Innovation as an inherently good thing (rather than merelly new) has always been a mantra and a slogan of the post-2000 Crash generation of Tech “Leaders”, who unlike the ones in the 90s, are almost always grifters rather than techies.

A grifter, when his personal upside maximization (in the form of keeping his job and performance bonuses) is at stake, will say whatever it takes to try and push the impression that his strategical choices as head of a Tech company are “visionary” rather than “blind fad following” because at best he might succeed at “fake it until you make it” and at worst he’s delaying the moment when he stops getting the big bucks for what is mainly bullshitting abilities.

So maybe Mustafa Suleyman smokes the tech bollocks he sells and genuinelly thinks that this stuff is an improvement for customers, but personally and having been in Tech (and the Tech Startup world) on and off since the 90s, my bet is that his words are nothing more than a grifter grifting because that’s the kind of person that world has been rewarding the most since the 2000 Crash.

Overheard at the German-Poland border:

• “Name?”
• “Klaus Winkle”
• “Occupation?”
• “No, just visiting”.

Using Wine directly is a bit of a pita.

Hence why there are things like Bottles.

“There’s this obscure function in Excel that I know somebody who knows somebody who used it that won’t work in LibreOffice Calc”

I bet that, like most Arch users, that one kept on thinking “So far, so good” all the way down.

On a serious note, having used Linux on and off since the 90s (aah, Slackware, how I miss installing you from floppies … not), Linux has, IMHO, actually been desktop ready for ages (though definitelly not in the days of Slackware when configuring X was seriously interesting for a geek and pretty much an impossible barrier for everybody else).

The problem have always been applications not having Linux builds, only Windows builds, not the actual desktop Linux distros being an inferior desktop experience than Windows (well, not once Gnome and KDE emerged and made things like configuring your machine possible via GUIs - the age of the RTFF and editing text files in the command line before that wasn’t exactly friendly for non-techies).

In other words, from maybe the late 00s onwards the problem were mainly the “networks effects” (in a business sense of "apps are made for Windows because that’s were users are, users go for Windows because that’s were the apps are) rather than the “desktop” experience.

The almost unassailable advantage of Windows thanks to pretty much just network effects, was something most of us Linux fans were aware since way back.

What happened in the meanwhile to make Linux more appealing “in the Desktop” was mainly on the app availabilty side - OpenOffice (later LibreOffice and derivatives) providing an Office-style suit in Linux, the movement from locally hosted apps to web-hosted apps meaning that a lot of PC usage was really just browser usage, Wine improving by leaps and bounds and making more and more Windows applications run in Linux (most notably and also thanks to DXVK, Games) and so on.

Personally I think Linux has been a superior experience on the server side since the late 90s and, aside for the lack of Linux versions of most commonly used non-OS applications, a superior experience in the desktop since the 00s.

That’s just the ones who don’t use Arch.

Nah, most of Europe did exactly the same thing as America last time around. Hell the EU went out of its way to make sure bankers didn’t lose money (how do you think Greek Debt which was entirely in private hands ended up in the hands of the EU, which then turned around and forced Austerity of Greece “to avoid losses of money of EU taxpayers”) - the Corruption was just as bad on this side of the pond as it was on the other.

Iceland stands out because they were almost unique in the West in making the bankers pay for their shenanigans.

Yeah, Science does have scientific articles behind what I referred to in a simplified way as “human nature” - the entire domains of Psychology and Sociology deal with that and beyond that, even Behavioral Economics concerns itself with how Humans act though in a more restricted set of conditions.

Then there is History, which concerns itself with how Humans have acted in the past.

In fact “How humans act” seems to be a rather important subject for Humans which gets reflected in how quite a lot of Science being done about it.

Those being such massive domains, you can find those articles you are clearly so interested in yourself, in places like arXiv.

I suggest you start by looking into Sociopathy, Psychopathy, Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Megalomania from the domain of Psychology - people with such personality disorders are the kind that tend to seek power and have not much in the way of limits about getting it and keeping it.

Have fun!

Two points:

• Methinks you’re fighting a battle against somebody else other than me and the point I was making.
• “Human nature” is just a short way of referring to the complex subject of certain behaviors present in some individuals and how they interact with human group dynamics, similarly to how “Theory of Evolution” is a short way of referring to the complex subject of how genetic traits that provide small advantages with reproductive success consequences can through time and the law of large number spread to alter an entire population or even create new species. In fact both those things are correlated.

Call it whatever you want: you can’t logically deny that some behavioral traits present in some humans cause them to seek or even create positions were they have power over others, structures which they then defend, preserve and extend whilst they extract personal upsides from their positions in it, and that group systems were there is already a single power pole with little or no effective independent oversight are way easier to take over by such people than systems with multiple power poles which keep each other in check.

