lobocinza

Cash is superior to crypto for anonymity and most people have it, know how to use it and accept it. Bitcoin and the majority of other coins will leave a permanent trail which can be easily associated to the person due to KYC policies and onchain analysis firms. Sure there are privacy coins like Monero but they aren't trivial to acquire without KYC and to find someone that accepts it. So I'm happy that people still use cash despite not doing anything illegal (or immoral) and mostly making payments with card and instant payments.

I totally agree. This "excellence" ideology preaches unvirtuous self-sacrifice. Putting extra time and effort means that the employee is sacrificing himself to improve a result which will not benefit him but only a select few.

I argue that in many cases owners and managers, those who are posed to benefit from this ideology, are the ones which poison the mindset by punishing proactivity and being arrogant. There's also D employees, those that are unable to create value by the conditions set forth, they recognize the pointleness of their job and actively do the minimum and create excuses just to not get fired.

While I understand the concept of A, B and C employees to the employer from the PoV of the employee there is also management attrition and lack of incentives.

This isn't from wider society, it's a bunch from a niche of socialists that made a career preaching against big tech. It's basically a call for state censorship because big tech is bad and government good, "obviously". At least one of the names can be directly related with the current administration, Jose Graziano da Silva was a minister of Lula. Take it with a lethal dose of sodium chloride.

Finally it will be a bit less insane to buy an iPhone at Brazil. Still I will avoid anything from Apple.

I believe any place in the world even barren grounds have a great chance of prospering if they are built on solid values and are free from the yoke of a government controlling all aspects of their lives. And conversely a propesrous nation (which Brazil was) will degenerate into something else without adherence to good values and freedom or a money printing mechanism like the Bretton Woods system.

Government will not solve anything and is unfit to deal with those events as it's for everything else. This was demonstrated by it's poor performance this year dealing with the floodings in April/May and presently the country-wide fires. As always it's up to the affected and the civil society with their tax constrained resourced to deal with the gross.

Droughts and fires can be mitigated by technology and planning but it's not like magic. As you said it's expensive and Brazilians are not only cash constrained but everything that is tech related costs multiples than what someone would expect to pay in other countries and is harder to find. And Brazil is risk and everyday is a different surprise be it from petty criminals or the pros (government employees).

Certainly if Bolsonaro was still the country's president the mainstream narrative would blame him for all that is happening and call him a genocide worst than Hitler because he is the scape goat. But as it is the sacred sheep who is in power nobody dares to criticize the government. It's no coincidence the timing of X ban. Not only this deviates the public discourse from this tragedy but also silenced any mainstream opposition.

Also a share of those fires are not natural but deliberately caused by people. Maybe someone is profiting from this like narcos in São Paulo or it's a mass hysteria thing. Well, there's plenty of evidence of both cases. Also this is nothing new just the scale that is abnormal.

> If you gave me a button that burned down the entire Amazon and made a semiconductor industry magically show up in its place, I wouldn't even think twice before pushing it.

I wouldn't. It would be a really bad deal.

It's not like the article is wrong. There is a link between deforestation and droughts. Droughts and heat waves are becoming more severe and common in Brazil. The point is that the well was poisoned. Mainstream environmentalism was contaminated with politics so it's pointless to engage with it as it will accomplished nothing by design. It doesn't make sense to waste time and sacrifice your mental sanity for nothing.

Now I'm rumminating if I paid more than I should last time I bought sunglasses in Brazil. I don't remember bargaining but it was cheaper than online prices.

With further reflecting buying online for almost everything is certainly cheaper and more convenient making it harder to justify going in a store but I miss the experience of buying things in a store. Online shopping is dehumanizing.

The wildfires are devastating and like nothing I've seem before. Yet if deforestation is solely to blame then why countries with much less forest coverage have less of a problem? Brazil forest coverage: 60%, EU: 39%, US: 33%.

Every time I read such news I have a feeling I'm being fed a lazy political narrative rather than the complex truth. WaPo certainly benefits from the views from the "climate doom" crowd at the expense of their mental health and there will be no improvement because the crowd is ignorant and powerless.

Brazil forest coverage 60%, EU 39%, US 33%. Hypocritically Europe frequently uses the deforestation card to sanction Brazilian agro.

> I don't think the supreme court acted in an authoritarian way, they just don't have the same legal tradition as the US does.

What do you mean by that?

The constitution on article 5 and 220 is clear on freedom of expression being a guaranteed right. e.g "manifestations of thought, creation, expression, and information may not be subject to any restrictions"

> responding specifically to the notion that Brazil was a thriving democracy before Lula took office, which is clearly absurd

Brazil has a long history of authoritarian and populist governments yet it's a democracy since 1988 despite the erosion. And certainly more thriving than Cuba or Venezuela. This notion isn't absurd at all. If you think that a party that is part of an ideological block of authoritarians like Castro, Chavez, Maduro, Xi, Putin et cetera and that has stayed in power for 16 of the last 22 years has done nothing to consolidate and perpetuate power you are beyond naivety.

> Said who? Any criminal will say that what they do is justified and legal and all.

The scans from the secret court ordes published by X on @AlexandrFiles. Note, if these are fabrications why haven't the STF denied their content? It's not just talk, evidence was presented.

> Only justice will officially decide on that and here justice decided, whether somebody (you, me, twitter) likes it or not.

You're assuming the rule of law as a premise which isn't the case. This is a heavily politicized case from a judge that is know to be political. Would you have a different opinion if this was a Russian judge instead of Brazilian judge?

> There's always the appeal path, and if all exhausted and I still don't like it, well, there.

There's no way to appeal to an independent court/judge. The appeal is judged by the supreme court and the other judges have strong incentives to not go against their colleague.

