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Save for nuking china into the stone age when we had the chance back in the 50s; the nature of the virus and the circumstances of its emergence meant there was never a moment when the American government had the power to nip it in the bud.

It sure as hell didnt have the will for it, lest we forget the hysterics that Trump's token effort of a travel ban inspired, we can only imagine the levels of insanity they would have delved should he have tried something substantial against china's "virus? What virus?" stance towards quarentine in the early months.

Not letting the CCP into power by abandoning the ROC is another one. Or inviting the CCP into the international economic order for a quick buck. Why does it have to be an apocalyptic nuclear war? Lots of different policies that could have changed things, some of which are very small.

I could make multiple paragraphs on the mismanagement and denial of Trump, such as the fiasco that led to a shortage of medical equipment, attempts to downplay it and say that it's a flu, the claims that the death tolls will be in two digits, then the three digits, but honestly, I think we already went through that (or at least I did with someone else) and I'm tired. Plus, the failure was on more than just one person, it was international.

Besides, I bet in the future most students for this bit of history on the pandemic won't know what a Trump or Biden or whoever is. Maybe there will be an explanation that the in-fighting were between the parties known as Republicans and Democrats in the US. A bit on why many countries didn't act sooner, for each national political scene for those who want to do a thesis. Maybe a quip that we're exactly like the dark ages, and this is the optimistic outcome.

Do we remember the specifics of how fractured the Eastern Roman Empire was with it's Lords, Royal contenders and various schemers? No, in the end we remember how their mistakes cost them their Empire.

Actually, how many here actually think that the CCP released the virus or committed biological warfare? I remember that was ridiculed as a conspiracy theory until even the current American administration wanted to investigate that.

I'm sticking to Hanlon's razor about this, it's 'just' a virus that propagated and got out of control. Human stupidity is way more plentiful than malice.

While I don't trust the CCP as far as I can throw them (zero meters w/ my weak-ass arms), it's much more reasonable to believe this is a case of incompetence rather than malice given the government cuts corners fairly liberally.

I can and do go after both
i understand the masses follow the leader as it’s the easiest way to go, but they are fully capable of being self aware

While I do not think that the CCP released the virus on purpose – it's potential use as a biological weapon isn't far fetched. What I do think is that the culture of "Saving Face" in China and especially around the CCP has exacerbated the situation on exponential levels. The inability for China to come to the global stage and start talking about all the "coincidences" surrounding the COVID pandemic, while simultaneously forcing the WHO to bend to it's foreign diplomacy should be viewed with severe global outrage.

First, there are two major labs in Wuhan, Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention Lab, which operates on biosecurity level 2, and Wuhan Insititute of Virology which operates on the highest level, 4. In 2018 two US Diplomats were sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) to investigate it's research and sent back a disheartening memo back to the US. From what I gather, while having level 4 bio security, it's actual security measures were pretty lax, and often very poor. It was a matter of time before an accident like this would have occurred.

Second, Zhou Yusen patented a vaccine to the COVID virus in mid Febuary 2020, less than a month after it became known in the world, and a month before global lockdowns. This means that even by Feb of 2020, there was a Vaccine developed by scientists in China for the COVID virus. Zhou Yusen would also mysteriously die in May of 2020.

And then there is the series of seriously questionable actions by the Chinese authorities itself. They knew weeks in advance that a virus was spreading. Even in Wuhan officials waited six whole days before alerting the public, allowing the virus to rapidly spread across the city. Li Wenliang, one of the first doctors to warn people about the pandemic mysteriously died at an age of 35.
In January and Febuary of 2020, US companies exported a massive amount of PPE masks and ventilators to China. Former President Trump failed to halt all exports, which was a horrible mistake. My own governor who should be literally hanged in public, made a secret 1 billion dollar deal in early 2020 to sell them PPE equipment.

I've made dozens of threat posts on this very forum regarding all the information about the politics around the virus itself. Everything from the iron grip that China has over WHO, the amount of direct links between our own NIH, Fauci, and the WIV, and why it's utterly ridiculous that he'd deny what is blatantly evident. The absolute political shit show that was 2020 – Trump acting too slow early on, the Democrats, and much of anti-Trump media (most of it) being outright mocking the fear of the pandemic. To the Democrats denying an early emergency relief measures. To the myriad of blue-check marked twitterati celebrities out there being so adamant about refusing to take the "Trump Vaccine" and only 2 months later literally saying people are evil for not taking the vaccine.

