• @[email protected]
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      1919 days ago

      I love how everyone just sort of glazes over how astoundingly unpopular Steam was when it was first introduced.

      • @[email protected]
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        2419 days ago

        I was one of them. They proved my fears unfounded (so far). They’ve also managed to convert me to a fanboy at some point. I realised I was playing a co-op game brought off steam, on my steam deck, via a steam link to the TV, and the wife using a steam controller.

        • @[email protected]
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          18 days ago

          I think steam is my favorite monopoly.

          ^Not saying it’s perfect. Just my favorite. I understand this might change at any time^

          • @[email protected]
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            818 days ago

            At least it’s only a monopoly because everyone else is apparently idiots when it comes to long term planning. I’m dreading the day when they turn to the dark side. Long away may it be.

          • @[email protected]
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            518 days ago

            Valve is Augustus Caesar: a benevolent dictator doing great things for their people. I’m afraid of what will happen when Gaben retires, how long will it take before we find gaming’s Nero?

      • Pennomi
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        1619 days ago

        It turns out that maximizing for shareholder profit isn’t a sustainable way to run a business, and it actually burns your company to the ground after a few short years.

      • @[email protected]
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        1718 days ago

        As much as I don’t like the Chinese government for all the censorship and etc, they do really know what they’re doing in terms of managing the economy and the infrastructure it relies on, as far as I can tell. Including their education system, it’s fairly shocking how many of the top engineering and CS colleges are in China.

        • @[email protected]
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          18 days ago

          Censorship? Its rich talking censorship in China when America is one of the most propagandized nations in existence. If I was China I would also censor the fuck out of America.

                • @[email protected]
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                  918 days ago

                  There different forms of censorship. Flooding the dominant platforms with the official message to obscure opposition opinions, shadowbanning posts, etc are softer forms of censorship but are still censorship. The rulership class is fine with people voicing their opinions if they feel it doesn’t threaten their power. They will crack down harder when that feeling changes.

          • @[email protected]
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            18 days ago

            How does the US being full of propaganda change the fact that China has a lot of censorship?

            Both can be true at the same time, you know…

      • @[email protected]
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        618 days ago

        I was gonna post that one but “What is this business strategy called” gets me every time

  • @[email protected]
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    36519 days ago

    I think Xi might have figured out Trump’s secret. He has no fucking clue what he’s doing. He scares people into reacting by being reckless, then claims a win for getting a reaction.

    Ignoring trolls takes their power away.

    • @[email protected]
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      18719 days ago

      “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”

      (“Quand l’ennemi fait un faux mouvement, il faut se garder de l’interrompre” --Napoleon)

    • @[email protected]
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      7019 days ago

      https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-weak-strongman

      Basically, this strategy Trump and Putin and their ilk do never works outside of their little bubble. Their whole game is to tear everyone else in their sphere of influence down to their level, so that they can compete effectively and dominate, but there are always significant threats outside of the sphere. Against which we are now more or less powerless.

      • @[email protected]
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        3819 days ago

        Not really, he backed down on tariffs last week thanks to Canada and Japan. The truth is, Trump has put the US into a very, very precarious position. They have a lot of debt to refinance soon, and if the rest of the world wanted to, they could dramatically increase the interest rates paid on that by coordinating a sell-off of US debt.

        • ☂️-
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          18 days ago

          i would love to see that happen, but i don’t think they will

      • ☂️-
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        218 days ago

        never interrupt your enemy while he is fumbling his shit. or something.

    • @[email protected]
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      5819 days ago

      They’re not really ignoring him though. They’ve discontinued exports of rare earth and are dumping debt. It’s a calculated strategic response to capitalise on an epic mistake.

