure, whose data can be discovered in few minutes, considers his birth year a secret. Also nobody ever used the birth year in their username on the internet.
Also ANDY = 1 + 14 + 4 + 25 = 44, which is half of 88 and contains 14, another nazy symbol. He is trying to pass it off as his name, but who uses their name on the internet? I will check the cabala now, because I am sure there is more.
God, I hope Nick Fury is already grouping the avengers, because Hydra is really making a move here.
If you don’t want people to think you’re a nazi, don’t say good things about trump with 88 sitting right there for everyone to see in your username.
The account is 2 days old. He knew what he was doing.
If trump did a good thing in a very narrow context you can’t say it, otherwise you are a Nazi? OK, this is madness. Also, it’s not “sitting there for everyone to see” because it’s binary. You also realize that people have different cultural references right? Maybe it’s not your responsibility to compute the cabala horoscope for everything you do, and assume that people will be able to use at least the 2% of the brain and for example distinguish from a bold Nazi supporter with 88 tattooed and a guy born in 88 who appends 88 to his username (in a nerd way). But apparently not.
He created an account to speak personally and not from the proton account he uses before. Anyway, “he knew what he was doing” is conspiracy theory again.
Also, it’s not “sitting there for everyone to see” because it’s binary.
Yes, obfuscating it makes it better!
Maybe it’s not your responsibility to compute the cabala horoscope for everything you do, and assume that people will be able to use at least the 2% of the brain and for example distinguish from a bold Nazi supporter with 88 tattooed and a guy born in 88 who appends 88 to his username (in a nerd way). But apparently not.
He supported trump with 88 in his username.
He created an account to speak personally and not from the proton account he uses before.
And he didn’t need to put 88 in there, or obfuscate it. And I’m increasingly certain that you’re freaking out and defending him for it because you’re happy that your political party is represented.
He supported Trump’s pick. I know reality makes little difference for you, but still. Also yes, he put 88 in his username, which is not a crime, especially for a Taiwanese guy born in 88 lmao.
The sole fact we are even discussing this is just absurd. Absurd. It’s 5g gives cancer absurd. It’s vaccine give autism absurd.
And I’m increasingly certain that you’re freaking out and defending him for it because you’re happy that your political party is represented.
Correct, because as non US citizen communist republicans are my party. In fact, anybody who disagrees with you is secretly a republican, and even more secret a Nazi, there is no other reason to disagree with you, absolutely. In fact, sudneo has “south” in it, and “o” at the end, what do you get it you put “o” south of “o”? 8, and that’s half of 88. Considering there is also “n” in it, and that’s 14, I think it’s quite clear that I am also a Nazi, trying to cover my Nazi colleague Andy. Heil Hydra.
You are just a maga with slightly different moral values. Still a cultist fanatic on a witch hunt that threw reason and reality out of the window.
Who puts their birth year in their username?
You are not very old, right?
Maybe now, in our stupid time, folks use phone numbers for identity, some stupid handle (or just their actual name) and then post a lot of text, photos and such, totally less harmful for their privacy than their birth year. And no birth year
But in the olden days it was the main solution to “such user already exists” problem, combined with things like ‘xXx’ and ‘+0+’ on both sides or something.
You are not very old, right?
You’re not getting my birth year this way, either.
But in the olden days it was the main solution to “such user already exists” problem,
The account in question is two days old. And it’s from the CEO of a VPN service. This isn’t him signing up for baby’s first AOL account back in 1994.
Look, I can’t comment on the significance of binary 88 in this instance with any confidence, but a lot of people use their birth year in their username.
Is it stupid? Absolutely, alongside demonstrating a total lack of any creativity whatsoever. But it’s 100% a thing.
Edit: Lol, will also note the first ‘people also search’ suggestion coming up when Googling Andy Yen is “When was Andy Yen born”, and in the 5 seconds of drunken searching I still haven’t seen a birth date.
Look, I can’t comment on the significance of binary 88 in this instance with any confidence, but a lot of people use their birth year in their username.
A lot of people who like trump were coincidentally totally born in 1988.
To be clear, I’m not arguing that people don’t put 88 as a clear dog whistle to white supremacists/general Nazi bullshit. This is more to the comment “who puts their birth year in their username?” bit specifically. The answer is a lot of people.
