Philanthropist billionaire and former CEO of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Bill Gates, has a significant stake in Microsoft through his holdings and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust.
Honestly Star Wars has always had trash writing, it was the people around George Lucas that made Star Wars good and the more success and fame Lucas got the less he listened to others and the worse the movies got.
Specifically Lucas subscribed to Joseph Campbell’s Hero With A Thousand Faces which is a widely discredited work of anthropology and besides Campbell was an outspoken raging sexist (women can’t be the hero they have to help the hero he said many times).
It is a reductive, authoritarian way of telling stories, it only leaves spaces for the chosen heroes. I also find it makes the universe of Star Wars cynical, evil just happens because we are sinful and it is inevitable. It is boring and not very compelling.
Andor of course goes against the grain on all of these things, brilliant series!
Any way we talk about this is going to be reductive, the system we are talking about cannot be summed up in easy terms.
I think what you can say however is that one of the hallmark indicators of centrists (speaking from the context of US politics here just because that is what I know) is that they have no true ideological beliefs. The way a centrist determines right and wrong isn’t by thinking about the problem and applying ethics and critical analysis to it like leftist generally does (and conservatives loudly pretend to do), rather a centrist defines wrong as unpopular.
Centrists are always running an average function over the Overton Window and just adopting whatever the algorithm says as what they believe. This isn’t news to leftists in the US dealing with US centrists, but the unfolding genocide of Palestinians in Gaza has written it across the sky in big blazing letters that centrism is a catastrophically dangerous way to reach a consensus in a society undergoing crisis and in need of deep reform.
The good thing is that because centrists by and large don’t actually have beliefs, we just have to shame them into realizing the hateful positions they have (that they don’t perceive as hateful or not hateful, just average!) make them an outcast and they will fold as they always do to whoever controls the narrative.
At this point in US politics I cannot see a difference between centrism and liberalism, there is nothing ideological to locate among the political center of the US, calling them liberal implies something is going on other than being ideological penguins who are afraid to be on the edge of the circle so they waddle into the middle and attempt to disappear into the crowd as they squawk away.
Well yes because customers will be sunsetting support for Microsoft products with the end of Windows 10 :P
I feel like most people at Microsoft must know it and don’t care, the upper execs are either out to lunch or they are pre-emptively throwing away away the consumer desktop market because they just don’t value it anymore for whatever reason.
I think for the richest and farthest looking powerful people at Microsoft, the desktop battle is over, desktop OS software has become commodified (even though… it hasn’t actually yet by the numbers just by the practicality of the alternatives) and it isn’t worth investing seriously in maintaining their operating system long term as anything but a skin for their particular corporate flavor of Linux.
Internet Explorer to Edge but repeated with Windows.
Good riddance I say, but the complete divestment from giving a shit is pretty shocking, I don’t know where they think the on-ramp for customers is going to come from that will bring people fed up with Windows 11 onto friendly Linux distro where they can still use Microsoft software and services. I think it is more likely the bulk of people will just stop using desktop operating systems and…. Microsoft lost the battle to have relevance on mobile years and years ago?
It is weird because it feels like if Kodak saw the digital photography revolution coming 5-10 years before it happened and pre-emptively gave up on the entire film photography market and started releasing crap film and film related products and invested all their money into R&D for digital cameras… except that because Kodak was by far the biggest player in the film market before Kodak could develop a decent digital camera (if they were ever going to do that) the personnel photography market collapsed, fed up customers left, and there wasn’t a market for Kodak to sell personnel cameras of any type by the time they finally got their shit together to make a good one.
Digital photography in this metaphor is a consumer computer market where most people run a Linux based FOSS operating system with proprietary Microsoft services bolted on top and thus Microsoft finally can truly tell its customers to fuck off when they demand their operating not be trash (not that linux is trash). Certainly many many people are going this route, the year of the Linux desktop is no longer a joke these days and I am hyped, but it will be nowhere near enough for a company the size of Microsoft.
Terrorism is not an ideological choice, it is a military strategy employed by groups that do not have the means to fight a more traditional conflict.
Hamas uses “terrorism” but the IDF doesn’t need “terrorism” because it has tanks, advanced fighter jets and one of the most advanced and well armed militaries in the world. It can just slaughter innocent tens of thousands of Palestinians and claim it is doing “military operations” and the world media will shake their heads and agree.
I can certainly appreciate the point, but realistically what can he actually do? Israel have already shown that they don’t actually give a toss about what the US of A thinks.
Israel is literally existentially dependent on the US along multiple vectors including material military aid and diplomatic cover (especially now that they have made themselves a pariah state globally), this means that Biden has holds ALL of the leverage. Biden just has to actually demonstrate to Netanyahu he isn’t playing around, which Biden has being doing the opposite of.
I especially can’t stand that people keep treating it as a fact here that US voters are split 50-50 on Israel’s genocide to stop. The polling is clear, US voters with a decisive majority support Palestine and ending this genocide.