(In summary people who lust after power will do whatever it takes to keep it going once they get it)

And yeah, this applies just as much to the dictatorships calling themselves “Communist” as it does to “Capitalist” systems - we’ve been seeing in the last 3 or 4 decades in Neoliberal so called “Democracies” Money subverting the supposedly independent Pillars of Democracy (though in some countries, not really: for example in many countries those at the top of the Political Pillar choose who heads the Judicial Pillar hence the latter is not independent of the former) to make itself THE power above all others, all this driven by individuals with those very behavioral traits I mentioned above, just starting from further behind (having to first undermine multi-polar power systems) than similar people trying to take over autocratic systems were power is already concentrated in a single pole that answers to nobody else.

(The path to unchallenged supreme power is a lot shorter in autocratic regimes)

Are you denying that amongst humans there are people with the behavioral trait of seeking power at any cost? Are you denying once such people get said power they will do whatever it takes to keep it going, including preserving the societal and political structures that maintain said situation even whilst telling everybody else “this is only temporary”? Are you denying that it’s easier to capture power in that way in systems where its already concentrated in a single place which is not kept in check by independent entities which can overthrow it?

And I’m not even going it other human behavioral traits involved in things like groupthink and “yes men” and how such elements in human groups can pervert ever the most honest holders of power.

Battling against the expression “human nature” doesn’t change the fact that these traits exists in many humans and the dynamics of their interaction with human social structures as shown again and again in millennia of History.

Surely the “capital investment” mixed in with the supplies should be accounted via depreciation rather than directly as an expense.

👍

Re-read my post.

I was not making any human nature claims about Communism, I was making them about what happens when a dictatorial system is created, no matter how good the original intentions stated as the reason to create it.

The viability or not of actual Communism (as in, a classless system were everybody is equal) is a whole different subject. My point is entirely around the good old “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely” effect and how that tends to turns supposedly transitional dictatorial stages into something permanent.

my point is that Stalin didn’t represent communism, as is widely claimed

Well, we’re totally in agreement then.

nobody claims that criticism of nazis is a criticism of the german people.

… nowadays.

Back then, the Nazis themselves did (more specifically that criticism of Nazism was criticism of the Germanic People or even of the Aryan Race), similarly to how the Zionists do it now for the people they claim to represent.

Those regimes are the ones doing such associations and then their supporters abroad as well as various useful idiots pick it up and parrot it.

The point I was trying to make was that Stalin and his followers claimed to represent Communism when they in fact did not (not even close). I know that’s not quite the same as claiming to represent a race, ethnic group or religion as the ethno-Fascists do, but I think claiming to represent an ideology it’s a similar technique and similar you see mindless supporters and useful idiots pick it up and parrot it.

Per Marxism-Leninism the Dictatorship Of The Proletariat is a necessary step on the way to Communism, not the actual Communism.

So whilst Communism cannot exist in a dictatorship, to get there one must go through a dictatorship and invariably nations that do so get stuck at the dictatorship stage and never reach Communism whilst calling themselves “Communist” as part of the propaganda that tries and maintain public support and misportray criticism of the regime as being “criticism of Communism” and “criticism of the Proletariat” (kinda like the Zionists, an even more evil regime, misportray criticism of their regime as criticism of those they claim to represent - the Jewish People) to keep the dictatorial structures going supposedly until Communism is reached, but as it’s never reached, in practice for as long as possible.

In all this propaganda swamp around it, most people not knowing about those theories from anywhere but some political propaganda or other, think Communism is what China has or the Soviet Union had even though that very ideology says those countries are not and never were at the Communism stage and at best are on the path to Communism.

That’s the same “logic” as claiming that all critics of the Nazis are really trying to speak ill of people of Germanic Ancestry or that all critics of Zionism are anti-semites.

Just because those evil regimes tied themselves to those groups or ideologies doesn’t mean that critics of the regime are actually trying to speak ill of the groups or ideologies those evil regimes linked themselves to.

In fact the strategy of misportraying criticism of the regime as being criticism of the group that regime claims to represent, is a common propaganda trick of the most evil of regimes.

Well, the problem is that to get to the utopia called Communism were everybody is equal, a Society has to first go through the Dictatorship Of The Proletariat after the Workers Seize The Means Of Production and, curiously (or maybe not so curiously if one understands at least a bit of Human Nature, especially that of the kind of people who seek power) none of the nations which went into the Dictatorship Of The Proletariat (i.e. all the ones which call or called themselves “Communist”) ever actually reached Communism and they all got stuck in Dictatorial regimes (and I believe in not a single one of those is the Proletariat actually in charge: for example in China Labour Unions are illegal),

So whilst it is indeed not possible for Communism to exist in an authoritarian context, according to Marxism-Leninism to get to Communism one must first go through an authoritarian context and eventually from there reach Communism, hence why all those nations that tried to reach Communism never got past the authoritarian stage that precedes Communist.