I also am not excusing Yen for his pro-Trump comments - that was fucking bullshit and I’m deeply disappointed - I’m just saying the YOB thing is a thing, but also coincidentally I also can’t seem to find a source to prove if he’s also doing the YOB thing or something else.
Note to self: Limit Lemmy to 3 beers max, particularly where Trumpian bullshit is involved. And thank god for autocorrect. Apologies, I really should not be interneting right now.
If I were born in 1988 I would not put an encoded “88” in my username. I wouldn’t want people to think I was dogwhistling.
To be clear, I’m not arguing that people don’t put 88 as a clear dog whistle to white supremacists/general Nazi bullshit.
To be clear, anyone who supports trump is already nazi-adjacent enough to get no benefit of the doubt, and I don’t buy the “It’s my birth year” shit from any of them. Even if they were born in 1988, that’s not the reason 88 is in their username.
I also don’t believe that someone whose entire personality centers around cannabis has “420” in their username because they were born on April 20th. I don’t believe that some fratboy who is constantly making horny comments has “69” in his username because he was born on June 9th, either.
88 is so much worse that I wouldn’t even compare then to the anodyne 420 & 69 examples.
He’s my generation. That’s what we did in the dawn of the internet when web email was new and shit. Everybody has “coolname87” “dogshit89”, “hipguy88” as their username. It’s not such a wild idea.
He’s younger than me, but there was a broad age range that all caught the internet around the same time. I’m aware that this is how it was once done. Usernames are longer now, allowing for greater creativity.
And this goober still uses his first name and an obfuscated 2 digit number? Yeah, he didn’t choose it because it’s his birth year.
We all choose to believe what we choose to believe. 👍
Yup. I believe this is untrustworthy behavior and I regret signing up for proton mail.
All within your right.
He’s apparently said he was born in 1988. In another thread others mentioned that would make him 21 when he started his PhD, which checks out.
So he can dogwhistle with impunity. Lucky guy.
Here’s all I could find about his age in a few minutes:
He was actually born in 1988, according to the author’s article. If anyone can find a more reliable resource, please, post it here🙏
Yeah, birth years are super common in usernames (and password, don’t use it there). Bob Smith finds his preferred username is taken so becomes BobSmith79 or BobSmith88 or whatever because it’s easy an easy enough variation to remember.
You can find patterns/relations in almost anything if you reach for something, kinda like the “six degrees of separation” thing even if there’s a more reasonable answer
Holy shit. That is indeed 88 in binary…
How did we all miss that 😮
He was born in 1988…
That doesn’t mean he needed to put it in his username.
looks at own username
It’s a bit more plausible when it’s all 4 digits.
Fair, but I have other variants with just “88”.
Maybe you shouldn’t be doing that. Maybe your birthday is not so special that you should use it when it’s a well and widely known symbol of Nazism. Frankly it’s a little hard for me to buy these days.
For limited people, maybe.
88 is:
-
important for people born in 1988
-
amateur radio romantic message (apparently older than Nazis, don’t ask me how I know, but it has to do with being used in that, and not HH, meaning in one Nazi song ; felt strange for me, until I’ve just read that it was a telegraph thing before radio)
-
two eternity symbols turned (not those wheely ones)
-
as people have mentioned, common as a lucky number in certain parts of the globe
-
people can also be born on 8 August
-
had that number on some item memorable for him (I had 72 in plenty of my nicknames, I can promise you it’s not about 72 virgins or 72 names of god and I’m not Muslim, I just had a yellow t-shirt with that number when I was a kid).
The funny part is that points #2 and #4 are probably known to him, tech company and all.
Why are you so knowledgeable of plausible deniabilities for a Nazi symbology?
-
Giorgio Galli … the born of Nazism and please stop to rant about Trump and Nazism … the Nazism did not born in Germany but in the civilized Vienna and in France, the young Hitler was having masters that did not seen a judge after the war and the heritage of them is still very much thriving in Bruxelles … and really I am not here to lecture but to explore the web iceberg with freemind and happiness … not to bother myself with these gross traces of ignorance ( very easy to be solved with 4-5 kilos of right books ).