While I disagree, strongly, with a lot of the conspiratorial thinking regarding COVID and the Vaccine, there is so much utter bullshit and so much blatant obfuscation – not just by the international politics, but our own political and media class, that I do not blame at all people who are skeptical about the virus, the vaccine, or whether or not China intended for this to happen or not.

That China has literally bought to so much of the world, and has been allowed to effectively get away with it is utterly sickening to me. This is like if when the Swedes detected radioactive fallout from Chernobyl the Soviets would deny it. "But we have satellite data showing that your plant is on fire" they'd say, to which the Soviets would respond "No, no, that's just the Aurora Borealis". And they'd keep doing it! Say what you will about the USSR and Chernobyl, at least after several days they actually admitted something was terribly wrong.

Yeah I dont think they intentionally tried to infect the world as I dont think even the CCP is that crazy but I am certain the CCP made a terrible job at actually handling the quarantine of said virus, its entirely possible that covid wouldnt be a global pandemic if it had started in a country with a less dysfunctional goverment that is not as obsessed with appereances as CCP is.

I was being somewhat tounge in cheek in pointing to the most apocalyptic moment in time where the CCP could have been headed off from dabbling in virus cultivation.

You could make paragraphs I could make counter paragraphs; the point is the american giovernment was and still is too hopelessly compromized by chinese interests to take such action even if awarness had not reached them long after it had became too late.

As for history consider the things we know of rome: the two main parties of late republic: the optimates and the populares , the consuls for every year between 509 BC and 887 AD same for the tribune of the plebs and the province governers

Forgetting something as fundamental as who the presidents were is just not happening unless you are predicting a death of the intenet level dataloss or a nuclear armageddon in the near future.

These hypthetical students would have to be pretty poor not to be able to put together a picture. Even if they would have to dig through a metric tonne of misinfo.and outright propaganda to get it.

Still, the current age has a saving grace; in that much of the modern propaganda has devolved in sophisitcation and is relying on momentum.

Its hard to judge; Thanks to the one child policy China has an aging population problem that makes absolute mockery of the western world's issues. A virus that weeds out only the unproducte segments of society just showing up when its becoming a major problem; well the biggest hurdle to a "it'd be too insane" is that this is the CCP we're talking about.

As much as Deng might have mellowed things out since Mao, there is still a direct continuity between the current crop of apparatchniks and the lunatic predecessors that gave the green light to the one child policy, the great leap forward and a hundred more "make the nation stronger" schemes..

Seeing that Xi has been heading a push back towards the bad old days the idea becomes distressingly compelling.

To add to @Greyblades some interesting factoids.
In the year 2020, the Chinese produced…12 million babies. Of a country of over a billion people. 12 million babies in a single year is tiny.
That is a long-term demographic bomb that is going to put tons of pressure on the CCP to accomplish it's geopolitical goals.
What are those goals?
1) reclaim Taiwan.
2) undo the 100 years of humiliation. This literally means that in the next 20 years China will invade Russia.
Next year Xi will announce his official speech making him Emperor, i.e. President for life. Mao did it. Deng did it. Now it's Xi's time. Outlining the future of China under his watch until he dies.

Incidentally. I'd be paying close attention to the Winter Olympics in a few months. Putin is putting tons of troops on Ukrainian border, and if he does invade and spark an international crisis it would give China quite an opening for maneuvering into Taiwan.

As far as who will chronicle the pandemic.
Many people like to pretend that the people who will chronicle the pandemic are the modern historians – that these politicians who locked us down, put us through hell while they wine and dine openly, are on the "right side of history and science". No. It'll be the children who have missed an entire year of face-to-face education and interaction, who were traumatized by their parents being forced off of a job, who have seen their grandparents die because the sick were sent back to them. These will be the historians. And if the likes of Fauci, Newsome, De Blasio, Cuomo, etc, think they will be cast in a good light decades from now, they'll be remembered as villains. Mark my words.

