Spectrism

“The one who downvoted” didn’t downvote you because they think that Russia is in the right. I did it because you brought up brought up Russia when that wasn’t the topic at all, so no need to show me how horrible Russia acts, I already know.

The devastation in Gaza and Ukraine shows what that future looks like.

This doesn’t even look like they’re supporting Russia in the slightest.

I don’t completely agree with their position either, but if the “arms addiction” is the right move is a valid discussion to have. I’m convinced that Europe as a whole needs quite some investment for defense, but do we need to rely on US-made weapons so much for that, considering that most of theirs are also responsible for what’s happening in Gaza? Wouldn’t most of that money be better spent on research to develop our own alternatives to those systems? And do we really need to invest hundreds of billions of euros for that? How much of that money actually goes towards defense instead of offense? There are a lot of questions like these that we can talk about without distracting with “Russia bad” (which, again, I agree with), and I think this article brought up some good points to think about.

You’re right, they’re not. The US is much worse in this regard (in fact, in many other regards as well), which is exactly what annoys me in this debate. And if you meant that “the US are allies, China is not”, then I’m sorry to tell you, but I don’t give a flying fuck about the concept of allies. I’m tired of everybody thinking only in allies vs. enemies / us vs. them. Having the US as an ally is not some unchangeable natural law or an excuse for them doing the same, or in this case even worse shit. I’m not even asking the UK to be neutral, just be consistent in your world view and act accordingly.

Was there much criticism before it was built? Doesn’t seem like it. I doubt that you would absolutely need an embassy, at least such a big and advanced one, for military purposes, not to mention the fact that depending on the US is and always was stupid to begin with. So why shouldn’t China be allowed the same? “Well, because they’re not our allies.” Okay sure, that brings us back to square one. Either be against both, or neither. Anything else is hypocritical.

That I can agree with. The question remains though: Why isn’t there as much outrage over the US embassy? The criticism of anything related to China (while of course sometimes justified) often seems totally disproportionate, considering what the US or other states are doing. China isn’t even close to being as known for their spying as the US/Five Eyes are with ECHELON and whatnot.

So if they’re allies, it’s fine to spy? You’re kinda proving the point I made earlier.

And why so desperate that you have to use your other accounts to manipulate the votes in this thread? :)

Espionage is only acceptable when the Five Eyes do it. /s

Being American isn’t unwelcome here. Using barbaric date formats is.

Not completely, but the Brussels effect still applies to some degree.

What Hebestreit says here is not to be trusted. He is always beating around the bush when he is being asked these questions, and “we will abide by the law” most likely means “we will find every legal loophole to not have to arrest him”. In another press conference held on 2024-11-22, he was asked to clarify the wording on the released statement about the now actually issued arrest warrant, which was actually lacking a statement like the one from May about abiding by the law. When asked about it, he always responded with “I don’t have to answer, I will just refer you to what’s written in the text”, instead of simply stating that “we will abide by the law”. Furthermore, when asked what the federal government had to check before officially acknowledging the arrest warrant, he mentioned that “lawyers had to check if the ICC was even responsible for issuing such an arrest warrant”, even though Wagner, the spokesperson for the State Department, mentioned that “this court [the ICC] is independent and we respect this independence”. Nothing these spokespeople say makes any sense. They respect the independence of the ICC, but have to check if the ICC is actually responsible and has legal authority to issue an arrest warrant in this case? I’m not buying it. They stand behind the ICC and respect its independence, but only when it alligns with the views of the German federal government, which summarizes German politics as a whole quite well.

You can watch the full press conference here (relevant chapter: Haftbefehl gegen Netanjahu (Tilo), ~5:00-16:20, turn on auto-translation if you don’t speak German).

They have active arrest warrants for Netanyahu if he ever steps foot in their jurisdiction.

We do? Last I checked, the arrest warrant only came from the ICC, which Germany technically has to follow, but we haven’t issued our own arrest warrant, haven’t positioned ourselves clearly in support of the ICC’s warrant, and our politicians appear to be working on legal ways to not have to arrest Netanyahu if he actually comes to visit as planned by Friedrich Merz. All parties currently part of the government, with the only possible exception being The Left, seem to be way too much in favor of Israel.

Yes, the feature is working exactly as intended, and therein lies the problem.

Believing that same-sex marriage shouldn’t be a government-supported institution isn’t the same as believing LGBT people are “invalid” or “wrong” or whatever.

That’s great and all, but we don’t live in those times yet. Not granting people the right to marry whoever they want in current times based on the premise that we should change the marital law somewhere in the future is still nothing short of discrimination. And let’s not forget that Eich supported a campaign that was very explicitly against gay marriage, not the current concept of marriage altogether. Weak argument.

and that we should replace it with a series of contracts that grant certain legal privileges (e.g. joint tax filing, power of attorney, etc)

That’s what marriage already is for the most part in many parts of the world. And in those cases, the resulting financial disadvantage for example also makes it more apparent, why being against gay marriage is not just about names on a piece of paper.

I don’t know Eich’s personal political views, and I honestly don’t care, as long as they don’t interfere with his role.

How empathetic of you. Might as well support Josef Mengele with that attitude. A bit more personal responsibility couldn’t hurt.

My understanding is that they can’t really do that, because the payments are anonymous.

Well, last I checked it’s just another ERC-20 Token and not a new Monero, so I have my doubts about that. I also assume that they must keep transaction logs somewhere to keep track of the amount of BAT donated to a creator. But I can’t be sure either.

Use established, proven tools like Tor Browser.

It’s also kind of useless for Brave to have implemented Tor in the first place. Even if Brave matures further, there’s basically no reason not to use the Tor Browser for its intended purpose.

My understanding is that he had a very good working relationship w/ LGBTQ people in the org

Then why betray them? He has nothing to gain from funding such a campaign. There is no logical explanation and sure as hell no justification for it.

[…] so it really shouldn’t be anyone’s business.
How he votes or spends his personal money shouldn’t be relevant at all.

Oh, shut up. When this asshole funds a campaign that’s actively fighting against the rights of millions of people, it absolutely is our damn fucking business.

Yeah, this is totally wrong, and they reversed course immediately.

It’s bad enough that they even got the idea, let alone implement and actually ship it. Negative reactions shouldn’t be the first deciding factor for reversing such decisions.

Brave should have worked with major websites to share revenue

Not just share, completely give up that revenue. Blocking ads is one thing, but to then also monetise other people’s content should not allow Brave to earn even a single cent.
Your proposed solution sounds fine, though.

CEO is generally a right-wing dick.

Fair, but that should be a separate consideration from whether to use a given product.

Again, no. Maybe if there weren’t any alternatives, but there are plenty.

You probably wouldn’t like the CEO of any company whose products you like,

That’s probably true, however, Eich is a different story. Despite not gaining anything from it, neither for his companies nor for himself, he was willing to go out of his way to support a campaign in favour of discriminating millions of people, proactively. This doesn’t just make me not like him, it makes me despise him.
Other CEO’s typically at least keep quiet about politics, and make me dislike them mainly because of self-interest and their resulting business decisions, which can at least still be somewhat understandable.

And let me be clear that I’m not going to jump on people who use Brave for whatever reason. But under no circumstances will I defend those who downplay or justify Brave’s, and especially Eich’s, actions.