Doing it on Live Television is the whole point. Trump wants the world to see exactly how to avoid things like Tariffs and get preferential treatment: bribe him personally and/or “kiss the ring”.
So Trump is trying to hurt/disadvantage other countries/companies by decreasing the buying power of us citizens… ergo hurting their bottom line. How much money does the us give to the penguins, compared to other countries like China?
Look how I still insult him in an attempt to be funny… Nobody can match Trump’s pure athleticism, nor his pedo proclivities.
…LACK of… Nobody can match Trump’s LACK of pure athleticism…
Meant to put /s
Coming from a non-US centric point of view: I generally believed in the idea that the government does everything it does for the good of an entity. Sometimes that entity is the people (legality of cannabis), sometimes it is one person (presidential pardons) and sometimes its a company (bailouts). We can argue how ‘good’ any of these actions actually are, but thats beside the point. I always knew there were backdoor deals and some companies or some people got special privileges (corruption). But that was always behind closed doors. Rarely did it leak to the public stage and when it did, news coverage and accountability followed (usually).
However you may feel about government, it generally works on the principles of law. The ideal was; If you followed the law, you had the same opportunity as anyone else doing it.
I still can’t comprehend how Trump completely flipped this around. There is no semblance of just democracy and unjust corruption anymore. Giving the president actual gold in exchange for an exemption of law while openly broadcasting it. The ideal is broken and shattered on live TV. Justice is now blind because Trump is pissing on her face and she cant look at his limp dick anymore.
It makes perfect sense when you see the billionaires as lords and Trump as king. It’s a feudal kingdom ruled by royals, not a nation with laws. That’s just how it is now.
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That’s the part that soooooo many people underestimate. There’s a huge list of formerly “loyal” people who Trump tossed aside without a second thought. It’s not political maneuvering after you put a crown on the man’s head.
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I’m not saying that appeasement is always the way, but I’d rather Apple stayed off Trump’s vindictive side by giving him a little shiny toy then by giving them (for example) user data or backdoors into their platform.
Yes, in an ideal world, they’d tell the whole administration to go fuck itself, but they also don’t want to be destroyed by the government (however illegal that may be, do you really think they’d survive long enough for all the legal challenges to go through the system if Trump decided Apple had to go?)
giving him a little shiny toy
It wasn’t a shiny toy…
The base was a literal gold bar, that just had been reshaped to hold the piece of glass.
trump will 100% throw the glass away and melt/sell the gold.
It was one step away from a bag of cash
I don’t think Trump is that hard up for cash that he’s melting little gold bars.
Especially not when it’s a symbol of his power to make Apple bend
…
This is like say Gollum doesn’t really want his Precious…
It doesn’t matter if people like that need more, they’ll always want more.
If Trump would decide Apple “has to go”, the US can stop pretending that they live in a democracy.
The US has pretty much never been a real democracy (other than in a roman sense, as in “power belongs to rich men”).
In the Roman sense, it was never a democracy, in the sense that we vote for representatives, who then in turn vote on stuff for us. Er, I mean for the corporations. So you can see why this system is so prone to abuse.
Every Western democracy votes for representatives, direct democracy isn’t really a thing (except for partially in Switzerland). But many countries actually manages to represent the voters with their representatives, the US system definitely doesn’t.
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We only saw the part of the appeasement process which was meant to be public. We have no way of knowing what is included in the non-public part.
lol one has nothing to do with another.
This is the type of thinking that has put corporations above people. “Oh no the trillion dollar company can’t do the right thing or they could go under!”
You never have more power against an authoritarian than you do right now.
You have to resist, push back, fight etc. or you keep losing.
You have zero way of knowing that there aren’t some level of backdoors. There’s zero reason to think they wouldn’t fold for the US govt like they did for the Chinese government. Lastly there is no high ground here for Apple. It’s bad enough that they go above and beyond to dodge taxes and this is them doing more of that but in a somewhat more shameful way than normal. Fuck em.
It would be amazingly risky for Apple to hide backdoors in their products. One of their big selling points is their reputation for taking user data privacy seriously. If it ever came out that they’d helped a government by violating that, their credibility would be shot and they’d lose a noticeable percentage of customers overnight.
That’s not good business, so I don’t think they’d risk it.
Remember back when the U.S. government had to go to the international hacker community to try and hack an iPhone about 10 years ago? I remember, and Pepperidge Farms remember. Maybe they’ve added backdoors since then, but there hasn’t been any evidence of that, and it wouldn’t be able to be kept quiet for very long of there were. You’re collecting down votes, but I don’t think you’re wrong.