What do you mean by "blue-eyed logic"? Do you really need to put race in eveything?

> "I don't like a legal decision so I will not respect it and expect impunity"

What's your instace on Lula being arrested for corruption? What's your instance on leftists invading and setting fire to public buildings in Brazilian in 2006?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlC3xO1KOBE (news from state TV)

Damn, let's be honest! It's beyond censorship! It's an authoritarian judge censoring congressman and random people on X (one account had 50 followers) because he is personally angered by some posts. If he's addicted to social media and that was taking a toll on his mental health he could've used LeechBlock NG or NextDNS. No need to block it for everyone just because you can or to harass an unrelated company because one of the owners pissed you off.

Not long ago an average Brazilian expected this from Turkey and expected different from Brazil but the times they are changing. And Brazil is a canary for implementing this modus operations on US. Thankfully US constitution and institutions are much more robust but they will try and will have popular support.

My friend don't fall for this trap. Every Brazilian with at least half a brain knows that Lula is corrupt, Moraes is authoritarian and Bolsonaro a coward. He is just poorly repeating the talking points of those that deceitfully try to change the subject and justfy the unjustifiable. Bolsonaro is the Left panacea.

Moraes orders were illegal and went against the letter, the tradition and the spirit of the laws.

This doesn't look like duress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbQFNp_y1F0

It's no secret that Bolsonaro made a career on this kind of rhetoric but this is a tangent. Bolsonaro being a good or bad person will not make concrete authoritarian acts from the supreme court less authoritarian.

He entered military prep school in 73 and graduated in 77. Re-democratization started in 74. Obviously he had no political influence at the time even though he supported the military government as a politician. Anyway it doesn't matter, Bolsonaro being good or bad has nothing to do with X being blocked.

My argument is that Boeing is closer to an unofficial government branch than an independent corporation owned by a billionaire.

You're biased. There was collusion between the judge and prosecutors but there was no forging. Evidence is indisputable, most of the accused made deals and confessed the crimes. The process was nullified by the same authoritarian and corrupt supreme court. I recommend anyone interested to read the page on Wikipedia.

> The judge was subsequently named to head the Ministry of Justice for Bolsonaro, who won the election since Lula was unable to run.

And so? Lula recently appointed his lawyer and minister of justice to the supreme court. Of 11 supreme court judges 7 were appointed by Lula and his party. Another one is a name close to his vice-president (Moraes). And even one of the two Bolsonaro appointees is a man that made career under Roussef.

Musk said employees were threatened with jail.

> You might not be impressed by the censorship happening in your country, but it's certainly worrying.

For him the ends justify the means. Such people are more political and emotional than truthful and rational. When the current president, Lula, was (rightfully) arrested for corruption they put a show about right to due process. But clearly they don't care about right to due process and it's just another tool in a political toolbox.

> What is the fuss around Brazil? Why this is not just another day with business as usual?

The orders in Brazil were issued in secret. X couldn't even show that the accounts were withheld by legal demand. Turkey government is considered authoritarian by most where in Brazil the waters are still shallow.

Read @AlexandreFiles.

> Brazil's last president was literally an officer in the military dictatorship that ran the country for decades

Dubious. He was born in 55. Military dictatorship was from 64 and 79. At 64 he was 9 years old.

Boeing is a military contractor strongly backed up by the US government.

"au·thor·i·tar·i·an favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom."

I don't think Elon is the authoritarian one.

Unfortunately HN doesn't allow for deleting an account or old comments and it would be mostly pointless anyway because 3rd parties will archive them. While the probability of information posted here reaching Moraes is virtually zero it is very possibly in the future this information will be analyzed by large teams or automated systems and could lead to issues with authority. The future is unpredictable and this is not without precedent in countries like China and Russia. Even in Brazil I believe there are cases where people where arrested or at least fined for liking or sharing a post.

And where is the proven link between X and Starlink?

Edit: My comment may have sounded stupid because obviously Musk ownership is a link between both companies though this isn't by itself a valid reason to pierce the corporate veil in Brazilian law. The fundamental criteria is patrimonial confusion and so far I've not seem evidence that X operation was intertwined with Starlink. The only thing is the self-fulfilling hypothesis that people will use Starlink to circumvent the blocking of X.

It is not as simple as that.

The law said that 2+2=4 and this was the accepted jurisprudence but now he is saying that 2+2=5 because he wants and he can do that because he is a supreme court judge and his decisions legally are the new accepted interpretation of the law.

It's a flaw in Brazilian political that enables supreme court judges to virtually do whatever they want including legislating because they can pick any law and bend it. In a healthy system the supreme court would be challenged by the senate but this doesn't happen because most senators are corrupt and it is the supreme court who judge such cases.

Non sequitur. My loyalty is first and foremost towards God, myself, my family, my friends and extended family, my community, my ideals. It makes zero sense to speak of loyalty towards the state when the state interests are not only not aligned but sometimes diametrically opposed to the interests of its citizens. As a matter of fact nobody cares for the state interests except fools and those that benefit from it like state employees. Frequently not even the ruling party cares because their own interests are foremost and first and unlike a monarch they have a much lower time preference.

You talk of Musk but he is a drop in the ocean of foreigners influencing the domestic information sphere. Let's ban Instagram, Youtube and all other foreign platforms, let's ban the Internet and have a country-wide intranet, let's ban all foreign NGOs and think tanks, let's ban Soros (talking about politically active billionaires), let's ban foreign news agencies and journalists, bye bye CNN, DW, BBC, etc. I suspect the only reason you're isolating Musk is because of the ongoing US cultural war and you being team blue.