Think they’re off by a couple orders of magnitude there.

It is currently there.

And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!

I was trying to do this recently and learned that, I guess certain bluray drives have been identified as compromised by the powers that be. As a result newer bluray disks ship with a list of those drives, and when your drive’s firmware sees that it is on the list, it will refuse to open the disk. I have an old bd drive from ~2008 that was ~60% effective at ripping my library.

I also tried my best to use fully open source tools in combination with an up-to-date KEYDB.CFG, but never had as much success as just using makemkv.

The most extreme route I found is to refer to makemkv’s list of drives that can have their firmware flashed to prevent it from refusing to read a disk. I haven’t gone that route, but would definitely consider it if I was looking for a drive.

Those poor chimps…well, someone’s gotta know how to operate the thing.

Porque la izquierda libera, la derecha oprime.

(We say “lefty loosey, righty tighty”, but a similar rhyming phrase in Spanish translates to “the left liberates, the right oppresses”)

Or ducks. For clarity.

These same commenters will make fun of reddit and twitter for always being cynical and rage fueled.

Subscriptions for everything. Especially hardware.

I already hate my always-online, have to use their shit app robot vacuum that gets worse after each update. I can’t imagine buying a new, overpriced car these days and having it do all the same shit.

Regan really did a number on the US. Broad privatization of public services, with all the wrong incentives in place. Which was then a vicious cycle of people hating their experience with public services -> politicians cut their funding -> service gets worse -> people hate their experience -> repeat until all your taxes have been siphoned to private entities and your govt is in shambles.

Of all the unprecendented things happening these days, this is not one of them. This is standard issue, 100y-old Red Scare garbage. Liberalism scares tyrants, so they always try this strat, and it’s always bound to lose.

I admit I am misusing the term “cartel” here, given that it refers to a group of independent interests acting cooperatively, not a single entity. And legally recognized corporations already attempt to form cartels whenever possible, which is the entire purpose of anti-trust law.

And I agree that govt legislations each have their own definitions for what constitutes a “corporation”, but it’s the same for “marriage”. Yet we wouldn’t say marriage only exists if you have a govt.

I don’t think it’s useful or interesting to end the discussion at “a govt defines a corporation, therefore a corporation doesn’t exist without a govt”. Because I maintain that if the US govt disappeared, all the entities you currently consider “US-based corporations” would not disappear. Similarly, corporations currently operate internationally in many different countries with many different legislative requirements and many different definitions of “corporation”. Yet we don’t think of them as existing exclusively in the context of any one of those countries.

A corporation can never do that - government laws set out very clearly who controls what

Corporations do have infighting, and Hostile Takeovers do happen, and we are in agreement that ONLY reason they’re not bloodier is because of governments enforcing their laws. But also, I shouldn’t have made “cartel” analagous to “corporation”, since the analogy for a cartel civil war would be multiple businesses or corporations having a falling out.

But we also already have a sordid history of US “corporations” operating outside the laws of other countries, oftentimes with the help of the US military. So how do we square that circle?

But you understand that everything you linked are examples of why a govt can’t actually print infinitely and can’t just pay interest to rich people…right?

Also it’s a red flag to me that all of your sources are youtube videos.

The purpose of government securities is not to fund spending but to give the rich a safe place to park their capital with interest.

You have a source on this? I find it difficult to believe that it is ever a good idea to just take out a loan for the sake of making the interest payments. Especially using public funds, that sounds pretty close to embezzlement.

Rather, a country’s budget should always make use of debt, because its reputation has value and should be invested, not left sitting on the table.

There’s no formal structure, shares or board meetings

This is an arbitrary list of things and I don’t agree that all corporations have all of these, but I guarantee most cartels have a formal structure, a clear description of ownership, and what qualifies as board of leaders. Most wouldn’t be able to function without it.

sometimes they do just descend into civil war

They compete with rival cartels in all the same ways corporations would if they could (or already do when they can get away with it).

They’re businesses

I’m curious why you’re willing to call them businesses but not corporations.

Corporations try to all the time. It’s only through an effective use of law that they don’t. And lately, it hasn’t been very effective.

But also a government can’t print “unlimited currency”. Eventually it would be worthless. They are effectively only permitted to print currency proportional to what their creditors allow.

Drug cartels do all the things any corporation would happily do without laws to restrict them. So I don’t see any distinction and I don’t believe a govt is necessary for a corporation to exist. Just like with any other crime by any other citizen, a govt uses its monopoly on violence to prevent corporations from doing harm.

On the one hand, murder is bad, but on the other hand I am full of hate and fear…

He truly was

Agreed, but it does make sense from an evolutionary/anthropological perspective. The thing to keep in mind is: it’s perfectly rational for a person to act irrationally if it improves their survivability.

If your king declares that the country is now Catholic, and anyone who believes otherwise will be executed, then the people who survive are gonna be devout Catholics.

Rational Irrationality is real.

Looks like the Vatican is gonna need a regime change.