That's fair. It's why going on the topic of who messed up may be a waste of time at this point. The end result is apparent anyway, although I learned something new about American governors selling medical equipment to the Chinese from Chewy. It's horrific.

Who knows what data will be kept in the future? So much stuff is now stored on the internet, we might actually realize at some point that what was common knowledge was never recorded. There's already quite a bit of lost media and knowledge in human history.

But you're right, historians do know why the Roman Empire fell. There won't be a way to run away from future judgement.

@China

The predecessors were the ones responsible for the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward's Famine, but even then.. well, it's insane. It's not only inhumane, there's so many moving parts and risks that it could backfire easily. If that's the case, then we're all screwed because one of the superpowers is led by a madmen.

As for the predictions on what will happen in the next few months/ year… we'll see. I hope it's not correct for all our sakes. I like predictions like these, because there's a clear time limit on whether they're right or wrong. A lot to think about, and dread.

If China actually released the Virus, then Russia would also have been a major casualty of it. I wonder how that went down behind closed doors.

@History

Is it a good or bad thing that I only recognize Fauci and Cuomo (the latter because of the sexual assault)?

We all went over this topic before, so to make it short I don't think there will be a high opinion of those who dithered and hemmed and hawed when they could have acted, as well as those who did not vaccinate, wear masks or do the basics of pandemic control which Japan and South Korea mastered long ago. Why did it even have to be mandated? Where's the notion of civic duty, when was it freedom to not wear a mask when there's a high risk of disease? South Koreans are on the street free to live their lives for months now, while the 'advanced' West is still struggling.

All the while Australia is pulling some authoritarian moves. And who's stopping them? Failure on all fronts, for all goals.

The generation who lost grandparents, and parents, who have missed critical years of development. Those will be the ones who will judge us, on that I agree.

What the fuck is happening in Honduras, like the most most leftwing party, I mean potentially communist party, winning came out from the left field.

I don't even know if it's a bad thing…yet (I mean it definetly could end terribly but) after all my country has some weirdly leftwing stuff already and I feel Honduras often was sort of center-left (sort of) so this may or may not be a such a big deal but like…what…how….

Hopefully they don't get too radical, I am actually fearing it might be unavoidable they will but I guess you have to try and be optimistic I guess I don't know.

I mean I am left leaning but I don't know if this is what I want you know….

Well Xiomara is the first female Honduran president that is certainly nice, but oh boy wonder what is coming….

Welp…eh be it, I cant get too worried about shit outside my control I better just hope for the best and what not, maybe this actually a good thing…maybe

Russia and China do not like each other. At all. The Chinese have screwed over the Russians a ton with their deals regarding military sales, and the Chinese view Manchuria as the next target of conquest. Putin has plenty to fear from China as they can invade the Eastern part of Russia with little retaliation from Putin (it takes a lot of logistics to transport troops and military equipment to the largely depopulated eastern Russia. The largest two cities in the Russian east, Vladivostok and Khabarovsk are on the Chinese border, and Vladivostok is Russia's only gateway to the Pacific Ocean.
Many analysts have taken note of the demographic pressure of the Chinese population south of the border on the Russian population to the north. Some theorize that demographic pressure in conjunction with porous borders, numb governance from Russian central authorities, and a blind eye from Beijing could lead to a steady increase in the number of ethnic Chinese within Russian administrative borders, creating unrest and perhaps even ideas such as autonomy, with ironic help from the precedent set by Russia itself in Crimea.

To put it into perspective. The three provinces that make up Chinese Manchuria Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning, has a total population of 109,520,844. The regions that neighbor China are home to 4.3 million Russians.

Some have said that Putin's belligerency in the West is a show for Xi, effectively sending the signal that "You don't fuck with us". Their only allies in the sense that they coordinate and resist the West in their own geopolitical aims.

