That one country shouldn't fight for a suicidal county for sure. It seems clear to me that certain treaties no longer bind similar ideals and I think a period of isolationism is due for everyone. Best of luck.

UCyborg wrote on 2026-04-04, 16:54:

World would be better if this one stupid country with its psycho president didn't stuck its nose into everything.

I'm still baffled how he managed to get elected not just once, but TWICE.

We dont allow conspiracy theory here, but I will do my best to answer your question earnestly, all the same.

More or less:

The US political system does not tolerate 3rd party voices meaningfully. As such, the system stabilizes on 2 basic ideological camps.
Generally speaking, "Negative Emotional Experiences" have stronger memory potentiation than positive ones. This is not a suggestion, this actually holds up to scrutiny.
As such, it is "advantageous" to both ideological encampments to demonize the other, and assign blame of any and every negative emotional episodic memory with the actions of policies of the *other*, while attempting to distance themselves from the same action by the other camp.

This evolution gives rise to specialized propagandist thinktanks that specialize in shaping the emotional perceptions of the electorate within target demographics, such as Heritage Foundation, and company. These groups cluster around "Political Action Committees", and other funding vehicles, to push specific narratives and policies designed to foster this ideological isolation and emotional reinforcement in the electorate, in order to more reliably and assuredly produce real voting results at election times.

Many many Many decades of this later, you have the kind of post-modernism that Jean Baudrillard waxes philosophical about (literally.) Things have long since stopped being about actual things that happened, and are now entirely based on symbols of, representations of, and emotional perceptions of, past events or policies. Much like the "Hatfields and McCoys", at some point, nobody even remembers what the initial points of policy disparity *even were*, only that "The other party" is bad, and to blame, and must be stopped at all costs, with only bland and flimsy generalizations given, instead of specific, actionable policy contentions. As such, any actual ability to establish dialog between the parties breaks down, since nothing of any actionable substance exists to be communicated or worked on in the first place. There is only "Our Policy" (which is intrinsically good) and "Their policy" (Which is intrinsically bad).

These same groups (thinktanks and PACs) are specifically engaged in political engineering through public perception management, and make extensive use of targeted advertisement, social engineering with preferred entertainment sources or figures, and statistical application and study of things like Sunk Costs, and Blowback effect. They use these tools to select policies, agendas, and investment strategies that will be most favorable to the ideological encampment they service, with no other considerations taken. (Like what is *quantitatively or qualitatively best FOR THE NATION*)

Generally, people in the US (I happen to live here), are already suffering from "Information overload" and "Attention deficits". Meaning, the electorate is becoming less and less *capable* of observing, understanding, and voluntarily counteracting the political machinations of these interest groups.

Conditions are favorable to, and continue to become *MORE FAVORABLE TO*, the policies and practices of these kinds of political engineering groups, with a naturally more and more ideologically segregated and less and less rational national mindset about any specific sets of policies.

Due to this, a breakdown in actual quality of candidates emerges, as the candidates *THEMSELVES* are products of many decades of this political manipulation process, and *THEMSELVES* hold unrealistic, non-specific, generalized and non-actionable views about policy. Since the public is likewise losing the ability to discern this, or to discern actionable policy from nonactionable policy, through purposeful activity of these groups, there is no balance or check against it. It just continues to snowball.

Our current political deadlock in the legislature, with people there that very clearly should not be there, and people holding high offices that have no real qualifications to support them holding them aside from generalized emotional or general political-alignment ones, with a highly polarized electorate, *Naturally Follows.*

I do *NOT* enjoy having this revelation.

wierd_w wrote on Yesterday, 16:22:

.......... Due to this, a breakdown in actual quality of candidates emerges, as the candidates *THEMSELVES* are products of many […]
Show full quote

..........
Due to this, a breakdown in actual quality of candidates emerges, as the candidates *THEMSELVES* are products of many decades of this political manipulation process, and *THEMSELVES* hold unrealistic, non-specific, generalized and non-actionable views about policy. Since the public is likewise losing the ability to discern this, or to discern actionable policy from nonactionable policy, through purposeful activity of these groups, there is no balance or check against it. It just continues to snowball.

Our current political deadlock in the legislature, with people there that very clearly should not be there, and people holding high offices that have no real qualifications to support them holding them aside from generalized emotional or general political-alignment ones, with a highly polarized electorate, *Naturally Follows.*

I do *NOT* enjoy having this revelation.

The above post is one of the most succinct and accurate explanations of the current US (and maybe the world's) political situation I've read.

Basically why the American people get to choose between a giant douche and turd sandwich every election. (Thanks South Park...)

