Which stonks are you buying if any?

[Umfriend]

Inconvenient facts are reactionary or "false". Who did regime change in Ukraine?

They had reasonable elections in 2019. I am not aware of any invasion by armed forces creating havoc on civilians since 1941.

Now I have not really given hate speech legislation a thought. I didn't figure it'd be a great deal. I do like the examples you give: Under communism it may have been ill advised to make fun in a way that criticizes the power structure, making fun of leadership or performance. Hate speech is different in that it is directed at people.

But I have looked for examples in NL. First I found was jailtime for 180 days (136 on probation). He posted things like:
- "Raceware now"
- "All liberal jews must be shot dead as enemy of western civilisation"
- Possesion of firearms and ammo as well. (I don't know if or to what extent this contributed to the sentence).

But it seems to me that this is an incitement to violence. I wonder whether something like this could be prosecuted in the US (which has no hate speech laws).

[UtwigMU]

Now back to stonks: SALR managed to take over another pharma distributor and while profit from their medicine stocking for health system business hasn't grown, they are expanding and planning growth in non-prescription health sector. So I got another share. Otherwise haven't done any investing since October. Portfolio is still in black.

MSFT recovered, INTC is back above 30, AMD and NVDA are doing great, past 6 months outperformed SP500.

I started seriously considering buying an apartment because the price goes up more in a year than annual rent and inflation is more than interest on a loan. If we are going back to communism I might as well take the advantage of high inflation like previous generations did. By the time they paid off their apartment loans, monthly payment was the price of 1 coffee.

[UtwigMU]

I'll have to revisit Syria and Lybia, I am pretty sure Syria at least was reactionary, not instigated.

On Ukraine, that is simply demonstrably false. Arguing for defense, yes.

Inconvenient facts are reactionary or "false". Who did regime change in Ukraine?

Umfriend have you ever changed your opinion because of my factual arguments?
I think my arguments will not change your beliefs and I don't see how further effort on my part will achieve anything.

I just don't understand leftists. For example here they have introduced "hate speech" legislation. We had something similar in communism. You could go to prison for telling a joke or saying British bicycle is better than domestic one because you insulted achievements of our socialism. The problem is most leftists think this is great because only the right will get censored and this will help their ideals win. The problem is that "hate speech" is what current government does not like and the government gets to decide what is "hate". It could be future right wing government could use this against them. Or leftists will use it to censor other leftist.

New cold war is on and this time we in the West are the marxists.

[Umfriend]

This is just a talking point you read and never gave it your own thought.

So by what right should it be easy for anyone to reach a vast public? How is it that large social media platforms need to facilitate like anything or else they're accused of censorship?

And no, you don't need to be very rich to run your own platform. Just to buy an established one.

One thing I will say: I do think that competition in the market of social media is important and I feel that it has been bad policy to allow established platforms to buy promising startups (e.g. whatsapp, youtube, insta or somesuch).

[Umfriend]

Hilary/Obama: Syria, Libya
Biden, Scholz: Ukraine

I'll have to revisit Syria and Lybia, I am pretty sure Syria at least was reactionary, not instigated.

On Ukraine, that is simply demonstrably false. Arguing for defense, yes.

[UtwigMU]

Díaz is the president of Cuba. So aside from him, we can agree we would classify the others as right?
Where is the left arguing for war?

Hilary/Obama: Syria, Libya
Biden, Scholz: Ukraine

[UtwigMU]

I just don't see how the action of a private company can be construed as limiting free speech / censorship. If you don't like their moderation policies then use some other platform. Hell, a few were created for that purpose (Troth Sential, Parler or Gab for instance) but the public, apparently, is fine with the policies of FB, former Twitter or whatnot. I don't see the issue with a private company adjusting its product to maximize their userbase.
Where is the left arguing for war?

This is just a talking point you read and never gave it your own thought.

This is precisely the problem. If you found your own platform the corporations which are all under ESG rules and have diversity/social officers pull advertising. Google and Apple pull you from the app stores. Amazon and MSFT will not host you. Companies which host you and advertisers get pressured to drop you. A good example of this is Gab. They have to host their own servers and cannot be in app store. It's not an issue in capitalist free market where corporations' purpose is to make profit but in terms of ideas we no longer in a free market. The purpose of corporations now is to implement ideas.

Without cloud hosting, ad revenue and presence on mobile which now represents 60% of all browsers you can only have a fringe platform and can never reach mainstream. Without presence on Google/YT, FB/IG, Amazon, Reddit and Linkedin which account for vast majority of time spent you can never go viral.

Founding your own platform was possible in first half of 2000s but today it is no longer possible.

When Elon bought twitter, ads were pulled, many corporations pulled accounts. EG: Apple stopped Tweeting https://twitter.com/Apple
Apple threatened to pull them from the app store until Elon talked to Cook and mentioned he will create Tesla phone if Apple pulls Twitter. Tesla got attacked by media and establishment and stock dropped.

In order to run your own platform you literally need to be richest man on Earth and be prepared to loose 20% of your wealth. Elon is the only guy in such position with integrity to do that. All on Forbes in the West 100 with platforms are supporting left. And Elon was attacked not because he is a right-winger but because he dared not to throttle the right and run a neutral platform.

