Perhaps, but that assumes they're actually making anything. It's quite possible they're only announcing it, or will only take people's money, or that this is a re-badge of something one of their donors already made and couldn't sell on an open market.
Sure thing, the data grab stage is complete, models are trained, the bulk of the global data is in the pocket and whatever new arrives can be spoon-fed to them without the need to fund all this huge "free" data funneling infrastructure, and however much money was thrown into that must be recouped.
"Free internet" was but a business strategy, both as in beer and in freedom.
(G)GP does the classic "it's freedom fighting when we're doing it". Either call both propaganda, or call both alternative narratives, otherwise your bias is blatantly showing.
Really important to first, pick that example of content moderation and then point out that he's an Israeli. Maybe think about why you used that example when there are countless others regarding free speech/internet freedom.
I would point to the opposite bias, the guardian mentions Chinese surveillance tech exported to Africa, but makes no mention of Israeli spyware exports. The Israeli export of civil repression technology, expertise and training is actually very well documented, having a lot of practice with such oppression domestically.
As if the guardian was overly pro-Israeli. I would argue that it makes more sense in that context to mention Chinese surveillance tech, because it's not an ally of the US.
I would think it's very much important to point out the double standard, it's an ally of the west so it's fine if they do it, but not if china does it because they are the "enemy". That's all what the comment you accused of antisemitism was doing.
Well, double standard is of course a thing (like accusing the only democracy for not being democratic enough without saying anything about much more oppressive regimes around; but also about surveillance in one place and also another). I think it is to make a different point though.
This funding from the US was to get around surveillance (everywhere), so it makes sense to argue, that a rival global player exports surveillance tech, because the funded tech is to counter that. That argument would not work with Israeli surveillance tech.
It’s extremely relevant. The Trump admin just facilitated the sale of TikTok to an ardent Zionist for an incredibly cheap price, and Netanyahu himself gave a talk saying it was the most important event in the “eighth front” of their war. Same just happened with CBS.
Larry Ellison (the new owner of TikTok) personally vetted Marco Rubio for fealty to Israel.
The United States is days away from going to war with Iran on behalf of Israel, which makes this even more important.
Israeli mega donors Miriam Adelson, Larry Ellison, Ronald Lauder, etc, have given Trump literally hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign donations to facilitate this special treatment of Israel and to help transfer control of these media orgs to Israelis. They have all stated openly that this is the case.
>These programs were largely about ensuring that American propaganda can reach people in Iran or similar places.
This. The og point of USAID wasn't AID as per the name would misleadingly let you believe, but spreading pro-US anti-USSR propaganda, and only like 3% of that program was spent on actual AID, like food and medicine for the third world, but most of it went to funding media, news and journalists across LatAm, Asia, Africa dn EE, that would push domestic support in those regions for US policies and be critical of US adversaries.
US doesn't fund "freedom" of anything out of selflessness, it funds policies that are guaranteed to benefit it over its rivals, and use the word "freedom" to legitimize it. Once those benefits no longer materialize, the funding also goes away.
The budget for USAID in 2024 was $25.6 billion [0]. $ 9.5 billion were allocated to health programs and $ 1.1 billion to agriculture, education and infrastructure [1]. You can do the math.
>only like 3% of that program was spent on actual AID, like food and medicine for the third world, but most of it went to funding media, news and journalists across LatAm, Asia, Africa dn EE, that would push domestic support in those regions for US policies and be critical of US adversaries.
3%? There was a lot of waste with the program but surely, please give this at least 30 seconds of thought.
> only like 3% of that program was spent on actual AID, like food and medicine for the third world, but most of it went to funding media, news and journalists across LatAm, Asia, Africa dn EE
Source please. This doesn't pass the smell test, because the largest expenses in international aid programs are usually related to healthcare and agriculture. Propaganda is very cheap compared to producing and distributing malaria drugs or grain to the most remote corners of the world or building water sanitation plants in places that have no roads and no electricity.
Growing up in a post-communist country, Hollywood and the US music and gaming industry had more impact on the "US-isation of our country" than USAID propaganda, back then.
But today most of Hollywood productions and music coming out of the US is pure trash that people abroad now reject it as propaganda garbage.
