simpletone

> I think the other poster is pointing out that China already did this

No china didn't. That's my point. You and the poster's assertion is an outright propaganda lie that's been repeated ad nauseum. China has the same laws that the EU has and the US has. Where citizens' data is stored and controlled locally. Tiktok is storing american data within the US.

If china enacts similar 'tiktok' laws, then apple, microsoft and every tech company operating in china would have to sell its entire chinese operations to chinese entities.

I hope china, india, EU and the rest of the world takes the tiktok bill as a blueprint and enacts similar laws.

> Or, TikTok has been banned in India since 202

Exactly. I'm surprised that tiktok has been able to maintain its top spot for so long.

The biggest headscratcher is why india didn't ban facebook, instagram, youtube, etc along with tiktok. My hope was india would build up their own tech giants. Instead india just handed their social media environment to zuckerburg. What's the long term plan there? Give zuckerburg's properties ( facebook, instagram, whatsapp, etc ) monopoly over india? Are there any competent leaders in india? I simply don't get it.

You should read Dune.

'Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.'

Hence... 'Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.'

For most things I think we can agree. The problem is when machines can 'think'. How much should we offload thinking to the machines.

We are somewhat agreed. It's insane that any country should allow foreign control over their media. And hopefully, china and the rest of the world will follow up with similar laws. Not sure why facebook, google, netflix, youtube, etc are allowed in most countries. All important companies should be run locally.

It's funny how the divestiture law is just 'nationalizing' foreign corporations. Something we shamed cuba, et al about. But I'm okay with it.

> We respect artists enough to give them intellectual property rights that persist even after the death of the artist

It isn't their rights. They are dead. It's a very simple concept. The rights belong to whoever gets the property. Also intellectual property rights isn't about respecting artists. It's about protecting corporate rights since most intellectual property is owned by mega-corporations and not the artists who created them.

> but we don't respect the artist's desires about what to do with that property.

Who is 'we'? The only person who has a say in the matter is whoever gets the property after the artist's death.

> but none of it is a natural law: it's a set of somewhat arbitrary legal decisions that we made as a society.

I know. That's my point. But regardless, it doesn't change the fact that the artist is dead and has no rights.

Should the sons have respected marquez's wish? Maybe. But then again, the sons probably knew their father better than you did. And marquez must have left the works to his sons for a reason.

Nope. Facebook and Google would be available in china if they agreed to chinese laws. Tiktok is following american laws.

> Really shocking to see so many comments here arguing we have a right to see/read/hear private, unpublished work that a deceased artist left clear instructions to destroy in the event of their death.

What's so shocking about it? When you are dead, you have no rights or property. It all belongs to whomever you left it to.

If marquez didn't want his work published, he should have destroyed it himself rather than leaving up to someone else. As others have mentioned, kafka did the same thing. Left instructions for his publisher to destroy his works after his death.

> Do we get to look at your personal journals, browser history and hidden photo gallery once you kick the bucket?

Who cares? If you are so paranoid about it, destroy your personal journal while you are alive. Otherwise, whoever gets it after your death can do whatever they want with it.

10% would be considered an extremely high death rate for soldiers involved in the fighting. Even 2.5% for healthcare workers is ridiculously high.

Would be interesting to see what the death rates for journalists, medics, soldiers, etc was in afghan war, iraq war, vietnam war, etc. I highly doubt any reaches 10%.

> because genocidal movements are corrupt well beyond the "power of science."

Science was central to the genocidal movements in the US and Germany. In many ways, science was the cause of the genocidal movements. Eugenics was a scientific movement championed by scientists. What changed wasn't science. It was culture and politics that changed. The horrors of the 20th century led philosphers, politicians and ordinary citizens to lose their blind faith and trust in science and progress.

The rise of science and social darwinism of the early 1900s is similar to rise of AI and technocracy. Hopefully we won't as foolish to place blind trust on it and history doesn't repeat itself.

> There was an incredibly stubborn post-Cold War "end of history"

It's hard to tell whether all these comments are part of online propaganda or people regurgitating propaganda they watched on youtube. Like clockwork, the same talking points with the same key words.

> What's been starkly revealed since is that Europe is woefully unprepared to respond to any kind of aggression

Europe is one of the largest arms manufacturers in the world. Maintains the largest armed forces in the world. And is one of the biggest aggressors in the world. Ask the north africans, middle easterners and sub saharan africans, etc.

> wholly reliant on America.

It's either be reliant on america or become our competitor. Besides, what's your point here? That europe wants a nuclear war with russia?

> At some point you have to get serious and live in the real world where threats still exist.

Europe is the threat. It's funny how the war in ukraine is between european military powers and yet you claim europe is unprepared for aggression. Most of europe is part of NATO, the biggest source of violence and aggression in the world.