I probably differ politically than most of the posters here, and since Vogons is one of my few political free sanctuaries of the internet, I try to stay away from the subject like the plague... 🤣

If I wanted to be blasted by political ridiculousness I could go to Reddit or turn on CNN\MSNBC\FOX.

I literally get angry thinking to myself while in the voting booth (in both Presidential and mid-terms) that the names I get to choose from are supposed to be the best candidates that this nation can produce.... It is literally insulting as I can think of scores of other names that should be on those ballots, yet we get to choose from the ridiculous characters put forth from both parties.

It is like some sort of dark comedy.

All we can do is pull the lever for the ones that we "hope" will align with the policies closest to ours.

Roll the dice and place your bets....

For those of you outside of the US, This is also why you see the giant swings of American priorities every 4\8 years.

One party goes crazy implementing fringe crap aiming to correct the "injustices" of the other.

Then the other party does the same thing when the first one is voted out.

The glorious topping of the cake is when one party will call out the other for the exact actions that they themselves did 4/8 years ago.

Both sides do this frequently and I just can't take anything that they say seriously.

There doesn't seem to be a focus on the shared challenges of Americans.

All you hear is that the other side is evil, when the side that is making the accusations is just as bad.

Currently all you hear on one side of the media is that everything evil in the world is the Orange Man's fault.

If the cackling idiot would have won the other side would be doing the same thing.

For those of us that aren't trapped in our phone screens we realize that all of this is just two sides of the same crap sandwich.

For both sides, It's never about the good of the American people (or the world in fact).... it's all about who "wins".

No matter if you call yourself a liberal or conservative, there hasn't been much "winning" for decades.

Just the two cents of an old man in the country.... so mileage may vary.

Trashbytes wrote on 2026-04-04, 12:28:

Also pretty hard to enslave someone who simply removes all tech from their life and goes and lives as a hermit in the mountains.

Unfortunately we have very few examples of resistance to draw upon and even then it's exchanging one illiberal nightmare for another:

Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada (born 19 October 1967) [...] is an Afghan cleric who is the supreme leader of Afghanistan under the Taliban government. [...] A highly reclusive figure, he has almost no digital footprint except for an unverified photograph and several audio recordings of speeches.
Akhundzada does not use modern technology, preferring to make phone calls on landlines [and] communicates with Taliban officials via letters.

Trump is basically another Richard Nixon, for better or worse.

All the same drama with allies, tariffs and trade wars with Europe and Japan, cutting loose from unpopular foreign wars (Zelensky is Thieu)

This Iran thing is analogous to Nixon supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War, which also caused the world economy to go to hell.

One thing we can be sure of is that Trump isn't tape-recording his private White House conversations. That wasn't one of Nixon's better ideas.

All personal opinions aside. While I hate the current "situation" as a whole, especially being a tech geek, it will pass. I hate not being able to do some things I would like to do simply becasue I refuse to pay such crazy inflated prices. The current climate will change. The AI boom is more of a bubble, and it will eventually pop if you really take a look at where most of the money is being circulated and spent. It might not happen all at once, it might take some time, but prices will eventually start to come down.

What's kinda funny is I am almost to the point I'm willing to pay the eBay asking price for a PCI 3DFX Voodoo 1 for my DOS machine, but can't bring myself to spend the current asking prices for RAM.

Of course, I really don't want any RAM, but I really would like a Voodoo. 😜

haha, there's a rare Voodoo 2 card that I watched for years on eBay because I needed it to complete my SLI setup.

It was 50 euros though and I couldn't bring myself to pay such an inflated price.

Now it's gone, and I still don't have working SLI.

StriderTR wrote on Today, 00:06:

All personal opinions aside. While I hate the current "situation" as a whole, especially being a tech geek, it will pass. I hate not being able to do some things I would like to do simply becasue I refuse to pay such crazy inflated prices. The current climate will change. The AI boom is more of a bubble, and it will eventually pop if you really take a look at where most of the money is being circulated and spent. It might not happen all at once, it might take some time, but prices will eventually start to come down.

People who keep claiming this: How long will it take? 5 years? 10 years? I honestly don't think prices will come back down. They may lower slightly, but never to what we had 6 months ago. Due to simple greed, graft and collusion. They force the people to pay, they're weaned on the high prices, and, suddenly, a slight reduction in the outrageous prices will seem like a "deal". So, the artificially-high prices become the new normal. In what world will your expensive $20 fast-food burger of today's awful inflation suddenly drop back $5 or $10? Never. Artificial scarcity, intentional limiting of supply work to create extra demand, so prices balloon. These companies are pressing all of our buttons and will continue to do so, as it's extremely profitable for them.

The eventual lowering of prices of components goes completely against the planned subscription-based model. So, self-fulfilling prophecy, prices will never be lowered.

