Unfortunately, there is another possible explanation for the emphasis on TPM that is much more sinister. It's possible that Microsoft and its allies are making a concerted effort to lock down desktop clients in the same way that the two major mobile ecosystems are locked down, to kill off general purpose computing and reduce the desktop PC to a machine that can only run approved apps and consume approved content. It already happens with things like banking apps that you can't run if you choose to root your phone to arrange the privacy and security according to your wishes instead of the vendor's or OS developer's. It already happens on open source desktops, where streaming services will deliberately downgrade the quality of the content they serve you when on the same plan you're already paying for they'd serve higher quality streams to approved (read: more DRM-friendly) devices, and where a few games won't run because their anti-cheat software behaves like malware and the free platforms treat it accordingly.

I am worried that we may be entering a make-or-break period for the survival of general purpose computing with the artificial demise of Windows 10. If the slow transition to Windows 11 as people replace their hardware in the coming years means almost everyone ends up running Windows or macOS on desktops and Android or iOS on mobile devices, there won't be enough incentive for developers of apps and creative content to support any other platform, and all the older versions that didn't have as much built-in junk and all the free alternatives will be reduced to irrelevant background noise because they won't support things that users want to do any more. Your own devices will force updates, ads, reboots, AI-driven "help", covert monitoring and telemetry, any other user-hostile junk their true masters wish upon you, and there will be nothing you can do about it.

Governments should be intervening on behalf of their people at this point because the whole system is blatantly anti-competitive and user-hostile, but most of the Western nations are either relying on the absurd valuations in the tech sector to prop up their otherwise precarious economies or watching with envy while their more economically successful allies do that. So our best hope is probably for the legacy platforms to hold out long enough for some free platform(s) to reach critical mass. And frankly, there aren't many realistic paths to get there. Our best hope might be for Valve/Steam to show that many of those Windows 10 boxes in people's homes can now play most of the same games if they shift to Linux and possibly run some of them better than on Windows as well.

Another Canadian dunce who's drank the warm cup of PP ...

I dunno. China is a "market socialist" system -- which is a contradiction in terms. If China is socialist, then for practical purposes Norway and Sweden have to be even *more* socialist because they have a comprehensive public welfare system which China lacks. And those Nordic countries are rated quite high on global measures of political and personal freedom, and very low on corruption. In general they outperform the US on most of those measures, although the US is better on measures of business deregulation.

That has not been my experience, at all. I'm entirely against the concept of what they're doing (giving me a reason not to visit the websites that ultimately pay for the production and publication of information) but the AI summaries and links to related articles tend to be spot on what I'm looking for. Perhaps you can give me a (non-contrived) search to try that demonstrates your claim?

It makes no sense to claim Chinese courts have a lot of power, although it may seem that way â" itâ(TM)s supposed to seem that way. One of the foundational principles of Chinese jurisprudence is party supremacy. Every judge is supervised by a PLC â" party legal committee â" which oversees budgets, discipline and assignments in the judiciary. They consult with the judges in sensitive trials to ensure a politically acceptable outcome.

So it would be more accurate to characterize the courts as an instrument of party power rather than an independent power center.

From time to time Chinese court decisions become politically inconvenient, either through the supervisors in the PLC missing something or through changing circumstances. In those cases there is no formal process for the party to make the courts revisit the decision. Instead the normal procedure is for the inconvenient decision to quietly disappear from the legal databases, as if it never happened. When there is party supremacy, the party can simply rewrite judicial history to its current needs.

An independent judiciary seems like such a minor point; and frankly it is often an impediment to common sense. But without an independent judiciary you canâ(TM)t have rule of law, just rule by law.

Hereâ(TM)s the problem with that scenario: court rulings donâ(TM)t mean much in a state ruled by one party. China has plenty of progressive looking laws that donâ(TM)t get enforced if it is inconvenient to the party. There are emission standards for trucks and cars that should help with their pollution problems, but there are no enforcement mechanisms and officials have no interest in creating any if it would interfere with their economic targets or their private interests.

China is a country of strict rules and lax enforcement, which suits authoritarian rulers very well. It means laws are flouted routinely by virtually everyone, which gives the party leverage. Displease the party, and they have plenty of material to punish you, under color of enforcing laws. It sounds so benign, at least theyâ(TM)re enforcing the law part of the time, right? Wrong. Laws selectively enforced donâ(TM)t serve any public purpose; theyâ(TM)re just instruments of personal power.

Americans often donâ(TM)t seem to understand the difference between rule of law and rule *by* law. Itâ(TM)s ironic because the American Revolution and constitution were historically important in establishing the practicality of rule of law, in which political leaders were not only expected to obey the laws themselves, but had a duty to enforce the law impartially regardless of their personal opinions or interests.

Rule *by* law isnâ(TM)t a Chinese innovation, it was the operating principle for every government before 1789. A government that rules *by* law is only as good as the men wielding power, and since power corrupts, itâ(TM)s never very good for long.

Texas and Florida prohibit local governments from mandating rest and water breaks.

The issue with health concerns like this is that it's not like it explodes and kills you - there's really no way to say, "It was the molecule on March 13, 2026 that started cancer in your body"

You can't even do that with cigarettes - you can only make a conclusion on cause that's well supported by circumstantial evidence.

And I'm not saying you're arguing against it, but just broadly speaking ... arguing *against* more information - unless the argument is that the information itself is inaccurate - seems particularly anti free-market to me. (Obviously that's why companies fight against the burden of regulation designed to increase market transparencies.)

No, it won't. The numbers ultimately published are massaged by agencies run by political appointees. Formulae are tailored to fit narratives and ultimately what we get is propaganda.

Your scheme, for instance: Who will be participating, and who will be eligible for a reward? These calls will be made by political forces.

That number is not credible. The prompts I write for "personal" purposes are literally indistinguishable from what a worker might make: for all ChatGPT knows I'm an auto mechanic. Location isn't a valid metric either, given WFH, mobile devices, etc. They can't possibly distinguish between work and personal to a one digit of precision. Obviously they can see whether prompts are coming from commercial accounts, paid personal accounts or free tier, but even that gets fuzzy at the low end.

There are few wells of propaganda deeper than those of "inflation numbers."

That, right there.

Just as one minute example of many: did you notice or care that BLS disappeared ~1.7 million US jobs in less than 12 months? "Corrections."

You have no "evidence." What you have is your preferred propaganda. Failure to dutifully inculcate propaganda as "evidence" is the exact opposite of servile.

If you could get a commie (or whatever you'd prefer) elected with the temerity to "just do stuff," you'd follow he/she/it off any number of cliffs as well. Pretend otherwise and show me your perfidity.

The framers put a lot of power in the Executive. The fact that whatever your side might be is incapable of producing actual leaders that can set aside the establishment group-think and leverage this is both a symptom of your sclerotic nature and also a shame. I'm not the simple minded knuckle dragger you presume.

If they did or didn't wouldn't matter to Trump in any meaningful way. Trump doesn't listen to technocrats until they make the mistake of opposing him. Trump also doesn't given a damn what other nations do or don't.

That's leadership. You may hate him for it, but you can't deny it.

I can't recall any business moguls jumping up and down about this. On the other hand, I haven't heard anyone screaming from the hills about the high costs of such a change either, and business never, ever fail to bitch about regulatory costs. So I have to discount your supposed concern.

That I can recall. Yes he did. He mentioned it on occasion in speeches, so this no surprise to me. Obviously it's not a big vote-getter of an issue, so he didn't walk around in a big red "MAKE CORPORATE REPORTING GREAT AGAIN" hat, but it was a point in the campaign.