Welcome to c/news! We aim to foster a book-club type environment for discussion and critical analysis of the news. Our policy objectives are:
To learn about and discuss meaningful news, analysis and perspectives from around the world, with a focus on news outside the Anglosphere and beyond what is normally seen in corporate media (e.g. anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist, Marxist, Indigenous, LGBTQ, people of colour).
To encourage community members to contribute commentary and for others to thoughtfully engage with this material.
To support healthy and good faith discussion as comrades, sharpening our analytical skills and helping one another better understand geopolitics.
We ask community members to appreciate the uncertainty inherent in critical analysis of current events, the need to constantly learn, and take part in the community with humility. None of us are the One True Leftist, not even you, the reader.
Newcomm and Newsmega Rules:
The Hexbear Code of Conduct and Terms of Service apply here.
Link titles: Please use informative link titles. Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed.
Content warnings: Posts on the newscomm and top-level replies on the newsmega should use content warnings appropriately. Please be thoughtful about wording and triggers when describing awful things in post titles.
Fake news: No fake news posts ever, including April 1st. Deliberate fake news posting is a bannable offense. If you mistakenly post fake news the mod team may ask you to delete/modify the post or we may delete it ourselves.
Link sources: All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. If you are citing a Twitter post as news, please include the Xcancel.com (or another Nitter instance) or at least strip out identifier information from the twitter link. There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance, such as Libredirect or archive them as you would any other reactionary source.
Archive sites: We highly encourage use of non-paywalled archive sites (i.e. archive.is, web.archive.org, ghostarchive.org) so that links are widely accessible to the community and so that reactionary sources don’t derive data/ad revenue from Hexbear users. If you see a link without an archive link, please archive it yourself and add it to the thread, ask the OP to fix it, or report to mods. Including text of articles in threads is welcome.
Low effort material: Avoid memes/jokes/shitposts in newscomm posts and top-level replies to the newsmega. This kind of content is OK in post replies and in newsmega sub-threads. We encourage the community to balance their contribution of low effort material with effort posts, links to real news/analysis, and meaningful engagement with material posted in the community.
American politics: Discussion and effort posts on the (potential) material impacts of American electoral politics is welcome, but the never-ending circus of American Politics© Brought to You by Mountain Dew™ is not welcome. This refers to polling, pundit reactions, electoral horse races, rumors of who might run, etc.
Electoralism: Please try to avoid struggle sessions about the value of voting/taking part in the electoral system in the West. c/electoralism is right over there.
AI Slop: Don't post AI generated content. Posts about AI race/chip wars/data centers are fine.
A bullet to the head of billionaires will also ensure that they will be on their best behavior.
People will post this on Reddit and unironically mention China
At least in China the rules are accessible and determined by municipal governments.
I bet if you asked this fucking guy he would say something along those lines
Unironically this does describe China though.
Huh? Credit score conspiracy theory in my Hexbear? Right in front of my salad?
Credit scores aren't real actually but Chinese surveillance apparatus is massive and all-encompassing - I'm thinking specifically centralized CCTV and to a lesser extent government/police access to private social media. It does create a very safe and high-trust society because people know that wrongdoers are inevitably going to get caught.
Wouldn't trust American billionaires to implement a similar system but China proves that the theory at least works.
Exactly. The problem isn't one of theory, but of execution. This is the fundamental problem of books like 1984, with the creation the meme of "Freedom is Slavery", or people who misquote Benjamin Franklin.
We in the U S. already give up essential freedoms as part of the state apparatus, if the state cannot provide us with reliable security in exchange for those freedoms, then we do not owe anything to that state. The saddest part is that, in the past, these were essentials of the most basic theories of liberal government. It is unsurprising though, given the conservative state liberalism has retreated to. Now, there is only one protected class whose freedom or security matters, and the rest of us can essentially go fuck ourselves, with neither freedom nor security. Basically feudalism without God.
how so?
Hope you don't mind me copy-pasting my other reply:
Credit scores aren't real actually but Chinese surveillance apparatus is massive and all-encompassing - I'm thinking specifically centralized CCTV and to a lesser extent government/police access to private social media. It does create a very safe and high-trust society because people know that wrongdoers are inevitably going to get caught.
