it'll go to a rich white fuck first and they'll be the ones to sell it to China instead.

And that's really what most politicians care about. Meta and Co. are butthurt that the new dopamine dealer on the block is cutting so ruthlessly into their numbers, especially among the younger generations. Normally, Meta et. al. would just engage in their typical antitrust behavior and buy them out, but they can't because a) ByteDance doesn't need them or their money and b) I'd be surprised if China let them sell such a valuable tool willingly.

This is just protectionism under the guise of national security, plain and simple. We've heard, "oh but national security!!!" countless times before, and if this was truly the main concern, they'd be going after all the other blatantly egregious privacy snoopers as well.

I think people are ignoring looking at this through the lens of anti-competitive behavior. Right now there is an alternative, yes. But Apple continues to grab the marketshare in the US (and some Asian and EU markets). However, there is no guarantee that will be forever. Sure, they support SMS now, but again, no guarantee that'll continue to last.

Apple has displayed on numerous occasions that they do not care about interoperability with other platforms and have even been outright hostile and aggressive against them. Just look what happened when some kid figured out how to make iMessage work on any other platform. Sure, that kid's solution was hacky, but he was 16 years old. If one kid can do it, then there's absolutely no justifiable reason seasoned software engineers can't figure out a secure solution.

It astounds me that there are so many people defending any company that not only encourages walled gardens, but in some cases aggressively enforces it. Yeah there are alternatives, but people are lazy and seek convenience. iMessage just works by default, and so many folks get annoyed or even sometimes confused when non-Apple users ask them to use a 3rd party app to communicate with modern features instead of being stuck with SMS's severe shortcomings.

That's why I think the DOJ is justified in this. Because it is anti-competitive behavior.

Jfc, what the hell is wrong with people? This shit isn't some gray, relativistic/cultural morality, it's just straight up genital mutilation forced upon females. And for those that don't know, female circumcision is much more destructive and dangerous than male circumcision (which I'm also against but apparently that's a touchy subject for some folks).

Edit:

OP's article is misleading: https://apnews.com/article/gambia-female-genital-cutting-7ab84af16d6b986025dd344d615bfe19

It was blocked today but will potentially come back in a few weeks to be voted on again.

This is where our lazy lawmakers need to step in and protect consumers. Make it illegal to revoke these types of licenses over greedy, lazy, exploitative business mergers and acquisitions. If corporations want to fight that, then they shouldn't be able to "sell" digital movies or games anymore: Any time you go to "purchase" digital content, it must plainly tell you that you're renting said content for an undetermined amount of time.

Funny how so much recent talk has emerged yet again about how companies like Microsoft want to get rid of disc drives on their next Xbox... It's almost like companies don't actually want you to ever truly own anything. A rent economy is toxic and rotten, and it's infuriating that it's literally becoming our entire economy.

I hate to break it to you, but teenagers have been circumnavigating around any law the government throws at them since the beginning of time.

This law is particularly ridiculous and poorly thought out. It is easily bypassed and only has potential downsides. It is ripe for abuse and it's insane anyone supports this level of privacy intrusion.

The irony being that spouse murder rates notably dropped after the majority of the US legalized no-fault divorces. If a woman can't escape a toxic marriage legally, she's more likely to just murder you instead (and before anyone jumps in to patronize, I realize how terrible it used to be for many women and we should fight against any toxic, regressive policies like this).

It was hardly the last serious accident at SpaceX. Since LeBlanc’s death in June 2014, which hasn’t been previously reported, Musk’s rocket company has disregarded worker-safety regulations and standard practices at its inherently dangerous rocket and satellite facilities nationwide, with workers paying a heavy price, a Reuters investigation found. Through interviews and government records, the news organization documented at least 600 injuries of SpaceX workers since 2014.

Many were serious or disabling. The records included reports of more than 100 workers suffering cuts or lacerations, 29 with broken bones or dislocations, 17 whose hands or fingers were “crushed,” and nine with head injuries, including one skull fracture, four concussions and one traumatic brain injury. The cases also included five burns, five electrocutions, eight accidents that led to amputations, 12 injuries involving multiple unspecified body parts, and seven workers with eye injuries. Others were relatively minor, including more than 170 reports of strains or sprains.

Holy shit... So what does the Muskrat have to say about this?

Musk himself at times appeared cavalier about safety on visits to SpaceX sites: Four employees said he sometimes played with a novelty flamethrower and discouraged workers from wearing safety yellow because he dislikes bright colors.

Jesus fucking christ. This man is such a caricature of an evil capitalist villain.

To the surprise of no one. As soon as they passed those laws over the summer--including the one that explicitly gives each state politician full control to destroy any governmental records that are inconvenient for them--this was inevitable. North Carolina is yet another state that lost its democracy over the last few years. And what will that state's voters do? Most likely nothing.

No, they should have their medical license revoked. Doctors have to swear an oath to not intentionally or knowingly harm a patient for a reason, because their well being is their top priority. If they can't adhere to that oath because of arbitrary religious/philosophical/political/whatever beliefs, then they have no business being a medical professional.

I really hope that they're joking. Then again, part of the problem hotels have against Airbnb is that there are regulations that hotels have to comply with that Airbnbs don't (in most cities, I know some cities have put restrictions on Airbnb and more eventually will). So if they're not joking, I can see in that context why it could be a serious question.

Agreed, it'd be a little unnerving if the toll reverted back to 0.

This kind of feels like a common sense observation to anyone that's been mildly paying attention.

Tech investors do this to themselves every few years. In literally the last 6-7 years, this happened with crypto, then again but more specifically with NFTs, and now AI. Hell, we even had some crazes going on in parallel, with self driving cars also being a huge dead end in the short term (Tesla's will have flawless, fully self-driving any day now! /S).

AI will definitely transform the world, but not yet and not for awhile. Same with self driving cars. But that being said, most investors don't even care. They're part of the reason this gets so hyped up, because they'll get in first, pump value, then dump and leave a bunch of other suckers holding the bags. Rinse and repeat.