As far as the COVID:
If you look back at my ramblings on this forum regarding COVID i made that exact point: we should have been copying the South Koreans, and the Taiwanese – we should have listened to the Taiwanese. That is:
Isolate the population most vulnerable (We knew by March of 2020, that it was largely the elderly and immunodeficient), selective and strict quarantines of people that were most vulnerable. Strict quarantines on places only if it hit a certain high transmission threshold. Above all, the CDC and the Government had to maintain credibility. But it's difficult to maintain credibility when it's a game of politics during a contested election year. Mixed signals (masks don't work, masks do work, only some masks work, but everyone should wear a mask regardless of it's efficacy), hypocritical behaviors (politicians locking cities down but then going out partying themselves), abusing emergency powers (selectively punishing cities that didn't vote for you – like Newsom did ), using social media and the media to silence any kind of dissent or questions regarding the "science", branding people who ask these questions as conspiracy nuts (look at lab-leak theory). No standardized metric to determine what constitutes as a "COVID" death, which has radically confused the statistics. And tons more. For millions of people, many who have no liberty in "working from home", who've lost their livelihoods (more than a third of restaurants in California have closed down, and a large segment of the workforce was Hispanic – which reflected in the recent most recall), who have had to move away, who couldn't see their loved ones, who's children are now almost two years behind in education (which I don't think we've even begun to explore the long term ramifications of), for all these peoples the Government, and the institutions we are supposed to trust, like the CDC, the NIH, have lost all credibility. And this pattern has repeated itself not just in the US but much of the Western world as well. As of July 2021, there had been around 50,000 protests linked to the pandemic worldwide, 5,000 of which were violent. I am not surprised.

It's exactly what happened in the Spanish Flu, and we've never learned that fundamental lesson. I blame that on Bureaucratic / Administrative thinking, i.e. a blind spot to notice that people aren't just numbers, that they aren't automatons, that they do have a vote in the decision you are making.

Funny enough in Honduras everyone wore the mask on the most part and there has been no antimask protests or anti-quarantine protests as far as I know.

I really really dont know why but I am glad I guess.

Does anyone else get super bothered that literally 97% of Moderna's revenue in the last quarter was from selling the vaccine to governments?

"Product sales from its coronavirus vaccine accounted for $4.81 billion of Moderna’s $4.97 billion in revenue in the third quarter."

Within the context of how much animosity is pushed towards anyone with influence trying a non vaccine approach to dealing with the disease, and with the context that the bulk of the sales come from Government contracts (hence why the vaccine is free), the fact that some of the most powerful and rich pharmaceutical companies are literally dependent almost entirely on selling the vaccine?

I'm bothered.
Are you?

Well thats the thing: it's literally moderna's only product.

They had 9 years of expernimenting with RNA manipulation and were relying entirely on outside investment. Covid showed up so they decided to put theory into practic and now they're reaping massive profits.

It's understandable that such profits being linked to what is likely a one time perfect storm would incentivise spending a relatively small portion of that money keeping the ball rolling as long as possible. As well as deflecting criticism of thier methiod so as to not be supplanted by alternatives of the more established competitors.

I suspect there is a lot of very wealthy people who have backed ideas and methods that are currently being trial by fire-d on covid. People willing to spend that wealth on ensuring vindication, even if it has to be fabricated whole cloth.

Annoyingly many of those ideans are a particular 150 year old theory on societal restructuring that have been given different coats of paint.

Well Xiomara hasn't been too hostile to companies so I may have overblown the possibility of anything Venezuelan like.

Perhaps she is just center-left, not …that

Well who knows what the future holds I guess

Ah yes, nothing corporations want more than restructuring society around critical thinking, it's totally not antithetical to their very existence

The Supreme Court has its eyes dead set on overturning Roe v. Wade now, or at least overstepping onto it. If no one else gets up in arms about this the right to privacy is going to be even more fucked than before.

Wonder what libertarians will say when they get to Griswold v. Connecticut to ban contraceptives…

We've seen too many franchises self destruct chasing transitory brownie points to believe profit motive will always override agenda chasing.

"Critical thinking." Sure. Take on a new name with prexisting positive connotations to hide old bullshit ideas. New paint over old garbage.

Roberts will flip dem-wards as he always does and Kavanaugh isnt the rabid red his appointment smear jobs made him out to be, I give Roe V Wade a good 90% it will hobble through yet another presidency at least.

I'll believe it when I see it,

I am sorry but no.