The time of cheap components is sadly over, just as the time of cheap power (electricity rates) is long gone now. It makes me absolutely sick, but we're totally at the mercy of these rapacious companies and their "pure" capitialism.

@ Big Pink
Unfortunately we have very few examples of resistance to draw upon and even then it's exchanging one illiberal nightmare for another:

*snip cause the forum software wont allow replies to quotes within quotes.

As bad as the Taliban are this man has a good reason to be as reclusive as he is, his situation hardly compares to the average joe who simply refuses to be tracked and haunted by big brother and rejects all technology as a means to remain anonymous and maintain some semblance of privacy.

One remains reclusive to protect their own life the other does so of their own free will to maintain privacy from overbearing anti privacy policies and laws.

The world has gone stupid and the people who are pushing for this ID everywhere are only doing so as a means to track, monitor and control the people who they consider to be nothing more than cattle, it was never about the children. You only need to track the money to see who is at the head of it ...in the US its META lobbying hard for these laws to be passed which isn't all that surprising considering who owns and runs that company.

The ability for corporations to lobby for laws that only benefit their bottom line is the most absurd thing ever, no idea how the US ever allowed it to occur.

Shponglefan wrote on Yesterday, 15:46:

UCyborg wrote on 2026-04-04, 16:54:

World would be better if this one stupid country with its psycho president didn't stuck its nose into everything.

I'm still baffled how he managed to get elected not just once, but TWICE.

The US has had a steady long game of erosion of youth opportunities, middle class, our government protections, courts, educational system and safeguards against commercial integration of government for 45 years by reactionary extremists. What’s in place now didn’t just show up, specific out of luck groups have had constant outreach and indoctrination by the reactionary right for 28 years. (Using the same tactics used by Islamic extremism but with the advantage of the internet)
Worse because we only have 2 parties both were destructively neo liberal ignoring basic needs of normal people making them into unruly cranks, who had no hope for the future, becoming easy fodder . What many in us continue to fail to comprehend is that the parties still aren’t the same and miles apart, one has just made itself unelectable and worthless. We need a replacement for the 2 party system because one of the parties needs to be dissolved.

The belief we can just return from this is a fantasy, the world order will likely randomize, the way of life for most across the globe will be forever changing in the next 5 or 10 years.

The groups who brought us here…
To put it mildly if you watch interviews of the wealthy people who installed him, (wealthy people rarely on the news) they aren’t hiding that they hate people, especially middle class people who have a small degree of freedom. Many in the billionaire class are truly terrifying and delusional. If they aren’t trying to re-enact events in revelation in real life, they are going on about the need to depopulate and how ai helps with this.

Even they may be getting tired of him now but more or less he is doing everything they wanted, which is to destroy the petrodollar and its system and crash the economy, causing fear and removing all the protections and guarantees from the .gov and legal systems.
then buy up it’s resources and land cheaply.

Be careful because no matter What country you are in you aren’t immune. Your leaders may condemn but actually are operating with complacency.
the multinational morons giving the man of the hour his ideas are likely more problematic than the us and are found in most countries throughout the world.
I have already noted dumbheaded BS in the western providences of Canada that reads identical to what is going on in the us. It’s a rather large group and if not actively dealt with will drag them into our nonsense.

AKA we are dealing with an entire global problem who’s end goal is likely further financial enslavement.
Do not be like the us and identify dangerous entities, many outside the us think they recognize dangerous elements in their society but even the uk is eroding rights with dumb headed and dangerous things like the Brit card with digital and biometrics.

You might get served up your own form of stupid but on a liberal banner of being convient and find yourselves with the same issues but In a different governmental system.

Trashbytes wrote on Today, 02:37:

The ability for corporations to lobby for laws that only benefit their bottom line is the most absurd thing ever, no idea how the US ever allowed it to occur.

Why did British petroleum choose in the 70’s to make Iran into worst threat to humanity because they didn’t want to pay taxes to a liberal Iranian government on oil they extracted from Iran to help improve the lives of the Iranian people?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-CHIR1J8Zq8

Greed and stupidity,
Nixons buddies pushed for the first time to get the businesses and wealthy class to manipulate elections because the common sense protections of basic human rights was in the way of increasing profit. They also felt business was getting no say in .gov.

the boomer generation was well to do and then knew better than all the previous generations on issues of decorum, behavior and legal interpretations of their predecessors leading them to willfully misinterpreted case law to erode intended governmental protections and make legal financial practices that a generation earlier would get you kicked out of the business society. All because it made making money easier.
The tax reform act of 86 combined with the 81 recovery act are one example of a massive blunder that is still falling out.

