Because there are no dollars involved. If they do as you suggest, at the start:
A holds gold.
B holds dollars.
C holds oil.
A trades B, gold for dollars. A holds dollars, B holds gold.
A trades C, dollars for oil. A holds oil, C holds dollars.
After your suggested trade result:
A holds oil.
B holds gold.
C holds dollars.
If there is no "middle man", party A gets oil, party C gets gold. Party B keeps their dollars. End result:
A holds oil.
B holds dollars.
C holds gold.
Assuming "B" is USA, USA doesn't get to export its inflation/funding for stimulus checks/student debt/pension crisis/(or in trump era - a wall that does nothing) away to "C", whoever that ends up being, meanwhile, Ghana gets the oil it wants, and "C" gets currency without having to pay for the choices of politicians they have no control over.
The US export of inflation via engineered demand for petrodollars (and one could say enforcement via aircraft carrier groups) is an under appreciated effect.
It is literally the most controversial concept in today's geopolitics. Study politics science in Dover - it is a conspiracy theory. Study PS in Calais - it is the exorbitant privilege and a cornerstone of global injustice. And it is not like France and the empire are rivals.
Regarding France, actually they play this game too. Check out the West/Central African CFA franc [2]. These currencies are pegged to 1/100 French franc, which currently about 1/656 euros. Many former French colonies are required to use the CFA franc, minted by France, and required to keep 85% in reserve in French banks, including during times of hardship, but they can always barrow against their reserve and pay France the interest if they need to. In 2019 France has promised to drop it and let the africans have their own called eco [2] by 2027, but, also it keeps getting postponed and was supposed to already happen by 2020, so who knows. Trying to go against france can result in an assassination or coup, or other creative acts by france (see Opération Persil [3]).
> What does matter: the NYT's decision to focus skeptical reporting on tech as an "important power center" sure seems to have been vindicated.
So in effect the NYT which have been an "important power center" of American media since the 1800's, decides that another entity that comes along with too much power needs to be "taken down a peg".
Its a power play to discredit a new entrant into a business sector that threatens the inheritors of the incumbents.
So call it vindication, but its only in the same vein of a third generation monarch trying to quell threats to his inheritance. But to that perspective I agree, its definitely the correct power move to keep threats from taking away the power one inherited.
Wtf, how fast am I supposed to respond to you and why should I bother down-voting you?
Anyway, no it has nothing to do with him buying Twitter. It about the thinks he himself has tweeted in the past, and how he acted in the past especially wrt politics.
Should be obvious if you had followed him in the past with an objective mind and don't just blindly assume things, but I guess that's to much to ask (EDIT: the blindly assuming things, the other part is opinionated)
Oh I was only confirming the downvote, not the lack of reply.
But "it should be obvious.." is the Proof by Assertion fallacy. It's not obvious to me so I asked you what your basis is for saying this. Since I haven't followed Musk to the degree you apparently have or come to your conclusion based on the amount I have followed him, can you point me to some specific tweets or actions of his that substantiate your assertion?
Yes, it's not supper obvious and that was a bad choice of words.
But it's also not hidden. I which I had the time to point out a (long) list of twitter tweets which paint the picture, but I don't have that. And there is also the problem that he (understandable) deleted some of his tweets. But pointing out a specific tweet is pointless as someone could always come up with some arbitrary reason why this specific tweet means something else. It's about the broader picture.
To name some examples:
- He is currently actively trying to undermine labor protection law (as well as contractual clauses he agreed to when buying twitter) by masquerading mass firings at twitter to be supposedly all based on failed performance reviews. But if you take a closer look at 1) `the method used for the reviews` and 2) `who is let of` (especially in context of him being a petty person and had personal beef with some of the people on twitter due to how he (verbally) attacked twitter in the past) it is very clearly that it's not related to performance. (But US labor protection law is at best bad joke, so...)
- His repeated stance against labor and/or buyer protection in other cases, too. Like wrt. Tesla factories.
- Him repeatedly abusing his influence to hinder improvements to public transportation, often buy pushing red hearing projects which do only improve the situation for a few wealthy people but can be used as an excuse to kill/hinder other public transportation projects. One of the examples would be his boring tunnel company promising fixing the traffic situation but instead build fast lanes for a few wealthy people while making is majorly harder to fix the traffic situation for the general public. (He knew what he was doing.)
It might not be obvious how this example matter. this
But they increase how companies can take advantage of the general population both in ways which reduce the money they effectively have and reduce other ways they can take political influence.
And they are just some random examples I can drop of my hat before going to bed which I remember good enough to write down, there are many more.
> My belief is that public forums with reach into the tens or hundreds of millions are fertile ground for nationalist and genocidal movements, and they will be used for that purpose if it is not actively prevented.
Yes, we must crush all opposition so your side can have absolute power!!!
Let them speak?