> These columns are an accidental historical source

Since when were newspapers and magazines considered to be accidental historical sources? They were part of the war effort. It was literally state war propaganda in an ongoing war.

Yes. Facts are often used as propaganda and in fact can serve as the most potent form of propaganda because they often lack context and humanity. The rise of science and statistics in the 20th century was accompanied by the most racist and evil regimes for a reason.

Most of the genocides, eugenics, racism, etc of the US, Britain and Germany in the 20th century was pushed by progressives wielding facts and science as blunt instruments.

That's better than browsing youtube for videos about woodworking. Something so satisfying about watching people cut trees, use sawmills to create lumber and make a table out of it.

> I wonder if it's fair to call the hodgepodge of localized wars WW3 now?

No. It would take direct nuclear strikes between major powers and hundreds of millions in casualties for anything to be called ww3. Would you call the korean war ww3? How about the vietnam war? Or any of the dozens of wars since ww2?

> It's clear one alliance - Ukraine, Europe, US, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Australia, Canada, Israel (recently aligned with Ukraine)

The only alliance is between the US, UK, Canada, Australia and NZ. Countries with shared linguistic, cultural, religious and historical heritage. Israel is more of an enemy than an ally as they sell stolen tech to china and russia and are culturally, historically and religiously alien to the US and the anglosphere.

Also, you might want to read the history of what the US did to japan, korea, taiwan, philippines, etc if you think that 'alliance' really exists. Even better, you might want to read the history of their rivalries between each other.

There is a reason why we are moving chip production away from taiwan and ship building from sk and japan.

> Times magazine said "two major power blocs of countries fighting for dominance

Never take nonsense you read in media seriously.

Which every sane scientist and individual predicted a few years ago. But were shouted down by climate change zealots as blasphemy. I remember climate change lunatics used to post pictures of 'bare' mt rainier. Now, not so much...

> you have one single customer

Who has no credit limit and is willing to spend like their life depends on it. That's what makes war profiteering so profitable.

> but you don't get a say on how the university is managed.

Depends on how big and important of a donor you are. If you are a billionaire donor, not only do you have a say in how the university is managed, you have a say on who does the managing.

> You can at best say you will no longer donate based on how the university is managed.

Tell that to the former presidents of harvard, upenn, etc.

> The fact that Anglophone countries don't have language regulator bodies id mind-boggling.

Sure we do. It's the people, culture, elites, etc. It's survival of the fittest.

> Basically schools marking down your work for mistakes can't refer to anything as the source of truth other than "this private entity, sometimes in a foreign country, published a book that says so" or just "it's common knowledge".

You can't be serious. Don't want to get philosophical, but what is the source of 'truth'?

What should really be mindboggling to you is that more than 80% of the top 100 universities in the world are in the US alone. The majority of the rest are in UK, canada, etc. Almost all science, business, diplomacy, etc is done in the english language. Now that is mindboggling.

> Russian Orthodox church today is openly run by russian state officials, military, police, fsb members, etc.

Official state churches are part of the state.

> They are also openly supporting invasion of Ukraine as a kind of "holy war".

What about a holy war to bring democracy and freedom to ukraine. Would that make it better?

> The russian word for "non-government organization" is "foreign agent".

It's everyone's word for NGOs. Haven't we been attacking chinese 'ngos' as being 'foreign agents'? It isn't a secret that we've been using NGOs as intelligence fronts for a very long time. What do you think NGOs exist to do? Provide aid? Help foreign countries?

> I guess I'm braindead.

Lets see shall we.

> None of those things would necessarily make it a net-good thing

Who is talking 'net' here? The commenter simply questioned whether social media added any value to society. To deny social media has provided any value to society is as braindead as denying that fossil fuels added value to society. Now whether the negatives outweight the positives ( aka net value ) is an entirely different question.

> My grandma could interact with some of her grandkids for a short while on Facebook, for instance. Of course, she (or we) used to just pick up the phone, which is what happens now too. I've seen some cool projects on HN I'd otherwise likely never have seen.

Oh so it does provide value. So you are agreeing with me then?

> Otherwise I'm drawing a blank.

You aren't braindead. You are disingenuous. So you never asked for or search for information on reddit, hn, stackoverflow, etc. You never found solutions to problems on tiktok, youtube, etc? You don't know anyone who found a job via hn, linkedin, etc? Bought or sold stuff on facebook, etc?

If you believe that the negatives of social media outweigh the positives of social media, then fine. That's your opinion. But to cavalierly dismiss or deny that social media provides value to society is being disingenuous at best or braindead at worst. Or more likely agenda driven nonsense.

