Russian, Indian, Egyptian…anywhere where there are poor people to exploit. Derek from Veritasium made a video studying and tracking troll farms years ago. A lot of those troll farms are from the usual suspected countries, where dire poverty push them to desperation, and are exploited by powers-that-be.

What happens when education becomes commodified.

I bought my brother Kobo precisely because of being privacy and consumer friendly.

Being in a war is bound to become more expensive the longer it drags. Most people, with their instant gratification, think Russia will fall any minute now, but reality is far more of a slow burn. It was obvious from the moment Russia failed to subdue Ukraine, that they would repeat the consequences of their Afghan invasion nearly 40 years ago. The Soviet defeat in Afghanistan was a slow burn that dragged for 10 years, in which the economic costs-- along with mitigating the disaster at Chernobyl-- contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union.

I was a Catholic, and the church is big on social justice. I used to listen a lot of sermons about government corruption and social inequality that goes on for nearly two hours.

Is the Catholic church the biggest pedophile ring on the planet? Yes. But hats off to a broken clock that point towards the good direction, but only does so twice a day.

Trump and co. aren’t even pretending, which is precisely what they campaigned for as “being authentic” and “telling it like it is”. Liberals, on the other hand, are pretenders.

Sam’s first business was an app tracking each other with you and your friends. It sounded useless at the time but it was probably a precursor idea to surveillance capitalism.

She’s got that “the girl next door” vibe. She’s not sultry and seductive looking, but very beautiful in an innocent way.

Is this an Onlyfans promotion?

I always say, as much as the Western-led technological and economic innovation did bring prosperity, it is at the expense of the long term because it brought short term materialism and profiteering mindset. A lot of Western companies prioritise next quarter earnings over long term sustainability. That is not to say that other cultures aren’t materialistic and greedy, being an Asian I notice that older generations are materialistic because they grew up poor in post-World War II and colonial era, but East Asian culture stands out more because of Confucian values of thinking long term with state backing.

Japanese companies are unafraid to branch out and diversify a lot; like Nintendo going from being playing card manufacturer to becoming a videogame giant, and Sony coming from electronics to videogames and now finance. They do this if the sector they are in is no longer commercially viable in the future. Meanwhile, Western companies fight tooth and nail to keep their dying business model going (I’m talking to you fossil fuel companies), because they are afraid of next quarter losses.

As for China, they have made a mistake of resting with laurels on their heads in the past, having become complacent for being the centre of trade and culture for 600 years. Europe was clamouring to trade with China, and European imperialism and colonisation started as motivation by wanting to trade with China. The country is called “Middle Kingdom” after all in Mandarin, implying it’s the centre of the world, which is still true in many ways.

But China got overtaken by the West and was wrecked in the 19th and 20th century. Whether it’s Nationalists or Communists who end up ruling the entirety of China, I think both factions are guided by past mistakes of the imperial order of becoming too corrupt and complacent, and don’t want to repeat it again in the modern world. China now thinks long term, it is the West who are now experiencing the mistakes that Imperial China had done.

At least the earnings from the sales of lottery tickets go to charities.

From a cynical realpolitik perspective, Japan is investing, so to speak, on Asian countries so that if a war with China breaks out, Japan would have allies when the time comes.

Although, as far as I know, Cambodia is a nominal ally of China because of the huge Chinese investments.

I remember in school doing statistics and probability. There was a question to calculate the probability and chances of winning a bet, and we got a near zero answer. I then asked my teacher if that means the person is actually going to lose. She confirmed yes, and warned us that this is why you have to be careful with gambling and being in debt as a result, and being involved with loans sharks who prey on those with gambling problems.

I’ve personally witnessed what gambling does to a person and their loved ones so I despise it. A lot of the gambling are rigged and so you are more likely to lose.

I tell people that if they’re going to gamble, do the ones with more likelihood of success. Poker is rarely rigged, if ever, because it is based on pure psychology of the players. Investing and stock trading has a more established science, despite the occasional stock manipulation. Although, if one invests in more reputable companies with long term growth and only put in the amount of money the person is willing to lose, hardly anybody goes bankrupt with investing.

Wages haven’t kept up for at least 50 years. Working hard and making savings alone is not enough to create a comfortable nest for yourself. Older generations and the younger ones who are instilled with that notion don’t realise that the old way is no longer working.

It’s not your fault, it’s the system. This isn’t to implore people to do investing, but this is a reason why I started doing investing. I don’t trust the system fed to us.

I love my friend, but yes, he’s been a bit ignorant on many things.

Yea, just in time. Although I think the EU and Ukraine saw this coming and have been preparing before Trump 2.0. Fair dues to the Biden administration as well, they passed a law for US to make it hard to quit NATO because of potential Trump’s return at the time. Everyone Trump proofed themselves.

Athens, Georgia

My European brain just confused the fuck out of me.

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Not only that, buying £70 of a broken game on initial release.

To be fair, we have the GDPR in Europe, which puts people at ease. However, this could be weakened or rid of entirely in order for the EU to become more “competitive” some day. Even the climate change goals of the EU has already been weakened so that we could catch up to the AI race. As sad as it is, it’s just the realpolitik influencing decisions.