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TrUmP iS a NaZi
Wait, the proton ceo is a trump supporter? What the fuck, he’s the last person I thought would do that
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I mean he is here publicly supporting Trump so…
Considering how he runs a business whose goal is to capture the privacy crowd and how a large portion of the privacy crowd is made up of those “Libertarian” tech-bro types, it might be more than just “no clue about American politics”, especially since he’s also doing stuff like promoting Bitcoin through Proton Wallet which is also popular among “Libertarian” tech-bro types, and the article used for marketing that both-sidesed the problems the “left” vs “right” experience and equated the Democrats with the “left”, which is popular among “Libertarian” tech-bro types as well. The 88 in his Reddit username is also suspect regardless of him claiming that it’s there because it’s his birth year. People who know how to operate a business usually aren’t doing it out of stupidity, so I’m not going to give him the benefit of the doubt on this, especially since the entire platform depends on trusting that they aren’t doing anything shady.
How do you explain the 88 in his username? That’s not an American thing.
My guess is that it’s a neo-Nazi thing, so his promoting right-wing American politics (his largest userbase) is probably intentional and not just him being stupid
He’s a money supporter.
No he had plenty of time to educate himself but instead doubled and tripled down. Also his username ends in 88 which has been the most unsubtle Nazi dog whistle since the invention of usernames and the internet.
Where’s the 88?
1011000 is binary for 88
Ohhhh. Drag thought it was the ASCII code for X
If you look a bit around in this thread, someone linked an article that mentions he was born in 1988.
He didn’t have to put it in his username.
Neither do the other thousands or millions of people who do so, but it’s not a particularly uncommon thing and it’s likely enough that (birthdate) is the reason it’s there. I’ve got my birth year (not '88) in my username for some sites because the bare username was already taken
How convenient.
Isn’t 88 considered extremely lucky in Chinese culture?
You honestly think that’s what he was going for? Someone who grew up in a culture pretty heavily insulated from that but steeped in “former” Nazi ties?
I think he’s more likely fascist than a Nazi, given the differentiator being the racial purity part. He lives and works in Switzerland, but was born in Taiwan and educated in the US.
Not only is 88 considered auspicious in his native culture, he was also born in 1988. Normally, yes, be wary of the 88 dog whistle, but without further evidence it looks like a nothing-burger in this case.
I need to switch away from Proton immediately. Too bad they wouldn’t refund me.
Why would anyone believe the Democrats are not also Nazis? They just spearheaded a live-streamed genocide, and bypassed a law banning sending arms to Nazis so that they could send them billions in arms.
Both parties are Nazis. Both must be stopped. Stop playing this stupid game where they make you fight over which Nazi to follow.
As swiss person I have to meet and talk to this guy, he can not be that stupid!
We definitely have something like the republicans party, it is called SVP (Schweizerische Volkspartei). SVP uses exactly the same tactics as republicans, like anti “woke”, anti regulation, anti common media, pro hate-speech(“anti censorship”), etc.
We just not have a single party to counter it, like democrats, but like 10 parties with little nuances.
We have some small parties besides SVP “on the republican site” but those tend to be irrelevant. Maybe, the anti corona party has a some relevance, still, but I guess their power is sinking.
I personally support the pirate party, which mainly stands for privacy, no matter if left or right, but the party it self is leading to the left (democratic) side.
At least, that is how I understand our situation here.
The hypocrisy of many calling Trump a Nazi is mind boggling.
As far as I can tell Trump can only be deemed a Nazi by association - he’s not been going around spouting stuff about people’s races making them superior or inferior to others like an ethno-Fascist and instead he’s been mostly using traditional Fascist dog whistles (I.e. about the superiority of the Nation), but since he has indeed cultivated the support of neo-nazis and other ethno-Fascists in the US, he’s associating with Nazis.
The hypocrisy comes because the most Nazi ideology around right now is Zionism - they’re ethno-Fascists, claiming to represent a race, going on and on about the superiority of their race (calling it “the chose people”) whilst being overtly racist about Arabs in general and even more so Palestinians who they call “human animals”, i.e. subhumans whis is literally untermenschen - and, even more extreme, they’re mass murdering them right now by the hundreds of thousands.