US destroyed its global soft power, not by defunding USAID, but by forcibly injecting unpopular ideologies into its entertainment industry instead of sticking to tried and true formulas, ideals and values that transcend cultural and language barriers.
Most Hollywood production has always been trash. US shows are still very popular and influential. Many countries are just richer post 2000s, subsidize their movie industry and it's way easier to distribute movies internationally compared to 30 years ago. Barrier to entry in general has gone down. Pretending woke is the main reason ignores many things.
Oh the right-wing propaganda of decrying "wokeness" in pop culture that "replaces" good old white christian culture is very much an export you fell victim to as well. It promotes far-right "alternative" political parties, useful to the US all the same..
Most of the world is conservative by Hollywood liberal standards. Also injecting ideology is the least of concerns, it is just that they objectively produce shit compared to movies in 1995. All reruns, and remasters and basically living on the rent of old glories. There is a palpable lack of talent due to the political climate as well as reduced risk appetite to bet on young or transgressive directors/writers/actors. Now more innovative and interesting movies are coming from Korea and Turkey for example.
You could produce the most uber-woke movie possible and it would be loved as long as it was good art or had a legitimate good story.
Sorry I just remember from a Tweet that it was the year that many cult movies came, but one of my favorite years is 2000 for both Matrix/American Psycho.
"just look at viewer ratings, total views and cinema turnouts of Hollywood movies in the last 10 years compared to for example 1999-2005. The decline in quality is obvious and measurable."
I attribute this to the self organized dismantling of of movie studio industry in their anti-union fight, the rise of streaming, and the fear of primary investments that drives enshittification same as many other industries in the west.
One thing that the multiple entertainment industry unions did is raise quality by ensuring continuity by ensuring livable pay. Now the studios are systematically dismantling and moving major production stages, and they're applying silly metrics and "risk" based production decisions - see the endless remakes. What little art and pride of production value that was in the industry is tightly squeezed out today.
>One thing that the multiple entertainment industry unions did is raise quality by ensuring continuity by ensuring livable pay.
Was the pay not livable back then for the people who made the likes of The Matrix, The Gladiator, The Dark Knight, LoTR trilogy, Tropic Thunder?
> the rise of streaming
Streaming still needs workers to make movies and shows. Rise of streaming means an increased demand for movies and shows. Does not explain the fall in quality.
The entertainment CEOs in charge would happily enshittify to stream AI slop with no workers if they thought they could get away with it. As it is, they try to leverage the threat, as well as relocating and restarting studio locations, resetting skill quality bases in order to break unions and reduce wages.
>The entertainment CEOs in charge would happily enshittify to stream AI slop with no workers if they thought they could get away with it
You're missing the point of my argument again and moving the frame of the discussions to random tangents you make up, but don't disprove what I'm saying.
Let me disprove your point AGAIN, this time with numbers. According to my Google-Fu, 2000-3000 people worked on making the Matrix in 1999, while today Disney employs 4000-6000 people for their shitty Marvel movies or remakes like snow white.
So no, the enshitification is not due to execs cutting workers, since more people work today on blockbuster movies than before, while quality is more shit.
The enshitification is because the people they employ now are either incompetent or malicious or a mix both.
Disney built a whole Marvel studio complex in Georga, USA moving production away from earlier Marvel production in Hollywood and union labor (and chasing tax breaks). Now they're tearing down that down to move to an even lower cost site in the UK. Marvel movies have been dropping in quality all while the execs pinch pennies and opt for lower and lower cost labor. Your data seems to support my assertions more.
"Tangents" of discussion are the whole point of a conversation I'm not approaching this as some competitive one upsmanship proving ground - I don't think either of us are going to get "proof".
100% enshittification, similar with video games and their anti-union efforts. The conservatives have twisted and co-opted that into their reactionary culture war propaganda, and exported that too evidently.
You're mixing up a lot of things that don't really belong together here.
To the broader point, Star Trek is a major cultural export of the USA, and has always shown what are now considered to be anti-right-wing ideals, from the Cage daring (by the standard of the era) to have a woman in a senior role in the command hierarchy rather than a traditional gender role, to the main series putting a Japanese officer on the bridge in the shadow of WW2 racial tension, a black woman on the bridge as a main-cast role even though US domestic politics were the Civil Rights era, and a Russian officer also on the bridge despite the US international politics being the Cold War era.
