ShangXian 2025-01-22 10:00:56

You are welcome and thanks for reading this long wall text XD

Anyhow, Trump is viewed with much concern by majority of Italians, while Elon has still a strong positive view among many Italians even though there are critics of this worrisome figure.

Yeah, you have a point when it comes to the power of communication platforms in shaping people' opinions. I think a reason why Trump had also the popular vote on his side was the use of social media. Ofc there are other reasons such as psychological, cultural, social and economical but this one adds to his victory.

Despite France and Germany are facing a moment of crisis they are still strong countries and I trust them. Just because Musk is backing for AfD, it doesn't mean an obvious result. Very likely the party that will rule Germany will be CDU and, despite I don't support it, I respect it and I prefer it over any neo-nazi crap that might pollute the German spirit.

Yeah, let's hope Europe will become stronger from this. You want to have deals with us? Fine, but be respectful of our sovereignty in all its aspects otherwise there will be consequences.

Yeah, we live in degenerate times and by degenerate I mean the glorification of vice (Musk who supports AfD, Italian government who release the head of Libya's judicial police, who had been arrested on an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant over war crimes allegations) and the punishment of virtue (Musk who labels as criminals NGO who saves immigrants lives in the sea).

Stay safe!

ShangXian 2025-01-22 10:29:06

First thank you for reading this wall text and thanks for sharing your opinion here. Don't worry no name calling, I like to confront with people with different opinions as long as there is respect.

Yeah, I agree with the Biden part and this applies to big tech companies too. Zuckerberg, Bezos and others all supported Dems when they won because they only care about personal profit and sometimes I tend to see these kind of people worse than those who believe in dangerous ideologies, because they are supporting the status quo and it's all because they want to gain money.

I will always support WHO but I do recognize its flaws in some aspects for example when it began to accept and integrate of traditional medicine and traditional Chinese medicine. In 2022, the new International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, ICD-11, will attempt to enable classifications from traditional medicine to be integrated with classifications from evidence-based medicine. Though Chinese authorities have pushed for the change, this and other support of the WHO for traditional medicine has been criticized by the medical and scientific community, due to lack of evidence and the risk of endangering wildlife hunted for traditional remedies. And I agree with these criticism, this pandemic would not have started if natural environments had not been destroyed (logging, capturing wild species for traditional medicine and markets), coming into contact with it and thus increasing the risk of spill-over between species. Wet markets have contributed a lot. Obviously there are other causes too but being constantly in contact with harbour species (fruit bats) increases this risk.

When it comes to Covid-19 pandemic what I highly criticize is how it handled its relationships with China. Reading through WHO site I've noticed how it praised China's public health response to the crisis while seeking to maintain a "diplomatic balancing act" between the United States and China:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/18/china-coronavirus-who-diplomatic-challenge

David L. Heymann, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said that "China has been very transparent and open in sharing its data... and they opened up all of their files with the WHO present.

Considering the nature of Chinese government and the fact China is a hotspot for future pandemic WHO and the world as whole must be aware of lack of transparency, so it's important to pressure them into being more clear when giving info.

As for climate change keep in mind that environmental policies have been slowed down by the junk science attempts made by the oil corporations such as the negative impacts of the junk science research made by ExxonMobil. For example, ExxonMobil was a significant influence in preventing ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by the United States. ExxonMobil funded organizations critical of the Kyoto Protocol and seeking to undermine public opinion about the scientific consensus that global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Of the major oil corporations, ExxonMobil has been the most active in the debate surrounding climate change.

I wouldn't be honest though if I didn't mention that since the 1970s, ExxonMobil and its predecessors had engaged in climate research focusing on global warming. From the late 1970s and through the 1980s, Exxon funded internal and university collaborations, broadly in line with the developing public scientific approach. A review in 2023 found that the global warming projections documented by and the models created by ExxonMobil's own scientists between 1977 and 2003 had "accurately" projected and "skillfully" modeled global warming due to fossil fuel burning, and had reasonably estimated how much CO2 would lead to dangerous warming. The authors of the paper concluded: "Yet, whereas academic and government scientists worked to communicate what they knew to the public, ExxonMobil worked to deny it."

And finally in April 2014, ExxonMobil released a report publicly acknowledging climate change risk for the first time. ExxonMobil predicted that a rising global population, increasing living standards and increasing energy access would result in lower greenhouse gas emissions. In 2015 it expressed support for a carbon tax. It knew but denied its own research and climate scientists research anyway. In 2023, Science journal published a paper reporting that the global warming projections documented by and the models created by ExxonMobil's own scientists between 1977 and 2003 had "accurately" projected and "skillfully" modeled global warming due to fossil fuel burning, and had reasonably estimated how much CO2 would lead to dangerous warming. The authors of the paper concluded: "Yet, whereas academic and government scientists worked to communicate what they knew to the public, ExxonMobil worked to deny it."

I leave here the link to Science article if you are interested: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0063

Still its attempts slowed down effective research by years if not decades. If it hadn't denied and worked hard to do so, right now we would have more advanced eco-friendly technologies or implemented technologies at least because time is running out. Sadly sacrifices need to be done, we can't live the same way we lived in the 50s. In terms of technologies I think a mix of renewable energies and nuclear may help, but it's also important to have policies that help people to afford some tools (electric cars for example), that help to be reintegrated into the work environment.

What I fear is that Trump's environmental policies might inspire other right parties-ruled countries to do the same, accelerating the disasters of climate change and this will translate in the death of millions of people across the world in the next decades.

ShangXian 2025-01-22 15:56:59

Phony Stark is beautiful as nickname XD and you gave the perfect description of man who is basically void and truly poor on a mental, emotional and even spiritual level. I almost feel pity for him, almost. He is a man who sees others as tools and not as means. He is the very definition of anti-Kantianism.
I feel bad for his son with the impossible name due to likely bullying. Even Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch is easier to pronounce than Musk's son name....

I wouldn't even rule out that with this sort of techno-capitalism, Musk might ask via Twitter polls political opinion to its users and maybe try to convince Trump in some decisions. I really hope this won't happen and stays as mere speculation because otherwise this is really the start of a new era of doing politics. I even started to hear, while watching political TV shows, the term "post-democracy", a term that uncannily echoes with post-truth proliferated as word and concept during Trump's first election even though it was previously used to describe post-truth policies. See Harsin, Jayson (2015-06-01). "Regimes of Posttruth, Postpolitics, and Attention Economies": https://academic.oup.com/ccc/article-abstract/8/2/327/3979329?redirectedFrom=fulltext

"Stupidity should be inexcusable when the world's info can be accessed inside your pocket." Totally agreed.

ShangXian 2025-01-23 07:24:13

So true!

ShangXian 2025-01-25 05:50:53 (Updated 2025-01-25 05:52:34)

Repeat what? Sorry I didn't understand your question.

EDIT: to sum up: we live in shitty times, even shittier than previous times.

ShangXian 2025-01-28 09:33:49

Maybe one of his sons, who knows.