We're not going to agree, again, which is fine, but Microsoft is the digital equivalent of Epstein.

You can claim they don't take your data, and it's all carefully stated in the ToS, Licensing / Privacy Policies, but it all means nothing if they don't prove it, and they've never proved it. License terms and contracts are for fools, it's all hand waving and legal jargon to excuse themselves from wrongdoing.

If you doubt that, write your own terms, make them fair, and sensible, and ask Microsoft to sign off and grant your terms, not theirs. If your terms are reasonable, they shouldn't have a problem with that, but, they will not sign your terms, they won't consider them. Seriously, give them a set of terms that all software is required to be open-source, open-audit, free from any analytic tracking or data grab. Require Microsoft to release build keys, verification keys, and a signed source chain trust, for all code. Force them to PGP sign everything, and provide you with source level build scripts. Force them to have a full isolated, independent, third-party verifications of all systems, sub-systems, and code. When they refuse to sign, why? I can tell you why, they aren't accountable, trustable, and they're digitally molesting you to the point Epstein would ask them to calm down.

If Microsoft wanted to improve their image, they would start by stripping all the analytic nonsense from their products. They would remove services that collect, analyze and traffic your data, and they would lock down Windows into a default secure state, by enabling the Group Policies that are off by default, but shouldn't be. They would remove the online account nonsense, One Drive, Office bundles, and all of that useless waste.

You can do a lot of that yourself, but shouldn't have to, since the default state should be security first, which is absolutely not how Microsoft operates. Microsoft does not care about security, some people in Microsoft might, but the company as a whole doesn't. This is straightforward to prove, require all email communication from them to use PGP, they won't, they'll refuse, but why? Granted, just using PGP means nothing, but it's an essential first step / first stage to email, which means they can't even engage with email correctly.

Oh, and you have to strip out the Microsoft secure boot keys, and resign everything, which, if Microsoft was handling properly, it would have Windows walk you thought generating client-side keys for the secure boot chain, and doing the resigning on your computer.

I really don't care what you think I know or don't know about cyber-security, it doesn't matter in this context, I've listed very basic things that Microsoft could easily do, to instill trust. I haven't brought up Linux or Unix to any degree to make it sound great or horrible, I'm simply pointed out Windows is a terrible operating system, and it objectively is. I have said many times in the past: "Windows is not for professionals.", that statement is true today, has been true for over a decade, and doesn't look it will be proven false any time in the foreseeable future.

None of this contradicts anything I brought up, if we don't agree, we don't agree.

And just so everyone knows, I did not drop to anonymity, someone else did. But yes, These folks cannot even answer a very simple hypothetical question, and try to force their narrative. Perhaps they don't realize it says much about them and their narrative?

Once again, the answer is simple IMO - If the US disappears overnight, China will become the world's dominant power. However, I would not expect them to be a gentle guiding force to lead the world to perennial peace. And that is the point. As easy as it is to deservedly whine about Trump, and claim he represents America, he does not. In fact, the Republicans are looking forward to a shellacking in the Mid Terms, the disapproval rate on Trump is now higher than Bush2 or Richard Nixon post Watergate. A majority of Americans want him impeached, his policies are wrecking the economy. I suspect some of his fervent followers in the rolling coal brigade aren't doing it as much when paying 6+ dollars per gallon for Trumpfuel diesel, and people wonder how this is happening when the US is the leading oil exporter.

But a simple hypothetical about a subject that is actually different from "trumpistan" rhetoric, with the insinuation that I'm MAGA, merely shows the utter intolerance of some people's viewpoints. To the point of embarrassing themselves.

Just collect your yuan, and declare yourself the winner for refusing to answer. At this point, I see an intelligent person who is afraid to answer the question, perhaps related to where he is posting from, and who is paying him.

Your answer merely shows your narrative, And really, it is a simple question, that you refuse to answer. I say remove America from teh equation, you try multiple times to steer it back to Trump.

Usually you are pretty intelligent and insightful. Are you perhaps collecting yuan for your statements? I mean seriously, it is just a pointed hypothetical

It is not difficult to understand that it is a hypothetical that makes a point that there has always been a dominant country. That humans always get involved with others, often in Warfare. Does not matter if it is the British Empire, the failed attempt by Europe and Japan in the 1940's that led to the US becoming dominant, or the Roman Empire, or the Egyptians, Abashevos, the Hittites or Assyrians to name a few. It was always a "smaller" world, but some group was always willing to impose their will.