Anybody who here and now calls Trump a Nazi due to his association with ethno-Fascists but has previously been defending Biden, Harris and most of the Democrat party as not being Nazis all the while they were actively supporting with weapons the present day Nazis who were actively engaged in a genocide along racial lines, is a hypocrite.
Ditto anybody going around criticizing people who chose to neither vote Democrat nor Republican: it is absolutely understandable that when people only have the choice between two sets of Nazis, many chose “neither”. After all, if one is a Nazi by supporting Nazis, then the Republicans supporting of Nazis makes them Nazis and giving support to the Nazis-Republicans (for example by voting for them) makes one a Nazi and exactly in the same way the Democrats supporting the present day Nazis makes them Nazis, so supporting Nazi-Democrats makes one a Nazi - anybody who does indeed believe people can become “Nazi by association” land does not want to be a Nazi, would refuse to vote for either Nazi-by-association party.
I truly respect those with the genuine principles and ideological consistency of calling both main American parties Nazis (as I said, if one thinks associated with Nazi = Nazi, then logically they are both Nazis) or at least Nazi-supporting, because they are.
It’s only the political tribalists for whom one group of Nazi-supporters are Nazis but the other group of Nazi-supporters are not Nazis because the former is “them” and the other is “us” who are despicable hypocrites.
Andy out here shooting straight through his foot and putting holes in his boat’s hull.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i2ff6q/call_for_andy_yen_to_resign/
UPDATE: Andy Reply
According to Andy’s logic, if Hitler were the president of some unfortunate country, we should differentiate the boss from his good nominees. Even using a company founded by an entire community to show a good evaluation made by one of its founders to give him a loving pat on the back and show the world that he is not completely bad as they think, but not meaning that the founder agrees with all his innocent actions, of course, such as disregarding the rights of many people around the world because they are just part of the democratic game.
So, to get this straight, for you it’s impossible to recognize that a pick for a position is a good pick in the Trump government, by definition, without consideration of the actual pick?
To me this is religion, not politics or ideology (which I both consider very good things). To be even more clear, I consider Andy’s position completely rational and legitimate in this case. I believe it’s absolutely legitimate to be happy Trump picked someone good for a position and at the same time not support the rest 98%. At most, the interesting debate is why that pick is not good, which is 100% opinable and worthy of a discussion.
But saying that any statement, in any context, whatever narrow and specific equal full support is completely insane to me.
Context matters. Why did you ignore it? We see so many CEOs kissing Trump’s feet these days. Here Andy is, doing the same… Of course I don’t know what’s in Andy’s head, but Trump loves groveling, and clearly Andy is riding that bandwagon on purpose.
That’s not context, that’s a superficial observation. Zuck kissed the ring by changing Facebook policy to align with trump/musk posture on “free speech”, Andy said he likes the antitrust pick. They are completely different things.
Right, Andy’s action was bad but not as bad. We agree. It’s not identical.
And when given the chance to explain how he felt about this situation, on how the bad timing is … purely accidental or something … he did a bad job of it. Which suggests our original conclusions were in fact correct.
Also, if you think observations about time, place, and manner are superfluous, that’s a peculiar thought. Maybe we disagree. Maybe I think basic elements of societal interaction and communication are important and informative.
This tweet happened right after trump picked for the antitrust position. The “time” is completely logical, the “place” is a tweet and the manner is a short statement supporting that pick. Also proton is a US company, so it doesn’t have the same reason to “bend the knee” as other US big tech are doing.
So it’s not that I am ignoring context, I genuinely don’t see relation. He praised something that he pushes for years, he did not suddenly switch to “free speech” like Zuck.
If all he said was literally “i approve of this pick for this position” you’d be correct.
What actually happened was he approved of the pick and also claimed the republicans are now actually the party that stands for the “little guy”.
Then followed up with a non apology that claimed what he said was not intended to be a “political statement”.
by all means, argue that you think there’s a fuss over nothing, but if you leave important context out seemingly because it doesn’t suit your narrative it weakens your argument substantially.
I know what happened, I followed quite thoroughly.