Lol. If you don’t think Apple has backdoors in their products I have a bridge to sell you.
If you think Apple has hidden backdoors, some class action lawsuits would love to know about it. They’ve filled their pockets on much much less damning evidence.
I’d be more interested in your background and knowledge of these backdoors than some bridge
Their reputation amounts to them telling us that privacy is a human right but forgetting that the instant the Chinese government comes between Apple and money. Also if they were truly serious about security they would be open source. Like others have said, if the government wants a backdoor, they will get it no matter what apple says publicly because profits matter more than anything.
One of their big selling points is their reputation for taking user data privacy seriously.
lol, that is reputation only
Oh my. The cope of the Apple hive mind.
I knew someone would say that.
What are my other options?
I’ve gotten away from Microsoft and Android.
I need a phone that can run modern banking apps, so I can’t run some janky Linux OS just for hyper privacy.
I also need something my parents can use, since they’re all in on Apple at the moment too. I don’t live close enough to regularly visit to do on site tech support, and honestly, not my idea of fun anyway.
For better or worse, Apple is it at the moment.
What banking apps don’t run on Android? You’re coping hard right now.
Well I don’t want stock android, do I? I can hope Apple aren’t selling my personal data. I know that Google would. I’ve de-googled my life, I’m not going back.
Keep hoping and coping then. Just drop the pretense that you aren’t doing exactly that.
You know that Apple sells it too, I havr degoogled my life too, and I can use android totally fine with a stock rom and with google services completely disables because yes you can disable it and yes it works fine without it. With apple they will force you to use their apps and shit ecosystem with android you can choose within at least.
Not for long, you won’t be able to sideload your banking app in the future with all the work being done on device attestation.
Every bank in the country has a website. Just use your browser like a regular desktop user. Not everything needs to be an app ffs.
Whose to say they haven’t already?
I’d rather Apple stayed off Trump’s vindictive side by giving him a little shiny toy then by giving them (for example) user data or backdoors into their platform.
Who says they aren’t also giving that data?
I’ve not read anything suggesting they are. I’d imagine this would be quite a big story if anyone has any evidence of it, and the Trump regime is incapable of keeping its mouth shut.
Plus someone from Apple would leak it. Even if you genuinely believe Tim Apple is sucking trump’s dick, you can’t believe the entire company supports that.
I believe these large tech companies give all kinds of data to the government already. Probably more than any of us should be comfortable with. Would anybody notice if they expanded the data set slightly?
If Apple weren’t pussies, and Trump said he’d end them for not capitulating, they’d just have to release all sorts of goodies that Trump and his cronies stored in their cloud.
But alas, everyone and every company in America is a damned wuss.
Apple should be destroyed by the goverment, case closed.
Regardless, as mister H. has shown and mister P. too, you can never appease a authoritarian monster, they always ask for more.
Yeah, because appeasing fascists has traditionally gone well…
Absolutely not, there’s no upside to capitulating to a fascist, period.
If the government wants backdoors they’ll get them and in fact probably already have them. I’d rather no one appease a fascist dictator and anyone who does or thinks it’s a good idea is a fascist by proxy.
He screwed up. It should have been a solid gold apple.
Wouldn’t work, everyone in the administration would agree he’s the fairest goddess.
Tim Cook is a Trump supporter
No he’s not.
how?
Oh ok he just gives the guy gold bars and millions of dollars. I wish Tim Cook would stop supporting me.
I think “enabler” is probably a better word choice than “supporter”.
That doesn’t make it right, or even much better…but I do think that there’s a difference.
There is no distinction when it comes to fascists.
“Tim Cook gives Donald Trump Millions of dollars” = y’all sleep
I say “That shit makes him a Trump supporter” = real shit
I guess I made you think
(The short answer is that among his pile of “supporters” you’re going to find a bunch of “enablers”.
A good analogy for it would be that all rectangles are 4 sided polygons, but Tim Cook is a fucking Trump supporter.)
Had he been on Trump’s side, Tim would have endorsed him and supported him the moment he announced his candidacy—the first time. Instead he waited until Trump was officially elected to make a real gesture.
Tim Cook is wise enough to know he won’t win this battle. Trump is currently untouchable. And he’s not gonna go to war against the presidency, no matter who is currently holding the position of President of the United States.
If he does, he knows that no one will win but Trump. And that both his company, and its client base will pay the price, by way of tariffs and many others. Instead, he flattered Trump’s ego instead, offering him trinkets and a big glittery show that appeased the tantrums of the Toddler-King. Yes, Trump may flipflop like he almost always does, but that cost will still be less than going to war with him.
