teawrecks

Why would he want his photo in the middle of that text? He's associating himself with negativity, I feel like this is marketing/propaganda 101. It honestly looks like a movie poster where he's the one leaking it.

The only good evidence against it I think is that, according to the article, these satellite images are from March 2024. But, it makes way more sense financially for these El Salvadorian prisons to have their "showroom" of prisoners that is too many for someone from a distance to tally, and meanwhile, cull the overflow so that taking US prisoners is still profitable.

There's a reason we don't hold them ourselves: it costs money. And the only reasons El Salvador would keep them alive is because of a justice system defending their rights, or 3rd parties auditing them for humane conditions. Neither of which are in place for these prisoners afaik.

Sure, maybe these splotches are nothing, but also, I'm fully convinced all the ingredients for a holocaust are there, and if it's ever going to go that far, I'd honestly be surprised if it hasn't already.

Obvious voter suppression is obvious.

There is nothing to be gained from assuming your opponent is not acting rationally.

I know it's fun to circle-jerk around these headlines, but it's a misdirection to give lay-people something titter about because it's too difficult to explain what's really happening. His behaviour actually is rational, he's just an idiot.

For Trump's entire life, the US stocks/bonds markets have mapped closely to market greed/fear respectively. When the market gets spooked, they turn to more conservative investments, and US bonds have historically been that. (Government bonds are typically seen as the least risky investment, because it's unlikely that a country falls apart and fails to pay its debts).

Fast forward to today, the US has a bunch of debt that needs refinancing this year, and lately, we haven't been getting good interest rates on our bond sales (which indicates people are seeing US bonds as more risky than usual). So Trump said, "no problem, we just need to instill a bit of fear in the market to drive investors to bonds, which will cause the interest rate to drop, so we can refinance our debt at a better rate." So he announces a bunch of nonsensical tariffs, which tanks the stock market, and just like he expected the bond market saw a dip in interest rates......for about a day, followed by a sharp increase! That sharp increase is why Trump agreed to pause the tariffs. Not only did it not work how he thought, it would seem he exposed a pronounced decline in trust for the US' ability to pay its debts. Instead of running to US bonds, investors ran everywhere else (gold, the Swiss Franc, the Euro, etc.)

I don't know what his next move is, but I have to think he's feeling a bit desperate. He's going to probably try to up his "blame the Democrats for their spending" game, of course without acknowledging that he has also only increased spending (even with all of DOGE's hard fought, and definitely not half-baked, budget cuts).

But all his strategies seem to be overt market manipulation, and nothing else. I feel like it really highlights the difference between someone who can create actual value using intelligent planning and innovation, and someone who is a capitalist leech who has fooled themselves into thinking that buying low and selling high does something useful for someone.

I'm saying the corporations developing the AIs did that. They took the content without licensing it, and used it to build something else that they are now profiting from.

An artist produces content. They offer the ability to view the content in exchange for money. They rely on this income to make a living. Instead, you find a way to view the content without giving them money. A portion of their income that they would have otherwise received exists in your pocket instead of theirs.

Maybe it will help to think of it as a service: if you get a haircut, and then leave without paying, have you stolen anything?

Look, I'm not saying that stealing is always unethical. Robinhood is a story of someone who steals from the rich to give to the poor, and only temporarily embarrassed Prince Johns would say he's not the good guy in that story. I'm just saying let's be honest about it. Call a spade a spade.

If you deliberately execute only the half of a transaction that is favorable to you, that's stealing. If you sneak into a movie theater without paying, you're stealing. If you download music without paying for it, you're stealing. If a corporation takes art without paying to train a machine to produce facsimiles of that art to make money, they are stealing.

Honestly, if we still disagree, fine. This discussion feels like one of semantics, completely tangential to the point I was making. Cheers.

Free speech applies to individuals, not government agencies. A more obvious example would be a local government deciding to fly the christian flag. Obviously, that should not be allowed, but if an individual decides to do it, it's protected speech.

That said, I'm all for whoever is keeping these flags up. Obviously there's nothing unconstitutional about representation, and obviously the right wingers are just feeling emboldened to power trip.

I agree with you that it's not theft. Theft legally well defined and distinct from copyright infringement. I'm saying copyright infringement is stealing. You are taking from an artist their living. It's honestly baffling to me that one could mental gymnastics themselves into believing otherwise.

I know it's a popular meme to say, "if buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing", but that is brainrot. It's not even consistent with fair labor practices. It would be like a company saying "if your work doesn't produce value for me, then the time and effort you put in should not be compensated". That's not the deal.

Artists should be paid, and pirating art is stealing. It's just that, in the name of equity and the love of art, they might be OK with it if someone who can't afford it doesn't pay. But speaking on behalf of every artist ever: when a corporation who absolutely can afford it doesn't pay, it's stealing, and the artists want their damn compensation.

Slop isn't free. Not only does it look bad and drive away visitors, they almost certainly used an AI trained on unlicensed (i.e. stolen) artwork. There is no free lunch here.

The bounce yesterday was actually the dumbest thing ever. It's crazy that a tweet from a nobody can literally pump/dump the entire stock market these days. Everyone's fear/greed switch is on a hair-trigger (probably actually due to bot traders).

Edit: and now today he completely reversed the messaging and caused the same rally again.