Well, as I explained for me it has been pretty good at just passivelly avoiding the consequences of nation-sized bullshit like Brexit without me doing anything at all.

At the risk of repeating myself, my whole point is that it’s good as a passive investment, not that it can’t easilly be beaten by active trade strategies by somebody with good market knowledge (who is entering and exiting positions and can spot those “undervalued equities”)

Hence my expectation that for the ignorant investor or those who can’t be arsed to follow the markets, it’s probably a suitable passive zero-knowledge-needed way to bypass the consequences of whatever shit the US seems to be diving into as well as on a grander scale the transition from America as the top power to China as the top power, all things with a scope of at least one or two decades.

Keep in my that my whole point is that Gold is good at facing the biggest Social and Economic upheaval of all (the once in a century kind of event), not that people should be going into it during the good times with no clouds in the sky and with a time horizont of a few years.

Putting money in an appreciating savings account is a great way to earn passive income.

I guess you haven’t seen the interest rates on those since 2008. That advice is almost 2 decades out of date. Also they’re tightly couple to USD.

But gold did not outperform the S&P 500 until this last year, and even then only barely.

Absolutelly, stocks (as an asset, rather than any specific individual stocks) perform better outside major economic upheavals. Since we seem well on track for one, this isn’t exactly a good time for going into Stocks IMHO so I didn’t advise a nice index tracker investment or similar - when an entire economy goes down the drain, those go too.

As for that statistic you quoted, keep in mind that the S&P 500’s historical performance doesn’t include stocks which were taken out of the index, so it’s not a real image of the market but rather distorted on the upside since all the “bad” stock get removed from the index, something which matters in a long term comparison, so over the long term it’s less clear which asset performs best.

Theoretically a properly diversified stock portfolio should outperform Gold over the long term, but there is some amount of management needed (anybody who had GE in their portfolio going into the 90s would’ve wanted to offload some of it in the 00s) and stocks are often a lot more tightly couple to the currency and Economy of the country they’re listed in (unless we’re talking about companies which make all their money abroad and just happen to be listed in a major exchange in a different country).

Gold just works it’s “magic” - literally of requiring nothing and doing nothing and still somehow holding value - even if burried in one’s backyard.

Commodities are a highly speculative and historically underperforming asset class

Well, that’s the thing, Gold doesn’t tend to perform as commodity because it has very little in the way of industrial uses.

It’s mainly an historical form of currency, which is why its volatility tends to be in between currencies and major stock market indexes.

If you look at Silver - which is much more sought for its industrial uses - it’s a totally different story.

[Since the question was about how to protect oneself of the upheavals in the US]

The answer there tends to be utilities and treasuries.

Those things are tightly coupled to the value of the a country’s currency and economy. If the objective is to protect oneself from upheavals in those, those two investments aren’t at all effective.

I’ll give you an example of my own: my savings were originally in British Pounds. I moved most of them to Gold in the aftermath of the 2008 Crash. Years later, there was the Leave Referendum in Britain and the British Pound tanked almost 20% in value when the results came out. The impact on my savings: Gold went up in British Pounds as much as the British Pound tanked - Gold didn’t became any more appealing in Britain, it just held its value as all things Britain and British became less valuable for the rest of the World. Similarly I did not feel any of the subsequent slow devaluation of the GBP.

Had I invested in Gilts (British Treasuries) or British Utilities, I would’ve been fully hit by the loss of value of the British Pound versus other currencies.

Mind you, some of my savings back then were in Euros and they had almost the same behaviour versus the British Pound, though the Euro was also dragged a little down by the Leave Referedum result versus Gold and the Dollar.

The point being that to protect one’s US Dollar savings right now one should probably exit the Dollar and assets denominated in Dollars, for different currencies, and Gold just happens to be currency-like (a traditional currency even and still held by Central banks as reserves) whilst not really tightly coupled to the politics or Economics of any one country.

Just switching savings to a different currency or assets denominated in other currencies (say, ETFs on major stock indices in markets outside one’s home market) would probably do most of the same, though if a big country like the US really goes down the shithole, other economies will also be dragged down at least a bit, and of course any currency or assets denominated in that currency you hold are at the mercy of governmental mismanagement in that country.

Gold, meanwhile, just sits there and does nothing being controller by nobody.

It’s the ultimate passive isolationist investment, IMHO, and as I said way back in my first post, having been hit directly by the last to biggest economic crashes plus Brexit, I’m biased towards passive isolationist long term holding of value.