Now with this - My own answer - If the USA disappears overnight, China will replace it. See how easy that was?

peace out.

There ya go! Right to the misogyny claim. Most very respectfully, you need to stop using that as your initial attack.

This was on a college campus - do you work on a college campus? There are quotas and preferences, and one way to think, Sorry that you believe that any discussion of the viability of those things means that the questioner hates women. Shame on you.

Before going further, your response is illustrative of a huge part of the problem. Because it is emblematic of a system where utter compliance is demanded, and castigation is the best you can hope for, career destruction is not unusual. And yes, there were two dynamics at play. Those hired under the quota/checkbox were allowed to pick and choose what they would do, and what they would not.

And despite your claims I hate women, indeed, I was at some level an enabler, because I would do the things they effectively refused to do. Travel, dangerous work, come in early, stay late, deal with the directorate. Is that hatred of women? They could pick and choose. But I did what I did because I am a professional.

Next note, I worked in efforts to recruit young women into STEM positions. This was in the first decade of this century, so we're talking GenZ kids. One of the most depressing parts of that were how badly it failed. We had the bring our daughters and sons to work day every year, And there were demonstrations of technology. My usual part aside from organizing was 3-D animation, which was a pretty popular demonstration. At the end of the day, we did a survey. The boys. were a standard mix, with a general attraction to STEM. The young ladies had very little interest in STEM, it was always at the bottom of the list. The scary part - at least for me - was the number one career the young ladies were choosing was Pop star Diva, usually followed by Lawyer. Veterinarian was also high on the list. Which I always considered STEM, but for some reason wasn't considered as such.

The women running the show would have a PM to discuss how things turned out. When asked, I had to be extremely careful, so I just said we need to stay the course, that full 50/50 representation was going to take time. When in fact, I came to believe that girls have their own minds, and are simply interested in what they are interested in, that vanishingly few become pop stars, so they decide on another path later in their journey. And they choose what they are interested in, despite the claims always blaming it on men.

And your rush to say I hate women is exactly why I didn't tell them what I thought - could have been career suicide. I say or write nothing hateful, and you cast me as the mortal enemy of all women. Exhibit b your honor.

And everything should be perfect. Your concept of anyone can do anything if they are trained is terribly flawed. I am really good at what I do. I have very high technical ability, have good social skills, and in addition, I am what is called a pattern weaver, https://katheryngreenleaf.subs... which makes me a extremely quick troubleshooter.

To put it bluntly, it is difficult to find a person with both excellent technical skills and social skills, and once you factor in pattern weaving, that can't be taught. No one is irreplaceable, but sometimes it takes two or more. And the reason I got called while on vacation, or when recovering from surgery, and on pain meds, was that they knew I was able to analyze their problem and fix it quickly.

My wife, who is pretty good about professionalism (she is one herself) while she was only a little annoyed by the vacation calls, was not happy at all about the recovery from surgery. Turns out they tried to get me to come in pre surgery as well, By that time I was shot up with some "I don't give a damn" med. But normal situations, she had no problem with my professionalism. All that said, I have been working post retirement with a group who are specifically there for one reason - they are tops in their field, employed for meritocracy, and we are men and women working at an extremely high level of competence without respect for our genitals. And the pay is very good. So perhaps you and I are in a different world. I merely note why I was on call so much, and it triggered you to call me a hater of women, because you are very intolerant. You think anyone can be trained to do anything - that's nice, but the hires were supposed to already know the things I did. And - no you can't train anyone to do anything.

The real pity is that those women who were hired for different reasons not necessarily related to competence, ended up crashing out when it came to downturns. Was that fair to them? One time, I got an email from one of the women who was terminated, wondering if there was ever a chance of re-hiring her. In it she said "I'll even do those other things you do." Kinda sad really, she knew that she was in a privileged position, while I was picking up the things she didn't want to do. But downturns are downturns, and the stuff I did was still required.

Have as good day sir, let no one question your narrative. I think you need it that way.