By the films (perhaps sooner, IDK I'm not that nerdy), the canon was the Federation no longer used money.
Later, Top Gun and Stargate SG-1 are both on-the-nose US military propaganda; the latter achieved success even though Sam Carter was not at all a traditional gender role, even introduced with stereotypical gender hostility before Jack O'Neill accepted her as an equal. Stargate Universe failed despite pushing the civilian scientists into military training, IMO because it was trying to be reboot-BSG with different set dressing, putting off all the people who wanted more Stargate without attracting anyone who wanted more BSG, but again, BSG itself managed to be a major cultural export despite the not-traditional-gender-role-conformant characters of Laura Roslin, Starbuck, and (even if they were not really human) Number Six and Number Eight.
In specific details of what's mixed up and why it doesn't work together:
> Yes, the "far right christian ideologies", such as masculinity, traditional gender roles, patriarchal values, self sacrifice and fighting for your kin and country, protestant work ethic and entrepreneurship, protecting your borders against foreign invaders, hierarchical social structures based on merit, the same values and ideologies that built and made the western anglo-european civilizations the envy of the world superpowers, that got us to the moon, and where the rest of the world wants to emigrate to.
Some of that is indeed far-right (masculinity, patriarchal values, and what is currently seen as "traditional" gender roles while actually missing both what those were and why they were fundamentally changed by inventions such as the washing machine and childhood vaccination).
"Self sacrifice", "fighting for your kin and country", and "protecting your borders against foreign invaders" are basically everywhere, those didn't help differentiate "the western anglo-european civilizations" from anyone else, you'll find the former in every culture we have records for, and the latter two (if you accept "territory" rather than "country") even more broadly in species whose most recent common ancestor we share was when dinosaurs still ruled the earth.
"protestant work ethic and entrepreneurship", I mean the Catholics would like a word about the former, let alone historical references like the Islamic golden age having already finished three centuries before the Protestant reformation and China being busy as the Middle Kingdom for most of world history right up until the west surprised them with the Industrial Revolution; and if "entrepreneurship" is limited to "far right" then the USSR getting to space first and China doing pretty well in the last few decades are also counter-examples.
"hierarchical social structures based on merit" covers everyone except anarchists and hereditary rule, I think?
> and where the rest of the world wants to emigrate to
No we don't.
At this point, lots of us are skipping the USA even just for holidays and business trips, let alone migration.
>and if "entrepreneurship" is limited to "far right"
I see that you completely missed the tongue in cheek nature of my argument,a dressing that those things are not far right, contrary to the argument the person I was replying to said.
> The decline in quality is obvious and measurable, just look at the reception of old disney productions versus their remaklers for "modern audiences".
This argument (in summary, wokeness makes modern Disney less enjoyable/profitable) doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Mainline Disney movies these days are, on average, more politically bland than the beloved “renaissance” classics. The latter tended to be extremely liberal, even by historical standards—some of them shocking to watch, now. Beauty and the Beast is a good example of this.
Andor is a notable counterexample, having a consistent and obvious politics, but it is also relatively loved. My evangelical Christian relations can’t get enough of it. They like it even more than The Mandalorian.
>Mainline Disney movies these days are, on average, more politically bland than the beloved “renaissance” classics.
What exactly was political in the Disney “renaissance” classics?
>The latter tended to be extremely liberal, even by historical standards—some of them shocking to watch, now.
Nothing wrong with being liberal. The issue is with the flavor and definition of liberalism you choose as the benchmark. People are NOT OK with gender swaps, race swaps, and forced LGBTQ inserst in ther entertainment masquerading as "liberalism" when it's propaganda inserted by activists designed to "own the (chuds)conservatives".
The liberalism of the 1990's Disney “renaissance” classics would be considered conservative and even bigoted by today's modern definition of liberalism that activists have co-opted.
A program that helped people evade real censorship is "feeding them US propaganda" and social media awash with state-sponsored trolls tearing our societies apart is "an alternative geopolitical narrative" - bit of a spin, isn't it?
As The Guardian has previously pointed out https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/03/us-cuban-twitt...: USAID and these orgs were "undermining Cuba's communist government". Now it's time to celebrate. People will now be free to live as they wish under communism or whatever else they choose. It is not for us to choose whether people want to be invaded by Russia or ruled by Castro. If they don't want this, let them choose otherwise.
