16
Piroko 16 points ago +16 / -0

Niche thing becomes popular and a billion dollar industry. Mainstream people notice profitable niche thing and seize it for their own.

But this time the niche thing might end up getting the NFA repealed.

1
Piroko 1 point ago +2 / -1

It's expending political capitol for no gain.

Network neutrality is about settlement free peering, or the free, unprioritized exchange of data across the peer networks that form the internet.

IT IS NOT about last mile providers, although midwits think it is. Being opposed to net neutrality looks like being in favor of last mile traffic prioritization.

It's mostly a fight between extremely large data hosts (Youtube, etc) and extremely large network operators (Lumen, etc), and in practice whether you have neutrality or not matters very little compared to the market forces driving the installation of new fiber. Large hosts increasingly run THEIR OWN fiber direct to major exchanges, making the whole issue moot.

1
Piroko 1 point ago +2 / -1

Lmao you can't go

Sure I can.

I'm the Diogenes here. You're the wannabe Alexander.

0
Piroko 0 points ago +2 / -2

It's not practical or even possible to suddenly replace elites

And this is why I look down on you:

You want power, but you're paralyzed into inaction by fear of the consequences. You know how in Valkyrie they keep trying to kill Hitler and they keep failing because they want to be alive afterwards?

That's you. That's every conservative like you.

You don't have it in you to walk up to Hitler, pull out a gun, and Deus Vult. You don't have that faith.

14
Piroko 14 points ago +15 / -1

Conservatives have been taught that the wielding of political power violates their own principles, and this mentality will always keep them from replacing the progressive left. The first step in attaining the Mandate of Heaven is knowing without a doubt that you have the right to rule.

This is the main point of the article.

Nietzsche and Schopenhauer were never disproven. It's just that their standardbearer lost a war.

Nowhere in the west do I see conservatism with the cajones to seize power. Hell, not even enough to secede.

1
Piroko 1 point ago +2 / -1

Top down problems require top down solutions.

The difference between you and me is that you believe you would be a virtuous leader. I think you wouldn't. I think I wouldn't. I don't think anyone is a virtuous leader. I think the very phrase is a contradiction.

An elite composed of you might be less bad than the elite we have, but that's not enough for me to rally to your banner. It merely means I'll complain less about your reign than theirs should you triumph.

4
Piroko 4 points ago +5 / -1

I'm not arguing for the utility of it. I'm arguing against the utility of corruptible institutions.

Man is virtuous or damned by his own choices, but groups are never virtuous.

6
Piroko 6 points ago +7 / -1

at least "my side" has a cathedral

I'm Quaker. We've been opposed to your cathedral for almost four hundred years.

3
Piroko 3 points ago +4 / -1

Yes or no:

Are you a blackpill accelerationist?

Because that is the only angle I am willing to entertain intellectually as grounds for a porn-grab, that you are trying to drive young men 100% Conan the Barbarian.

If not, then my response is fuck you, I don't trust your cathedral anymore than I trust the leftists'.

6
Piroko 6 points ago +6 / -0

Believe it or not, this country existed without hardcore porn before 1950, when it was invented by Jews.

Before 1950, the whole country had brothels. It's particularly hilarious in the midwest; cruise the historical district of any smaller city and you'll find a house that was very obviously the town bicycle hub. Built larger than normal, but not on the street where all the normal monopoly man mansions are.

It took a world war's worth of military doctors to convince an entire generation that riding the town bike wasn't the best idea.

38
Piroko 38 points ago +39 / -1

The parts of the industry you hate are already illegal.

I don't see how your proposal is anything different from a gun grab. We have a constitutional right to freedom of speech and press. I would not trust the enforcement apparatus that would be needed to make your objective a reality.

The problem isn't unreliable people. The problem is power itself. People are ALWAYS unreliable.

6
Piroko 6 points ago +7 / -1

And if the GOP is smart this time they'll ignore it because bickering over settlement free peering is the most Comcast-grade petty bullshit.

There is no political "win" on opposing network neutrality because the burden of enacting it falls most heavily on the networks... many of whom are on the list of America's most hated companies. A few are under investigation for defrauding the FCC on improvement grants.

Best to leave the issue be and tell any company that comes lobbying to go fuck themselves.

8
Piroko 8 points ago +8 / -0

TL;DR

You are irrelevant because you have no power.

