Last I checked, Russian economy is doing better than pretty much any western economy right now. Of course, if the goal of the sanctions was to destroy Europe’s industry and to make it dependent on US, then the sanctions worked spectacularly.
- https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2023/01/31/world-economic-outlook-update-january-2023
- https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64708832
- https://archive.ph/4GfnF
- https://news.sky.com/story/uk-economy-to-fare-worse-than-any-other-country-in-developed-world-this-year-imf-forecasts-12799201
- https://www.newsweek.com/russias-economy-forecast-outperform-us-within-two-years-1777788
Agreed, there is a higher barrier to entry for the fediverse at the moment. I do imagine this will get more polish as the fediverse gets more popular. We’re seeing this happening with Linux where it’s becoming a lot more accessible over the past few years even though it’s still only around 3% of overall OS market.
So far, it seems like a lot of fairly large instances are doing well with the donation model. Only a small percentage of users have to contribute to pay for the hosting costs. Again, this worked the same way with the old internet as well. I don’t think the outcome of the fediverse being commercialized is inevitable or even likely.
I expect to see growth of non profit social networking where people run servers as a hobby without a monetary incentive. This is what we saw happening a lot at the dawn of the internet with people running BBS boards, IRC channels, and small personal sites. I think platforms like Lemmy and Mastodon capture some of the same appeal and a lot of people are starting become disillusioned with profit driven models. We’ll see how things develop I guess.
I absolutely agree, we can see how the internet completely changed once it started becoming commercialized. We got to the point where most people just visit a handful of websites like Reddit and Facebook. That said, I’m very optimistic about the emergence of the fediverse because it brings back the way the internet was meant to function. While the fediverse is still tiny, it is steadily growing, and it provides a serious alternative to corporate internet.
The promise of the internet would help people see different views and then we’d come to find common truths sort of the way scientific consensus works. Instead, what we got are echo chambers where people are only exposed to opinions that they agree with. I suspect that corporate ownership of media platforms plays a big role in that. Pretty much every corporate platform uses some sort of an opaque algorithm to decide what content people see, and these algorithms are designed to maximize engagement. So, people end up seeing what they want to see.
Well that’s weird, since the paper proposes that US could try extending Russia in Ukraine. It also literally warns of the risk that the conflict could turn into what it turned into. And of course, it’s not just the RAND paper that we have. I’ve linked you countless sources time and again. Yet, you just keep ignoring them. The fact that you keep on pretending that US had nothing to do with provoking the conflict in face of all the evidence you’ve been presented with repeatedly shows utter lack of intellectual integrity on your part.
The only person choosing propaganda over reality here is the one who thinks that US altruistically protects any nation from invasions.
US is responsible for majority of the invasions that have happened since WW2 that US massacred countless millions of people in. One has to have a brain as smooth as a bowling ball to think that US is sticking its rotten dick into Taiwan to help people there. You’ve already done enough helping in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and countless other countries. Your regime massacred millions of people around the globe while people like you justified these atrocities claiming you were just helping. The blood of millions is on your hands. You are personally responsible for what your despotic regime does because you help spread its propaganda that facilitates these atrocities.
And finally, I know you are utterly and completely full of shit when you do your hand wringing about self determination of Taiwan because if you cared about such things you’d be talking about independence of Hawaii that your regime occupies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_sovereignty_movement and where your military is poisoning the land https://www.leftvoice.org/the-u-s-navy-poisoned-hawaiis-water-and-covered-it-up/
Or perhaps you should worry about the people of Bikini Atoll where your military ran human experiments exposing the people to radiation from atomic weapons to see the effects https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/02/bikini-atoll-nuclear-test-60-years
The sad part here is that you don’t even realize just how deplorable your nation is and how much harm it’s done to the world. You are not the good guys and you never were. You’re an extractive empire that’s destroying humanity and whose ideology is driving us towards extinction.
US warnings were 100% correct because US intentionally provoked Russia into taking military action using the method that a RAND paper outlined with the intent of extending Russia. It’s so easy to predict that things you’re actively trying to make happen will happen.
Now, US is trying to repeat the stunning success it managed to achieve in Ukraine in Taiwan. I sincerely hope that your economy collapses before that happens so you finally leave the rest of the world alone.
Yeah, it’s definitely trying to create a particular framing there. Still an interesting data point. It’s also in line with this article I saw a little while back https://asiatimes.com/2019/12/75-of-young-want-to-escape-south-korean-hell/
hmm loads for me, here’s the text
South Korea is investigating the case of a North Korean defector who became a celebrity refugee in Seoul, but recently appeared on Pyongyang television to claim she had returned home from the “hell” of the capitalist South.