He thinks that republicans are now the ones with a higher chance to push antitrust cases against big tech (I.e., work for the little guy - EDIT: source). He thinks this based on the last few years and a few things that happened. He likes the nomination from Trump. How is this a full support to Trump? How believing that republicans will do better - in this area - equals being a Nazi?
Of course I believe that there is a fuss over nothing. The above statement has been inflated and I have already read “he applauded to Trump antitrans policies”, " posted Nazi symbols" and other complete fantasies.
Many people, who are on the internet on a perpetual witch hunt decided to interpret a clearly specific tweet (about antitrust and big tech) as a global political statement, and read that “little guy” as “common man” or - I have read it here on Lemmy - “working class”. Basically everyone tried to propose ideas about why that post was so awful, rather than first trying to understand what the hell he meant. I will agree the first tweet is ambiguous, but that’s because it’s a 200 characters tweet, he then explained his position quite clearly, and the summary above is what he actually meant.
This “context” added doesn’t move my post a centimeter IMO.
See, now that’s a more thorough explanation of your position.
I disagree with pretty much all of your assertions (though the witch hunt stuff can be true sometimes) , but at least i know I’m disagreeing with an opinion formed using the whole of the information provided.
This “context” added doesn’t move my post a centimeter IMO.
It shows you read the initial information in it’s entirety and still came to the conclusion you did.
That removes the possibility of responses such as “Did you even read the initial tweet?”.
Well… it should remove that possibility, in practice it just means you can safely ignore those responses because clearly the people making those responses haven’t read your response in it’s entirety.
While it’s certainly true that some of the people who are angry at him for that tweet are saying things in their anger that are overboard, I think only pointing out the most ridiculous things that people who disagree with you have ever said in their anger is a really terrible way of engaging honestly on the subject.
It’s important to remember that an authoritarian that always figured out what the right thing to do was and did the opposite of that would be a really bad authoritarian. Republicans at the state level have been increasing state surveillance to hunt down and punish people for choices they make with their own bodies. For a lot of people in America, Trump is the head of the organization that they want privacy to protect themselves from, and the current largest threat to privacy in America.
For the CEO of a company that is supposedly about protecting our privacy to completely unprompted start publicly praising decisions made by the very threat we’re supposed to trust them to protect us from, and then to double down on their praise when called out, is deeply concerning.
Yes. It’s true that not every single thing Trump does will be the worst possible thing, but his goals are fundamentally opposed to ours. When I say I want big tech to be broken up it’s because I want their to be less concentration of power. When Trump wants to break up big tech it’s because he wants to eliminate the competition to his concentration of power. That is not worthy of my praise, even if in any one particular instance the thing he is doing is similar to what I would do, and the fact that the CEO of Proton either doesn’t understand this or doesn’t care is deeply concerning. I do not trust them after this, and I doubt they can ever get that trust back.
He praised one thing, and motivated that praise. It’s 100% possible to disagree, but I don’t find it concerning at all. I find it reasonable, because proton can better protect the privacy of users if more people can choose freely privacy oriented tools (like proton). Hence, if Trump does or says something that can help moving in that direction, it can be labeled as a good thing. Not every sentence is a collective or global assessment of all things considered.
When Trump wants to break up big tech it’s because he wants to eliminate the competition to his concentration of power.
- this is something US citizens should concern themselves
- it is only tangentially irrelevant
- if by breaking up monopolies people will be able to choose more privacy-preserving services, what you think is Trump’s goal will fail anyway. More privacy and less data is also a way to limit the amount of demographic targeting he uses so well in his campaigns.
So I am good with him doing the right thing for the wrong reason, and I wish him a swift failure afterwards.
doesn’t understand this or doesn’t care is deeply concerning
Have you considered that he might not agree with what is just your opinion? Obviously you are free to draw any conclusion you want and not use them.
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Careful saying that around these tankie parts.
Honestly I find his attitude to be quite commendable and I think that speaks much louder than whatever it is you disagree with.
Maybe he should have just left Trump’s name out of it entirely as that seems to be what really pushed people’s buttons.
People are going to twist things around no matter what is said though. Don’t forget hindsight makes everyone look guilty.
