I mean, that’s the entire point, right? Media doesn’t exist to show the truth, it exists to manufacture consent for some policy direction. If media was supposed to be factual, it wouldn’t be funded by biased actors and it wouldn’t have an incentive structure that rewards profits more than factual reporting.

Capitalism 🤷‍♀️

That’s why the Saudi’s aren’t going to piss off the US, China, Russia, or India. Their strategy only works in peacetime.

They’re ditching the USD’s role as the global reserve currency. Any reduction in reliance on the USD directly impacts the USD’s role as a reserve currency.

You don’t have to go “I’m never touching the USD again” to ditch it in it’s key use case.

That’s because the AIIB is actually making progress pulling people out of poverty instead of instituting austerity measures like the IMF is keen to do.

All the articles about foreign meddling coming out of the big tech giants are written by “independent think tanks” that are conspicuously made up mostly of ex-US intelligence. That should tell you enough.

I would actually love to see Saudi Arabia take the lead on food engineering. They might lack fresh water, but they have immense amounts of land and sun to play with.

The only alternative I can see is a mass reforestation project.

Wasn’t Russia expecting Ukraine to capitulate (basically, like what Armenia did against Azerbaijan)?

They only sent, what, 80000 troops on the initial drive to Kyiv?

Russia’s military budget in 2019 was $65 billion. It’s a waste of money that’s only practical because the US is literally swimming in taxpayer money (mostly because the US doesn’t invest in itself, but that’s another issue).

Macron was right, but being right is extremely expensive. Meanwhile, the EU’s dependence on F-35s for defence isn’t too great given the well-known issues with F-35 maintenance and the need for US private contractors in the maintenance loop.

Same thing is happening to India before our eyes.

Thing is, the Western view that media is free inherently makes people more susceptible to propaganda. To be more precise, Western media has achieved a few things: (1) The illusion of media freedom makes people less likely to question the media they consume. (2) The profit-driven motive of media companies makes it more likely for facts to be “reinterpreted” to better fit the target reader’s worldview. (3) The extent that government agencies are involved in media has been completely hidden from the public.

I mean, it’s not like Chinese people are stupid. We know what’s wrong with society in mainland China, but we also see all the benefits that it’s brought. The fact that it isn’t talked about doesn’t mean that everyone’s bought into government propaganda, it just means that people are on average happy enough to not bother with it.

Flipping the firewall is easy. Going to Taiwan or Hong Kong is easy. Emigrating is easy.

Just because someone isn’t white doesn’t mean that they’re stupid ffs

What is the US changing with regards to its policies on India?

Yeah but they don’t have the cultural and media power of the US.

They can’t, but it looks good without Britain having to toss more money at the dumpster fire.

What do you think is happening right now?

What goodwill has India built up? They don’t need goodwill because the US won’t do shit against India so long as China exists.

Everyone does this with store bought drones (mostly sourced from China, FWIW). It’s so incredibly affordable it’s crazy.

India assassinating a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is a byproduct of knowing that Canada has burned all of its geopolitical relevance and that the US won’t come to Canada’s aid.

Canada had built up a ton of goodwill in the past, but a good chunk of that was burned up aligning with the US in increasingly inane military operations.

Mexico should know better. This is just how the US treats allies that aren’t geopolitically significant like Canada and Mexico.

Do people just magically assume the world is some diverse candy land? The boers are probably one of the only people Russia can bring in without expending any political capital. It’s that simple.