OP bought that in Japan... so...

+1

Well, decisions have consequences, and the current situation is simply the result of a whole chain of decisions made by U.S. citizens. Above all, the decision to simply accept everything that is clearly making their lives worse and worse.

It’s certainly not the case that the current administration single-handedly ensured that the most serious crimes go unpunished. They’re just exploiting the existing system in a particularly shameless way. So shameless, in fact, that even those Americans who previously did nothing but wave their Stars and Stripes while rubber-stamping one neoliberal "reform" after another are now feeling a bit downcast as they realize that the U.S. is actually an absolute hellhole where only the rich enjoy a comfortable life.

Things will continue just as they are, and will even get worse, because no one is holding the "elites" in check. U.S. citizens will just accept this and keep saying that there’s nothing they can do about it. They’ll even continue to reject anyone who points out that they could fight back, because that person supposedly doesn’t understand the situation anyway and shows no sympathy for their oh-so-hopeless predicament...

Well, it’s about time people realized that the American Dream is a nightmare. Unfortunately, I don’t think they’ll draw any conclusions from this, even now.

Yes, absolutely. I completely agree with you, but unfortunately, for the reasons mentioned, I still think it’s unlikely that this welcome ruling will have any real impact.

Please don’t get me wrong. I’m just being realistic. This is by no means an argument against holding the tech giants accountable—we absolutely should!

Yes, I am very familiar with the ideals of the early Internet utopians, and I consider them noble goals.

The Internet has undoubtedly advanced humanity in some ways. It has democratized knowledge and improved many things. At least for a time.

Nevertheless, in my view, its monetization according to the logic of capitalism has, in many respects, unfortunately led to the exact opposite of what the Internet utopians had in mind: Today, power is unfortunately concentrated in even fewer hands, because people, sadly, do not use the internet as a decentralized medium, but instead flock by the millions to the same centralized platforms—even when it is completely obvious who the inhuman individuals are who run them.

The best example of this is Twitter. This platform is under the exclusive control of Elon Musk. He uses it to achieve his goals, which are in complete opposition to the interests of the general public. Through it, he spreads hate, xenophobia, and misinformation. Yet people do not leave this platform.

This is just one example among countless others.

In short: It is by no means the medium itself that is harmful; it is the way people use it.

I myself have not yet lost faith in humanity, but I am also a realist, and therefore I can unfortunately only conclude that, on the whole, the internet has primarily served to make the exploitative elites even more powerful.

In the broader public sphere, in my opinion, it has unfortunately not led to the democratization of resources and knowledge, but rather to centralization and autocracy.

In my opinion, this will soon result in a civilizational regression—this seems to me the inevitable consequence of the widespread use of LLMs, as they will certainly be abused by those in power, which, in my view, is already happening. Again, Musk, with his blunt approach, is an illustrative example of this as well.

I'm afraid this is a pretty pessimistic outlook, but unfortunately, I have no reason to believe that optimism would be appropriate.

I don’t think this can be handled as easily as with cookies or third-party connections that require consent, because Google apparently plans to eventually replace the traditional search engine results pages (SERPs) entirely with an AI chat interface.

In that case, they would have to offer a completely different product just for Germany, or leave this market altogether. Neither option is likely to be viable for Google.

Setting up the AI chat so that it doesn’t provide dangerous answers is, in my opinion, also out of the question, since this can never be guaranteed due to the way LLMs work.

Oh yes, definitely. In Germany, for example, it’s the far-right AfD, which is essentially a direct copy of MAGA. Unfortunately, the AfD is also very successful, as it receives massive support from the very same billionaires who made MAGA big in the U.S.—such as Musk, who gives them significant reach via Twitter and also financial support.

To me, this seems to be the dark side of the internet: The logical centralization of services that comes with the medium has unfortunately led to an even smaller group of unscrupulous billionaires now controlling the most important information platforms used by people worldwide.

I believe that what we are witnessing today—in my view, a kind of new monarchy of the super-rich—is the direct consequence of the network effect inherent in the logic of the internet: This effect has not only made these people astronomically rich, but also ensures that they can now influence public discourse even more extremely to their advantage than was the case in the days of traditional journalism.