The President will be gone in a few years and USAID will still be gone. So that's the ideal state of affairs. The Republicans will have cleared out the bad agency and then whacked themselves. It's like radiation. You don't want the radiation always there but it's the only way to kill the cancer so you take it.
If it is so important, why are we relying on the US to fund it? Maybe it is not that important? Maybe this program is not a pillar for 'internet freedom', maybe, as we can clearly see, most of the world (including the EU) has no real interest in 'internet freedom'..
Don't get me wrong, I personally very much think freedom (internet or otherwise) is very important, and valuable. But the tone where Orange Man Bad pulls funding for ostensibly super duper important projects is such a bore. Maybe in stead of pointing out how bad this move is, we should be doing something about it? Oh wait we are busy clamping down on "hate speech" and blocking "dangerous" social media such as X.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, sure, we can claim a spurilous "think of thie children" angle, but usually that's about Children doing something; not pervy AIs and their pedophile proclivities.
For a list of projects funded by the Open Technology Fund, see https://www.opentech.fund/projects-we-support/supported-proj... Includes well-known entities like the Tor Browser and F-Droid, but also plenty of stuff I never heard of before.
hold up. 40 million dollars over 5 years for an open source VPN?
Supposedly that only covers "user carrying costs" too.[0]
They claim to have 3 million weekly users[1], I have no idea if that's a realistic cost for running a VPN of that scale?
Notably applicants for these grants don't have to be non-profits[0], which seems a little odd?
[0]https://www.opentech.fund/funds/surge-and-sustain-fund/
[1]https://psiphon.ca/en/about.html
what is going on
While also claiming they'll put up a VPN to give people unfettered access to social media websites now that lots of nations are putting more restrictions on them: https://www.reuters.com/world/us-plans-online-portal-bypass-...
So they're cutting funding for TOR while making a shitty version?
Perhaps, but that assumes they're actually making anything. It's quite possible they're only announcing it, or will only take people's money, or that this is a re-badge of something one of their donors already made and couldn't sell on an open market.
A version only facilitating access to sites friendly to the Mad King and friends. No Fediverse for you!
Sure thing, the data grab stage is complete, models are trained, the bulk of the global data is in the pocket and whatever new arrives can be spoon-fed to them without the need to fund all this huge "free" data funneling infrastructure, and however much money was thrown into that must be recouped.
"Free internet" was but a business strategy, both as in beer and in freedom.
I'm not worried, freedom.gov will save us all! /s
[dead]
[flagged]
[flagged]
> American propaganda can reach people in Iran
> American’s exposure to alternative geopolitical narratives
In the same breath!
I downvoted you because I don't understand the point you're trying to make.
(G)GP does the classic "it's freedom fighting when we're doing it". Either call both propaganda, or call both alternative narratives, otherwise your bias is blatantly showing.
I think especially the billionaire bit made it clear to me that he's not being serious.
it's the good ol' "calling one side propaganda, but the other narrative" gasp, but reversed from usual western pov
so it's a downvote either for consistency (and neutrality) or for the sake of lol :)
Really important to first, pick that example of content moderation and then point out that he's an Israeli. Maybe think about why you used that example when there are countless others regarding free speech/internet freedom.
I would point to the opposite bias, the guardian mentions Chinese surveillance tech exported to Africa, but makes no mention of Israeli spyware exports. The Israeli export of civil repression technology, expertise and training is actually very well documented, having a lot of practice with such oppression domestically.
As if the guardian was overly pro-Israeli. I would argue that it makes more sense in that context to mention Chinese surveillance tech, because it's not an ally of the US.
I would think it's very much important to point out the double standard, it's an ally of the west so it's fine if they do it, but not if china does it because they are the "enemy". That's all what the comment you accused of antisemitism was doing.
Well, double standard is of course a thing (like accusing the only democracy for not being democratic enough without saying anything about much more oppressive regimes around; but also about surveillance in one place and also another). I think it is to make a different point though.
This funding from the US was to get around surveillance (everywhere), so it makes sense to argue, that a rival global player exports surveillance tech, because the funded tech is to counter that. That argument would not work with Israeli surveillance tech.
