The way it’s written, it sounds like we could download it in the US, after the law was passed, for 180 days, and then do whatever we want with it. Unfortunately, after that point, the test of it being “developed” in China would probably be met for anything but a near-total rewrite.

This isn’t the first empire. Masses can be brainwashed. You can even have multiple layers of brainwashing, like how Republicans are extremely brainwashed, and Democrats are secondarily brainwashed to think they’re the moral opposition, while both of them unquestioningly support the undercurrent of global imperialism.

Literally the only escape is the entire population being fully educated on the nature of politics, economics, societies, history. A people cannot realize a free and just society without completely understanding what that requires. Until then you’re all just a fish flopping around on the floor of a boat.

That’s not infinite. Bitcoin is just one of many participants in the wider currency market. The bet of people speculating on Bitcoin is that its market share in the market will continue to grow. So the absolute upper limit of its valuation is basically that of the global currency market. In more practical/realistic terms, it has technical constraints as-is that limit its use as a day-to-day currency, which limit it to a lower point, since other currencies have to be used for small transactions, and hence, have to take some other portion of the global currency market. And so on.

Not exactly gambling. Rather, the market is trying to anticipate and calculate these shifts in valuation. Individual participants may try to catch it early to get a good deal. Many will fail, including buying at a bad deal. People will get caught up in hype because it’s a novel invention as opposed to some same-for-same replacement. That’s just the price determination mechanism. Currency shifts, and market adjustments in general, are messy. Any time one currency dies, there’s a flight to others.

Disclaimer: I have zero Bitcoin. Also this is just explaining mechanisms, not justifying or supporting them.

The theory behind capitalism doesn’t require infinite growth. A society could have continual “profit” based on the use of renewable resources. The explanation for why we’re constantly expanding our exploitation of the planet is a little more complex than just an inherent trait of the economic system. That’s kind of a nasty oversimplification that people apply.

That’s the idea

Zionism is the fascist movement within Judaism (although many Jews reject it being associated with Judaism at all). Being against Zionism is no more anti-Jewish than being against white supremacism is being “anti-white”. That’s how that actually works. Jumping to accuse anyone criticizing Zionism as being “antisemitic” is just a lazy, intellectually dishonest smear that everyone sees through, and you should stop polluting conversations with it.

The internet is the foundation for the solution. This is the only thing that evaporates the illusions and divisions rulers create for their own benefit. Otherwise we end up with red scares, witch hunts, inquisitions, and all the other same crap from history. Unfortunately they’re chipping away at it - centralized social media is a powerful propaganda tool with no constitutional restraints, as is online censorship and surveillance.

Fascism is a massive violent manifestation of ignorance. The only real solution is to undo the brainwashing of humanity - their brainwashing with religion, their brainwashing to accept abusive hierarchical rule, all of it. Everyone must fully understand.

People responding with “guns”, “WW2” - we did that already, 70 million people died, and here we are again. Why and how did it come back? What is the actual source of the problem? Treating this problem as only solvable with mass murder isn’t exactly putting you on the moral high ground. What conditions give rise to acceptance of fascist beliefs, or the acceptance of a fascist leader? What are the mental, social, cultural, behavioral traits of the people that do accept that? How can those traits be prevented from forming?

A key element to defeat things like fascism, which build themselves on the popularity of fear, is that voting can’t be free-for-all. Voting should require, or be weighed with, some sort of licensing, testing of sane mind, awareness and understanding of at least current events, review of known association with dangerous anti-society parties, etc.

This is inherently anti-democratic. Who decides who’s qualified to vote? Is it you, with your infallible understanding of every issue?

OK, so a bit over a third of the population doesn’t care enough to vote. Not for anyone - D, R, or any third party. Let’s assume they’re mostly uneducated. What happens to the polling results when you compel them to vote?

I think compelling voter turnout is the last thing you should be even considering. The first real problem is education - nobody understand anything about government - not what fascism is, not how the economy works, not what imperialism is, nothing of real substance. The second problem is this “lesser of two evils” bullshit that has even the slightly-more-educated half of the population voting for mass murderers, which you can’t resolve in first-past-the-post majority rule elections, at least not with the stupid mindset everyone has right now. Electoral college is a similar problem. And what about the problems with “representative” government both failing to represent and manipulating public will for the benefit of powerful lobbies? How about systemic reform that removes their power?

You thought about any of these things?

Really sleepwalking into the plot of The Matrix, aren’t we.

Ideally without 60-70 million people dying. (looks up “how to unbrainwash people”)

Sure, if you say so.

Oh, now it’s owned by the Chinese military?

Which part of “freedom of speech” involves precluding us from ingesting content from a country our government decided it doesn’t like? Or electing to send our own device data or interactions to that country?

That unanimous decision made it perfectly clear that the government knows something we don’t,

Yeah, they know who pays their checks.

My bet is on the genocide being much worse than even TikTok was showing,

TikTok showed them incinerating an entire civilization. Not sure what you saw on there.

If that were true then they wouldn’t have given ByteDance the option to sell 80% to citizens and continue operating.

Except the entire point of that is the U.S. ownership would succumb to that pressure.

Sidestep providing the evidence and go straight for the personal attack. Nice.

Bytedance’s long-term hope is naturally to be able to continuing operating everywhere without violating any laws. Right? Therefore, their strategy is to stay as compliant as possible with various national laws (within reason), right? Therefore they have to take a conservative reading of the bill (PAFACA). So let’s look at the text of the bill:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521/text

(1) PROHIBITION OF FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATIONS.—It shall be unlawful for an entity to distribute, maintain, or update (or enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of) a foreign adversary controlled application by carrying out, within the land or maritime borders of the United States, any of the following: […]

Now, the actual distribution of TikTok is done by a U.S. corp, incorporated in California and Delaware. That corp has to stay compliant with these laws. Therefore, to maintain or update or enable the distribution of an app as defined in this bill, is legally punishable. Make sense? Particularly because the law mentions them by name, there is basically zero legal defense against it besides contesting its constitutionality. Which the horrifically corrupt Supreme Court upheld.

So, probably the only way they felt comfortable resuming operations in the U.S. was with some kind of written agreement with the Trump admin - as of yet undisclosed.

Yeah, but the ban passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, randomly jammed inside of the global military spending package including funding the Ukrainian war effort and the genocide in Gaza (which is a must-support bill for Democrats and Republicans alike I guess).