You want the attention of the world? Turn the Nile red.

14
Piroko 14 points ago +14 / -0

"Senator Menendez is one of the most respected citizens in this state McBain, and yet you ran his limo off a cliff, broke the necks of three of his bodyguards, and drove a bus through his front door?"

1
Piroko 1 point ago +1 / -0

I'm quaker, I prefer more intermediate level solutions.

2
Piroko 2 points ago +2 / -0

Microwave weapons cause the sensation that you are on fire.

Put your hand in the box, young Paul Atreides.

2
Piroko 2 points ago +2 / -0

Microwave weapons.

We have the technology. It's effective and relatively harmless.

2
Piroko 2 points ago +3 / -1

It's been a good century since they started doing that. No correlation to cancer or anything.

That's not... entirely true.

There WAS a 600% increase childhood leukemia among children raised within 4 miles of the Vatican Radio AM transmitter. However, in that situation the Holy See was operating their antenna at over twice the maximum legal power output permitted in Italian law (which they ignore).

The signal was so strong it could be picked up on telephone lines as a phantom signal throughout Rome even with noise cancellers. As in, you pick up your telephone and in the background you'd faintly hear Vatican Radio. Get close enough to the antenna and you could hear it on just a speaker with a length of wire connected to nothing.

8
Piroko 8 points ago +8 / -0

Okay let's start at the very high level.

What Are Keiretsu?

Keiretsu are massive vertically and horizontally integrated Japanese business groups, each of which is consolidated around a private bank, some of which can trace their lineages back to the familial Zaibatsu of Meiji era Japan. The big six horizontal Keiretsu are DKB, Fuyo, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sanwa, and Sumitomo, although of those, Mitsubishi and Sumitomo, along with Mizuho Financial, are really the most powerful.

Then there are the newer vertical keiretsu, most of which deal in modern manufacturing like Honda and Hitachi and really grew out of the war or postwar era. Although 7&i Holdings (literally 7-11, as in the C-store chain) is also getting big enough to be counted among them (much like how Walmart and Amazon are the elephant in the room in the US).

So what about Sony?

Sony is reckoned among the vertical keiretsu. Like all their peers, they have a private bank, Sony Financial Group, which holds over 14 trillion yen in assets (almost half the total worth of Sony Group) and includes Sony Bank and Sony Life. SFG is somewhere around 10-20% of the total Sony Group revenues, so it's entirely possible that in some years, they could potentially be the leading component (ahead of the various individual entertainment and electronics companies in the group).

Where it gets even more complicated is that the horizontal keiretsu usually have their claws in the vertical ones, and are possessive of what's "theirs" even when they don't own enough to bring them into their group. Sony is effectively in the orbit of Sumitomo, while Nintendo is in the orbit of Mitsubishi, as is Square Enix.

Anyway, you would really have to go down deep into Sony group's financials to be sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if during the early loss-leader days of the PS3, that Sony Interactive Entertainment was probably not looking so hot compared to its peers in the group. But the whole point of the group being built around a central private bank is that they can do that sort of stuff without having to deal with activist investors complaining about the short term consequences to shareholder value. They can play the strategic long game.

6
Piroko 6 points ago +6 / -0

Hoover was right.

Shoulda stayed out of the war.

11
Piroko 11 points ago +11 / -0

But if I remember right, Nintendo have a war chest so large that they'd laugh in the face of any attempt at buying them.

They also have Master Trust Bank as as 17% owner. So while they're not actually part of the Mitsubishi Group, they're distantly related, in the same way that Sony is distantly related to Sumitomo.

If a hostile takeover was attempted, Nintendo would simply call in support from on high and buy back their foreign held shares. The Keiretsu do not let go of their shit.

by Lethn
5
Piroko 5 points ago +5 / -0

Germany was Rome's Afghanistan.

Rome won their Vietnam because of Scipio.

by Lethn
10
Piroko 10 points ago +10 / -0

The Second Punic War was Rome's Vietnam.

It destroyed the Republic. They were running out of citizens, so they started conscripting slaves and criminals, who came home as citizens and wanted land.

27
Piroko 27 points ago +27 / -0

Hoover was right.

We should have let Hitler and Stalin beat their nations bloody and then conquer whichever one was left standing.

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