It’s extremely relevant. The Trump admin just facilitated the sale of TikTok to an ardent Zionist for an incredibly cheap price, and Netanyahu himself gave a talk saying it was the most important event in the “eighth front” of their war. Same just happened with CBS.
Larry Ellison (the new owner of TikTok) personally vetted Marco Rubio for fealty to Israel.
https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/1nww6cp/larry_ell...
The United States is days away from going to war with Iran on behalf of Israel, which makes this even more important.
Israeli mega donors Miriam Adelson, Larry Ellison, Ronald Lauder, etc, have given Trump literally hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign donations to facilitate this special treatment of Israel and to help transfer control of these media orgs to Israelis. They have all stated openly that this is the case.
>These programs were largely about ensuring that American propaganda can reach people in Iran or similar places.
This. The og point of USAID wasn't AID as per the name would misleadingly let you believe, but spreading pro-US anti-USSR propaganda, and only like 3% of that program was spent on actual AID, like food and medicine for the third world, but most of it went to funding media, news and journalists across LatAm, Asia, Africa dn EE, that would push domestic support in those regions for US policies and be critical of US adversaries.
US doesn't fund "freedom" of anything out of selflessness, it funds policies that are guaranteed to benefit it over its rivals, and use the word "freedom" to legitimize it. Once those benefits no longer materialize, the funding also goes away.
The budget for USAID in 2024 was $25.6 billion [0]. $ 9.5 billion were allocated to health programs and $ 1.1 billion to agriculture, education and infrastructure [1]. You can do the math.
[0] https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/usaid-budget-2024-...
[1] https://factually.co/fact-checks/health/usaid-2024-food-medi...
>only like 3% of that program was spent on actual AID, like food and medicine for the third world, but most of it went to funding media, news and journalists across LatAm, Asia, Africa dn EE, that would push domestic support in those regions for US policies and be critical of US adversaries.
3%? There was a lot of waste with the program but surely, please give this at least 30 seconds of thought.
My bad, it was 5-15% of USAID that went towards food aid to countries in need.
Makes the future interestingly unpredictable other than the inevitable fading of the US-isation of the rest of the world.
>US-isation of the rest of the world
Growing up in a post-communist country, Hollywood and the US music and gaming industry had more impact on the "US-isation of our country" than USAID propaganda, back then.
But today most of Hollywood productions and music coming out of the US is pure trash that people abroad now reject it as propaganda garbage.
US destroyed its global soft power, not by defunding USAID, but by forcibly injecting unpopular ideologies into its entertainment industry instead of sticking to tried and true formulas, ideals and values that transcend cultural and language barriers.
Most Hollywood production has always been trash. US shows are still very popular and influential. Many countries are just richer post 2000s, subsidize their movie industry and it's way easier to distribute movies internationally compared to 30 years ago. Barrier to entry in general has gone down. Pretending woke is the main reason ignores many things.
> forcibly injecting unpopular ideologies
Oh the right-wing propaganda of decrying "wokeness" in pop culture that "replaces" good old white christian culture is very much an export you fell victim to as well. It promotes far-right "alternative" political parties, useful to the US all the same..
Most of the world is conservative by Hollywood liberal standards. Also injecting ideology is the least of concerns, it is just that they objectively produce shit compared to movies in 1995. All reruns, and remasters and basically living on the rent of old glories. There is a palpable lack of talent due to the political climate as well as reduced risk appetite to bet on young or transgressive directors/writers/actors. Now more innovative and interesting movies are coming from Korea and Turkey for example.
You could produce the most uber-woke movie possible and it would be loved as long as it was good art or had a legitimate good story.
What a strange and arbitrary cutoff date, is that when you turned 30?
Sorry I just remember from a Tweet that it was the year that many cult movies came, but one of my favorite years is 2000 for both Matrix/American Psycho.
As for the age, no, I was born well after 1995.
This is even stranger, in what way do you think those films espouse the values you touted?
[flagged]
[flagged]
"just look at viewer ratings, total views and cinema turnouts of Hollywood movies in the last 10 years compared to for example 1999-2005. The decline in quality is obvious and measurable."
I attribute this to the self organized dismantling of of movie studio industry in their anti-union fight, the rise of streaming, and the fear of primary investments that drives enshittification same as many other industries in the west.
