He initially supported the Democratic Party but because of crypto and AI he donated millions to super PACs for Trump, supported DOGE and said that children are now being readicalized to hate capitalism as well as directly messaging the Trump administration to put pressure on Universities like NSF, SU and MIT because of DEI or something like that.
One can support a party and then change to not supporting a party for a variety of reasons. Such as disagreeing with the direction the party is going, especially locally, or even as simple as eschewing the previously supported party because you are betting the other one will win and need to curry favor.
I haven't studied Andreessen's views and actions, so I was just positing a strategic reason for a change in political support for a high profile person. (as opposed to a drastic change in their thoughts which is what I take to mean as "radicalized")
For example, I have always preferred most of Democrats' positions on the national level, but on the local/state level, especially in California/Oregon/Washington, I disagree with a lot of the Democrat leaders, more and more since 2010 (I would say my views have not changed much, but the party's priorities at the state and local level have).
Of course, I'm nowhere near as influential as Andreessen nor do I have interests that would warrant a say in national politics, but I can see why if one is against local leadership, they would cozy up to someone who they think can help you fight against them, without being "radicalized", per the above definition.
He’s a “sewer socialist”, his most radical pitch is… making buses free. It’s easy to get outraged by labels but when you strip them away and look at the actual politics it’s all pretty middling. Which is a large part of why he won.
His actual policies aren't that radical to be honest. Yeah the subsidized grocery store idea is one thing, but making busses free or telling hedge fund centibillionaires that it might be a good thing for American capitalism long term if they paid another 2-5 million dollars in tax isn't exactly the workers taking complete ownership of the factories.
For all intents and purposes, he's a milquetoast centrist who wants his city to be a bit better, and thinks it could be a bit better by doing things like making transportation cheaper.
You don't see him advocating for firebombing the NYSE or arresting Met Gala attendees.
And fuck, he's trying. God forbid someone care about their constituents, or their own city. Nope, let's smear him for not kowtowing to a country on the other side of the planet. Eric Adams just wanted to line his own pockets. Bloomberg wanted to line his own pockets. And now we blast a dude who grew up in NYC who just wants to do some really basic things to try to make life a bit better?
They're different economic philosophies, but most Western countries have a mixed system incorporating elements from both. Voting for Momdani doesn't necessarily mean you want total public ownership of the means of production. His manifesto is only moderately more socialist than the status quo.
No, not at all. Socialism is a reaction to extreme capitalism, and basically a call for socialism today is just saying "capitalism is cool and all, but there needs to be some guardrails so capitalism doesn't eat itself".
People voted for the mayor in NYC because capitalism started to eat itself in NYC, and the non-billionaires who actually make up the vast majority of the city wanted a change.
A simple, and reasonably small increase in taxes on the wealthiest of the wealthiest (who are in NYC because its a world class city and their businesses couldn't really "make it" as easily elsewhere) is not socialism. It's saying to the hedge fund billionaires "hey - we don't appreiciate that you're operating your businesses here yet refusing to help pitch in financially in order to keep our world-class city world-class". If Ken Griffin can afford to drop a quarter billion dollars on an apartment he spends ~25 days a year in, or Bill Ackman wants to continue to hire people educated at Colombia and NYU, they can afford to pay another 2-5 million dollars a year in tax".
> the core tenet of Socialism replacing capitalism
You can say Mamdani is a socialist. You can say the core tenet of socialism is replacing capitalism. But you can't say both. If Mamdani is a socialist, then replacing capitalism is not the core tenet of socialism. If the core tenet of socialism is replacing capitalism, then Mamdani is not a socialist. Those two things do not go together.
Here in Germany meat alternatives/substitutes have definitely reached a level of popularity that goes beyond a fad.
The leading commercial producer of deli-meats has started producing vegetarian and vegan alternative products that now make up more than 60% of their annual revenue and they even dropped some of their original meat based products in favor of the plant-based alternatives.
It might not be the burger that's going to be replaced but sliced meats and other meat based products might be.
I wonder if the USA is unusually obsessive about meat and meat substitutes because, thanks to vast ranches and government subsidies, it has a steak culture. Even less prosperous Americans are used to looking at big red steaks at Walmart. They might believe, ignorant of how industrially cattle are raised, that this is real, honest-to-goodness meat as it should be. So, a meat substitute is a heinous opposite of that. Meanwhile, Europeans are used to eating meat (ground beef, chicken, pork) that is processed or less visibly impressive in some way, and a new twist on processed meat that has no actual meat isn’t so shocking.
Idk in large swaths of the country meat is sourced from local farmers. You can just buy a cow from a farmer and have it butchered. This is pretty common in america
Does that meat represent a substantial portion of the average meat consumed there? Some says the same here in Europe but still most go to the supermarket where most of the groceries aren't vegetarian, let alone vegan. I respectfully doubt there's places where people check the milk origin of their ice cream and never go to fast foods. It's great small local farmers and food-crafters exists with great quality outcome, but how do they compare in quantity with industrial meat, milk and eggs consumed in those large swaths?
We clearly don't have the same friends then! The event was the ridicule of the day on Twitter (wrongly, in my opinion, given that the tech is very good).
> Another time I bought a Samsung Fold and it cracked down the middle. I told Amazon and they said they'll refund it under warranty. I sent it back and got a warning that if I return anything else in "non original condition" I'd be banned. Even though it was a warranty return.
I once ordered a new pair of Jeans, expensive ones because I wanted them to last, from Amazon and got an obviously used and ripped pair sent to me.
I sent it back, noted that in my reason for sending it back only to receive an email from them with the same sentiment as you got. Luckily I kept all the receipts (figuratively) and took a lot of photos and screenshots.
Reaching out to support they apologized profusely to me but still it left a very bad taste in my mouth and I'm sure it'll happen again sometime in the future.
I keep going back to Amazon, even though I've been burned occasionally, because the retail shopping experience is that more horrible.
In the context of buying jeans (or really anything), if I go to a retail store, it's a multi-hour, multi-store event that usually leaves me empty-handed. My solution to that was to go directly to Levi's with the model and size of the last pair that fit, and buy a few pairs of them. I recently went back to buy to restock my supply of jeans, only to find that the style that fits has been discontinued—yet another form of enshitification.
He initially supported the Democratic Party but because of crypto and AI he donated millions to super PACs for Trump, supported DOGE and said that children are now being readicalized to hate capitalism as well as directly messaging the Trump administration to put pressure on Universities like NSF, SU and MIT because of DEI or something like that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Andreessen#Political_view...
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