We went from hard nosed ruthless businessmen who made money the hard way by running a successful business avoiding scandals (honor amongst thieves) to an all drug Olympics business environment that makes money off getting as much .gov handouts and successfully getting as many loans as possible you never repay.

Having such dependencies inevitably puts the fox in the hen house.

Oh boy. Don't start talking about Trump. Trump is for a certain 30-40% of Americans. If you're not in that group you won't understand him and will probably view him as perplexing at best, evil at worst. That's why this discussion is a black hole, especially on a computer forum. Let's keep talking about computers and stop talking about politics.

All I can say, is that if and when this situation passes, I'm gonna be stockpiling parts. No more "when I need it" waiting.

Last year I was considering buying a 5070 Ti. I thought to myself "eh, I'll wait until the next gen cards come out and these ones drop in price."

That worked out great for me.

This might not be the right section of the forum. But I suppose there’s only very strict moderation here when it comes to discussing illegal topics. I’d like to think that Vogons is free and apolitical. Anyone can talk about whatever they like; whether they get a reply or not, there’s a section for that. If the topic has come up, it’s because more than one person links what’s happening and being done in a certain country to the current global unrest. In other words, what a certain psychopath does affects the world of computing. For example, the way he attacked Anthropic and how OpenAI caved in. The problem with RAM prices – many of us say it’s down to LLMs.
So, yes, it does affect computers.

Hoping wrote on Today, 16:52:

This might not be the right section of the forum. But I suppose there’s only very strict moderation here when it comes to discussing illegal topics. I’d like to think that Vogons is free and apolitical. Anyone can talk about whatever they like; whether they get a reply or not, there’s a section for that. If the topic has come up, it’s because more than one person links what’s happening and being done in a certain country to the current global unrest. In other words, what a certain psychopath does affects the world of computing. For example, the way he attacked Anthropic and how OpenAI caved in. The problem with RAM prices – many of us say it’s down to LLMs.
So, yes, it does affect computers.

Agreed and it’s worth noting how we got here, lots of countries made very poor decisions in the past, and have played a role in moving the bar so extremely low as to allow for the problems affecting us all.

The bright shiny object is just the tip of the iceberg and hides the real source of issues today.

If and when we crawl out there will probably be decades of work to fix what’s broken.

And that includes helium, the situation with that and things as dumb as copper are FAR worse than most folks understand.

Hoping wrote on Today, 16:52:

Anyone can talk about whatever they like

Not really, if the freak doesn't like it, he'll censor you. Even if it's a social just issue that only mentally deranged ones would disagree with.

My computing future (if there is one) if I don't change my mind until I get to the next bridge? Probably stick to this 17 years old machine until something critical dies that isn't easily replaced. I realize going for another 17 years is a stretch at this point. Then fall-back to Raspberry Pi 5 and suck it up and use Linux. Guess I'll be less on the internet unless font rendering in Linux gets better.

keenmaster486 wrote on Today, 16:31:

Last year I was considering buying a 5070 Ti. I thought to myself "eh, I'll wait until the next gen cards come out and these ones drop in price."

That worked out great for me.

I was thinking about my new build early in 2025. I was going to get a 4080 super TI or whatever it was called. Then i heard that the 50 series was on the way so I waited. I built the rest of the system halfway into 2025. Then later in the year I got the 5080. Not long after, the ram prices went up and so did everythign else. I built my new rig at the very last minute and only by luck.

It will be interesting to see how the value of RTX 5xxx holds considering DLSS 5 and the neural texture compression being hyped. Both seem likely to need a new architecture to perform.

keenmaster486 wrote on Today, 16:22:

Oh boy. Don't start talking about Trump. Trump is for a certain 30-40% of Americans. If you're not in that group you won't understand him and will probably view him as perplexing at best, evil at worst. That's why this discussion is a black hole, especially on a computer forum. Let's keep talking about computers and stop talking about politics.

Yep.... that's what I was trying to say.

No matter where you go on the internet as soon as "Orange Man Bad\Root of all evil" comes up, the thread (usually) stops being about the topic at hand.

No one has the exact same opinions and I'm tired of the "if you don't agree you are Satan (or a communist)" rhetoric by both sides.

Keep that crap on Reddit.... I want to talk about nerd shit....

I was thinking about my new build early in 2025. I was going to get a 4080 super TI or whatever it was called. Then i heard that the 50 series was on the way so I waited. I built the rest of the system halfway into 2025. Then later in the year I got the 5080. Not long after, the ram prices went up and so did everythign else. I built my new rig at the very last minute and only by luck.

I think a lot of this plays into not just the cost of hardware, but the state of "New" gaming itself right now.... Which is crap.