This was already a significant problem with the rise of social media, but with the increasing prevalence of cloud-based LLMs, it is inevitable that, sooner or later, the discourse will shift in a way that benefits billionaires on an unprecedented scale. This is simply because deploying the relevant cloud AI models is so expensive that only multi-billion-dollar corporations can offer them—giving them full control over what people experience as reality.

The impact on democracies will be significant.

Democracy, after all, requires informed citizens. But if that is no longer guaranteed—because all the essential sources of information that the average citizen uses have been brought into line with the billionaires’ agenda—democratic processes can no longer function. Then people will simply vote for those fascist parties that serve as the billionaire class’s henchmen and get their support for doing so.

I am convinced that this is the explanation for the resurgence of fascism worldwide: this ideology is ideal for diverting attention from who is actually the citizens’ worst enemy. So that's what the billionaires want.

Yes, you could put it that way. However, I’m more concerned that the conditions in the U.S. will eventually take hold here in Europe as well. While we certainly have a powerful class of billionaires of our own, our system still functions to the extent that even they wouldn’t get away with such blatant and terrible crimes unpunished.

In that sense, one must almost be grateful to the U.S. regime for having now dropped the mask and very impressively demonstrating where the inhuman turbo-capitalism that the U.S. has always stood for leads.

Well, I’m afraid that, unfortunately, this ruling will ultimately never be enforced, as it would make it impossible for the powerful multibillion-dollar corporations to operate this business.

Another example of just how influential these corporations are is the fact that the most profitable piracy operation in history is even possible. Gigantic corporations of major influence have already filed multiple lawsuits over blatant intellectual property theft—yet even these players clearly stood no chance against the concentrated capital that is preventing the AI bubble from bursting immediately.

Therefore: It is the right decision, but it will almost certainly remain without consequence.

Well, that same flimsy justification for blatantly violating international law probably doesn’t fly anymore with countries that once saw themselves as allies of the U.S.—countries that the orange mafia boss, however, blackmails with whatever degenerate schemes come to his wreched mind, and even threatens with war, as he did in the case of Greenland.

Added to this is the fact that it would be very difficult for democratic governments—even if they are infiltrated by U.S. lobbying—to explain to their populations how it fits together to support war crimes such as the direct bombing of a school—or an alliance in which the genocidal monsters in Israel are junior partners. This simply cannot be justified with the usual drivel about the freedom-bringing, righteous global police force, especially since this supposedly oh-so-righteous country operates concentration camps on its own soil, where it unlawfully detains tens of thousands of people under inhumane conditions.

Even the best spin doctors can no longer spin this in a way that would prevent people from taking to the streets en masse if one were to participate in these crimes.

That is why the U.S. stands alone against Iran this time. And there are good reasons why previous U.S. administrations never took military action against this country.

The execution of the Iranian head of state—which the U.S. regime apparently hoped would bring the country to its knees—clearly shows that Dump and his henchmen have evidently dismissed all the generals who still have their wits about them.

I mean, Iran has been in a state of war continuously since its founding. Anyone who still believes that no provisions have been made in case the head of state is killed can only be a complete idiot.

But I believe the U.S. regime isn’t actually interested in winning this war, but rather in feeding the arms industry with billions upon billions and weakening international law, which stands in its way. This seems like a kind of economic stimulus program, because if we’re honest, this industry—alongside the tech sector—is the only one in the U.S. that’s still functioning halfway decently.

So a bloody war is needed to keep them supplied with contracts. And having a distraction from the fact that high-ranking government officials are obviously involved in pedophilia and prostitution and are doing everything they can to cover for their co-conspirators is just a bonus. These monsters are happy to accept the fact that the price is tens of thousands of human lives.

That is my opinion on this war, which violates international law.

Just out of curiosity: Has the U.S. government actually given any reason for its war of aggression against Iran, which violates international law?

If you haven't seen them yet: Check out the "Lego Scandal" videos by Reckless Ben.

While some of his methods are certainly questionable, and he does misrepresent certain things to boost the production value, what he experiences seems to me to be indicative of the state of the entire U.S. system.

While all of this happens on a relatively small scale, his observations appear to me to be the rule rather than the exception in this country.