After all its not hard to make a corporation in the US

…A US corporation is subject to US laws.

ByteDance is subject to Chinese laws.

If TikTok wants to do everything that it’s currently doing, but under US law and under US scrutiny, they’re more than welcome to do so. But they’re currently evading any serious scrutiny. Hence the reason to shut them down if they refuse gov’t oversight.

National security interests are the interests of the people though.

The fundamental issue is that, assuming I’m not leaking national security information, I can say nearly anything I want on Facebook, Twitter, etc. (as long as I’m not in violation of their terms of service). The US largely does not censor people using the power of the gov’t. If I am an authoritarian communist, I’m more than welcome to spread these views on any American social network that I choose without gov’t interference. I can spread anti-vax and Q nonsense if I wish, and the worst-case scenario is that my neighbors will stop talking to me. I can attack the very foundation of the country if I want, as long as I’m not spreading military secrets.

This is not the case in China. Spreading pro-capitalism and pro-democracy messages can quickly get you arrested. Trying to share accurate information about what really happened in Tianamen Square in 1989 can result in you disappearing. Words and phrases are actively censored by the gov’t on social media. The Chinese gov’t takes a direct role in shaping social media by what it promotes, and what it forbids. Anything that’s perceived as an attack on the political system of the country, the party, or any of the leaders (remember the internationally famous tennis player that abruptly disappeared when she accused a local party leader of sexual assault?) will put you at risk.

This isn’t a case of, “oh, both sides are the same”.

The Constitution doesn’t only protect American citizens, it protects everyone

Uh, no. It doesn’t protect everyone, not by a long shot. The US constitution doesn’t guarantee Chinese citizens, living in China, the right to freedom of the press.

…And this isn’t about which speech they’re allowing. This is about who controls the platform, and how they respond to gov’t inquiries. If TikTok is divested from ByteDance, so that they’re no longer based in China and subject to China’s laws and interference, then there’s no problem. There are two fundamental issues; first, TikTok appears to be a tool of the Chinese gov’t (this is the best guess, considering that large parts of the intelligence about it are highly classified), and may be currently being used to amplify Chinese-state propaganda as well as increase political division, and second, what ByteDance is doing with the enormous amounts of data it’s collection, esp. from people that may be in sensitive or classified locations.

As I stated, if TikTok is sold off so that they’re no longer connected to China, then they’re more than welcome to continue to operate. ByteDance is refusing to do that.

Calculators also say that dividing by 0 is an error, but logic says that the answer is infinite. (If i recall, it’s more correctly ‘undefined’, but I’m years out of math classes now.)

That is, as you divide a number by a smaller and smaller number, the product increases. 1/.1=10, 1/.01=100, 1/.001=1000, etc. As the denominator approaches 0, the product approaches infinity. But you can’t quantify infinity per se, which results in an undefined error.

If someone that’s a mathematician wants to explain this correctly, I’m all ears.

But the tree never makes a sound.

That depends on how you define ‘sound’. If it’s only perception and interpretation that creates sound, then sure, a tree falling with nothing to hear or perceive it makes no sound. But if you label sound as the vibration created independent of the perception of the phenomena, then sound happens regardless of whether it’s perceived or not. Since we label some sounds as imperceptible, or outside of human hearing ranges, my interpretation would be that the phenomena is the sound, rather than the perception of it.

Hmmm, simple majority vote. Interesting. So if we somehow got a Democratic house with a Trump presidency, they could just refuse to confirm any VP at all, which would make the speaker of the House 2nd in line for the presidency.

I’m not entirely sure that the president can simply appoint a new VP once they’re in office, since VP is an elected position.

It’s a fascinating question, and I hope that there’s never any reason to see it answered.

I’m not so sure that he can be. He was nominated by Trump, and the party as a whole voted on both Trump and Vance, together. Would they need a new convention in order to select a new VP? I don’t know. I don’t think that anything like that has ever happened before, so it would be uncharted territory. Much like if the VP died in office.

When you’re talking about ‘richest people’, that’s total wealth, not just liquid money. The Rockefellers and Rothschilds may be wealthy as families, but no individual within them even comes close to having the amount of overall wealth that Musk and Bezos have.

This is not a good thing, BTW.

According to Forbes, he’s the richest.

Will is conservative, but also believes in America, and in Democracy. He knows that Trump is terrible for both of those things. So even though he’s going to disagree with Harris on damn near every policy position that she has, he recognizes that she’s the far, far better option for the country.

Musk is the richest person in the world, AFAIK. I believe he’s rapidly approaching trillionaire status.

I can’t imagine Graham switching parties even if he did come out of the closet. He’s like the Log Cabin Republicans.

'Twould be hilarious if Loomer’s outing Graham managed to cost Republicans a senate seat.

The book is brilliant, even if it’s difficult to read and follow. The satire of art criticism is just so on point.

…And it’s hard to know if the Navidson record and house never really existed or not (in the context of the book) because of the way Johnny is slowly unraveling. It’s got strong elements of cosmic horror to it, along with razor-sharp satire, and the delineation in writings styles between Johnny’s personal narrative, Zampano, and the various journal articles are written really sells the entire piece.

Polls can be a good indicator, since not everyone will vote. But yes, go vote. If you vote for Harris, get out there on Tuesday, 5 November and show your support! If you vote for Trump, get out there on Wednesday, 6 November and show your support! (Don’t get your days mixed up! The liberal media doesn’t want you to remember that your Trump vote only counts if it’s on Wednesday!)

Because it doesn’t have to be. They’re two different thoughts. Hence the paragraph break. Moreover, I note in my first goddamn sentence that Silver is good at odds regardless of who he works for. That clearly implies acknowledgement that Silver is working for an organization funded by Thiel, rather than for an ABC affiliate.

Yes, I fucking well know that, because I listen to Galen Druke on the FiveThirtyEight podcast every fucking week. I know exactly how long he’s been gone, because I’ve been listening to the podcast for that long. There is nothing in my statement that implied that Silver still worked for ABC News or FiveThirtyEight; my statement only says that FiveThirtyEight gives Harris a lead that’s barely outside the margin of error, and, as the pollsters that appear on the podcast frequently say, it’s simply not clear how well current polls are capturing what’s actually going to happen on election day.

So make sure all your Republican friends get up bright and early on Wednesday, 6 November to vote for Trump!

Nate Silver is good with odds, regardless of who he works for. This whole article is a genetic fallacy; it’s saying that it’s wrong just because he’s funded by someone that supports Trump. There’s no counter-evidence, although there’s a counter-claim, that also doesn’t have strong evidence.

As of 10 Sept., FiveThirtyEight is giving Harris a 56:44 edge over Trump. Personally, I tend to believe FiveThirtyEight a little more over all, because they’re looking at and weighting many different polls. But these odds are way too close for comfort, given that Clinton was favored to beat Trump 6-4 the day of the 2016 election.

If you don’t want Trump to win, get out there and vote, and make sure everyone that leans Harris knows that they need to get out and vote on 5 November, and make sure your Republican friends get out there and vote on 6 November.

Disagree on VR, depending. I use a VR dry fire training system, and it’s def. improved my real-world shooting.