Not all that much larger. It’s going to be upscalled 1440p textures that look like a smeared mess. But people will eat up the 10k claims.

And then cheap chinese knock off brands push the products through Amazon, and other online retailers and by the time they are stopped the company has made bank, rebrands, and continues to do the same thing.

And because China doesn’t care, and the retailer is generally considered oblivious to the situation until proven otherwise they have zero incentive to vet the product.

Ya: This is an actual real problem.

Now if quality product made in a western aligned country was actually cost competitive and had good rep for being locally made or at least made in a country with actual enforcement mechanisms that can go after the people/factory when they pull this crap - then, the standards applied will actually matter.

I mean: Just go look at how many knock off apple products there are - and realize anything of potential value has the same issue going on.

We haven’t had capitalism in any sense of the word for about 60 years at this point. What we have seen is government interventionism in a protection of certain businesses that align with the interests of the sitting politicians - in other words, a form of Oligarchy.

What has transpired is an increasing degree of government deficits to fund entitlements, that drive inflation, which create more dependency on the entitlements and a call to do things like raise minimum wages.

The actual solution is: Trim federal spending, go into deflation, and drive the buying power of the currency up. This would allow people to pay down debts while maintaining standard of living, and allow for a reduction of dependency on hand outs - which would allow for a further reduction in government spending. The problem here is that the first step ABSOLUTELY SUCKS for a LOT of people - but it needs to be done.

From here: The big hedge funds, and such need to be ripped apart systemically.

The only reason Biden gets some slack is when the reaction was needed to take place hard and fast was under trump. And we have had the knowledge of how to stop the spread of an epidemic/pandemic for centuries.

Stop interactions between people.

People showing signs or symptoms should quarantine.

If you can avoid contact with people - you do so. In the past this was the wealthy who could go out to the country side and largely avoid contact with masses of people. But there is documentation of towns shutting down interaction with outsiders to avoid risk of disease spreading either into, or out of the town.

But when every single country fails to take actions - it isn’t a single case of ONE bad leader. It’s a case of systemic issues - and that is the case throughout the west: The west is infected by economist bean counters who are insistent on “number go up”. That is Canada, the US, UK, France, Germany… the list goes on. And that attitude has gutted the western spirit, economy, and more. This idea that we need immigration - when immigration is a bandaid to a much deeper problem that starts in and around 1965, but really has it’s first signs in 1967 in the US, and that is spiraled out of control with the end of the gold standard.

Yes: That is where the problems stem from.

The fact is: Biden has been in politics, for basically the entire run of problems stemming and bubbling over. And he has been right smack dab in the middle voting basically for every measure that continued the problem forward. Making promises that were inevitably funded with printed money - printed money that created inflation, that required interest rates to go up, that drove people out of home. Economic conditions that enabled and even encouraged manufacturers to offshore US manufacturing to places like China - destroying US jobs in the process.

Who benefited?

If there is a politician to blame: It is Biden. He has been there practically every step of the way.

Proper like in 2016?

The more one looks into the DNC, the more questions exist. Is it really a wounder how much inflation took place over the Obama years? Under Biden? They push party people, they get party people, who have the same great money management skills. And people are fed up with it.

People are fed up with GOP folk just the same - for different reasons. Trump was the NOT GOP, not DNC nominee, it isn’t really a wounder why he found support. It’s really just a wounder how the leadership of the parties couldn’t figure out that serious reform is needed internally.

Why would you say that?

Harris didn’t lose because she was a woman - she lost because she was associated so heavily with the Biden administration as more, and more questions started being asked.

Hillary didn’t lose because she was a Woman, she lost because she was a Clinton and there are so many left overs - and by popular vote: She won, but the US isn’t about the popular vote. But when we look at the split - it is VERY interesting.