We are now in managerial revolution - very interesting and intellectual listening - can listen in background while doing something else. From 1600s to 1900s capitalist class had the most wealth and power in the West. Capitalists promoted nation states which gave them markets and protected them from competition. Now we are in managerial revolution. Class brought up in universities is trying to take control of wealth and governing from capitalists through supra-national organizations, media, culture wars and media, values, legislation.

[Umfriend]

Erdogan religious populist, Putin conservative, Diaz I have no Idea who he is.

Díaz is the president of Cuba. So aside from him, we can agree we would classify the others as right?

What was considered left of center or liberal 20 years ago during George W Bush administration:
- free speech
- no political censorship
- other side should have free speech

I just don't see how the action of a private company can be construed as limiting free speech / censorship. If you don't like their moderation policies then use some other platform. Hell, a few were created for that purpose (Troth Sential, Parler or Gab for instance) but the public, apparently, is fine with the policies of FB, former Twitter or whatnot. I don't see the issue with a private company adjusting its product to maximize their userbase.

- no wars for MLC/oil/empire

Where is the left arguing for war?

- equality of rights but not outcome

This is absurd. Sure, Communists are included in the "left" so the left has some "members" that may demand equality of outcome (although that can be debated). But seriously, most of the Democrats are in fact capitalists. What is true, I think, is that a lot of research uses outcome-analysis to argue that equality of opportunity does not hold. Hardly anyone on the left is arguing that, for instance, education should not affect income.

- no unpersoning, no punishment for criticizing government (Patriot act...)

is now considered a far right view by leftist establishment in USA.

JK Rowling and Martina Navratilova are now enemies of the left.

Sorry. They spoke out, loads of people disagreed. No one is going to prison (or arguing they should). Bunch of snowflakes? FCOL.

[UtwigMU]

Erdogan religious populist, Putin conservative, Diaz I have no Idea who he is.

What was considered left of center or liberal 20 years ago during George W Bush administration:
- free speech
- no political censorship
- no wars for MLC/oil/empire
- other side should have free speech
- equality of rights but not outcome
- no unpersoning, no punishment for criticizing government (Patriot act...)

is now considered a far right view by leftist establishment in USA.

JK Rowling and Martina Navratilova are now enemies of the left.

[Umfriend]

Elon bought Twitter not because of profit but because all social media and tech companies have been taken over by far left and started engaging in censorship of centrists and conservatives and boosting leftist sources.

I understand words like "[far] left", "centrist" and "conservative" may be subject to some inflation but, wow.
Would you consider Erdogan, Orban, Putin, Díaz Canel as left?

[UtwigMU]

Twitter was unprofitable before Elon bought it.
Jack Dorsey agreed something needs to be done as he helped to lower the price by keeping a share and rolling his stock in Twitter ownership.
Elon bought Twitter not because of profit but because all social media and tech companies have been taken over by far left and started engaging in censorship of centrists and conservatives and boosting leftist sources.
I believe Elon really believed that something needed to be done.
He took a huge hit on Twitter and Tesla fell out of favor with predominantly leftist media and took a huge stock hit.

I have huge respect for him. He could have continued to support and play along with leftist establishment like Gates, Bezos and Buffet but instead decided to put his money where his mouth is and use his wealth to achieve a cause he believes in and was ready to take a hit. OK Gates believes in vaccinating everyone and is putting his money there but I don't think it's a good cause and Gates never held the good for MS users and humanity as a priority.

[VJ]

Another way to look at it is that he's using it as an ad agency for Tesla and his other companies. Tesla has no communications department, hasn't for years, but other auto companies spend north of $3 billion a year on this. Amortizing Twitter over 10 years...

If he does eventually get it to make a profit it's sauce on the goose.

Yeah... but he could use twitter for that purposes without causing such a drop in value... So while it may result in a smaller loss in practice, I'm not buying that it is planned.

Tesla was heavily criticized for moving production to Mexico, and then moreso for moving to a region that is already suffering from water shortage... Not saying it is not a good move from economic point of view, but not a move without its issues.

[Umfriend]

Another way to look at it is that he's using it as an ad agency for Tesla and his other companies. Tesla has no communications department, hasn't for years, but other auto companies spend north of $3 billion a year on this. Amortizing Twitter over 10 years...

If he does eventually get it to make a profit it's sauce on the goose.

Would run into 4.5bln a year in depreciation. I don;t know how important Musk himself is to Tesla but if he is, I'm not sure running Twitter alongside is optimal for Tesla. Sure, most people need a hobby but this may not be the one. It may come but I don't see Twitter stimulating sales for Tesla. Not even sure they need advertising actually, do they? They will at some point, but currently?

[Dr Mordrid]

Meanwhile, Musk suggested Twitter to be valued at less than US$ 20bln (https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...than-half-paid) which I assume implies close to 20 bln. He's only off by some 15 bln now.

Another way to look at it is that he's using it as an ad agency for Tesla and his other companies. Tesla has no communications department, hasn't for years, but other auto companies spend north of $3 billion a year on this. Amortizing Twitter over 10 years...

If he does eventually get it to make a profit it's sauce on the goose.

[Umfriend]

Meanwhile, Musk suggested Twitter to be valued at less than US$ 20bln (https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...than-half-paid) which I assume implies close to 20 bln. He's only off by some 15 bln now.