I am tired of a lot of media lazily and thoughtlessly shoving politics everywhere making said media worse just to look good. You gotta put effort into that type of shit….but no

I absolutely refuse to believe corporations or at least any corporation of such large size are capable of morality especially not enough morality to chase an agenda of any kind, this IS always about the money, always

I mean rich CEOs are usually not known for their empathy why would they be.

so scotus is gunning for roe v wade, and knowing their beliefs, i won't be surprised if gay marriage is next.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

"They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals"
-C S Lewis

Profit motive need not go out of the window, when considering how often high ranking activists accumulate masions through thier career. Ideas of restructuring society tend to include the step of elevating of the reconstructor, and so many these daye seem to achieve that step long before the revolution actually starts.

Still, I find it amusing you think the rich men I spoke of (I didnt limit myself to CEO for a reason) requires what most would consider morality and empathy to act so when so much of it is reducing good and evil to how closely one manages to produce equality in statistics; reality being much less malleable.

There is no regard to how unfair unjust and outright psychopathic methods are required to meet the quotas their warped sense of virtuosity considers an ideal outcome.

The cruelest tyrannies come from the tyrants that promise you riches.
History is riddled with would be revolutions rapidly transforming themselves into a tyrannical system no different than the one they toppled. Yet the US stands differently. Why is this?
The fundamental difference was the US Revolution promised Liberty over bread and safety. Whereas the revolutions in Europe, especially the Socialist revolutions of the 20th century, promised bread and safety over liberty.

I disagree. Republican and Jacobin revolutions (or revolutions point blank) have never been only one or the other.

The American Revolution was propped by the richer plantation owners of the US colonies versus tax increases, but they did have good points about liberty. But they're still a revolution that kept slavery, and did not subscribe to many of their ideals. They're not even the only country in the Americas to free themselves, just one of them which got richer afterwards.

The French Revolution was about starvation, yes, but also about the systemic power the Aristocracy and the Church had in French society and in other countries (to the point that the King lost all sympathy when it looked like he had invited a foreign army to invade France). The French Empire also set about correcting the inefficiencies, nepotism and regressive laws and serf systems in Europe (all the while also re-legalizing slavery). The British Civil Wars, the German Revolutions, The Eastern European Independence Revolts, the Balkan liberation wars, the South American Revolutions, even Canadian and Asian wars. Each had notions on liberty, inequality (class or ethnic).

The Vietnamese in particular seem to have been particularly enduring, because they certainly don't seem to have promised prosperity. They fought against Japan, France, the US, Cambodia and have always resisted Chinese encroachment for their independence (to the point that they're ironically one of the better allies to the 'West').

If the rich had morals they would no longer be rich
and yet again the most idiotic thing CS Lewis ever said is paraded as wise words

Do you really think corporstions care ablut what happens to francvises?
they’ll happily throw them out for good pr

and if you’re refering the the critical theory boogeyman then what i said is exactly true
companies dp not want pelple thinking through snything
they want them mindlessly devoted to their tribe/culture so they can rile them up and make a profit

…what are you disagreeing with exactly?

From what I'm understanding of both arguments:

Your first argument is saying that CEOs and their companies were greedy moneygrubbers who were using their economic clout to encourage politics, while Kup's argument is that these CEOs are so greedy that they don't care about anything else than money. Politics for them is just a way to make money, because it's trendy right now. Money will change politics if profitability change, they're allies to no one.

Minute difference maybe, but I think it's the argument of "means to an end" vs "using an end as a means".

The truth is somewhere in between. Blind agenda-chasing is done in the pursuit of profit. The catch is, the people that this panders to are, almost exclusively, people who were never interested in whatever product is being altered or "updated" to begin with (be it a show, a game, printed media, etc.), which typically results in a loss of profits.

As for why corporations continue doing this shit even though it's obviously self-destructive? Hard to say for sure. My guess is that it has something to do with investors loving it, which is, of course, unsustainable in the long-term.

So I watched this: https://youtu.be/TY6XUcZ8MqQ
Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) took to the House floor to discuss the problem of our spending. BUT, unlike the previous doom-and-gloom no solution types, he zero's into the real problem. Provides graphs and charts, and instead of saying "cut this, cut that, tax this or tax that" focuses instead on – what I think – is a reasonable solution. It's a bit long, and wonky, but to sum up, the biggest driver of spending is demographics, and healthcare. 5% take up 50% of all healthcare spending, and nearly 30% of all healthcare spending is on Diabetes alone. So he zeroes on Diabetes and presents some hopeful emerging technology and innovation that may actually cure this disease and his argument is that congress should hyper focus on providing resources to this kind of innovation.

