news
Welcome to c/news! We aim to foster a book-club type environment for discussion and critical analysis of the news. Our policy objectives are:
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To learn about and discuss meaningful news, analysis and perspectives from around the world, with a focus on news outside the Anglosphere and beyond what is normally seen in corporate media (e.g. anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist, Marxist, Indigenous, LGBTQ, people of colour).
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To encourage community members to contribute commentary and for others to thoughtfully engage with this material.
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To support healthy and good faith discussion as comrades, sharpening our analytical skills and helping one another better understand geopolitics.
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Newcomm and Newsmega Rules:
The Hexbear Code of Conduct and Terms of Service apply here.
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Link titles: Please use informative link titles. Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed.
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Fake news: No fake news posts ever, including April 1st. Deliberate fake news posting is a bannable offense. If you mistakenly post fake news the mod team may ask you to delete/modify the post or we may delete it ourselves.
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Archive sites: We highly encourage use of non-paywalled archive sites (i.e. archive.is, web.archive.org, ghostarchive.org) so that links are widely accessible to the community and so that reactionary sources don’t derive data/ad revenue from Hexbear users. If you see a link without an archive link, please archive it yourself and add it to the thread, ask the OP to fix it, or report to mods. Including text of articles in threads is welcome.
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Low effort material: Avoid memes/jokes/shitposts in newscomm posts and top-level replies to the newsmega. This kind of content is OK in post replies and in newsmega sub-threads. We encourage the community to balance their contribution of low effort material with effort posts, links to real news/analysis, and meaningful engagement with material posted in the community.
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American politics: Discussion and effort posts on the (potential) material impacts of American electoral politics is welcome, but the never-ending circus of American Politics© Brought to You by Mountain Dew™ is not welcome. This refers to polling, pundit reactions, electoral horse races, rumors of who might run, etc.
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Electoralism: Please try to avoid struggle sessions about the value of voting/taking part in the electoral system in the West. c/electoralism is right over there.
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AI Slop: Don't post AI generated content. Posts about AI race/chip wars/data centers are fine.
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The entire aviation infrastructure is held together with duct tape and glue. IT systems that haven't been inspected in 40 years, which is about the time it takes to update anything (if it's updated at all). The FAA still subscribes to Freudian psychology. Everyone lies on their medical exam because if you say you have ever been depressed at any point in your life you get disqualified unless you feel like going through a years-long expensive administrative battle that you probably won't win. The written exams still reference outdated concepts that were removed from textbooks 20 years ago, and the only way you would know the answer is by getting a copy of an out-of-print obscure government publication, or do what everyone else does and pay a company hundreds of dollars for their exam prep material and rote memorize the answers. They have been promising to update the questions for 20 years. You can't take your practical exams with the government, you have to go through a private contractor appointed by the local branches through nepotism. The examiners know each other and maintain artificial scarcity (there are 935 examiners in the entire country, however only 350 are generally available to the public, and you schedule a test by calling their personal number and hoping they pick up.) Right now it's about a 4 month wait for a test slot on average. Average is about $1000 per test (if you live in a busier area, can be $1500-$2000), and examiners can do 2 tests a day. They take cash and don't report it so it's tax-free income they get to milk from students (they are informally exempt from IRS audits because the FAA goes to bat for them).
The dough is stretched so thin it might as well be a window. And it's starting to rupture.
It gets to a point where it causes something and then it's too late to do anything. Pilot makes a mistake, pilot dies. Controller makes a mistake, pilot dies. Mechanic makes a mistake, pilot dies. Manufacturer makes a mistake, pilot dies. Company makes a mistake, pilot dies. When you sign the release you just have to take their word that they didn't fuck up.