AOC is generally speaking - widely approachable, talks some sanity, is willing to talk both sides of the Aisle, and so on. I can’t actually readily find a reason to be flat out opposed to her: I mean sure, there are policies and such that I don’t always agree with - but generally speaking, it is rare to find someone you completely agree with, and someone you completely disagree with: And if you ALWAYS disagree with everything, and can’t have a discussion - often times it’s not the other person with the issue.

The reality is, there are plenty of Men and Woman that won’t or will vote one way or another for a wide number of reasons, and odds are - put into the mix, it all washes out.

Truth is, when Covid was raging on - I kinda thought that Republicans would basically screw themselves over with the way it was handled and the death counts etc. But what it turns out - is a lot of deaths were assigned to covid but related to Cancer, heart disease, and so on with Covid as a contributing factor: So while dangerous, it seems the numbers were conflated - and that, is a very dangerous thing to do as the truth will, sooner or later, win out. And here we are.

The thing is: AOC doesn’t strike me as mainstream Democrat. And that alone will mean the DNC is unlikely to back her as a candidate - they want a party person through and through, and that, is ultimately what lost them this election.

I think we are on the same page as Immigration: Can be good, too much is generally bad, and the Immigrants unfortunately get flack when the problem is the government. And unfortunately - fixing the problem is going to suck for a wide number of prospective immigrants. What so many on the left don’t seem to get: It is not the American tax payers job to give a rats ass about people who WANT to move to the US. It is the US’s duty to ensure the people being allowed to come in WILL BE a NET BENEFIT to the society. And this means: They must end up being a net contributor. As it stands - we see government funds going to support migrants illegal or legal. We see growing crime rates - with information coming out that statistics were manipulated purposefully or accidentally to look better: But the truth wins out.

Smaller Government - not small government - I want to clarify this: I don’t think a small government works. I mean, if you are in a hamlet where everyone knows everyone, everyone comes together to solve issues as they crop up in a big town hall that encompasses everyone: Sure, small government works. But we are talking about an entity that has to deal with hundreds of millions, over a vast area, with various regional concerns and interests… it’s a NIGHTMARE. But Big government is also not the answer.

When I talk about reduced regulation - I’m not talking NO regulation. I mean: If you want to tax - flat rate it, have it low, get rid of as many deductions as you reasonably can. No longer do you have “I pay 35% income tax in my bracket but have 23000$ in deductions” - instead you have “I pay 20% tax rate on everything made over 30,000$”. And that can work - really damn well. You can do it for business as well - first, I dunno, 500,000$ in revenue isn’t taxed, at all - anything over 500k is taxed at 3%. I know - insanely low. But a company right now that makes 50 billion in revenue through tax games and loop holes can end up paying 0%… and that is more common then not when you get into large corporations. So: Simplify the tax code. People will be mad at first, until you state “This will help small business by reducing their tax burden, while ensuring large corperations like Google, Microsoft, Wallmart, and so on will pay their share for the benefits they reap for operating within this nations economy. We understand that some of them may feel the need to pass the costs on - but we strongly feel the market can, and will be better able to compete with these entities as a result - which will, in time get you better paying jobs, better prices on your products, and more option in where you shop”. And for once - the argument that corperations are greedy assholes might have some merit.

Why I like Medium Sized Governments

Maybe I should define what I mean.

If small Government is one that does basically nothing, and Big Government is one that expands itself whenever it wants to do more - then Medium Government is a government that looks at it’s current activity list and decides: Is any of this non-critical? Can we simplify and attain the objective?

to me: That is what government should be constantly doing - If it has staff pushing paper around for all intent and purpose, and that paper needs 5 signatures, and it needs 8 audits before it’s approved: Why? Can you do it with 2 audits, and 2 sign offs? Well: Probably. And considering the sheer amount of errors and mistakes that make it through the overly bloated systems we have today - my guess is less is actually more, and the entire reason? Because with less - people are forced to take ownership: They can’t just pass on the buck, they are accountable to what they sign off on, what they do.

