Not even that; 0.1% per trade would bring in a huge windfall. Even something negligible like 0.01% would bring in nontrivial amounts of revenue.

The problem is that being above paying tax has become part of the identity of being rich, and the very idea of even a negligible amount of one’s wealth being taken away to be given to your inferiors is unacceptable, and the rich will defend every fluctuating cent of their wealth as a non-negotiable matter of honour, even if it means burning down the world.

Cutting out everyone but the middleman

Finally, they can make a robo-Rogan that can radicalise young men at a fraction of the cost

The idea of a “whiteness” that Italians are outside of is largely an American one, originating from the invention of “whiteness” as a construct to rationalise racial slavery and the subsequent waves of immigration from (largely southern) Italy. (The Irish were classified as non-white for much the same reason, even though Ireland was not known for its melanin-rich complexions.)

The Italians did have a different language and traditions than the French, but they also until recently had different language and traditions than other Italians. (Italy was not a country until 1860 or so, and “Italian” as a language came into existence when Garibaldi chose the Tuscan dialect (because Dante had spoken it) and decreed it to be the new national language of the newly united nation.)

BlueSky has already received funding from venture capital, and so will need to find a way to monetise its user base. Once enough people depend on the site for their social connections and friend circles, the promise of decentralisation will be quietly removed, APIs will be restricted (as on Reddit/Xitter), terms of service updated to ban circumvention, and the user-controlled algorithms modified to deliver your eyeballs to the advertisers and your data to data brokers, and before long, it’ll be an Instagram-style slot machine, where you mostly see ads and AI pink-slime, but keep pulling the lever in case there’s another update you care about in there somewhere.

You know that Musk will do his best to get AfD in

Their US and Australian divisions are solid. The UK one varies, and has some decent people, but also has a persistent infestation of TERF/SWERFs. A few high-profile ones have left after their comments became irreconcilable with the paper’s ostensibly liberal/progressive line, but you still get regular Observer opinion columns about pronoun-mongers sexualising our children or other scare campaigns. There’s a rumour that the editor, Kath Viner, is herself a TERF and personally protecting them, though I haven’t seen any evidence one way or the other.

They could spin up a Mastodon instance, but given how lousy their UK editorial department is with TERFs, it would be justifiably blocked for transphobia.

Do they want to get France kicked out of NATO?

Persuading you to vote for their guy, or if you’re disinclined to do so, persuading you to not vote by instilling disgust/outrage (see also: “Genocide Joe”) or just a blackpilled sense of powerlessness.

So, accept cybertrucks in the narrow streets of Italian hill towns, high fructose corn syrup in all food, freedom of hate speech driving vulnerable voices out of your public square, and AR-15s for everyone who wants one, or we throw you to the Orcs?

Eisenhower, probably

Someone once said that if you wanted your name to be known forever, your best bet would be to eat the Mona Lisa.

If you get high enough, the idea of heavier-than-air objects not inevitably succumbing to gravity may fill you with wonder as well.

younger than on Mastodon (where it’s overwhelmingly 40+)

Britain will have a hard time topping this. Maybe if Farage takes over the Tories and they win the next election, they’ll come up with a fitting riposte.

Is the BDS movement classified as a terrorist organisation? What about ANTIFA?

Evelyn as a man’s name, if you want to be really old school.

He’s technically not wrong.

They’re exactly as scientific as the Victorian spiritualists who talked about “vibrational energies” and such, which is to say, not at all.