nigel99

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-declines-let-trump-immediately-fire-agency-head-2025-02-21/ Here’s a sliver of hope for you and your beliefs. It’s not over yet, but at least the SC didn’t roll over immediately.

Unfortunately that is a huge problem. The people spreading disinformation rely on people who only think and process in sound bites and the world is a complex and messy place. Anyone can compress the solution to a problem into a soundbite

This is an interesting article about how the military may be reluctant to disobey illegal orders https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/21/politics/trump-executive-order-military-justice/index.html Maybe “Checks and Balances” is the new “Thoughts and Prayers”

Thanks for your perspective. I admire your optimism and the fact it isn’t based on blind ignorance. I completely agree about the emotions trumping logic. Unfortunately there are people who are able to harness that and use it to manipulate people into blindly following down a dark path (think cults and the like). I believe one of the reasons the dems struggle is that they appeal to logic and not emotions.

Interesting about the French guy.

One of the reasons for my post was to get views of people like you. I’m not holding you to any predictions, or assuming you’re a Trump supporter (and even if you are I don’t mind). How do you see things playing out?

I’d be willing to bet that there will be an attempt to avoid it.

I’m interested in your views on this? I don’t remember your thoughts on Musk doing it, and know you’re cautious about getting caught up in mass hysteria regarding the broader topic of a white power agenda. I know stills can be misleading so here’s a snippet to it in context. It’s hesitant and not as bold as Musk. More like a naughty boy trying to thumb his nose at a parent. https://imgur.com/a/former-white-house-chief-strategist-steve-bannon-sig-heils-cpac-today-FIuEqCr

https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-5353 Canadian’s you can do your part to try and get Elon’s citizenship revoked.

It’s been 30 days since the inauguration and things have moved faster than I think anyone could imagine. I think most people are pretty shocked at what’s happening and globally countries are starting to distance themselves from the US. There is a growing movement to boycott US products and travel. Trump is barely in the news cycle and Musk is dominating it, to the extreme that Musk’s 4 year old ‘shushed’ him in the oval office. Trump’s behaviour is something strait out of a third world dictatorship, with the official Whitehouse putting out pictures of him as king and him doing laps of Daytona and flypasts. There are open calls for him to serve a third term. From the outside I don’t see a political solution. The judiciary and other government institutions appear powerless to intervene and mid term elections are a lifetime away in terms of the changes and damages that can be done. The Democrats seem completely out of their depth and the republicans around Trump (Vance and Johnson) are likely to exploit rather than curtail Trump’s abuse of power when they take the reigns. As an Australian citizen, I’d like us to rapidly pull away from the US and any close military and intelligence ties with the USA. Remove any American bases and make it clear to China that we are sovereign and neutral. We should revisit buying military equipment from Europe and continue to build our trade relationships with Asia. But I’m curious what you see as the future, and if you disagree with my assessment of the direction of the US why I’m wrong and the you see it going in.

It could well be that he is. But aside from the core focus being on weed, I do like the high level policies they have, like the one below. Public Interest and Accountability All politicians should be legally bound to act in the public interest. Caps on electoral spending, real-time reporting of political donations, and the establishment of strict rules governing MPs' expenses have been enacted. The focus is now on ensuring that politicians are held accountable for justifying accepting positions with businesses that profit from those very same politicians while in power.

A slight side show from the US drama, this is what’s going on at home. Opposition leader (nicknamed Temu Trump), is falsely saying Labour are giving people citizenship to help sway the election. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/dutton-wrongly-says-labor-is-fast-tracking-citizenship-for-gazans-to-win-votes-20250220-p5ldv2.html A local politician has legally changed his name to Aussie Trump. (Also has 35 charges of breaching a restraining order) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-07/outcast-wa-politician-ben-dawkins-changes-name-to-aussie-trump-/104905758 Voters for the non major two parties are now over 30% and support for the main parties is steadily slipping https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/the-steady-decline-of-voters-choosing-the-major-parties-is-reshaping-australia-politics/ The small party that I was impressed by has the crappy name of “Legalise Marijuana” and is run by a medical doctor. I’ve met him a few times and planned to support them. Until we had a private conversation on Bluesky and when I asked policy details and he blocked me :)

Well Trump just called himself King. I guess no dictator ever calls themselves dictator.

I’m coming to the end of my psych degree, and change is interesting. I think it’s possible if you change the leadership and plan for the resulting churn. I’ve seen it work in smaller organisations, I was in senior management in a company of 500 people. I’d imagine the inertia in a larger organisation makes it next to impossible.

Years ago there was an article in an engineering magazine that mentioned how even the threat of death doesn’t make people change. The examples given were medical advice to stop smoking or to change diet.

Trump and Musk are going about this in a highly unethical and probably illegal way. Part of the problem with bloat is that no politician wants the cuts in their area. If the US is anything like UK/Aus public servants typically get a job for life and as a result you can get very incompetent and or lazy people staying. Early 2000’s working at a UK research lab we had an old engineer who didn’t know how use computers. He literally sat and read the newspaper each day. There was no pretence that he was working, just ticking along to retirement. Organisational change is tough and requires strong leadership. My current employer has 15000 people and are a train wreck as far as organisational change goes.

I understand that it’s different. We have got a 2 major parties that power swaps between. Polling is showing for the first time that over a third of voters are planning to vote for minor parties. If the 3rd of voters who had stayed home followed Biguns lead it “might” make a difference.

There’s no such thing as good racism. However, it’s a false equivalence to say that calling people out for statements such as “only white men are competent”, or executive orders that prioritise migrants based on race (and not only that but from Elon’a home country). An example of alternative views is Bigun’s perspective on voting independent. I tend to agree with his perspective, against the vast majority of other posters here. Thankfully we seem to have lost the trolls. Admittedly I often struggle to see what you’re trying to say and am also not going to sit and watch YouTube videos to get “facts”.

I welcome different opinions and have no issues discussing them. I can’t stand outright trolling with no content though. The point of diversity is to bring alternative views to the table.

I agree and it was meant as a joke. I’ve got a huge amount of respect for Bigun and how he manages to stay civil and maintain his values against a tidal wave of opposition and a often people misconstruing what he’s saying.

I thought this image was striking. Maybe Brent would be interested in buying Bill’s Tesla now :)

When I was spending a lot of time with my project at the Greensville SC hospital, I was always struck by how similar the values and attitudes were to those in the Middle East. Even the priests clothing was similar. As always it’s not everyone, I met a right wing poster who’s a great guy :) I’m not overly surprised that the US is following in Iran and Afghanistan’s footsteps with becoming a theocracy. There was an article I saw over the weekend that research by women is being taken down and they are being ousted from STEM roles.

But we know so much when we are in our 20’s!

https://youtu.be/d1zH2bV_tpk?si=fEsVlNm93Y7jxdwH A local Perth comedian sold his Tesla and put out this video.

I wouldn’t mind re reading it as from memory (about 25 years ago), I largely agreed with the books premise when I read it. I don’t have the time or the eyesight to reread it though. My copy has the tiniest font, and is still thicker than the bible!