They will be fined and nothing will change. Bonus points if the final fine paid is lower than their $2.5 billion settlement offer.

What do you mean? We have our summer intern rewriting the entire Linux kernel in Rust with the help of ChatGPT. They are set to submit the PR by Friday night.

/s

Most already are, or moving towards it. But no, that’s not a good thing.

Though, as America is still the global superpower, the debt really isn’t as important as you suggest, but of course I wouldn’t speak out against slashing defense spending and hiking taxes on wealthy individuals and big business.

Why would they come to America if they thought poorly of it? Immigrating to the US is no trivial matter and requires a large commitment of time and effort. Of course immigrants think highly of the US. Whether or not their perception of America is based in reality is another matter entirely.

I’m sorry, but there is no situation where it is permissible to stand idle as someone suffers an untimely and preventable death.

Even soldiers at war, captured in foreign territory without visas, are entitled to lifesaving care.

OK. So by that logic, let’s say you are touring Europe and have a heart attack. The paramedics are in the area and available, but refuse to take you to the hospital. You are left to die on the street.

You think you deserve such foul treatment?

When a government is informed that people are dying within its waters, and the gov has the capability to respond but deliberately chooses not to because the victims are “african”, you think that the government bears no responsibity for their deaths?

Is it really so different though? The outcome of both situations is the same. Migrants are dying, through direct action and deliberate inaction.

Mediterranean nations have the opportunity to protect lives, but instead they choose kill / let migrants die.

Or maybe… It is the realization that we exist in such a sad state of affairs, that an absurdist performance is nearly indistinguishable from the legitimate politics of a non-negligible voting bloc.

You are defending willful negligence that leads to the deaths of migrants.

Up to 1 in 13 migrants die in the Mediterranean. Italy as well as Greece have been allowing migrants to die as a part of deterrence-based migration policy. Rescuing the passengers of capsized migrant vessels has been criminalized. There are plenty of articles that confirm these facts. Here is one example.

Since higher number is obviously better, the entire world should just be like the USA.

I see no problem with this.

What do you mean “palestine”?

Do you not recognize the Palestine Authority, but instead believe the entire region has always belonged to israel via biblical predestination?

It was “palestine” before it was ever “israel”, unless you mean the mythical (biblical) “Kingdom of israel”, of which there is no evidence of its existence.

The fact is, Zionists invaded “palestine” and took the land and homes of the then-current native Palestinians for themselves.

But sure, free “palestine” from those who murder civilians and children.

right now

Only just recently?

Line goes up in relation to how successfully the corporation pursues the agenda of those with power (read: money).

Are you trying to equate the ideology of a political regime with a minority population of South Africans?

South Africa had no right to exist as an apartheid state, and Israel has no right to exist as an apartheid state.

After apartheid ended and living conditions improved, black South Africans didn’t go and slaughter every white South African as retribution, so when Israel says freed Palestinians would slaughter all Israelites, why should we believe them?

If the occupation ended today and Palestinians were allowed to live fairly and given ample resources to rebuild, what reason would they have to seek further conflict? If treated fairly, why would Palestinians act any differently than the South Africans freed from apartheid? This conflict is ultimately the direct result of unfair treatment after all.

Why are there foreign judges serving in Hong Kong?

It is a holdover from Hong Kong’s past as a British colony. After the UK handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, the agreement between the countries stipulated that the special territory would continue to operate with its freedoms and systems for 50 years- including its common law legal system which operates in several other jurisdictions worldwide. Currently there seven foreign judges remaining on the court– three British and four from Australia.

So, foreign judges who are meddling in HK affairs are upset that China (the inheritor of HK) is meddling in HK affairs?

If the West actually cared about HK independence, why do they wish to maintain colonial judges in HK courts? If they cared, shouldn’t HK judges be in HK courts?

While China has been heavy handed in its effort to speed up the timeline of the power transfer, in the end, the West has concluded that HK is to be Chinese territory. By the West’s own policy, these are foreign judges getting kicked out by the “rightful” new rulers, just a bit early.

Scientifically speaking, many diagnostic laboratories could detect the virus. However, red tape, billing issues, and minimal investment are barriers to quickly ramping up widespread availability of testing.

Yeah, we can do the tests, but we’re not going to unless old Uncle Sam starts sending us truckloads of money. It sure would be a shame if people started getting sick… Also, those new regulations “to ensure the safety and effectiveness of laboratory developed tests” are so lame. You should really do something about them if you want to have these tests done.

Labcorp, Quest Diagnostics, and other major testing companies are in the best position to manage a surge in testing demand because they can process hundreds per day, rather than dozens. But that would require adapting testing processes for their specialized equipment, a process that consumes time and money

Yeah so, we made all this tech that is entirely incompatible with the standard tests, so if you want us to start testing these people, you’ll have to use our proprietary product stack throughout the entire process, start to finish. You know what they say; vertical integration, vertical profits!

There’s only been a handful of H5N1 cases in humans the last few years,” he said, “so it’s hard for them to invest millions when we don’t know the future." The government could provide funding to underwrite its research, or commit to buying tests in bulk

We’re a business. We’re here to make money. No, we’re not prepared for a widespread outbreak. That would cost money. If you really want us to do our jobs, the government should not only pay for our existence, but also for additional bonuses and dividends to our executives and shareholders.

For real though. Corporate execs are once again holding the health of regular people hostage so they can extract ransom payments from the US government.

For-profit healthcare will always be a farce.

Do you think people who speak English, would have read the text in German? No.

The words are slightly different, but they have the same meaning. What do you think he means by it? Or when he calls immigrants criminals, murderers, rapists, animals, and “not human”?

These are fascist statements. Nazis called Jews these things as well, rounded them up, put them in camps, often separating parents from their children. The US is already rounding up migrants, putting them in detention camps, and separating parents from their children. Trump wishes to expand these programs, and Biden refuses to end them.

They are literally doing eugenics at migrant detention camps. “A for-profit ICE detention center forced sterilization procedures on immigrant women”

What about when Trump had dinner with a well-known antisemitic fascist?

Why do you think white supremacist, neo-nazi hate groups choose to support Trump?

Project 2025 lines out a set of actions very similar to those the German Nazi party did to install an authoritarian regime after gaining power.

To say Trump is Hitler would of course be ridiculous. However, their ideologies are similar, and modern day fascists are rallying behind Trump.

It’s gross.

Trump is quoting and agreeing with part of Hitler’s autobiography Mein Kampf, a book entirely dedicated to fascism.

If you read the NBC article I linked above, you can compare the original from the text with Trump’s quote and see how similar they are.

Systematically discriminating against and causing harm to people based on their identity or race is fascism. You would be correct in saying that around the globe, many of the laws and actions around immigration today can be called fascistic.

Criminalizing the rescue of drowning migrants so they die before reaching land is one such policy.

Sure, but “effectiveness” is usually not a binary and is often difficult to measure. Small, but persistent changes should still add up. Eventually.

So long as people recognize that these things are in fact quite toothless, I’m not sure they are entirely detrimental. There’s no reason this couldn’t be used as a starting point for more effective action, now that signatories are in greater contact with the campaign.

I don’t know.

I still think there’s at least some value, even if the only thing it accomplishes is getting people to talk about it. Many people have never even heard of The Internet Archive.

Either way, there isn’t really a reason not to.