The US is a failed state. There’s no other way to put it.

Ja und beim lieben Herrn Merz klingt es zudem ohnehin immer nach: Eigentlich sollte ich ja die Interessen der deutschen Bevölkerung vertreten, aber tatsächlich bin ich als Ex-Blackrock-Deutschland-Aufsichtsratchef und aufgrund meiner zahlreichen Verstrickungen etwa mit der Atlantik-Brücke vielmehr Berufslobbyist im Dienste von US-Konzernen, weshalb mir die deutsche Bevölkerung komplett egal ist ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah, I’ve been there too – it’s really sad that people are so incredibly incompetent – I had this happen to me even with an advertising agency that makes millions in sales, where we were the client. It’s really unbelievable. These are all highly paid people and they have no idea what they’re doing. Really just empty talk and not the slightest bit of substance behind it.

Yes, I’ve also experienced this several times. However, I still don’t understand what the problem is with contacting customers who use Teams via some other solution. I can only explain it with ignorance that borders on incompetence.

Yes, that’s clear, but I think Teams is still terrible even in this situation. I really can’t imagine a use case where this app would be a good choice - even if everyone uses Office. What are the advantages? What are people doing that couldn’t be done with any other solution? I realize that it’s probably mainly because employees are set in their ways, but is there really an objective reason why it has to be Teams? And as I said, I mean that even if you ignore the data protection nightmare that this application is.

Edit: Sorry, I probably misread that. I assume you use Teams because every employee has an MS365 subscription anyway. That seems like a waste of money to me tho, because every Office app can be replaced with a free open source app – except perhaps in the few cases of Excel power users. But that’s just my opinion – in corporate practice, things look very different.

Apart from all the absurd stuff MS does with user data, I simply cannot understand why people use Teams - it’s a terrible app for video calls.

Not so long ago, that would have been a perfectly legitimate reason to dismantle this corporation. Nowadays, I don’t think even a larger fine will be imposed.

There is really no longer any need for dystopian visions of the future, because they are already here - mainly because the average internet user somehow has no problem with being monitored 24/7 by techno-fascists. It’s just sad.

Or to put it another way: large numbers of Congress are just as interested as Israel in diverting attention from their own crimes and are unscrupulous enough to wage war to achieve this.

That would be great.

This term has also been used for some time by the AfD, a neo-Nazi party in Germany.

Sure. But what I’m getting at is that this way of consuming information likely leads to people being anything but well informed. Because of this social media “newswoth” logic, they mainly read content that isn’t very well thought out – if only because it was written under time pressure.

{Placeholder for a particularly witty comment next time}

Why shouldn’t you get a well-considered answer? I’m sure you’ll take another look at the thread. It does happen, but then you’re usually one of the few people who read these well-considered answers.

I’m not saying that there aren’t well-researched answers on social media, I’m just getting at the fact that there’s time pressure if you want your answer to reach a certain audience.

Yes, but there’s no guarantee that this topic will ever be discussed again. It’s a bit like when you think of a good comeback after a verbal exchange - you have the right argument, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Next time, you’ll be prepared, but next time may never come.

What I mean by this is that every topic is treated like breaking news on social media. However, news reports are characterized by the fact that they are usually outdated by the next day because they are only relevant for a limited period of time. This is not true for many topics discussed on social media. In fact, it is even possible to repeat something after a certain period of time (e.g., reposting memes), which is impossible with actual news reports.

That’s true, of course. But these responses are hardly visible to most people. Of course, the thread is still online years later, but since people today generally only use social media apps, they no longer see these responses, no matter how valuable they may be. If anything, they only perceive these delayed responses as part of the data sets of LLMs – but then mostly without reference to the original content.

I mean, the quality of content hardly matters if you’re late. If you waited just one day to respond to this post, no one would notice your comment.

My parents always said: “No path in vain.” By that, they meant that I should - for example - always take some plates with me and put them straight into the dishwasher when I’m on my way to the kitchen anyway. That’s probably why my place looks pretty tidy today.

If I didn’t still do that, the household chores would eventually overwhelm me.

That doesn’t surprise me, because Drump’s absurd import tariffs are interpreted by numerous economists as a sign that the US is actually bankrupt.

Judging by its national debt and weak economy, the US would probably have been bankrupt years ago if the dollar weren’t a reserve currency. That’s precisely why it’s so absurd.

The so-called Mar-a-Lago Accord, which is anything but an agreement, seems to me to be a desperate attempt at blackmail, playing off the (conventional) military power of the United States against the rest of the world - as far as I know, most economists consider this to be completely bonkers.

I, on the other hand, think that this serves two main purposes: to maintain the illusion among the US population that the US is still the superpower it was in the 1980s (it is not), and to personally enrich the US president and his partners.

I think it’s quite simple: with the massive increase in ICE personnel and the exclusive recruitment of fanatical followers, a secret police force has been established under Drump’s personal control.

This force is already flouting the law, but since its rath is currently directed mainly against minorities, the average US citizen doesn’t mind.

This, combined with the blatant suppression of constitutional rights to assembly and free speech (so on and so forth), leads me to one conclusion: Drump and his henchmen are establishing a fascist police state that will soon turn against political opponents regardless of their citizenship status (in fact, this is already happening).

I’m afraid that a large proportion of US citizens are unaware of what this means for their lives.