While I agree the leap to linking geopolitics to LibreOffice's success is a stretch you are misrepresenting the American position.
The President of the United states, its commander in chief, explicitly did not rule out military action when discussing his desire to bring Greenland and the Panama canal under direct American control. The rhetoric of making Canada the "51st state" while less explicit a threat is still one. Greenlanders, Panamanians and Canadians all clearly see these as threats.
Blizzard could make their own second hand hearthstone marketplace if they wanted to. NFTs don't create that possibility. Blizzard judged that it's more profitable for them to be the sole sellers of cards at their price. While NFTs would enable secondary markets in hearthstone cards to exist outside of Blizzard's ecosystem Blizzard doesn't want you out of their ecosystem.
Furthermore even if they introduced something like that I highly doubt they'd use "some public blockchain" the risks from that would outweigh the benefits - they'd just make their own infrastructure internally.
I don't see a way in which NFTs solve a problem that can't already be solved more simply. After all valve secondary markets for games like TF2 have existed for more than a decade without needing NFTs.
Early studies for new therapies are often much more promising than the therapy actually turns out to be once deployed on a mass scale. I absolutely agree that psychedelics should be explored as a medication of choice but some promising early studies don't mean that antidepressants like SSRIs no longer have a place or that the early promise will prove out in the long term.
I think the argument thrown_22 is making is that Americans would be less worried if it was Vine instead of TikTok because Vine is made in America. Tiktok is a globally relevant social network not only not from America but from what is increasingly seen as America's rival.
The argument isn't inputting on the value/harm done by the social network but rather the perception of that value/harm which is influenced by the sense that TikTok is foreign in a way Vine was not.
Speaking from the UK I have to say that is insane. Like all animals, humans included, cats belong outdoors and to deprive them of their natural rhythms is cruel.
I agree that we need to think about how to nurture bird populations but keeping cats pent up indoors is wrong - and is reflected by how much worse they behave when that is done.
Have you ever kept a log of the food you eat in a day? Admittedly I come at this from a very different perspective being obese, and having been much more obese in the past, but actively logging my food and retrospectively calculating calories gave me a much better sense of how much I was actually eating.
When you've recorded some data on that it would be productive to calculate your basal metabolic rate, which are the calories your body uses on the daily (so any exercise adds on to that). Comparing those two figures might be productive.
Of course there may be genetic factors going on but perception is so powerful it's the first thing I'd question
What's toxic to democracy is politicians lying, and then telling us that p;ointing out their moments of hypocrisy is what's doing the real damage. Describing reality is never bad.
An interesting interview, it's nice to see a little more substance behind the decision.I also appreciate that the interviewer did ask some of the sterner questions e.g. Facebook throwing money away from it's business
Maybe it's just the years of science fiction talking but I can't help but see this in a dystopian light. I don't want my social world to be created by"Meta". I want to use social media, and the internet more generally, as tools which enrich my life but don't dominate it. Directly opposite to how Zuckerberg pitches "Meta" in this interview.
My experience of the pandemic has taught me the primacy of physical, human, interaction. A VR headset isn't going to bridge that digital void. What's more, the internet is already addictive enough, already threatening those interactions I value. I recently read the short story "The machine stops" by E.M. Forster (available at http://www.visbox.com/prajlich/forster.html ), and I can't help but feel Facebook is building towards the dystopia it presents.
I'm deeply uncomfortable with the vast scope of these ambitions. I'm lucky enough to be informed and privileged enough I can choose to ditch these companies but I worry for the many who can't.
The President of the United states, its commander in chief, explicitly did not rule out military action when discussing his desire to bring Greenland and the Panama canal under direct American control. The rhetoric of making Canada the "51st state" while less explicit a threat is still one. Greenlanders, Panamanians and Canadians all clearly see these as threats.