I have known two people with clearance(not TS). One was an EOD in the army, whom was one of the last people I would have trusted with explosives back then. The other did IT work for a defense contractor in the middle east. The latter did lots of drugs of all kinds and stole close to $5k of my gun and ammo. He's now in the military repairing helicopters.

End anecdote.

On pondering this, I suppose everyone with a hobby has this same lacking. For that matter, anyone with a mind that contains unique thoughts has the the same lacking. A desire for comradery seems pretty universal.

That said, not being able to talk about it and not being allowed to talk about it is quite different!

> In 1987, when Donald Trump was first flirting with running for president, he told an audience in New Hampshire that the United States should attack the "horrible, horrible country" of Iran, "and take over some of their oil." In the years since, Trump talked about grabbing control of the natural resources of Venezuela, Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, and Libya, too.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-energy-dominance-oil-i...

In his recent past:

> “To be honest with you, my favourite thing is to take the oil in Iran, but some stupid people back in the US say: ‘Why are you doing that?’ But they’re stupid people,” Trump told the British newspaper.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/30/trump-wants-to-inva...

For historical context, this is exactly what happened when the US was on the brink of leaving the gold standard.

> From 1963 to 1966, France secretly implemented Operation Vide-Gousset to repatriate 3,313 tons of gold reserves from the Bank of England and the New York Federal Reserve. It took over 44 boat trips and 129 flights to export the gold back to the Banque de France. Since France converted its dollar holdings into gold, the French made out well when the dollar fell during the Bretton Woods period and lost 96% of its value against gold. France then withdrew from the London Gold Pool in 1966 after recovering its gold holdings to force the US to endure heavier losses.

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/markets-by-sector/preciou...

What does change(and is more important) is Debt/Revenue:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=TZfm

The ratio is looking like it is trending in the right direction. If GDP decreases while nominal tax receipts increase, GDP does not change the debt, while the debt/Revenue ratio looks good for paying bills, while not boding well for economic health.

What is this "real world" you are referring to? There has to be a balance between current and future expenditures and economic health to facilitate these. Nothing exists in a vacuum.

How much of the trend is due to employment trends vs. printing money for the wealthy to get their hands on it first(and profit) post recession?

There has been a lot of propaganda since the mid teens targeting the social and psychological impacts of social media. It is certainly plausible that some group or the aforementioned entities had a big part of this. Regulatory capture is a real thing that makes companies or breaks companies.

This is not the first time media consumption has been labeled and targeted in a negative way and it will not be the last. We as a society have to adapt to changing landscapes.

We shouldn't burn books. We shouldn't ban dungeons and dragons. Video games do not make people in general homicidal. History is repeating itself.

Anecdotally, I have not ran into a single person who has suggested we need to age-gate social media. It is on the politicians mind, but not the lay-person, as far as I can tell.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48679304

Points: 4

# Comments: 3

>I’ve had the worst customer experiences of my life in the last few months.

I attribute that to the massive amount of tax breaks and money that has been funneled to them by various governments. The government is the customer that they are appeasing right now. As soon as the spigot is turned off, they will be more inclined to appease us.

I do not know the consumer or b2b AI market well right now. I do know that billions of dollars are at stake from government sources. A smart company would focus on that.

The more I learn about that guy, the more I don't care for him.

A negative of the subsidy is that the farmland is not going to hit the market at a much lower rate. That raises the bar for entry into farming or at least keeps the bar at some level higher than the market would have had it.