The first step to enable Secure Boot, is to fully wipe the Microsoft keys, and then make your own. If you're running Windows, you'd have to resign the entire chain, which admittedly I don't know how to do, since I don't run Windows. After that, you have to go through the OS and remove all analytic trackers, and other nonsense, including their Key Logger "Ink & Typing". Once that's done, you can start service stripping and apply Group Policy, which is a headache. After all the work is done, what do you have left? A destitute excuse for an operating system? At that point, just run a proper OS, which isn't Windows.

It's not a conspiracy theory that Microsoft steals your data, they admit it. They enable One Drive by default. They enable Ink & Type, along with other analytic services, all to steal your data. So, that being the case, you need to run something like VeraCrypt to key your files safe from Microsoft.

Yes. I watched a documentary about the Destruction wreaked on countries that fell to the Roman Empire. Once they won, the Romans set to destroying the cities, and buried the places under the rubble.

They then set to rebuilding to reinforce Roman power. Interestingly, often a coliseum was one of the first items.

War is incredibly wasteful of resources and people. But it isn't going to go away totally because it is part of our genetics.

Remind me again on how you use really poor deflection methods, and accomplish nothing?

Since you read the thread so far, that's the only thing.

I am not defending the action in Iran, or Ukraine, or wherever else humans are happily killing each other in 2026. My personal analysis is that it is a big mistake. I'll even spell it out the background and my simple question again:

Humanity has engaged in "Killing the Other", as long as we've had history, and even before, Notably at the site of Jebel Sahaba, committed against a population associated with the Qadan culture of far northern Sudan. The cemetery contains a large number of skeletons that are approximately 14,000 years old, around half of the skeletons with arrowheads embedded in them. This is the earliest scientifically determined instance of warfare.

We even engage in internecine warfare, where we kill those within our group, not "The Other". And we haven't stopped. This is not conjecture that we haven't stopped - these are verifiable facts.

Humans are not the only species to intrinsically engage in war against themselves, Pan Troglodytes (Chimpanzee) is quite violent as well.

Early History shows this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... (that page has a lot of good stuff - and is the jump point for the series on War. And oh, goodness, the Roman Empire....

So my question, which is quite simple follows: Since humans simply will engage in warfare, some group will be in the lead position.

If not the USA, tell me who you want to be in the lead position?

Do you actually know any Iranians?
The majority of them hate the regime and want it to fall, but the loudest voice online is the regime because not only do they commit a lot of resources to spreading propaganda around the world, they also suppress the voices of ordinary people so it's more difficult for them to speak out.

Biden didn't release them in 4 years, what makes you think Kamala would have?
If they were as damaging to Trump as people claim, surely Biden could have released them before the election?

they were able to pass the physical.

Oh, come on, stop harping on Joe Biden's frailty — he's been out of office for over a year now!

But you don't read the generated binaries, do you? Not even the assembly text...

I don't disagree. But the easy manipulation is because of the genetic propensity to violence. It may have helped humanity to survive in our earlier evolution, but especially now, threatens our existence.

Once again, I agree. And too far left or right becomes totalitarian as well. But my original question pretty much remains unanswered. There are too many armed conflicts around the world wo suggest that we don't like what we are doing.

War is a horrible waste of people, materials, and money. Of course we shouldn't ever make war.

My point is not about the USA, or Iran, or China, or the Great Orange shitgibbon. If it he or Putin disappeared tonight, war wouldn't go away. Because there are places where the US or Russians are not fighting. https://www.instagram.com/p/DE....

My point, and my only point is that as long as there are humans, there will be wars. Killing other humans is a core competency of humans, it has been proven over and over again.

So anyone who understands that needs to ask themselves, who do you want to be the war leaders? Because if the USA went away tomorrow, not much would change.

Blaming it on Donnie and the Epstein files is all well and good, but that's not the question I've been asking. That this present action is ill thought out is hard to deny as a major screwup there are still all the other "actions" going on, with our without him. With or without the USA.

On the one hand, it's kind of an asshole move to publicly reveal someone that would prefer a private life. On the other hand, Satoshi supposedly has $138 billion in Bitcoin and could crash the markets with rapid divestment. Maybe it is in the public's interest to know who they are? Unlike Banksy...