We dont know how much power they have, it’s illegal to know:

| Due to secrecy laws, it is extremely hard to find documentary evidence of the queen’s exercise of influence. In the United Kingdom, government documents that “relate to” communications with the sovereign or the next two persons in line to the throne, as well as palace officials acting on their behalf, are subject to an absolute exemption from release under freedom of information or by government archives.

• “relate to” is so broad and it means we have no idea what is going on.

| But The Guardian has managed to expose a chink in this armour of secrecy. In the UK’s National Archives, it discovered documents from 1973 showing the queen’s personal solicitor lobbied public servants to change a proposed law so that it would not allow companies, or the public, to learn of the queen’s shareholdings in Britain. The gambit succeeded, and the draft bill was changed to suit the queen’s wishes. Perhaps these documents escaped the secrecy embargo because they involved communications with a private solicitor, rather than palace officials

https://theconversation.com/the-queens-gambit-new-evidence-shows-how-her-majesty-wields-influence-on-legislation-154818

Australia already spends time and money maintaining the English monarch as the head of state. And it’s not a ceremonial position; the governor-general has reserve powers, such as the ability to remove office holders, like in 1975. It is only convention, not law that appoints and makes the GG act on the PMs ‘recommendations’ rather than the Monarch; the description of the office has not been rewritten. We can’t rely on convention to govern a country and need to have explicit laws that match our ideals of how a democracy should behave. It’s unexploded ordinance that should be cleaned up… let’s do that rather than spending our time and money changing all the pictures on the money, and the pronouns on all the legal documents each time a monarch croaks.

I have this problem. A couple of AAA projects I worked on, years of work, got cancelled and all that exists now is “stolen” footage. Then there’s the dozen mobile apps that have been pulled from the app stores (or gotten “out of date” and no longer supported). Can’t find APKs or store listings, just 3rd party site reviews are the only evidence of their existence.

Digital nomad in Indonesia here. People are friendly, food is great, scenery is beautiful, and weather is cool but not cold this time of year. I wouldn’t live here full time, but I wouldn’t live anywhere full time (because I am a nomad!).

I don’t agree with many of the laws here but that is true of pretty much everywhere.

I’m in Indonesia. When the rebrand announcement happened I checked x.com and it was indeed blocked. But twitter.com worked fine (I mean, worked just like you’d expect a garbage dump to).

I checked a couple days later and it was the same. Now both work correctly.

If twitter.com got blocked it must have been for a very short period and at a weird time. I can’t imagine a redirect from a previously unrelated website triggering a block.

This is my thinking, let me know if you see any issues with my interpretation:

First line of Wikipedia Left-wing politics: Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy as a whole.

First list of Wikiepdia Authoritarianism: Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting.

By these definitions, Left-wing politics should want to evenly distribute power democratically, whereas authoritarianism wants to centralise power in a single entity such as a the military or a dictator.

The perpetual dictatorship of the proletariat in Marxist-Leninism is functionally indifferent from the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The authoritarian leadership just becomes the new bourgeoisie.

If left-wing authoritarianism isn’t an oxymoron, then what the heck does left-wing mean?

I agree that authoritarianism does not equal fascism, but the only meaningful definition of left-right politics (in my opinion) is a measure of belief in and adherence to social hierarchies. And the USSR was definitely heavily into hierarchy.