A good way to lower diabetes is to do something about malnutrition. At least type 2 diabetes, funding medical research for type 1 would help as well.

Obesity and obesity related diseases are expensive to society. Very expensive, it's a hit to productivity and longevity, and it shouldn't be accepted by society as something that just happens. It's also a problem that has gotten worse every decade, and in some cases can debilitate someone for life. It's tragic to see children, even toddlers too fat to walk.

If governments are willing to finally tackle food industries and address a root cause of an issue, instead of just treating symptômes, then good.

This might be better in the video game section of the forum, but it also involves politics so eh probably better here.

House democrats are trying to introduce a bill that will try and put an end to scalpers using bots to buy up hard to find items

It's called the "Stopping Grinch Bots Act" as the people behind the bill are saying that scalpers who use bots to buy up things an average consumer really wants to buy are basically "Grinches ruining holidays." I'm kinda curious about the circumstances that lead to this being introduced, like did someone try and buy a PS5 for their grandkid and they just couldn't?

Not only games, but tickets and other sought after commodities. Stupid stuff, but some people apparently tried to pull that shit with masks, which could have been dangerous (not sure if that counts as a high value item though).

Bots help resellers upsurge the cost of important items, which could encourage predatory behavior towards the desperate, something that's disastrous in emergency situations. So it's a law for a minor inconvenience that could be more important.

Lockdowns screwed world logistics causing scarcity. This inevitably saw the rise of black market scalping. The Democrat government could solve much of the problem they caused by opening up but dont want to because they: [would have to admit they're wrong/ would lose a political beating stick/ dont understand basic economics] pick for preference: they're all true.

With this measure they are doing what legislators do: try to wipe away reality with paperwork. You can ask North Korea how pointless trying to outlaw black markets is even when you arent restricted by anything resembling checks and balances.

Sadly for them, black marketeering is inseperable from times of scarcity and will not die before scarcity does.

The only cure to scarcety is plenty. What luck that our scarcity is artificial and can end at any time if wished!

What misfortune that the governments of the world dont wish it so because they are run by corrupt fucking idiots using plague fear to play tyrant!

Be glad food isnt scarce. Yet.

I this is a good idea…this is a pretty shitty AND scammy thing to do, also we can't just let people do whatever they want with ai, have you seen movies where ai goes wrong? It could end badly

So the Jan 6 committee exposed a Powerpoint that exposed a plan to sabotage Biden's nomination

Er.. did you read those 5 slides?

Er.. did you read those 5 slides?It's all "the VP will do this" "the US marshials will that"; they dont mention anything about protestors doing anything. Its not even really a plan, more a "here's how the higher ranking officials will turn it around".

Er.. did you read those 5 slides?It's all "the VP will do this" "the US marshials will that"; they dont mention anything about protestors doing anything. Its not even really a plan, more a "here's how the higher ranking officials will turn it around".It's a "trust the plan, the rigging will be exposed" powerpoint, I'm not even sure if any of the things on would be technically illegal.

What the hell happened to my post?

I keep editing it and it keeps reverting to that

Looks like new hampshire has officially made propaganda a requirement for their schools
"No Teacher shall advocate for any doctrine or theory promoting a negative account or representation of the founding and history of the United States of America"

On that note, I think it'd be interesting to dig into the claims in the first presented slide. The Independent claims that none of it has "any basis in reality", but on closer analysis, this is an exaggeration:

First claim: Smartmatic was created by Hugo Chavez. This is false, but Smartmatic does have roots in Venezuela.

Second claim: Smartmatic tech was used to help Chavez rig a recall referendum. This one is complicated; at the time, Smartmatic was a fringe, generally unknown company, but was selected to completely replace Venezuela's voting machine infrastructure ahead of the contentious 2004 referendum for unknown reasons. Chavez did win, and more recent analyses have suggested that fraud likely was involved. So, maybe? Perhaps they were chosen just due to chauvinism, perhaps there was more to it. We'll likely never know for certain.

Third and fourth claims: Smartmatic bought Sequoia Voting Systems, but sold it two years later to avoid CFIUS review. This is actually entirely true. All of that happened as described. They probably ripped these two claims right from Wikipedia.