One thing that the multiple entertainment industry unions did is raise quality by ensuring continuity by ensuring livable pay. Now the studios are systematically dismantling and moving major production stages, and they're applying silly metrics and "risk" based production decisions - see the endless remakes. What little art and pride of production value that was in the industry is tightly squeezed out today.
>One thing that the multiple entertainment industry unions did is raise quality by ensuring continuity by ensuring livable pay.
Was the pay not livable back then for the people who made the likes of The Matrix, The Gladiator, The Dark Knight, LoTR trilogy, Tropic Thunder?
> the rise of streaming
Streaming still needs workers to make movies and shows. Rise of streaming means an increased demand for movies and shows. Does not explain the fall in quality.
The entertainment CEOs in charge would happily enshittify to stream AI slop with no workers if they thought they could get away with it. As it is, they try to leverage the threat, as well as relocating and restarting studio locations, resetting skill quality bases in order to break unions and reduce wages.
>The entertainment CEOs in charge would happily enshittify to stream AI slop with no workers if they thought they could get away with it
You're missing the point of my argument again and moving the frame of the discussions to random tangents you make up, but don't disprove what I'm saying.
Let me disprove your point AGAIN, this time with numbers. According to my Google-Fu, 2000-3000 people worked on making the Matrix in 1999, while today Disney employs 4000-6000 people for their shitty Marvel movies or remakes like snow white.
So no, the enshitification is not due to execs cutting workers, since more people work today on blockbuster movies than before, while quality is more shit.
The enshitification is because the people they employ now are either incompetent or malicious or a mix both.
Disney built a whole Marvel studio complex in Georga, USA moving production away from earlier Marvel production in Hollywood and union labor (and chasing tax breaks). Now they're tearing down that down to move to an even lower cost site in the UK. Marvel movies have been dropping in quality all while the execs pinch pennies and opt for lower and lower cost labor. Your data seems to support my assertions more.
"Tangents" of discussion are the whole point of a conversation I'm not approaching this as some competitive one upsmanship proving ground - I don't think either of us are going to get "proof".
100% enshittification, similar with video games and their anti-union efforts. The conservatives have twisted and co-opted that into their reactionary culture war propaganda, and exported that too evidently.
You're mixing up a lot of things that don't really belong together here.
To the broader point, Star Trek is a major cultural export of the USA, and has always shown what are now considered to be anti-right-wing ideals, from the Cage daring (by the standard of the era) to have a woman in a senior role in the command hierarchy rather than a traditional gender role, to the main series putting a Japanese officer on the bridge in the shadow of WW2 racial tension, a black woman on the bridge as a main-cast role even though US domestic politics were the Civil Rights era, and a Russian officer also on the bridge despite the US international politics being the Cold War era.
By the films (perhaps sooner, IDK I'm not that nerdy), the canon was the Federation no longer used money.
Later, Top Gun and Stargate SG-1 are both on-the-nose US military propaganda; the latter achieved success even though Sam Carter was not at all a traditional gender role, even introduced with stereotypical gender hostility before Jack O'Neill accepted her as an equal. Stargate Universe failed despite pushing the civilian scientists into military training, IMO because it was trying to be reboot-BSG with different set dressing, putting off all the people who wanted more Stargate without attracting anyone who wanted more BSG, but again, BSG itself managed to be a major cultural export despite the not-traditional-gender-role-conformant characters of Laura Roslin, Starbuck, and (even if they were not really human) Number Six and Number Eight.
In specific details of what's mixed up and why it doesn't work together:
> Yes, the "far right christian ideologies", such as masculinity, traditional gender roles, patriarchal values, self sacrifice and fighting for your kin and country, protestant work ethic and entrepreneurship, protecting your borders against foreign invaders, hierarchical social structures based on merit, the same values and ideologies that built and made the western anglo-european civilizations the envy of the world superpowers, that got us to the moon, and where the rest of the world wants to emigrate to.
Some of that is indeed far-right (masculinity, patriarchal values, and what is currently seen as "traditional" gender roles while actually missing both what those were and why they were fundamentally changed by inventions such as the washing machine and childhood vaccination).
"Self sacrifice", "fighting for your kin and country", and "protecting your borders against foreign invaders" are basically everywhere, those didn't help differentiate "the western anglo-european civilizations" from anyone else, you'll find the former in every culture we have records for, and the latter two (if you accept "territory" rather than "country") even more broadly in species whose most recent common ancestor we share was when dinosaurs still ruled the earth.
