Bring back forum signatures.

Thankfully Lemmy supports animated avatars already.

_{There are no stupid questions. Just stupid people.}

HIV denialism

Because of widespread use PREP/PEP, there’s a growing number of people who stopped using any protection including the aforementioned meds…

Exactly, it can go bat -> livestock/pet -> human just as well.

Being a public figure is the one thing Trump excels at.

Trump will not like being seen as incompetent and weak publicly.

a private company innovated aerospace technology despite the US government’s reluctance to invest in aerospace technology.

Huh? The US government paying SpaceX made it possible to succeed in the first place. That’s literally the US investing in aerospace tech.

US dod officials have been very clearly saying for Over a decade that the US might already be behind China in key areas of defense

China is catching up, but still behind in defense and aerospace technology. The one area they are ahead is industrial capacity to build, especially ships. China builds a huge number of civilian and military ships.

despite spending 4 to 10 times as much on their defense budget

Wages, manufacturing, etc. are all far more expensive in the US. It’s also much easier and cheaper to copy someone else’s design than to discover and build for the first time.

they cannot even compete with a free operating system

Microsoft has good support for Linux nowadays with Windows services for Linux and Azure Linux for example. On the desktop Microsoft Windows is still leading in market share and Microsoft Office is dominating as well.

Where are the biggest Linux companies located?

Apple? they haven’t been innovative in 15 years, depend on slave labor

Apple’s AR/VR is innovative, if not particularly successful in the market. Their M-series chips are among the best chip available. Very fast with low power use.

Apple makes their products in same factories (Foxconn etc) as other companies. So the labor conditions aren’t unique to Apple at all.

it’s not leading in manufacturing, it’s not leading in most sciences, and it has one of the most awful education systems in the world, not to mention the living affordability crisis going on.

I mostly agree. The quality of the US education system is similar to the health care system. The US has some of the best education and health care in the world. However, it’s neither cheap nor affordable for the majority of the population.

you can’t do science without funding and support, and dumps has taken that funding away, and importantly does not believe in science or the benefits of research and development.

I agree mostly. Regarding funding under Trump, we will see. Elon Musk certainly know about R&D costs and benefits and is influential.

meanwhile, other countries are investing record amounts and setting technological records in innovative technologies like solar that the US has no hope of catching up to in the near future.

Yes, other countries are catching up steadily overall and are ahead in some areas, especially China.

The US is still leading in aerospace and defense. Boeing is in a slump, but military planes are top notch. SpaceX is a decade ahead of the global competition at least.

computer science

All the biggest and leading companies in that area are still based in the US. American companies dominate the market for software and internet services. The possibly most disruptive technology AI is also firmly in the hands of the USA.

You’re also missing biotechnology as another key sector, where the US is doing very well.

the US does not have the technological edge it once did;

That much is clear. It’s still doing very good though.

The amount of money spent on R&D is still huge in the USA and it attracts top minds from across the globe.

Upvoted for the optimism. Let’s hope you’re right.

technology (…) being suppressed

What technology or technology development is being suppressed?

The USA are still leading in most technological fields and have a dominant position.

is seriously organize to support a more left candidate

Americans need to start organizing the network for a general strike and start writing a new constitution.

somehow he pisses off the base enough

Trump has to placate the billionaire class. If everybody is still making money and gaining power, they’re unlikely to break with him.

Å

ᚨ sad Anzus noises.

Sure. MAGA/Trumpism aren’t reincarnated Nazis though. It is a uniquely American populist personality cult. Calling them Nazis means you don’t understand how they operate and why they’re successful.

Trump has delivered a ceasefire that was always clamored for.

Trump actually delivered a ceasefire.

I doubt there’s a plan behind this.

Social media wasn’t the primary driver behind the Arab spring. The economic issues were the trigger. People couldn’t afford to buy food. Lack of food will topple any government. Media control only gets one so far.

On the Internet the dominant websites can change quickly. Being banned from Twitter enabled Trump‘s Truth Social. Buying Twitter gave Elon Musk a giant soap box. However new soapboxes are constructed all the time and some succeed.

Boycotting Twitter is a good idea for many reasons. However this kind of blanket link ban will lead to more informational segregation quickly. This has already happened in many ways since the beginning of the war on Ukraine. Linking to Telegram or any Russian website is no longer allowed in many forums, e. g. Reddit. That has made finding original sources and verifying information much more difficult.

Take links to videos for example. Reddit is full of videos copied from YouTube, Telegram, TikTok, etc. without attributing the original source. The World Wide Web was supposed to link information together into a network, where you can follow up on origins snd details. Nowadays it has turned into a series of copy & paste silos, enabling the most extreme echo chambers.

Mexico has two states named Baja California and California Sur at the gulf of California.

If anything California should be renamed to something less Mexican like Triumphia. Renaming the major cities to City of Angels, Saint Francis, Saint Joseph, Sacrament, Saint Doug, Ash Tree would then follow suit.