And so we get to the core of it: Big Government is accountable to no one and no one person is accountable to anyone. Small Government does so little it doesn’t worry about accountability. And so, we get to another reason why medium sized governments are better: They are, by their nature, far more accountable to the people.

At risk of being downvoted into oblivion: People are hyper polarized and unable to have nuanced discussions as a broad generalization any longer. And that, is the core of the problem.

But where does it stem from? Misdirection - it might not seem relevant, but, I assure you: It is. We have to talk - as a recent video reminded me, and taught me something very important, Beoing. And maybe Intel - but mostly Boeing.

Back in the Early 60’s - Boeing was Successful, very successful, it was THE MOST SUCCESSFUL airplane company - and it was, surprise surprise: ran by engineers. Then we have Douglas - ran by Finance bean counters. In 67, Douglas was facing bankruptcy, and - as a defence contractor, the US government in it’s infinite wisdom forced Boeing to merge with it, and - to put the cream on the top followed by the crowning toxic jewel on top: The executives that caused the problems at Douglas were put in charge, and - Boeing has gone downhill since. At one point an executive at the new Boeing said something along the lines of: “I don’t want to be distracted by the details of building airplanes” - like, I’m sorry: THAT IS WHAT YOUR COMPANY DOES, those aren’t the distractions - that is your core needed responsibility to make sure it’s done right.

We good with why the above is a problem?

So lets look at Covid: Finance people want the economy to keep going - so drag their feet on doing what is necessary. Finance people don’t want to be inconvienienced, so… push for changes that are beneficial to them IN THE SHORT TERM. And finally, we see the idea that a Stage 4 Cancer Patient who passes away being labeled as a Covid Death… Why? I think it serves 2 reasons: 1, it makes the hospital numbers look more paletable for awhile - Covid death is “new scary virus” not, “Something we have been dealing with for forever” and 2. It justifies massive inflationary spend by the government - enabling them to effecitvely pick winners (big business), and losers (small business).

The thing is: This shift - this Financiers over Engineers and people in their field running the show, is both the Republicans AND Democrats. That is: Democrat Social Justice types use inflationary spending to shove money at the cost of EVERYONE at whatever group they are “fighting for” and, Republican types love to shove tax benefits in the hands of their prefered businesses. And what are the fixes? It’s really simple: End Inflationary Monetary Policy.

Thing is: Sick people masking? Makes sense. Properly cleaning high contact often terribly dirty things like debit pin pads - makes sense. More frequent cleaning of public bathrooms: Makes sense. This isn’t exactly rocket science. But forcing an untested thing onto people, after hiding the details from the public is disgusting. And the fact that people don’t get it - that is a huge problem.

Ok: PeerTube is interesting. But: in terms of replacement? No. non-viable.

The problem you have is multifold - and one of them is constant content availability, and total bandwidth. The value of Youtube is on demand streaming - you click a video, it plays, basically anywhere in the world. The other value is… copyright: Because of the way youtube is set up, you don’t have the same kind of copyright problems as you would without the back end negotiating and systems youtube as put in place. You can think copyright as it stands is oppresive and sucks -and I agree; but with the law the way it is - youtube is the best work around that is feasibly possible.

Mirroring all of youtube needs piles of terrabytes of new storage DAILY. and it’s in the hundreds of thousands as a low end estimate. You need the computational power to do the transcoding. You need the distribution of servers to load balance and avoid over saturating and d-dossing any given server cluster.

The reality is the Torrent protocol has been around forever - and there is a reason it never really took off, despite live watching while streaming was feasible: It has too many pitfalls.

And then, there is the content creator side: If you want to make money - youutube is kind of the place to put your content up with youtube premium sharing, ad revenue sharing and so on once you can monetize your channel. And while there are all kinds of BS in regards to what can and can’t be monetized - there really isn’t a replacement, not for the average person just getting started - and not if you are trying to build your following.

When the dollar has lost 99.9999% of it’s value, not just 97%. (as compared to 1970 vs. price of gold).