I also wish it hadn’t come to that, but a fascist regime is currently holding power—and the entire world hostage—in the States.
—— PS. Please forgive my previous reply, I was out of line. Heat is getting to me.
He’s not, honestly, at least not from what I’ve seen. He just worships money, so he’ll dance to any tune. In some ways, that’s even worse. At least the dummy MAGA folks think it’s important to stand for something, even if they’re brainwashed and often of poor character…
I’m curious what would happen if a band of rogue companies went full cyberpunk and just completely ignored/bypassed the administration. I know it would have terrible consequences but it fun to see an entity with fuck you money actually say fuck you.
Not sure which companies have said “fuck you money”. Most notable companies with deep pockets are still beholden to shareholders, and Trump is intentionally pulling levers to pressure companies through them.
That being said, Tim Cook, perhaps ironically, is one of the few(only?) CEOs in my memory to tell investors not to invest in the stock if all they care about is ROI:
https://www.macobserver.com/news/tim-cook-rejects-ncppr-politics/Granted that was over a decade ago.
I mean, if he’s that cheap to bribe, you’d be stupid not to.
Or maybe, I dunno, principled?
I guess I’m learning that most of the people in my country are feckless assholes.
Yep! I caught a bit of grief for saying the exact same thing the other day. I’m not gonna hate, he did what was best for his company and the price was ludicrously low. Best part? Trump’s too dumb to be insulted by this cringe.
I think it’s OK to still hate. Kissing ass while smirking because you’re soooo smart is still kissing ass. And Apple was part of putting Trump into office.
I mean, I’m not expecting anyone to be happy about it, but it’s basically a requirement at this point.
Doing it publicly really highlights the brazenness of the whole tariff scam too.
Ok - that whole thing was absurd and cringey and Tim is a billionaire and billionaires shouldn’t exist but I think Tim is far from one of the richest CEOs in the world.
I don’t think he even makes the top 20; maybe even top 50?
Yeah he’s a recent addition to the billionaire basket.
Ah, well if he’s only profited off of the exploitation of others for a decade instead of two or three, I suppose we can give him a pass! He seems great, with those billions of hard-earned (by other people) dollars! What a swell oligarch!
I didn’t say any of that. Just agreeing that he isn’t in the top of “richest CEOs in the world.”
Reading comprehension is important.
Tim Apple supports a raping pedophile.
I know this isn’t remotely the point but I think “pedophile rapist” hits better. Your way makes it sound like he is a rapist who is also a pedophile. Which, don’t get me wrong, he is.
But “pedophile rapist” describes the fact that he rapes children.
Edit: I haven’t had my coffee. 🤦♂️
It’s implied that if you’re a pedophile you rape children, because they (legally) can’t give consent.
It probably has to be pedophilic instead of pedophile to be correct.
Your term makes it sounds like he rapes pedophiles
“Child molester” is already a phrase that exists.
Molestation can be a bunch of creepy non legally defined ways. A person who has sex with a child, is a pedophile, or child rapist.
(Not directed to you) but I keep seeing people wanting “child fucker” to catch on, but idk why it feels skeevy, almost feels like they are adding more ambiguity, as a child could be a child fucker, but they wouldn’t be viewed as a pedophile. Where any grown adult who has sec with a child is a pedophile, it’s well understood.
No adult can “have sex” with a child, because rape is not the same thing as sex. Saying “have sex” implies consent, where no consent can be given. Same goes for “fucker” IMO. “Child rapist” would work fine if “molester” is too ambiguous for you.
I usually call him a rapist pedophile, but I think the best description is that he’s a rapist and a pedophile. Monsters usually only have one kink but he’s both.
remove the fancy words, blunt works better imo
child fucker
Your way, a “pedophile rapist” makes it sound be rapes pedophiles.
Sane people: “Trump is a pedophile rapist!”
MAGA: “NO, he’s a pedophile rapist!”
So a “French gourmand” is someone who is particular about the French people he eats?
I mean, you’d have to be. French people are pretty stringy in general.
Could be. The English language leaves lots of things to ambiguity. That’s why context is so important.
The context is “pedophile rapist”.
That’s not how context works.
How
He is kissing Trumps ass, so lame. Am ending with buying new apple products!
Exactly. I’ve had iPhones since they came out. Next phone won’t be an iPhone.
A little gift for the Sultan!
Paying tribute to the robber baron in chief.
The Return On Investment of Corruption has always been massive in the US.
He’s just following the example set by other CEOs
