But the point of saying that certain things are dealbreakers is that, outside of those, anything is within the realm of possibility.

Do I prefer people with “extreme” body modifications? Sure. Is that a requirement? No.

With food, maybe I prefer Brazilian steakhouses, but the only thing I really dislike is pasta, sandwiches, and deep-fried everything. I’m not going to exclude Thai, Indian, Ethiopian, or Polish food, just because it’s not my favorite kind of restaurant. I’m literally going to be fine with anything that isn’t on my dislike list.

Deal breakers are things that are limits. Limits are–in general–a good thing. It’s not that you’re saying that women–or people in general–are fungible, but you’re saying that people that fit any of these criteria won’t work.

IIRC, Dan Savage has said that there’s no settling down without settling. You can–should–have limits, but if it’s more than five things, you need to look at yourself very, very closely. You aren’t going to like every single thing about your partner, but you have to be able to accept them.

I could say, for instance, that I prefer people that are heavily tattooed, pierced, scarred, branded, and implanted. (…Which limits me to about .0001% of the US population.) But that’s not a deal breaker; I’m not going to reject someone because they don’t fit that particular preference, even though my body modification is important to me. On the other hand, I absolutely will not date anyone that doesn’t have a worldview that’s grounded in reality, e.g., is religious/“spiritual”, or believes in any conspiratorial nonsense, because I couldn’t have respect for a person like that. THAT’S a deal breaker. I won’t date someone that wants children; I’m unfit to be a parent, and I had myself sterilized a number of years ago. Again: that’s a deal breaker, because as with religious garbage, it’s a question of basic values.

Most people think it is just in the realm of dietary preferences and cuisine and don’t know why.

And yet, if you said something about black people and watermelon or fried chicken, or Chinese people and cats, you would immediately be treated like a racist, because you would be.

Even worse, the famine was entirely caused by landlords and especially the English. It wasn’t a natural disaster, but a product of monoculture that was forced on the people through no fault of their own.

Functionally? No. Legally? Yes.

When I’m applying for jobs, I do check the box that says disabled, because according to the US gov’t, developmental disorders like autism spectrum disorder are considered disabilities. (Probably ADHD also, but that evaluation isn’t complete yet.) OTOH, it’s unlikely to help if i am subjected to some kind of workplace discipline that’s the direct result of being on the autism spectrum, or if I fuck something up because i have severe ADHD. The kind of accommodations that they would need to make are… Pretty limited, TBH.

And this is covered by freedom of the press.

Their freedom of the press isn’t what’s in question. Their ownership is. They are welcome to continue operating as long as they are not owned by a Chinese company based in China and subject to Chinese national security laws.

But, even if it’s really, truly, a 1A issue, no rights are absolute. You can not, for instance, publish classified information, and then claim that it’s a free speech issue. National security interests can, and do, outweigh individual and especially corporate rights to free speech.

especially when the justification seems to be about the speech on that app

But that’s not the justification. The justification is first, access to data, and second, manipulation of that data. The gov’t is arguing that TT is hoovering up massive amounts of data on users, and then is manipulating the content that is shown to them in order to unjustly influence international policy, and all done with no transparency at all. It’s on-par with Russian election interference, although perhaps a little longer lasting and more subtly done.

…That does not, in fact, make it any better.

That makes it even more terrorism.

Not a war crime; terrorism. Hezbollah is a political organization.

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.

Until it doesn’t.

…And that point is often what we call “genocide”, when you’ve killed so many people that there simply aren’t enough left to effectively resist, and then you forcibly assimilate the remainder into your culture.

Are you okay with losing the majority of battles and having x10 the casualties?

The thing is that having 10x the casualties tends to create more fighters.

This is why Israel needs to commit total genocide in order to “win” in Gaza and the West Bank. Every time they kill a legitimate Palestinian fighter–versus an uninvolved civilian–they’re killing someone that had a family, and friends, people that knew the person, people that loved the person, had probably heard about the injustices (real or perceived; mostly real in the case of Palestinians) from them, and knew why they were taking up arms. These people don’t end up being cowed by the violence. Then you add in the people who have their whole families killed by indiscriminate bombing, and no longer feel like they have anything to lose except their shackles.