People in this thread asserting that most Americans support Israeli’s actions in this genocide rather than support Palestinians as a some kind of indisputable fact as part of their rhetorical arguments is a self fulfilling prophecy of attempting to manufacture consensus where it doesn’t exist.
So I think the irony is that if standing with Israel means he can win the election, it’s still a better outcome for Palestine than if he loses. If he loses the election, Trump will tell Israel to just go ahead and glass the area.
The irony is how much you have twisted your political beliefs to find a position you feel ok about this from.
The majority of Americans think what Israel is doing is heinous and want it to stop, the idea that Americans are evenly divided on this is not grounded in reality.
I will vote for Biden when he genuinely stops the genocide, until that point I really don’t care what silly political posturing and shuffling around of bombs in warehouses and on logistics sheets Biden does. Even if we stop providing weapons right now of any kind, the entire apparatus of the IDF and indeed Israel itself is dependent on the US military industrial complex, the fact that Biden has not used that leverage to stop this genocide of Palestinians means he is complicit.
Genocide is my red line, and if Biden is going to be windy washy about coming back over that red line don’t blame people like me for not being satisfied.
The BLM protests did work, they exposed that the US is a violent police state where voting doesn’t actually do anything to change whether we live in a violent police state because both the Republicans and centrist Democrats will collaborate as much as needed to betray their voters in order to sustain the system of policing and prisons.
The fact that in the wake of George Floyd a lot of cities and municipalities actually went more draconian with their policing laws in backlash is only an indicator of a failure of the BLM protests if you don’t look closer, step closer and you see the truth is far scarier, the BLM protests did massively change the psyche of America, it’s just that actually has no effect upon policy making because democracy is so broken in the US to the extreme point where many city governments chose to actively do their opposite of the will of the people as a show of force and a chilling warning to leftists.
Agreed, and the important thing to remember is that the shift in police to seeing the population they are policing as their enemy, and as universally dangerous in black and poor areas, has been accelerating for decades.
The other side (police, the prison industrial complex and the 1% who employs these thugs) is already very clear about this this being Us vs Them, but the general US population was still pretty heavily in denial about it up until BLM.
I’m mostly with you, but if I tried to exercise and my legs broke, it’d be kinda wild to say the exercising “worked” because it exposed my shitty, unhealthy knees
I mean I think where I disagree with this mapping of the metaphor is that it isn’t a personal failing or problem, BLM was one of the biggest protest movements around police violence ever.
Far far worse is the simple fact that our chances of stopping Israel’s genocide go to zero under Trump. You think a Republican administration will stop it if you protest? At least with Biden you know it works and you know you can make a dent.
Why are you lecturing me about this? Stop wasting your breath on me.
It is very simple, if Biden wants my vote and votes from people like me, he can stop the genocide in Palestine.
So you’ll do what instead? Vote for Trump? Not vote? Throw away your vote to a 3rd party? What a naive and dangerous viewpoint.
I am not the naive and dangerous person here, there isn’t anything I have to do or have to stop doing.
Biden is the one who is directly enabling a genocide being committed by an “ally” that the US has an immense amount of material and political leverage over. Biden is the one throwing away his campaign because Israel getting unilateral ability to do and say whatever it wants is apparently more important to centrist democrats than winning elections (even though Netanyahu has continually spit in Biden’s face).
Sad to see your “red line” isn’t electing a dictator, because that’s what will happen if Trump wins. Spare me any twisted logic of how that’s not what would happen in your scenarios.
Spare me your liberal crocodile tears about how this is all progressives fault for having a red line at “genocide”. It is the job of a presidential candidate to convince voters to vote for them, in a normal election with a normal shitty centrist democrat candidate I would be fine helping them win even though they always shit on progressives helping get them elected the entire time.
Nah, I’ll sit this one out, I’ll call Biden “Genocide Joe”, this has gone wayyyy too far and honestly the coalition of progressives with centrist democrats is kind of dead at this point. Y’all think we are going to show up to make the DNC’s grassroots fundraising and key canvassing in important states work? We are the ones with energy, with ideas, with policy knowledge, and Biden just put us in a position where we have to violate our morals at a serious level to do the work to get Biden elected and guess who’s fault that is?
Guess who has the power to remedy this schism among Democratic voters?
No matter that Biden is himself simply does not have the power to unilaterally stop Israel’s actions?
He literally does, Israel cannot function as a state without an immense amount of US diplomatic cover, weapons, and fucktons of money.
Biden can stop it right this genocide in a matter of minutes by calling up Netanyahu and telling him it is over, full stop. I am sorry but I will not vote for a candidate that behaves this way.
Netanyahu just told Biden to take a hike. Thus, “full stop” disproving what you have said.
Netanyahu will say whatever he wants on tv, the Israeli military industrial complex is utterly dependent upon the US military industrial complex. Netanyahu has no play here and everybody knows it except apparently Biden (or maybe he just doesn’t care I don’t know, it honestly doesn’t matter at the end of the day, action matters).