Maybe he should have just left Trump’s name out of it entirely as that seems to be what really pushed people’s buttons.
It probably didn’t help, but no, I don’t think that was it. I think it was his sweeping generalizations about dems/republicans as a whole, along with the insinuation that dems were bought, republicans are “looking out for the little guys”, and the election undermined the will of the people:
Dems had a choice between the progressive wing (Bernie Sanders, etc), versus corporate Dems, but in the end money won and constituents lost. Until corporate Dems are thrown out, the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.
You are right about the generalization on parties, but the “little guy” he meant are small tech companies opposed to big tech. It was clear to me in the context, and to clear any doubt, he explicitly said that in a reddit comment.
I want to specify because this has been stretched on here as far as “he said republicans care for the working class”.
the “little guy” he meant are small tech companies
That changes nothing.
Added for completeness. Lots of people got pissed because they assumed he meant that in general republicans stand with the little guy, prompting comments such as “what about trans/immigrants/etc.”.
You did not do that, of course, but you can see how your comment could reinforce this opinion in people who didn’t read the actual tweet and discussion and were just looking for reasons to get angry.
He should have just stayed the fuck out of Americans politics being a provider of a secure service that many Americans of all political persuasions use.
He is an idiot who cost his company business. The only spin is trying to downplay it at this point. The consequences are lost profits.
Let’s be real. You mean he should have stayed out of it if he was going to voice an opinion that doesn’t match yours. People don’t want apolitical, they want an echo chamber.
You say it doesn’t match that other users opinion, but doesn’t it not match the vast majority of proton users opinions? Authoritarians aren’t usually big on personal privacy. So praising one when you run a company based upon privacy is a dumb idea. It would be like running a vegan food company and praising people who like Slaughter cattle. It’s a stupid fucking mindset. Which says a lot of things to me about his capacity as a CEO frankly. If he’s this dumb why should people trust them to run a business they frequent?
No, he should stay out of either side because business is about making money. I don’t want to know what politics you support. I don’t care for politicizing everything. It is a fucking turn off.
You want my money, do your job, sell me your product, give me your service, but don’t talk to me about your hot takes on politics. Also religion as well. I and many many other people don’t want to hear it.
Better that they tell us imo. If someone thinks that the people I care about don’t deserve to exist for reasons no one can control, I’d rather know and avoid giving them money than to help them quietly gain influence and power until they can eradicate these people themselves.
There is a certain logic to this. I tend to agree that I would like to know. I also think I would probably find out I would have to be self sufficient if I truly did not want to give to bad actors.
Your comment might hold a valid argument, if your previous comments hadn’t made it perfectly clear you take issue with the fact he praised something a politician you don’t like has done.
Whether you agree with my character or not what I said was accurate for any business person/enterprise. It is really not beneficial and increases risk unnecessarily.
It would be one thing if Trump was actually anti-trust…but he isn’t.
He’s anti companies which don’t prostrate themselves in front of him and bow to his whims. They’re bad, terrible, anti American companies. The ones that do are great, wonderful, beautiful companies. The bad ones need to be broken up and given to the big ones.
He’s so transparent it’s painful. If someone says good things about Trump or give him money, they’re good. If they don’t, they’re bad. It’s absurdly obvious.
If that motivation still leads to work against tech monopolies, good. Can’t wait for people to do the right thing for the right reason. If that won’t happen it will be criticized as a lack of action.
Ultimately the benefit for the population is having as much freedom and fair competition in the tech space as possible. If that comes from Trump hallucinations, from a dream or from something else, who cares…?
How can anyone possibly think that Trump is against tech monopolies when Bezos, Musk, and Zuckerberg are going to be sitting behind him shoulder to shoulder at the inauguration?
He expressed his motivations, which we are all free to disagree with and consider stupid. He considers especially the past history for the current antitrust nominee. Either way (and he said this too), we will be all evaluating actions, and at the moment we are speculating on what’s going to happen. Why so much heat for an opinion on such thing though?
If that motivation still leads to work against tech monopolies
It doesn’t, never did, never will.
I can’t believe we have to argue in 2025 about this.
The whole project 2025 is about breaking bad regulations, antitrust won’t survive. You just have to kiss the ring, and do whatever.