  • @[email protected]
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    22119 days ago

    Everyone is somehow missing China cutting off rare earth metals the US relies on for technology and defense

    • @[email protected]
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      16219 days ago

      It wasn’t just stopping exports to the US, they’ve stopped exporting rare earth elements worldwide starting yesterday. Plus, they are starting to unload billion of debt we owe them. It’s almost as if Trump is intentionally trying to destroy our country in the morning, and then later in the day he wants to be the bully negotiator without understanding his precarious position.

      • @[email protected]
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        5819 days ago

        You remember r/shitamericanssay? Last time he won, there were a lot of people talking about stuff Europe has but America doesn’t, and, if you browse the posts there, a lot of Americans responding how Europe is backwards, in the stone age, and what they do have is paid for by America, out of benevolence.

        Well, those folks are in charge now.

          • @[email protected]
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            1819 days ago

            The master isn’t angry, the master croaked, and his idiot son with anger issues is in charge now. The only question is if the EU will have the foresight to see the writing on the wall and bail before they’re caught in the undertow.

            • @[email protected]
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              718 days ago

              Like I said, our EU leaders are puppets, they don’t have our interests in mind.
              They were perfectly fine with the slow death of seeing the economy and people suffer after the Nordstream US terrorist act.
              Not a peep from them.
              And even now they’re doing exactly what Trump wanted, spending more on useless killing toys.
              And it’s a whole lot more.
              Every country’s going to spend billions of money they don’t have and you know where they’re going to get it from.
              The already unhappy lowest layer of the population.
              Probably the last drop to push the extreme right in power. We’re almost in the 30’s again.

              • @[email protected]
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                1718 days ago

                “And even now they’re doing exactly what Trump wanted, spending more on useless killing toys.”

                Useless? Russia invaded Ukraine. Putin won’t stop there.

              • @[email protected]
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                318 days ago

                At least they seem to be buying domestic this time around. I mean, I fully expect them to Hillary it, despite everything, but it’s not impossible to pull out of the tailspin yet.

      • @[email protected]
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        2019 days ago

        There wouldn’t be much point merely stopping export to the US because some other country could just on-sell to the US.

        He really doesn’t understand his precarious position and the harm he has done and is doing.

      • ssillyssadass
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        1319 days ago

        I think the story here will go very differently now that the US army can’t ensure it’s exclusively pro-US.

    • stebo
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      1019 days ago

      the whole world actually, thanks Trump!

    • @[email protected]
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      818 days ago

      I’m realizing the structure of our supply chains is not common knowledge at all. Basically everything has a part from China. That and plastic.

    • @[email protected]
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      318 days ago

      Canada didn’t. It’d be a primary reason for the US to go stupid and try invading us, we’re a much closer source of rare earths.

  • @[email protected]
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    19 days ago

    That’s business school from a guy who ran casinos into the ground. Nice work America.

  • ArchRecord
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    1917 days ago

    And now:

    Trump clarifies some of the tariffs were actually 245% for some unknown reason

  • شاهد على إبادة
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    19 days ago

    Say what you will about China’s political system. At least it is much more of a meritocracy. The politicians who climb up the ranks are the ones who have a proven record of achievements.

    In the US the people can elect a charlatan with no experience whatsoever, i.e. an outsider, and some will spin this as a good thing. Would you hire an outsider doctor or plumber?

    Edit: since people are failing to understand the idea. Remember how Republicans mocked Obama for being a community organizer? Imagine the opposite, any president must have some demonstrable experience as a community organizer. It is not a panacea, Obama still committed war crimes and was beholden to moneyed interests but much much much more qualified than Trump could ever be. Merit doesn’t mean the person will be good but that they will be qualified.

      • @[email protected]
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        919 days ago

        Not sure whether Xi keeping the job is faltering of the CCP’s ideal of collective leadership, or him being the guy the collective leadership wants as figurehead. They certainly don’t want a second Mao that’s for sure.

      • @[email protected]
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        319 days ago

        The politbureau/party can still elect a new leader even if term limits are removed. There is democracy for “qualified voters” in China.

