Zamaamiro

... while simultaneously adding trillions to the deficit to finance tax cuts for the rich.

Actually very unlikely unless Congress passes a bill.

There's nothing in the definition of inflation that says it needs to be driven by consumer demand.

I don't see how "but that's the way we used to do things" is an argument in favor of conversational interfaces.

The whole point is that we currently have better, more efficient ways of doing those things, so why would we regress to inferior methods?

Trump has net negative approval rating.

https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-sil...

As somebody whose work is closely involved with the US military, particularly INDOPACOM and SPACECOM, I can assure you you don't have the full picture.

China is plenty capable of competing with us in a high-intensity conflict, especially regionally, but also in space, and they can even hurt us in the home front, if we're being perfectly honest.

Sure, the US might ultimately "prevail" such a conflict, but it's not a conflict US war planners or anybody with a clear picture of the situation is in any hurry to jump into.

You should pray that such a war never comes to pass, because it won't be pretty for any side, and has the potential to be especially dicey for the US if domestic politics are as inflamed as they are today.

Americans enjoy their current (highly subsidized) standard of living in large part because we produce a surplus of goods and services that we export to the rest of the world.

If a good chunk of the world turns against the US, such that they refuse to consume our goods and services, then Americans will not be able to continue to enjoy their current standard of living.

This is why "soft power" matters, and it's why would-be contenders such as China have invested as heavily as they have in building up their soft power in LatAm, Africa, and elsewhere.

So yes, enjoy your "hard power," but you'll probably be poor.

The majority of people thought they were voting for cheaper groceries, not for undoing our entire system of alliances and global trade.

Also, the President is not a King, so just because people voted for him it doesn't mean opposition ceases to exist. Opposition and push-back to executive policy been a mainstay of US politics. It's been true of Democratic Presidents (e.g., federal courts blocking Biden's policies), and it remains true of the current President.

This is an odd non-sequitur.

It's not at all unreasonable for consumers to demand vendors--especially those with as much market power as Amazon--to take steps to foster trust that, though they may not rise to the level of "proving a negative," still go some ways towards assuring us they are not violating our privacy.

The fact that they don't take any of those steps (and the fact that we are in a thread about they're disabling this privacy feature in the first place!) goes to show that consumers have every right to be skeptical and indeed to refuse to bring these products into our lives.

I think it's inane to complain that consumers are placing an impossibly high standard on Amazon when Amazon themselves choose not to meet even the lowest of standards.

Never mind "proving", there are plenty of low-effort steps they could take to foster trust (as outlined elsewhere in this thread) that they choose not to do. They choose not to meet even the bare minimum.

We are in a thread that is literally about how Amazon plans to disable the option to not send voice recordings. I get playing devil's advocate, but at some point logic has to prevail, eh?

The extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence is the idea that Big Tech companies are not spying on you any time they can.

ProPublica does outstanding investigative reporting, to include among many more examples their investigative reporting on the nation's stillbirth crisis [1], our broken healthcare insurance system [2], and how the rich and wealthy avoid paying taxes [3]. Your rattling about "left-leaning this, right-leaning that" comes across as out-of-touch and maybe even a tad unhinged.

[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/stillbirth-prevention-leg...

[2] https://www.propublica.org/topics/health-insurance

[3] https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trov...

As with plenty of other things he is doing, this is illegal. The President of the United States is engaging in flagrantly illegal behavior on a daily basis as 30% of the country cheers him on.

A plain reading of the Constitution as well as the 1974 Impoundment Control Act should both be enough to debunk that legal theory, but alas here we are.

[1] https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/120-the-impoundment-crisis-of...

We don't when said President illegally fires the inspectors general responsible for independent oversight.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/fired-inspecto...

I would not fire staff responsible for safeguarding nuclear material, and I wouldn't be trying to avoid transparency.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-02-14/elon-m...

That's a definition of "vetting" that nobody else but you seems to have proposed. Feels like a strawman.

Why would I trust a serial liar with anything?

Also, just because he was duly elected it does not give him carte blanche to do whatever he wants, especially when he's running afoul of the law and firing all of the inspectors general and independent monitors.

People did not vote to give Elon Musk absolute, unaccountable access to the most sensitive machineries of government.

They've fired and hobbled all of the inspectors general and parties that are supposed to monitor and hold them accountable. This is nothing short of a security nightmare and insider threat of the highest degree.

I don't like using the Hitler comparison because it makes people have a kneejerk reaction and tune you out, but it is plainly undeniable that Trump makes many statements that could be attributed, word for word, to any number of authoritarians and tyrants throughout history.

The chairman of the Federal Reserve is accountable to Congress. The chairman must regularly report to and testify before Congress.

This is established in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.

Rather than gesturing generally at all of these "irrational" and "hyperbolic" comments, why not take the time to thoughtfully rebut any specific comment that you believe is engaging in irrationality and hyperbole?

I would also cool it with the dismissive tone and avoid saying things like "cray cray" before accusing anyone else of being juvenile.

That "essentially" is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Please point me to a specific Executive Order issued during Biden's administration that resulted in "forced speech."

On the other hand, the current administration has issued Executive Orders, memoranda, and other official communications that very explicitly direct government agencies to engage in censorship, with the National Science Foundation going as far as to compile a list of sensitive words, flagging any materials including words such as "woman", "female", "disability", and "LGBT."

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/endi...

[2] https://www.justice.gov/ag/media/1388501/dl?inline

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025/02/04/national-s...

This EO, combined with his proclamation that "He who saves the country does not violate any law" paint a very concerning picture. This has, historically speaking, been the language of tyrants. No President is above the law, nor does the President "interpret" the law; that is the domain of the Judiciary.

“Wherever law ends, tyranny begins”

“We’ll I didn’t see anything” is a terribly unscientific methodology.

What about the freedom of speech of all those they harass and dox?

Yup. You need to make a lot of assumptions arrive at this strained conclusion. Why not apply Occam’s razor?

I’m curious why this strikes you as a more reasonable explanation. It seems to me that you would need to make more assumptions to arrive at this conclusion than to arrive at other alternative conclusions.

Start ups are (ideally) based on ideas for solving existing problems. Programming languages are just a tool to solve a problem, not the solution in and of itself.