OK, but it’s a speculation as much as the other position. I also think it won’t happen, but it’s besides the point. Does it matter IF trump does it for a good or a bad reason? If it happens, can we be happy about it?
If it happens to only specific companies, but others will do anything without issues, it will be a huge problem.
And it will.
le false equivalence totally validates my endorsement for the worst president elected in US history
Wow, the comments on that Reddit post. Ok.
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Holy shit he’s still arguing with people about this today?
He’s well on his way to reaching Muskian levels of failure to shut the hell up.
I’d say he’s already a foot over the line.
He’s backally saying, “We Americans don’t get it. He did nothing wrong because both sides are the same.”
Rather than remorse, he’s doubled down.
Given recent events, I really don’t see how bending the knee to Trump is any different than bending the knee to the Democrats, especially Biden who committed genocide for 15 months. It’s just another capitalist bending the knee to the world hegemon in the United States. Trump is just more straightforward and bombastic about the USA’s position in the world as it’s hegemon and it’s demands, forcing ordinary people, especially liberals in the United States, to confront that reality directly, whilst under Biden that was obfuscated by flowery language and decorum. I guess that decorum and flowery language was enough for US liberals to “turn off” so to speak, and go back to brunch while the world burns.
Has the Proton CEO bent the knee to the Democrats like he’s apparently done with Trump?
Yeah, I really think this is a little overblown for what he said.
Critical support for specific reasons doesn’t exist for these people. Just black and white, Harry and Voldemort.
What? Trump is subservient to Russia and China. He’s selling the country off to make a quick buck.
See this is the exact liberal nonsense I’m talking about. How is Trump “subservient to Russia and China”? Because he views continuing the war in Ukraine as no longer in the United States’ interest? And China? I thought Trump was all about tariffs on Chinese goods and starting a trade war in his last term. I don’t see that as subservient, that’s confrontation. A negative confrontation that just hurt everyone globally, but maybe necessary from a third world perspective, waking up the third world to the reality of the United States and it’s economic warfare. If you’re talking about dialing down the temperature against China in his upcoming term, that would be because the US benefits from Chinese imports and can’t wean itself off of them due to a lack of domestic manufacturing and industry, and because China needs a market to sell their goods to as domestic consumption + exports to the rest of the world can’t make up for US consumption, so they’ll give in to US demands. I fail to see how such a position is “pro China” it’s just self interest.
You have to stop viewing politics through the personalities of world leaders as if it’s some kind of Hollywood movie, and view the material reality. If the USA is no longer interested in pursuing a certain action or decides to escalate on another front in the next four years, ask yourself why is that the case, instead of defaulting to “Trump crazy stupid strongman dictator selling out the USA”. That kind of liberal analysis is not helpful and will leave you lost. Never underestimate your adversary.
For example in Greenland, many people were going on about how Trump is some big idiot that wants a country that looks big on a Mercator projection. Meanwhile, the United States secured a large rare earth metals deposit in Greenland, stoping Chinese mining companies from getting the rights to it. The US company that bought the rights to the rare earth metals deposit signed a contract with the United States Department of Defence to process the metals. While everyone was distracted by Trump talking nonsense, the US pulled of a heist and exerted more political pressure on its allies. When one hand is doing something (in this case Trump’s loud mouth), always look at moves the other hand is making (in this case, the US DoD getting more control in Greenland over their mining deposits). If you fail to do so, the jester will rob you blind. In this case, a large deposit of Rare Earth Ores in Greenland, China excluded and Denmark further vassalised.
DoD already has all access needed in Greenland. https://youtu.be/I6qFo28QiMQ
Trump is subservient to Russia and China.
Damn, Trump is pretty fucking rad apparently
Trump is subservient to Russia and China.
Damn, Trump is pretty fucking rad apparently
This Andy Yen guy is pretty cool for supporting Trump then!
Dont post pictures of text without links to the source
Sorry. I’ve already added it.
Tangential: shouldn’t it be “Naziism”? Like, in “Nazi” the “i” belongs to “Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei”, or the “Natio—” part. But shouldn’t there be another “i” that goes with the “ism” suffix, so “Naziism”? Am I thinking about it in the wrong way?