We know this already. We’ve known this since WWII. The Axis and Allies both through that bombing civilian population centers–London for the Axis, Dresden for the Allies–would break the will of the people, but instead it hardened them. The concept of total war and mass casualties simply Does. Not. Work.

You can’t win wars like this through military force alone, unless you’re willing to commit total genocide.

and your relying on sympathetic locals

This would also be true of a guerilla civil war in the US though. You’d be relying on locals–people that had probably had friends and families killed by gov’t military operations and indiscriminate bombing–to help you root out insurrectionists.

Would a large number of 2A supporters be in favor of tyranny as long at it had an ® next to it? Sure. Certainly not all of us though.

Huh?

Are you suuuuuure about that?

I’m pretty sure that most coups involve the military.

As far as civil wars go, oh, there’s at least one going on right now in Myanmar, and the gov’t def. has an air force there.

That’s not entirely accurate. Yes, it was more than the GDP of the entire planet at the time, but that’s not the value of the entire planet. Unless they meant the amount of physical currency that existed, in which case the amount was considerably less than the 62T that the article cites, since most money is never physical.

It’s still patently ridiculous though.

You’re just like yeah I know windows and Adobe will profit off of every button I click

First - Win 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC is not a consumer version. It’s about as locked down as you can get. It doesn’t even have drivers for the ethernet on your mobo out of the box; you better have already downloaded those. (Yes, I’m serious. It’s about Also, it’s pirated, since it’s not available to consumers at all; Microsoft doesn’t want to let consumers have the Enterprise versions of Windows because that’s no longer software-as-service. And the LTSC? That shit’s going to keep getting security updates–but no ‘feature’ updates, at all, ever–for at least 10 years.

Second - I don’t pay for Adobe, but I have to use it in my job. I’ve limited as much of it as I can, and CC doesn’t start up by default, but yeah, if you work in the commercial arts fields, you simply don’t have any serious options that aren’t Adobe, and yeah, they’re going to bleed you dry. But, as i said, i’m not the one paying. My workplace has a license that allows two seats, and I’m literally the only person there that knows how to use any of it–or even has the password to the Adobe account–so I just use the work license to put it on my home PC.

Once I finally got it installed, Win 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC has been fine. The only real hitch was that I had a terrible time getting the graphics card drivers instsalled; kept getting a BSOD. But everything is running quite nicely.

As soon as I remember to get my other hard drives installed, it will be time to put the Adobe Creative Suite and Corel Painter X on it, and see how happy it is with those.

It’s very probable that he had some form of body dysmorphia. The multiple plastic surgeries surgeries to chase after some kind of ideal self while his appearance got more and more unusual is kind of a tell.

Depends on what you’re doing, and how often you’re going to be doing it.

For mechanical tools, I like both Harbor Freight and Gearwrench. I like Gearwrench a lot more, but I haven’t managed to break any Harbor Freight tools yet that weren’t air or electric. For basic sockets, etc., it will be fine for almost everyone. (Spend more for torque wrenches though; don’t cheap out on those.) HF tools have pretty limited sizes though; they don’t have anything really large, like about around 25mm. Unless you are a professional mechanic, you probably shouldn’t waste your money on Matco or Snap-On.

For most cordless general and woodworking tools I like Makita. For more specialized powered hand tools I love Festool, but do not try to fill a shop with them. Just get the ones that no one else makes an equivalent of, like their Rotex sanders, or the domino joiner.

For woodworking shop tools–things that aren’t portable–buy old Delta or Powermatic, particularly stuff that is in no way shape or form portable. Trying to do any serious cabinetry on a job-site table saw is an exercise in frustration and wasted material. A tabletop jointer won’t give you good results.

And for hand-powered cutting tool, like chisels, pull-saws, planes, etc… Be prepared to start spending a lot of money. Hand planes alone can set you back a few hundred each, like for Lee Valley ‘Veritas’ planes. And that’s not even getting into the water stones that you’re going to need to keep them working in perfect condition.