    • @[email protected]
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      819 days ago

      At least it is much more of a meritocracy.

      This isn’t at all true. It has the same corruption as everywhere else. Those in power do everything they can to keep it. Why do you think Pooh Bear got himself made president for life? That wasn’t on merit, he just had enough political power to make it that way.

      • شاهد على إبادة
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        19 days ago

        He got up to the point that he can do that through merit. He didn’t suddenly get elected as premier. The point I’m trying to make went right past you. “I point to the stars, you look at my fingertips”.

        This isn’t about Xi himself or Trump himself. Xi could be worse than Netanyahu, Trump could be better than Sinwar. It is about how those in power get there, how the system selects its leaders. I tried giving an analogy in my other comment.

    • @[email protected]
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      3019 days ago

      Dude, fuck the CCP, just like because the GQP are turds doesn’t mean the CCP are the good guys

      • شاهد على إبادة
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        19 days ago

        How is it a complicated to verify claim? Even if you choose to ignore the obvious outcomes, there’s plenty of publications and studies about it. That’s the problem with limiting yourself to “China experts” from the West, they never bother to learn the language or learn about China’s history and politics.

        https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-19-8057-2_23

        In China all politicians including the premier start out as civil servants and a required to pass an entrance exam and have to climb up the ranks.

        The US could probably adopt some of this without changing too much. A simple spelling test could have weeded out Trump. Ideally, a number of years of experience in civil service/local politics, should also be required to run for president.

        It should be be implicitly obvious so it shouldn’t be explicitly stated. But we are simply comparing how the two systems position people of power. It is not about the people themselves in the positions. Think of it like a company that has its CEO climb up the ranks from an entry level employee vs a company that brings outsiders. Except the latter company leaves the decision to mostly an unqualified mass that sometimes hires a highly unqualified person. Both companies can be evil, or the former evil and the latter good, none of this matters to the point that I’m making.

      • @[email protected]
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        Not really the CCP is basically using a reformed Mandarin system. To rise within the ranks of the party they look at a combination of how well the thing you administered (e.g. a state factory) performed in comparison to whatever is comparable, as well as opinion polls of the local population, which aside from making sure that you won’t be hated (which could cause disquiet and if there’s one thing the CCP doesn’t want then that’s that) also doubles at sniffing out manipulated numbers, the people are generally quite good at spotting corrupt officials. If you rank well within your cohort you get promoted from administering a factory to administering local industry, then regional, etc, etc. What doesn’t happen any more is grading people based on how good their poetry is as well as cutting off their balls but the basic system is, broad strokes, similar to how Imperial China educated and selected its civil servants.

        That doesn’t mean that there’s not corruption and grift going on, there’s still some degree of princeling privilege but it’s basically impossible to fail upwards in the CCP. Knowing people or being someone’s kid might open some doors, but it’s not going to guarantee you anything. It also means that the top ranks are full of for lack of better characterisation engineer bureaucrats.

        Or, put differently: If the CCP was completely incapable they would’ve long lost power. Their whole legitimacy hinges on being perceived as good administrators, they know that, and they’re doing their darnedest to not lose it. Propaganda and secret police alone is not sufficient, history has shown that again and again, you actually need to be good at stuff that’s important to people or they cease to tolerate you.

    • @[email protected]
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      19 days ago

      The politicians who climb up the ranks are the ones who have a proven record of achievements

      I don’t know where you got that from.

        • @[email protected]
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          1219 days ago

          So much of Sun Tzu is common sense.

          Don’t fight with the sun in your eyes! Make sure your army has supplies! Be sneaky! Etc

            • @[email protected]
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              318 days ago

              The target audience of The Art of War was not soldiers or even officers. It was nobles who would step out of their gilded halls and just fuck everything up with stupid decisions that no moderately experienced military man would even dream of.

          • @[email protected]
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            518 days ago

            Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.

            – Carl von Clausewitz