Wouldn't trust American billionaires to implement a similar system but China proves that the theory at least works.
hmm..i guess i'd have to take your word for it because i don't know how things operate in China, but i do agree that the system here will never be to the benefit of society as a whole
Lemmy users say a vast citizen-powered guillotine system can ensure ‘billionaires will be on their best behavior’
Federated posters have really caught on in the past few weeks, I've noticed; nice post
Do we have any FOSS designs for a guillotine?
Another banger from a federated account! (See my post below)
Sadly there currently only appears to be purchasable closed source blueprints, or fairly vague historical instructions.
That would be a valuable contribution in 2025. Would probably also get headlines and I'm sure many would be built as a result. Which is exactly what we need right now.
Hmmmmmm it could be possible to set up a vast surveillance network targeting billionaires too right?
So much for “land of the free”.
This will probably be embraced by the same people who disobeyed covid lockdowns because “muh freedumz!”
Minority Report: "This bad actually and leads to problems."
Larry watching Minority Report: "What the fuck this is awesome"
I sincerely want this guy to be at the bottom of the ocean
The guy who helped a government develop a database system is in favour of the government developing data gathering systems? Well, I never...
A shit-ass database system that treats empty strings as null values, and doesn't do automatic casting between ISO date-formatted strings and date/datetime types, yet costs a fuckton to license. Even if he weren't a multibillionaire piece of shit, that fucking prick still deserves the guillotine just for OracleDB's unholy existence; that software wasn't released: it escaped.
:Ahem: 📣LEARN TO HACK. LEARN TO QUADCOPTER/DRONE.📣
The Deserter: The mask of humanity fall from capital. It has to take it off to kill everyone — everything you love; all the hope and tenderness in the world. It has to take it off, just for one second. To do the deed. And then you see it. As it strangles and beats your friends to death... the sweetest, most courageous people in the world... (he's silent for a second) You see the fear and power in its eyes. Then you know.
You: What?
The Deserter: That you should not make the mistake of mistake of anthropomorphizing the bourgeoisie
Surveillance that billionaires themselves will not be subject to, I'm sure.
naturally.. this is just for the mere 'citizens' not the overlords
Oh wow! Wouldn't you know all the systems stopped working specifically in the general area at coincidentally the exact same time this rich boi was doing something naughty. Geee I guess itxs all hearsay and inadmissible now. Shucks. That's too bad. Case closed.
I was watching 90 day fiance the other way and one of the persons wife is in China. When they were driving around he would see a "flashing light" and freak out. It got to the point where they had a fight over it, she was like "I donno maybe the apartment camera or something" and he'd make her drive around to catch it again. On stormfront, people were saying it's probably China watching them and other propaganda bs.
Now I know in the US, there's hella cameras in public places plus we're encouraged to surveil on our own with ring cameras and the like. So what's so scary about a camera flash? It's scary when it's tied to the evil seeseepee but we'll gladly sign our own privacy away for any private company that contracts with the state anyway
Amazing, willingly participating in a reality show where you are constantly being filmed, and freaking out about some random light because ebil communism!
In capitalist America their oligarchs use AI cameras to micromanage all their citizens and punish them publicly in real time.
Cyberpunk styles are going to involve makeup that puts extra eyes and facial features to confuse AI face trackers or even just going outside with billionaire face masks on
https://adam.harvey.studio/cvdazzle/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_vision_dazzle
It has been a thing for about 15 years now.
I heard Juggalo face paint can accomplish that.
Let's put it in Larry's house first for beta testing
Dude looks like Bert Kreischer and Brendan Schaub did a fusion dance to create the perfect dickhead
He lives in a different universe than the citizens. Why does he give a shit what kind of behavior they're on?
It's incomprehensible to us because we lack the Billionaire Mindset: a severe degree of narcissism that compels them to control everyone and everything at the costs of cheapened human lives and the moral bankruptcy of their own souls.
Basically because he's a vampiric husk man.
Because in his head, likely, all that isn't his, should belong to him not soon, but NOW!! In great possibility, to him, everyone ought to obey his will.
Every accusation is projection
we already fuckin have that the only waffling you could do is by arguing about the definition of “ai”