Your comment reminds me of this excellent monty python clip: What have the romans done for us?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ

> Life is long, provided you don't just waste your time with nonsense.

Life is short whether you waste it on nonsense or not. It's the nature of human life.

> Even eternity wouldn't be long enough for the compulsive procrasturbator.

Sure. But eternity isn't enough for the most accomplished either. There is a reason why the emperor of china

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/2000-year-old-text...

and steve jobs

https://archive.nytimes.com/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/2...

both wanted to prolong their lives. I don't think anyone would characterize the emperor of china nor steve jobs as 'procrasturbators'.

You make it sound like active people ( who don't waste their time ) feel that life is long when it's precisely the opposite. It's those who don't waste their time who want to live longer because they have so much more to do.

Then again, 'wasting time' is a concern for many precisely because life is short.

> reviewing old entries provides a feeling of history that makes life feel soooo long and so rich.

This doesn't sound right at all. For me, and I suspect for most people, it has the opposite effect. It makes life feel short, fleeting and mundane. Looking back to 2014, I can't believe how quickly the past 10 years has gone. Heck just looking back 4 years, the pandemic years seems to have flown by. It's like a distant memory now.

> but for me the perception of the shortness of life is best fought by reminding yourself that it is not short

So it isn't journaling at all. You are just rationalizing.

Life is precious because it is short and fleeting. And it's why people keep a journal. To keep track of precious time. It's also why parents keep a scrapbook of their kids. Because in a blink of an eye, the kids grow up and leave the nest.

If you truly thought life wasn't short, you wouldn't keep a journal. You'd just live and not keep track of time.

> Do they even add value to society?

Your presence here is your answer. Why are you here if social media doesn't provide any value?

You'd have to be braindead to not understand the immense value social media has added to society. But like all things, social media has it's negative aspects. But just because social media isn't perfect, doesn't mean it has no value. As I said, your presence here is proof of that.

> The ~$10B OpenAI investment by Microsoft is roughly 6 weeks of Azure revenue.

Revenue isn't what is important. Profit is since profit is the money you have after costs to invest. But since cloud is highly profitable as it is, the point still stands I suppose.

> It would be a fascinating outcome if the predicted oligopoly in fact ends up as several exclusive partnerships.

I thought people were predicting independent silos? Where highly profitable and cash rich companies like apple, microsoft, google, facebook, etc own their entire stack or exist as their own ecosystem. Where the likes of apple does everything in-house - AI, cloud, OS, chips, etc. The whole she-bang.

Now? It's been horrible for a while. And this being an election year, the search result is littered with political news and garbage that has nothing to do with what is being searched for.

First time? Hasn't it already been established that male and female skulls and brains are physically different. As in an anthropologist could look at a skull and determine the gender. Or a neuroscientists can look at a brain and determine the gender.

> One of the reasons groups like the USSR

The 'USSR' starved in the 90s after the fall of communism.

> Serious Communist China ended with everyone starving

Oh this nonsense. Serious Communist China had to deal with nuclear threats from both the US and the USSR. Serious communist china tok a back water colonized nation to a nuclear power within a single generation.

> there is literally no known method to determine the correct price without mass signalling through a free market.

You have it backwards. 'Free markets' led to 'starvation'. That's why we, in the US, have farm subsidies. A form of 'price control' along with many other measures. There is no nation ( especially a major ) on earth that has a 'free market'. There was also never a time when we had 'free trade' either. I'll let you figure that one out by yourself.

Every industry, from housing to oil, has price controls on them. It's all a matter of the degree and levers used.

The same idiots who praise government subsidies to build up our own chip industry are whining about 'price controls'.

> How do you suggest limiting donor influence, as a practical matter?

Harvard, Penn, etc is far more important than bill ackman, trump, etc.

> How can they be forced to donate to organizations whose actions they oppose.

They don't have to donate. And their children don't get special privileges to these institutions. Besides, as I said, the organizations should take a neutral stance.

What you choose to teach and how you choose to teach is innately a form of activism. It's impossible to separate teaching from activism. The problem with activism in universities isn't with the professors, it's with the administrative staff.

What yale and other institutions need to do is adopt a neutral stance and protect freedom of speech. Which used to be the standard when I went to school.

A neo-nazi, a zionist, a christian, an atheist, etc should have a right to study, teach, opine, etc in an american university. People need to feel free to be a 'devil's advocate' in any academic institution. The problem is that the lunatic fringe has coalesced together and taken power not only in academia, but corporate america and government.

As for limiting donor influence, I think we can all agree on that. It's crazy how a few despicable billionaires were able to take out the leaders of harvard, penn, etc.

The general public likes warrior things too. To think the iliad was 'written' ( or sung ) for warriors is naive and simplistic.