I have to admit I am not quite as up together on it all. The main root seems to be a mixture of poor education, corruption that bleeds down to a local level, apathy, but more than anything else the Philippines is terminally addicted to social media and celebrity culture. Essentially the Marcos family have been able to use their masses of stolen wealth to rewrite history via social media, many now believe that martial law was a golden age. I think Marcos winning isn’t the most shocking part, it’s more the sheer extent of his victory. Made even more staggering by the fact that Robredo beat him in the vice presidential election just six years ago, how has he been able to turn so many peoples heads in that time? What is also frightening is that he has even managed to convince people who actually lived through his Fathers dictatorship. I think we really need to define democracy as more than just a free and fair vote. If people are winning based on altering reality, we need to consider it as invalidated as if there were missing votes, that’s been my attitude since Brexit here. False media needs to be considered as election tampering. Unfortunately I don’t see a world where that will happen.
I totally agree. What has happened this week is probably the most extreme case of the influence of social media but, as you said, I think that there are probably fewer places better placed to be exploited in this fashion than PHs. I just find the politics there to be ridiculous even if it is fascinating. As I said, i do not think the influence of social media is the sole issue here as they almost appear to have their own perspective as to what is demoncratic. I am not sure that education in PH is as bad as you suggest yet the impact and influence of social media is demonstrative of what happens where their own culture was wiped out firsrly by the Catholic church and then by the Americans.
Stablecoins are meant to be permanently pegged to the USD at 1:1; deviating from that for any extended period is fatal. As a result of their intended stability, they end up being the middlemen in a lot of transactions. If they stop being stable, a large part of the architecture of the crypto market goes boom. TerraUSD is the one that has gone boom here. Right now, you can give them $1, and they will give you back $0.80 (which is a much more direct and transparent way of losing money on crypto, I suppose): https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/UST-USD/chart?p=UST-USD The problem is that the biggest stablecoin (Tether, which is massive, and tightly integrated into other exchanges and features of the crypto ecosystem; it had $125b in trading yesterday), is widely believed to be a $83b market cap Ponzi scheme, which would be the largest Ponzi in history. It has already been forced to pay a large fine for lying about its cash reserves. And while it would be harder to crash given its size, its size also makes it harder to rescue if it does, and means that there would be extremely large knock-on effects if it did go down. For instance, a long downturn with people getting out of the crypto market (forcing Tether to give people back actual money in exchange for its play money), followed by a sudden sharp event, like a well-heeled group making a targeted attack on Tether in order to try to make money on their other activities. All of which will probably happen at some point, and it will take a lot of the crpyto market with it. The ease with which TerraUSD has been broken all but guarantees it. Edit: the associated crypto coin with the stablecoin, Luna, has now dumped almost 90% ($30b or thereabouts) of its value in a week. That's an entity that was valued at more than Tesco as of a few days ago, that is probably going to be worthless in a day or two, and it's just your average Tuesday in cryptoland.
And now Tether is, well, not tethered. A lot of money is going to be thrown at getting it back to 1:1 parity and preventing a run on its (almost definitely smaller than advertised) reserves, but if people noping out of crypto overwhelms that, it's going to have dramatic ramifications not just for the crypto market, but for the financial industry as a whole. A bunch of small-and-medium banks rather stupidly ended up with the assets of crypto firms forming large percentages of their balance sheets...if Tether goes down, and takes a bunch of crypto firms with it, it's also going to wipe out some banks along the way.
Finland giving Russia the finger here. Finland to apply for Nato membership 'without delay' - BBC News
Fun Boy Three bang on the money in so many ways. "See a clinic full of cynics Who want to twist the peoples' wrist They're watching every move we make We're all included on the list The lunatics have taken over the asylum The lunatics have taken over the asylum No nuclear the cowboy told us And who am I to disagree 'Cause when the madman flips the switch The nuclear will go for me The lunatics have taken over the asylum The lunatics have taken over the asylum I've seen the faces of starvation But I just can not see the points 'Cause there's so much food here today That no one wants to take away The lunatics have taken over the asylum The lunatics have taken over the asylum The lunatics have taken over the asylum, take away my right to choose The lunatics have taken over the asylum, take away my point of view The lunatics have taken over the asylum The lunatics have taken over the asylum, take away my dignity Take these things away from me The lunatics have taken over the asylum The lunatics have taken over the asylum, take away my family Take away the right to speak The lunatics have taken over the asylum take away my point of view Take away my right to choose
I note with interest that he is referred to as "Dear Leader". Where have I heard that before? Perhaps it was in North Korea or was it Nazi Germany or perhaps it was both.
The funeral of the journalist shot in Israel. I caught a report about this, on the ITV news bulletin, which clearly showed Israeli troops beating the pall bearers with batons. Disgusting doesn’t come close to describing the actions of the Israelis.
I completely agree with your comments about the Israelis (police, rather than troops, I heard). However, I suspect that any negative comments will be construed as (further) examples of Anti-Semitism', and people (OK, the 'Woke' community) will be horrified that people are against Judaeism. Highlighting acts of (State-Sponsored?) brutality does not equate to Anti-Semitic leanings, and should not be identified as such, by anyone.
My heart bleeds for him. Poor little Tory MP had to wait 21 hours in his local casualty unit, before being treated, but is now (I guess because it affected him directly) contacting the Health Secretary about it. Suck it up diddums. https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/n...FJdBYwCxEQqSABXKZrh-3xszDQWEr_Qytxx4b-nPnhbzM
For those of you still struggling to understand why anyone would vote for Brexit when it brought them no benefits but lost others their benefits of being in the EU might like to listen to this short 15 minute explanation of the 5 theories of stupidity. 294 The Five Laws Of Stupidity - YouTube Voting for Brexit by this theory was the action of societies most dangerous people and we all under estimate just how many stupid people there really are.