"protestant work ethic and entrepreneurship", I mean the Catholics would like a word about the former, let alone historical references like the Islamic golden age having already finished three centuries before the Protestant reformation and China being busy as the Middle Kingdom for most of world history right up until the west surprised them with the Industrial Revolution; and if "entrepreneurship" is limited to "far right" then the USSR getting to space first and China doing pretty well in the last few decades are also counter-examples.
"hierarchical social structures based on merit" covers everyone except anarchists and hereditary rule, I think?
> and where the rest of the world wants to emigrate to
No we don't.
At this point, lots of us are skipping the USA even just for holidays and business trips, let alone migration.
>and if "entrepreneurship" is limited to "far right"
I see that you completely missed the tongue in cheek nature of my argument,a dressing that those things are not far right, contrary to the argument the person I was replying to said.
Re-reading, I agree I misread your comment.
See also my further edit.
> The decline in quality is obvious and measurable, just look at the reception of old disney productions versus their remaklers for "modern audiences".
This argument (in summary, wokeness makes modern Disney less enjoyable/profitable) doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Mainline Disney movies these days are, on average, more politically bland than the beloved “renaissance” classics. The latter tended to be extremely liberal, even by historical standards—some of them shocking to watch, now. Beauty and the Beast is a good example of this.
Andor is a notable counterexample, having a consistent and obvious politics, but it is also relatively loved. My evangelical Christian relations can’t get enough of it. They like it even more than The Mandalorian.
>Mainline Disney movies these days are, on average, more politically bland than the beloved “renaissance” classics.
What exactly was political in the Disney “renaissance” classics?
>The latter tended to be extremely liberal, even by historical standards—some of them shocking to watch, now.
Nothing wrong with being liberal. The issue is with the flavor and definition of liberalism you choose as the benchmark. People are NOT OK with gender swaps, race swaps, and forced LGBTQ inserst in ther entertainment masquerading as "liberalism" when it's propaganda inserted by activists designed to "own the (chuds)conservatives".
The liberalism of the 1990's Disney “renaissance” classics would be considered conservative and even bigoted by today's modern definition of liberalism that activists have co-opted.
[flagged]
A program that helped people evade real censorship is "feeding them US propaganda" and social media awash with state-sponsored trolls tearing our societies apart is "an alternative geopolitical narrative" - bit of a spin, isn't it?
[flagged]
Exactly this. The fact that you got downvoted tells a lot about how much political propaganda has infiltrated HN.
As The Guardian has previously pointed out https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/03/us-cuban-twitt...: USAID and these orgs were "undermining Cuba's communist government". Now it's time to celebrate. People will now be free to live as they wish under communism or whatever else they choose. It is not for us to choose whether people want to be invaded by Russia or ruled by Castro. If they don't want this, let them choose otherwise.
End all American foreign interference.
Better to have the foreign interference done directly by the President himself along with his family and cronies for personal gain.
The President will be gone in a few years and USAID will still be gone. So that's the ideal state of affairs. The Republicans will have cleared out the bad agency and then whacked themselves. It's like radiation. You don't want the radiation always there but it's the only way to kill the cancer so you take it.
"End all American foreign interference" he says.
But this one guy can do all the foreign interference he wants, in America's name, as a treat.
"It's ideal" he says.
More like "freedom".
If it is so important, why are we relying on the US to fund it? Maybe it is not that important? Maybe this program is not a pillar for 'internet freedom', maybe, as we can clearly see, most of the world (including the EU) has no real interest in 'internet freedom'..
Don't get me wrong, I personally very much think freedom (internet or otherwise) is very important, and valuable. But the tone where Orange Man Bad pulls funding for ostensibly super duper important projects is such a bore. Maybe in stead of pointing out how bad this move is, we should be doing something about it? Oh wait we are busy clamping down on "hate speech" and blocking "dangerous" social media such as X.
Write me a sonnet on how proliferating child pornography is really free speech.
Think of the children!
That's the problem, the wrong people are.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, sure, we can claim a spurilous "think of thie children" angle, but usually that's about Children doing something; not pervy AIs and their pedophile proclivities.