We can limit the harm by putting pressure on an administration - and, crucially it is working to some degree.
Cool so what me and other people who have had enough genocide and think similarly are going to do is loudly tell Biden (which we are doing) that we want to vote for him, but we can’t unless he stops the genocide of Palestinians. Words are meaningless, small concessions are meaningless, he needs to stop the genocide NOW.
It appears at this point, this is the only way leverage will work because centrists democrats have proven thoroughly how cynically they see progressives and the ideologies they base their politics on. Crucially, I didn’t create these conditions where this is the only place progressives feel they have power in this coalition, centrist democrats like Biden did. I don’t accept the blame for that, I have always made it very clear I hope that genocide is a red line for me as a voter, full stop.
I appreciate that for you this may be a chance you are willing to take. I have trouble understanding why anyone would feel that way given the systemic issues of undermining US support for Israel that mean we cannot “stop the genocide” anyway. But thank you for having this dialog.
I understand you feeling that way. I feeling strongly about my position and I will not budge from it because it is founded in my beliefs, I can’t just see this as a tactical decision divorced from the aspect of me as a citizen directly endorsing probably one of the worst genocides in my lifetime (happening with my countries bombs, my countries military training, likely with military advisors from my countries military heavily assisting every level of this genocide).
This is a prototype for a darker future of mass scale violence against groups of people, for example how many US police departments have trained directly with the IDF, the entity that is slaughtering innocent civilians left and right in Gaza? The answer is a lotttt of them. This is a prototype and this is a test and if we do not reject this genocide with an existential disgust and fervor and a willingness to walk away from this voting coalition that benefits us in the near term, the prototype will have been demonstrated to be successful to the ruling class and that future should scare the shit out of you.
Shame on us for being afraid to defend our value because corporate democrats have set up an impossible choice and then argued for progressives to choose them by attacking them rhetorically.
I appreciate that for you this may be a chance you are willing to take
I don’t see this as be willing or not willing to take a chance, I see this as there being no choice in the first place. This is a moment where it’s “ride or die”. Biden can put his chips on the table and prove he treats progressive voters as genuinely part of his core voting bloc. Or he can keep assuming that young progressives will fall in line no matter what and in my opinion that is equally as catastrophic of an outcome if we just fall in line and agree to sweep Biden’s despicable enabling of the mass scale slaughter of 70,000? Palestinian men, women and children (we don’t even know the real numbers because Israel has killed all the journalists it can get its hand on in Gaza).
Now is the time to wield our power, now is the time to shut this shit down. There is no next time, no “we just have to vote for Biden here and then we can do the good work later”. If Biden refuses to budge on this, we have already lost and centrist democrats leveling the blame for that at people like me is lazy and frankly absurd.
I want to vote for Biden and I will, as soon as he calls up Netanyahu and tells him this genocide is over, period. I am not being a troll, if Biden takes serious action and stops this genocide then he immediately gets my vote. Very simple calculation for Biden here.
Alright buddy so you want to burn it down and cause utter chaos just cause you don’t like how things are going?
Well, when you put it that way it actually sounds a lot like the US military/government! You too should be friends!
…or are you only interested in blowing up pipelines in rich countries where the correct oil companies and defense contractors already own everything and are making money hand over fist?
If so would you hurt the soul of America like that? It would be like burning down Fenway or smashing the liberty bell to bits. Those poor executives would have to go home to their families and explain through tears and sobs that the halcyon days of shitting on the future of humanity for the next 15,000 years are over, and that consequences for the ruling class have officially arrived.
Why? Using a car you can lock up seems like a better alternative intuitively, I am pointing out that other than the emotional distress of having an object of yours stolen, owning a car is a regular rolling disaster of costs and suffering that dwarfs somebody running off with your $800 used e-bike every couple of months.
How is this a bad take? It is literally a documented phenomena that people don’t rationally take into account how expensive owning and using a car is.
Billionaire Bill Gates' Trust Sells Microsoft, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway in Q1, Walmart Stake Increases by 200% (www.ibtimes.uk)
Philanthropist billionaire and former CEO of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Bill Gates, has a significant stake in Microsoft through his holdings and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust.
George Lucas Defends 'Star Wars' from Criticisms That 'It's All White Men': 'Most of the People Are Aliens!' (people.com)
Liberals are not 'the Left'... (lemmy.world)
Windows 10 is EOL in October 2025 (lemmy.ml)
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/15988326...
Even Biden’s Lawyers Are Urging the White House to Change Course on Gaza (theintercept.com)
Seems legit (lemmy.today)
Marriage is like.. (i.ibb.co)
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Biden says US won't supply weapons for Israel to attack Rafah, in warning to ally (apnews.com)
Republicans are pulling out all the stops to reverse EV adoption (www.theverge.com)