Then again, Egypt was definitely driven by Western agitators, as was the case Iran recently. Iran probably got Russian tech to trace starlink users during the blackout which put a target on many Western assets in Iran. I'm not saying the Iran government didn't also kill and torture independent actors nor that I support state violence (against its citizens, in this case). Just saying that any government will use violence to stay in power and to ensure regime change doesn't happen outside of whatever system the state upholds.
> If they didn't have a hand in the protests, that seems like a stunning failure on the part of the US State Department to support their own policies
This is nothing but evidence free speculation. What you’re doing is undermining the validity of the protest movement and parroting the line of the Iranian government. It’s disgusting. Take this shit somewhere else.
No my point is that the idea that the protests aren’t organic is deeply fucking ignorant and gross. It’s this whole line of thinking that everything turns on US action in the world, which is how 19 year olds think after they read Howard Zin or some essay by Chomsky for the first time. It’s unserious on top of robbing a lot of brave people of their own agency.
> No my point is that the idea that the protests aren’t organic is deeply fucking ignorant and gross.
Scott Bessent, at the WEF [0], explained that:
> President Trump ordered treasury and our OFAC division, (Office of Foreign Asset Control) to put maximum pressure on Iran, and it’s worked because in December, their economy collapsed, we saw a major bank go under, the central bank has started to print money, there is a dollar shortage, they are not able to get imports and this is why the people took to the streets.
So it is organic insofar as the US is working hard to water and nourish something. This has been a huge push to destabilise and unseat the Iranian regime, the idea that they didn't have some people involved in the protests is hard to countenance. It'd be incompetence of the grossest variety. Technically possible? Yeah. A reasonable prior? No.
It's hardly evidence-free, this stuff [0, 1, 2] has been making international news headlines for months. And the last time the US was involved in toppling Iran they used paid-for protests [3] so it is barely speculative to say they'd do again what worked last time. That is just common sense on their part. If they haven't done that, then people will be fired in the US executive for incompetence because that is the cheapest way to achieve their rather clear goals of rolling Iran's power structures. If you don't believe that they did that, who do you think is responsible for that failure on the US government's part?
It is unfortunate that the US's actions right now undermined whatever validity you feel the protests had. I certainly agree it is disgusting - and also bad for US interests so it is curious why they're doing it. Take it up with them if you have a problem with the idea, I'm not a US general or policy maker.
Evidence to the contrary abounds regarding Egypt. Secretary of State Clinton famously rejected the popularly-elected Muslim Brotherhood government and pledged support to Mubarak. This tacit approval led him to have a successful coup against the popularly elected government.
If by "western" you meant some other power then you should be specific. Western as a term is imprecise and can be interpreted differently depending on the audience.
But where, outside of some smaller, isolated platforms? YouTube has gotten a bit more tolerant since COVID and Musk definitely mastered the art of masquerading X as a free speech platform, but a lot of people on the left are spread out to Bluesky, Fediverse while the right wing is on Truth Social, Gab, etc and each have their niche media platforms as well. The days where you could reach both sides of the spectrum are long gone so most just virtue signal their Allegiance's without thinking much about arguments the other side might bring to the table. For some, most mainstream media is either constant bombardment of Trump Derangement Syndrome or Leftist Communists laying siege to some major city. If I don't want to get bombarded by what I perceive to be closer to the side or spectrum I'm mostly aligned with, I'll ignore the obvious platforms where I expect then most personal annoyance.
Most of the stuff I published anywhere was moved into a new git repo with a fresh commit history, often in one commit. Don't want to worry about some overeager hiring manager or client to assume my sloppy commits and git push -f use in personal projects is representative of my paid work. Seems to be quite the common practice, though I have no numbers to back this up of course.
I can empathise with the short fuse when it comes to suspecting AI slopped stuff though. Even some of the few people I still look up to push a lot of takes that reek of being slopped. Guess we'll have to wait this out.
Bitcoin and shitcoin holders being among "the seediest of all people" while the Western oligarchy mailed each other the most vile things that probably happened iRL leaves a bitter taste. Don't know if you really thought this through.
If you're into cryptocurrency you should have /some/ pause over the fact that child pornographers, drug dealers and murderers all share your love of the technology. I'm sure that's just coincidence.
The people also drive cars, go shopping, have gardens, play online games and generally use the internet and use the same money as you do whenever. Now what?
I also use Tor, try to keep my stuff secure, just as they do.
It's good to have an alternative to fall back on when inevitably cash will be outlawed in Europe and we will need to solve the problem of paying for illegal stuff (drugs, bribes, etc.)
yep, sats, or move 20 million usd in 5 seconds with LTC and pay 0.75 usd in fees, Kaspa aiming for sub-second transactions and still PoW plus highly scalable and turstless, but hey install this KYC garbage on top of broken system, supported in 3 countries and you could get banned for no reason because your safety.
The meme goes, if they could read they would be very upset.
Digital ID will show who values their sovereignty. If you're willing to scan your face for a social network, you'll scan your face for everything else as well.
Luckily we have a digital id system that would preserve your privacy in Germany, so you'd not have to scan your face. All the social media site would get would be "is over 18".
I concede that you'd have to trust that the id systems real identity => per site pseudo id mapping is not disclosed to anyone.
Last time I read into this was when they introduced the first generation of these passports. You probably still need custom gov-certified hardware and some java application to make use of it?
My passport has biometrics, the government knows everything about me already through the tax system which is "digital". All my other interactions with the government are through digital services.
What exactly would a digital ID allow a government to do that it can't already? Apart from solve all the issues with having to provide scans of (my already digital) ID documents to every bank/solicitor/mortgage broker/estate agent/etc i interact with, where in many my personal ID documents probably sit on a company file share or some random persons One Drive.
A government digital ID with a one-time code to complete verification would solve all of this nonsense.
On control, again, what possible super power would a "digital ID" give a government that it doesn’t have already to control you?
Digital ID to interact with government services is great. It becomes a problem when they add something like OpenID4VC to it, with the intention of linking it to all your online activity for "age verification". This would create one giant government metadata silo on every individual's online activity.
Like the real world there a services online that need age verification, unless we want kids to continue to be exploited by social media and freely access porn.
We aren't living with the internet of the 90's any more, it's now owned by corporations and bad actors. Yes, i know it's impossible to stop those that are determined to circumvent restrictions (just as can happen with alcohol or movies) but clear restrictions give parents that want to do the right thing cover when setting rules in their own family.
In the end society raises children not just individual parents, and society need to take some responsibility too.
Personally i don't see how an API call to complete a government ID verification could be used to create a giant "metadata silo", unless the companies using the API are voluntarily sending more data than some sort of one-time challenge token. If the companies are coerced into feeding the government with your account activity history, what is stopping the government forcing that to happen now without bothering to draw attention via a digital ID?
Debank you for wrong speak or think, leaving you with no alternatives. The more cuntries implement digital id, the more they'll sync with each other, making life more and more miserable for anyone who doesn't want to go along with whatever nonsense is currently being pushed as the new thing.
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