Basically: Resident enfranchisement. It’s weird, when people born in our country and having lived here their whole life can’t vote outside of local elections. My own father, for example, had a Dutch background, and was never allowed to vote in federal elections until his death. (Neither he nor I even spoke/speak a single phrase of Dutch)

Yes, things have gotten somewhat better and easier with applications for citizenship, but that there are hurdles like that to begin with, is a bit… weird.

archive.ph - link without registration wall

The investments are being placed through opaque structures known as special-purpose vehicles, which have the benefit of concealing the investors’ identities, to avoid the ire of US authorities and companies wary of Chinese capital during a nadir in relations between the two countries.

Asset managers behind the deals have told investors that the entities are specifically designed to avoid disclosure. The use of special-purpose vehicles in financing is commonplace and there is nothing illegal about the arrangements.

Still, it raises concerns about the potential for undue influence and conflicts of interest at a time when Musk has unprecedented involvement in US policy, politics and business.

Funnily enough, to me personally, there are more questions about what this means concerning Chinese politics and conflicts of interests in the future. The country is not without its own tensions, after all.

The inflow of Chinese capital into Musk’s business empire is primarily profit-driven and has little to do with technology transfer or influencing public policy, according to people involved in the transactions.

With a sluggish domestic economy, wealthy Chinese are looking abroad for investment opportunities.

To me, personally, it serves as a reminder that no amount of red flags waved or social-democratic laws saying “wealth is going to serve the interests of the working class” makes a country communist, only material realities can.

Don’t choose Germany, though, we (and a lot of nations, actually) still for some reason have citizenship-by-blood/heritage laws more or less straight out of the 19th century, not citizenship-by-birthplace laws.

Funnily enough, I had never gotten one on my old account which was >4 years old on .ml - but after I made this one on my own instance, in less than a day, I finally got one.

It’s a simple choice, really, considering how many hours I managed to invest as a kid:

Literally viewing the world like a EU4 map painting player would

That’s understandable and fair enough - main reason I pointed it out was because your comment made it seem like the video was one of the watchtime bait ones, that only reveal the answer halfway through or even only at the end, potentially keeping even people interested from even trying to watch. Thankfully, its right at the beginning, and the rest is just details about development, context, gameplay and such.

Funnily enough, he reveals that quite early in the video, so you saved them maybe 5 minutes at best. EDIT: It’s actually at about the 1:15 mark

I think it is a mix of narcissism and related impulsivity, grifters in his circle influencing him so they and he himself can speculate on a recession and market manipulation from his policies, ideologically indoctrinated people that drank their own cool-aid about libertarianism and finally, indeed, him also declining after he was never all that bright to begin with.