Hyperrealism

Every time I want to quote the Smiths' That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore, I remember Morrissey is a fascist supporter now.

You're being flippant and know better, but I think it's important to state the obvious and add some nuance. Not to defend the Belgians, but to emphasize the central role capitalism played in the death of up to 15 million people, and how corporate-colonialism never really ended.

Arguably, the worst atrocities in Congo occured when it was the private property of king Leopold, who granted vast concessions to private companies with international investors. For example: the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company. They declared bankrupcy in Belgium, and refounded themselves as Abir Company in the Congo Free State, so they could avoid paying tax and avoid Belgian regulation. A corporation moving production/extraction/exploitation abroad, relocating their headquarters to a third country, so they can avoid tax and regulation....

The DRC officially became independent of Belgium in 1960, but colonial corporate rule and influence never truly ended. King Leopold founded Compagnie du Katanga, Compagnie du Katanga became Union Minière du Haut-Katanga, Union Minière du Haut-Katanga became Umicore. Umicore is very active in Congo to this day. A few years ago Elon Musk signed a deal with them to help supply Congolese cobalt for Tesla cars.

The soon to be trillionaire fascist son of a man who owned an emerald mine in a former British colony, runs a company that produces cars that include cobalt mined by a company that helped kill 15 million people in the Congo Free State.

People prefer to look the other way, then act surprised when the chickens come home to roost.

Is Owl House mainly a kids show? It seems like it.

Same question for Knights of Guinevere? Kids, YA, a bit of both but also interesting for adults?

Or buy a second hand pc for not much more than 50 euros/dollars. Install linux and it'll be more than fast enough for torrenting, playing media and a bit of surfing. Companies are off loading anything that can't run windows 11 right now.

Also means you're not torrenting stuff on your main system while gaming.

America would sooner arrest someone for bypassing the firewall on an article about a prolific child rapist, than arrest an actual child rapist.

Exactly a year ago:

before the match, Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were filmed pulling Palestinian flags from houses, making racist anti-Arab chants such as "death to Arabs", assaulting people, and vandalising local property. Plans to attack Israeli fans were subsequently shared through messaging apps. After the match, Maccabi fans were ambushed and assaulted across the city centre, while a group of Maccabi fans around Damrak was recorded assaulting people and vandalising local property. ... a report compiled with the chief prosecutor and chief of police which said the events were caused by a "toxic combination of antisemitism, hooliganism, and anger about the conflicts in ... the Middle East" ... The Maccabi Tel Aviv fan base is known to include far-right ultra groups that have been involved in racist incidents in Israel in the past, including directing racist abuse at Arab and black players on their own team.

Honestly, who needs that much hassle over a football match? Birmingham dodged a bullet.

The media coverage of this has been poor, but let's not get started on UK social media, where I think it's becoming increasingly obvious that bad actors who are already amplifying far right voices and trying to sow division, jumped on this whole debacle to once again be level 9000 bad faith wankers about the whole thing.

I'm Dutch. The article mentions this, but I think it's important to reiterate that the idea the Netherlands is especially progressive has always been a bit of a myth. It arose partly because people mistake tolerance for acceptance. The Netherlands has long been a tolerant country. That doesn't necessarily mean it's an accepting country.

For example, the Nazis were able to murder 75% of the Dutch-Jewish population in the Holocaust. Statistically, you were arguably safer being a Jew in Nazi Germany. My countrymen tolerated their Jewish neighbours. But they didn't care enough about them, to not look the other way or prioritize their career when the Nazis came along. The Dutch are often in denial about this, a bit like how the country still hasn't fully come to terms with its colonial past.

Anyway, it's not a huge surprise that right wing populists and Russia have had such success in the Netherlands. They're exploiting a nasty seam that has always been there.

Alternative if you want to be hardcore: air gap the system you run questionable software on.

If you're bored, you can even try to infect it with as much shit as possible.

Doesn't work as a test system though. Stuff lies dormant waiting for network access.

I think another potential use, is targeting and manipulating vulnerable people for political reasons.

Perhaps convince them to stay at home on election day. Perhaps convince members of undesirable demographics to disproportionately kill themselves. Perhaps make vulnerable people so paranoid or scared that they end up killing people you want to get rid of. Perhaps convince someone vulnerable to commit politically convenient violence, which can be used as a false flag or to rally support.

Why leave that kind of thing to chance, when you can use AI to tip the scales in your favour?