Lim Ji-hyun, a female defector in her 20s, arrived in Seoul in 2014 and soon became a public figure after starring in several South Korean television programmes featuring escapees from the North.
But on Sunday, Lim abruptly appeared in a video on the North’s propaganda network, describing how her “fantasy” about the wealthy South had been shattered.
In the video, posted on the North’s Uriminzokkiri website, Lim says she had “returned home” last month and was now living with her family in the western city of Anju.
It is unclear whether Lim returned voluntarily, with South Korean media speculating she might have been kidnapped at the Chinese border with the North while trying to reunite with her family.
Seoul police sources who probed Lim’s home and financial accounts in Seoul told the South’s JoongAng daily there was little sign of her trying to wrap up her life in the country and move elsewhere.
“Relevant authorities are investigating the North Korean defector Lim Ji-hyun,” said Lee Yoo-jin, deputy spokeswoman of Seoul’s unification ministry handling North Korea affairs. Seoul’s spy agency declined to comment.
In the video, Lim identified herself as Chon Hae-song, which she said was her real name in the North.
Wearing a traditional silk hanbok and red badge bearing the images of the North’s two former leaders, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, Lim tearfully detailed her “miserable” life in the capitalist neighbour where “money is all that matters”.
“I went to South Korea harbouring this fantasy that I would able to eat and live well there, but the South was not the place I imagined,” she said, adding she wanted to become an actress in Seoul.
“Every single day in the South was like hell. Every night … I cried thinking about my motherland and my parents in the North.
“I viciously slandered and spoke ill of the DPRK as I was told to.”
Lim also accused a Korean TV station of pushing her to lie about her life in the North to make it sound more miserable than it actually was.
“Everything I said on TV was scripted … to make North Koreans look barbaric, ignorant and stupid,” she said, describing herself as “human trash”.
Lim rose to prominence in South Korea as a result of her appearances on a cable network talk show known as Moranbong Club and a reality programme called South Korean Men and North Korean Women.
She thanked her fans in April for arranging a birthday party, saying it was “possibly the happiest birthday of my life” and the affection “pushes me to live with more courage”, the JoongAng reported.
Other defectors who have reappeared in the North have been displayed on similar programmes, prompting speculation they had been kidnapped by Pyongyang or coerced into returning by threats to their families.
Many defectors who reach the South hire brokers to take their remaining family out of the North through the border with China, and some even visit the Chinese border areas themselves – a dangerous move in a region monitored and frequented by North Korean agents.
The North has tightened border security since young leader Kim Jong-un took power in 2011, sharply reducing the number of defectors and increasing the cost of hiring brokers.
Robert Kelly, an associate professor of international relations at Pusan National University in South Korea, said people who defect from North Korea often shunned the limelight for fear of what might the authorities might do to family members back home.
“I’ve also heard rumours, though, that they tracked down and threatened her family,” he said. “As I understand it, that is a big reason why defectors shun publicity if they make it to the South, or even return to the North.”
indeed, and here’s an archive link https://archive.ph/IzzbP
The police in France are absolutely nuts, this is a fun listen on the subject https://soundcloud.com/trueanonpod/the-stupid-france-of-mr-macron
It’s even more insidious than that. Majority of the population needs recurring income to operate. This includes private individuals and businesses. When the crash happens and people aren’t able to sustain a level of income to service their costs then lots of people become insolvent and are forced to sell off their assets for pennies on the dollar. This is great news for billionaires who can then swoop in and buy up everybody’s assets on the cheap. This is why crashes always lead to further wealth concentration.
The same Vietnam that has excellent relations with China you mean, and where China is currently building infrastructure?
The only investigation that shows any methodology is from BBC and it only manages to find 16k losses on Russian side. Russia is also not using conscripts, they’ve called up reservists. These reservists haven’t even been put into combat so far. Of course I stopped expecting any shred of intellectual honesty from you a long time ago.
Meanwhile, the only fascist idea here is that the west should keep fuelling this war. In prior conversations you made it clear that you fully support the west keeping this conflict going by flooding Ukraine with weapons. You don’t care how many people suffer and die as long as Ukraine remains part of western hegemony. Evidently you don’t like being reminded of what this war means in human terms. Really sad to see from a self proclaimed anarchist.
Definitely, I’ve been using Tusky and Pixelfed app on my phone and both work great. Seeing Pixelfed app on the official stores will definitely be nice.