In the US, cops are legally allowed to just ignore you.

There was a case in Colorado I believe where an estranged husband kidnapped his kids from their mom. The mom went to the police but they kept brushing her off. After while the dad showed up to the station with a gun, promptly got killed, and then the kids were discovered dead in his car.

It went to the courts, and courts came back with “yeah they don’t HAVE to help you.” Of course this is overly simplified, but there’s case law in at least part of the country now that allows cops to ignore anyone at their discretion because they’re on dinner break or just not feeling it.

Also in the US, cops can tear your car up on a minor traffic stop because they “smelled” something. If they search your vehicle for whatever reason, they can decide they want to throw all you stuff out on the road, cut open your upholstery, take door panels off, etc. And if they don’t find anything? “Have a good day sir, get your shit off the road it’s a public safety hazard.” Then drive off leaving you to pick up their mess. And yes it has happened, and no not just once.

There was a case in New York where a guy was going around stabbing people. Cops posted up looking for him of course. Guy on the subway got stabbed nearly to death, a bystander tried to help the victim and took the criminal off-guard. Cops came in from the operators cab and subdued the criminal. They were watching the whole thing from the operators window and didn’t help the victim until they saw an opening created by the bystander. Literally watching a guy on his way to getting stabbed to death and only decided to intervene when they felt like it.

Also the Uvalde school shooting. Just hanging out in hallways while kids get shot, waiting for the danger to clear.

Also George Floyd but at least some amount of justice has been served there. But I’m highly skeptical it would have came to that if the case wasn’t as well-known as it was. Shit happens all the time. They have a term they love to bust out for minorities who are acting out of line. “Excited Delirium”: look it up.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. They “can” help, but totally not a requirement.

Umm… eBay was around before amazon and was largely successful. So no, he isn’t a ground-breaker, nor am I suggesting eBay was either. And yeah you can talk about differences between their platforms but my point still stands.

All of these types “stand on the shoulders of giants” as they say. Except the giant is the taxpayer money that created the fertile ground that allowed their wealth in the first place. (E.g. the internet) And when they’re sufficiently successful, they love pulling up that ladder you and I and everyone else paid for.

Private profits, public losses. Same as it ever was.

America’s darling Jeff Bezos exploited a flaw in his book suppliers policies to gain an unfair edge on competitors in the early days of Amazon. Best business man ever: give him the key to the city and a dick-shaped rocket ship.

He also got rich daddy and rich friend money to get money for his totally original and non-derivative idea of “selling things online”. Maybe that’s where this guy went wrong? No rich daddy?

WOW, what will the incredible Elon come up with next!? Dude comes up with all the great stuff we should have invented like ~50-100 years ago.

/s

Communism is covert fascism? Why then did fascists round up and kill communists? The two are wholeheartedly opposed to each other.

That might be the stated intent, but it seems plain that once the leaders are in positions of power and authority, they abuse their power. This is why, as fallible as is democracy, it is superior.

Do you think that socialism/communism is not a democratic system?

The pitfalls of our current systems preclude us getting to the point of utilizing space to any meaningful extent. Better to forgo the hypothetical Star Trek romanticized fiction and just fix what we have here; then maybe we can think about that stuff.

At this stage, the mere mention of any such possibility is a distraction from the gravity of the situations we face. It’s a mere tool to keep the apple cart going, while people are literally dying from our own collective hubris.

Show me where activitypub actively tracks how much time you’ve spent looking at content, what content makes you stop scrolling, factors that contribute to you interacting in content, or any demographic information about you, etc.

Privacy is given up on the fediverse when you choose to post such information, (e.g. “I live in Ohio”) not actively harvested as a means to craft ads for your eyeballs and sell to whoever has money.

Your comment is akin to “oh you don’t like eating spoiled yogurt? And yet, you eat bananas… Curious.”