It's a joke but Visa and Mastercard are American corporations so Americans can feel relatively secure using them. If you live in another developed country, relying on the whims of American entities feels less secure than something subject to the laws of your own country.

American consumers have no democratic control of that duopoly either.

To be fair both are publicly traded and owning shares would give you voting rights.

Point is: traded companies function like a democracy in which money is a vote, which is the opposite of democracy.

this doesn’t sound reassuring. there is not a nationality test on buying shares

They're protected by the laws of their country. Foreigners aren't. That's the point.

Americans corporations have shown they'll just pull out of countries if the law comes down on them too hard.

Dang has stated these sorts of comments do not belong on HN news. Discussion of specifics are fine, but nationalist slurs are not.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48100358

I don't think that's a slur, my friend. I think it's a statement of the American mindset. Then again, I'm not American, what do I know.

I'm American. Definitely did not think this was a slur.

I strongly disagree. Substitute with 'the Chinese mind can't comprehend' or 'the Palestinian mind can't comprehend' or 'the Muslim mind can't comprehend' or 'the African American mind can't comprehend' or 'the immigrant mind can't comprehend'. Obviously that would be a slur and not an acceptable way to phrase a point.

HN rightly didn't allow these type of generalization comments against Russians after it invaded Ukraine. HN rightly doesn't allow these types of generalization comments at Palestinians. It's wild to me the different standard applied lately to similar comments towards Americans. Definitely a discourse erosion/strain going on on this site when it comes to certain topics/nationalities/generalization of peoples and stereotyping/labeling.

In the link I gave dang set the rule that these sort of comments applied towards a nationality aren't acceptable here and an instance of dang actively stepping in to enforce it.

America was literally founded on this premise, and it should come as no surprise that our government has (d)evolved into what the founders felt was inevitable.

America is fairly exceptional in that it's not racist to say "Americans are ____" given it's a melting pot of so many different races and cultures. That's a beautiful thing, but something that the white supremecists in control of the US are working to erode.

Edit: damn I think this account is actually a bot. It's only pro Israel talking points, islamaphobia, and appeals to the mod to get people banned.

dangs rule is about nationality, not ethnicity. "You can't post nationalistic slurs to HN" Wanting consistent enforcement of standards is not wrong on my part. HN routinely attempts such with HN posters routinely calling out when comments are not in line with HN standards. Am I misunderstanding community enforcement on HN?

India is made up of an incredible mix of ethnic peoples. Yet saying 'the Indian mind can't comprehend' would be considered a slur.

Your thinly veiled attempt to align me with white supremacists is EXTREMELY out of line.

As is calling me a bot out of line. Ad hominems that I am a bot because I push back on topics HN SPECIFICALLY chose to make an exception for (look at my comments prior to that since you are digging through looking for character assisnations) is unreasonable on your part. Either discussion is open on the topic, or it should not be allowed. Not some weird space when only one sides perspective on the topic is tolerated and having challenging views makes one a bot. Again during discussion on Russia's invasion, it was not allowed to call people defending Russia/Russians bots. There seems to be erosion/strain of standards here since then.

Nothing I have said is islamaphobic. One can challenge ideas/religions. Bringing up their history/failings is not phobic but is needed to push for productive/healthy change.

As was recently pointed out to me, you might want to look to PGs thoughts on discussion and adjust how you respond to thoughts you disagree with. https://paulgraham.com/disagree.html

I will admit I'm old so I don't have a lot relevant to ad to a lot of current tech discussions here but I will try to add more.

> Edit: damn I think this account is actually a bot. It's only pro Israel talking points, islamaphobia, and appeals to the mod to get people banned.

This kind of thing degrades discussion. Please don't do that here.

You're right, it does, and my edit was my emotion getting the better of me. But when you realize you're interacting with an account that only posts about the same few talking points and never contributed to tech discussion, I think it's a reasonable conclusion to come to. I was wound up enough to check his profile, which yea...don't do that, but he got me. Bot and troll accounts are good at that, whereas generally discussion on hn is alright, even if the viewpoints are disagreeable.

With all due respect, you did it again.

What's the slur here? American? Mind?

I'm American, and I wasn't offended. Because it's true, we actually can't comprehend this because we are the poster child of government via huge corporations. We literally don't know what it's like to have a functioning and trustworthy government handling these things, it's completely foreign to us.

Americans are pretty aware that government by large, multinational, unaccountable corporations sucks and has basically all of the downsides of big government without any of the accountability upsides.

American media may be less likely to share that narrative with you. But the actual people figured this out a while ago and they're mad.

If I had the Swiss government instead of the US Federal Government I'd trust it a lot more too.