Not one chance, where shall you draw the line? Where only your side wishes to draw the line, of course. Perhaps, the only choice then is to crush the other side, for if you don't they will use the forum for "nationalist and genocidal movements". So you see, they must be eliminated in their entirety. Wiped from the existence of all forums, wiped from participation in establishing truths. Or maybe, since they always seem to find support, always seem to find people willing to fight for the rights they represent, always seem to come back when you try to silence and silence and silence every mouth that exists, instead of repeatedly ineffectively trying to suffocate a voice that wishes to speak, maybe what you need to do is to eliminate them all, all of them from existence. This is the only way you will ever prevent genocide.
Chicago is slowly dying by self imposed policies. Cue in guy shoving stick into bicycle wheel then holding shin meme. Chicago is a great city and everything you mentioned is completely avoidable. But again, its shoving a stick into its own wheel, quite intentfully at that.
Good news is they do exist, and manufacturers do make them even if they are prohibitively expensive. If you want it enough you can actually pay to get it made and shipped to you, which is better than not having that option at all.
Last time I checked in the displays in the sizes I am interested in (>= DIN A2) are in the lower five figure ranges ... for that price I could buy several real art pieces that I like :-)
Because injecting billions into a corporation so they can compete with overseas companies after the fact, is more feel-goody than removing the policies that made corporations move overseas to begin with.
Generally anything that does not fit the ideologies of a typical reddit mod, and yes they will have certain belief systems, as most people do not have the time or desire to be moderating even for a few hours a day for no monetary rewards, which the average reddit mod sort of needs to have.
This is why reddit leans heavily socialist/communist/anti-capitalist (moderated by people who believe moderating for free is more important than a real job).
Its a rabbit hole to dive into, but once you dig deeper you realize just how much political manipulation is occurring, not just in reddit mind you.
Other forums do not suffer from this particular political lean. Reddit mods in particular are known for authoritarian ban hammering because its the only way to quiet ideas that go against their worldview, and they often approach it as a holy war that they should control the information that is visible to the public eye so they can protect the public for them, and that the public themselves are unable to decide what is right or wrong by themselves. Political discussion is often so skewed on reddit the term hive mind is not only a term used to describe the website userbase, but also observable in real time.
Hacker news doesn't suffer from this, thankfully, the moderators do not think its appropriate to manipulate or outright silence any viewpoints dangerous to the reputation of their ideologies. Which is why we're allowed to have these types of discussions here in the first place. On reddit, however, I have written statements that have been moderated away I presume "for the safety of the public" as if the public could not decide on its own. Don't assume that everybody on the planet agrees with that kind of sentiment. Go out there and talk to your right wing nutjob friends. They have differing opinions. Just because you don't see them on reddit doesn't mean they don't exist, nor that they are not normal people with normal opinions either.
You can label it a conspiracy theory if you want. But that doesn't eliminate the presence of the facts from which the conspiracy theories have arisen, nor does it eliminate the the presence of covered up removal of those facts for the sake of engineering truth.
You are just unaware of the world beyond the veil of your lived experiences. But it doesn't help that your emotions are so tied to your defense of your ego.
Again, I think you are conflating normal people having normal opinions with some kind of conspiracy that simply doesn't exist.
What is "the message"? What are the "viewpoints dangerous to the reputation of their ideologies"?
It also seems weird to directly compare HN, Reddit, and "other forums" as if they are all the same thing. Reddit has hundreds of millions of users and millions of subreddits. HN is probably fairly comparable to a mid-sized subreddit but neither is really that similar to a "classic" web forum.
> Reddit has hundreds of millions of users and millions of subreddits. HN is probably fairly comparable to a mid-sized subreddit
Yes, since you're going to bring up a generalization in my argument in order to dismiss the whole thing, let me clarify it with more words than would have been acceptable in the first post. There are free-speechly(for lack of a better word, since liberal means authoritatian these days) run subreddits as well authoritatively run subreddits. Hacker news is like a free-speechly run subreddit with moderation to reduce spam but not opposing viewpoints. A whole universe of subreddits out there. I should have been more careful to keep my argument less leaky, but largely most mainstream subreddits suffer from an ideology protecting regime.
Well run or not is not, that's a matter of opinion. You probably think those reddits you defend run by authoritarian reddit mods who believe in silencing "viewpoints dangerous to the reputation of their ideologies" is well run. I happen to think it approaches the fervor, passion, hope, zeal, and spirit of the third reich.
What are these ideologies? Ive already mentioned one. Communal vs Capitalistic beliefs. Reddit moderating is a job for people who believe in contributing to the community, and thats a good thing inherent to human nature, but a gaping flaw when we move so far past dunbars number that it wouldn't even register when looking at the whole. These very good ideological beliefs thus left unchecked in an environment it wasn't meant for transforms into the thing we see today where communal maintainers feel threatened by non-communal actors and often take the dark side of abusing their power to maintain order through authoritarian means. A complete removal of discussion of outside ideas because they threaten an ideology that only works when everyone plays along.
I'm not here to discuss that topic of communism/capitalism or any other "ideologies" though. Just here to point out that the rules that govern the system self selects personalities that gravitate towards ruling through certain means. That's the "conspiracy" that is observable in real time.
I agree with this sentiment. Health studies are basically an oscillation between different diets these days. I never know when a new study will come and debunk yesterday's fad diet.
Not as quickly as your politicians are.