Fifth claim: Smartmatic creates a front company to rebuy SVS. They definitely held some stake and control in SVS after selling it, though I wouldn't quite consider it as them having "rebought" it with a front company.

Sixth claim: The Obama administration halted a DOD review on Smartmatic and electronic voting. I can't find anything on this one, so it's probably not true, but I couldn't find much in the way of news from 2009.
Seventh claim: Smartmatic was involved in "interference" during the 2010 Philippine election. They likely confused the controversy surrounding the mere constitutionality of the election with a mild incident involving some voting machines being misplaced after the fact.

Eighth claim: Dominion merged with Smartmatic and SVS. Dominion and Smartmatic continue to be largely unaffiliated with each other, but Dominion did purchase Sequoia. I can kinda see where this claim is coming from, though, as they seem to form an oligopoly, which is still worth some concern.

Ninth Claim: Staple Street received $200 million from China, and later, buys Dominion. There's little information available online about Staple Street Capital, much less their history of received investments. Dominion is owned by Staple Street, though.

Tenth Claim: US Diplomat Grenell meets with the current President of the National Assembly of Venezuela to discuss the Maduro regime. No telling what exactly is meant by saying he's the "likely mastermind of this operation", but everything else is true.

Eleventh Claim: Staple Street received $400 million from China before the 2020 election. Again, there's nothing really available online about this firm or what money they've received from where. So, I suppose, probably not. But not certainly not.

Much of it isn't true, or is only partially true, but a good lot is actually completely true. No, I don't know what point I was trying to make with this. I guess it's "be skeptical when dealing with journalists"?

Looks like New Caledonia voted against independence for now. Probably wouldn't have mattered too much if there weren't fears of China increasing their influence, like they did with other Pacific islands.

Maybe you can combine NFTs, ai and cellphones…like some sort of crypto tracking where it doesn't matter who steals your phone the phone knows through an NFT who it's true owner is and can use the NFT for secure tracking of where your phone is to some other dispositive you own and to lock your cellphone remotely and potentially securely.

I mean a lot of the problems of NFTs are still there (mainly the outrageous costs and carbon footprint) and there is probably a lot of problems with that idea to make it impossible or impractical but it would actually fulfill a cool purpose…maybe

My main problem with NFTs is that art really doesn't need this technology if anything it limits what you can do.

That's a great idea.
I disagree with you on the idea that art doesn't need this technology. Digital Content really did need this kind of thing for numerous reasons. It's also why a large chunk of the content creators that are behind some of the most popular NFTs and metaverses almost always come from a highly professional world. As far as it's carbon footprint? The footprint has been grossly exaderated.

You guys feel any hope about climate change? I barely do, and I'm scared I can't afford to protest about it

Absolutely.
Even the IPCC reports predict better things.
And if you look outside of the doom and gloom that is rampant because fear-porn = big business, you'd find a ton of revolutionary things that are being innovated right now that is going in the right direction. The thing is, non of it is going to be done overnight. And the way CC is presented in urgency and immediacy often leads people to be doomers about it.
Energy is the number one contributor to CO2 but here's some interesting factoids:

>Renewable energy is the fastest-growing energy source in the United States, increasing 42 percent from 2010 to 2020 and up 90 percent from 2000 to 2020.

And, since 2007, CO2 emissions from energy production/consumption, in the US has been steadily dropping, in fact, our CO2 emissions today from energy is roughly the same as it was 1987.

Even emissions from cars have been going down dramatically in the US

And this will continue as Electric Vehicles (EVs) are set to start really taking over the market. The sales of EVs doubled from 2020 to 2021, from 2% of all car sales in 2020, to nearly 5% in 2021.

Both the EU and the US have been making strides in lowering emissions. China has been trying, for numerous reasons, much of it not necessarily Climate Change related.

There is a lot of things that can continue to still be done, and many things that can change for the better with better policy, and trade.

The biggest white pill is that for about 40 years climate related doomsday forcasts has been about as reliable as predictions of imminent rapture.

Bin your litter, recyle and buy 1st-world when possible, thats all plebs like us need do.

When the climate change lobby stops using private jets to attend thier yearly conferences then you can start worrying.