Imho it's only "important" because the media make such a big thing of migrants being the cause of all our ills.

Somehow I can't see Facebook volunatarily scaling down, and even if they did, it would leave a gap for a "global" network to take its place.

Companies as large as Facebook (really all of the American Big Tech) should just be illegal.

It's long overdue that we remembered that the very notion of a corporation is a creation of society. Corporations have no natural rights whatsoever because they don't naturally exist. It follows, then, that societies have the right to impose any limits and prohibitions when chartering corporations that don't discriminate against their owners (i.e. so long as restrictions apply uniformly). This includes limit on company size, its marketshare etc.

They already are illegal, laws are just not enforced. We don't need more laws, we need enforcement. It's the same in the EU. If GDPR laws were probably enforced the yearly fines would be a magnitude higher than they currently are. But they're still too scared because of the defense and gas reliance.

It stems me positive to read this by a user with a 2012 HN account though! Nice.

In US at least, the current interpretation of our anti-trust laws (after Bork's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Antitrust_Paradox) is such that it is not illegal - you have to prove harm to users, mere market dominance isn't sufficient.

Bill Bailey in Part Troll said "I'm British and thus crave disappointment."

If it's for a positive outcome, yes.

You can present anything as positive. Ever since Lady Chatterley's Lover.

A nuclear deterrent is still a deterrent, no matter how small. No country (hopefully) wants to risk any kind of nuclear war. Ukraine would never have been invaded if it still had its nukes.

We cannot know. My best guess is that at some point in the future there will be a military conflict between two parties that have nukes. Pakistan vs India for instance. And although they have nukes they would fight conventionally unless one party is about to lose.

> And although they have nukes they would fight conventionally unless one party is about to lose.

In every war, eventually, one side will be about to lose.

Out of curiosity, what do you think they should have done?

I suppose the answer would be "build a better army, 20 years ago".

Americans were very efficiently suppressing such ideas. They were never interested in Europe having effective army. They only wanted to sell equipment and partially support their bases with European money. When the school bully is your "friend" you don't exactly have the freedom to do what's best for you.

Not as depressing as if it was coal power stations and coalmines blighting the landscape.

China is building more coal plants right now than the entire world combined so don’t worry they have those too.

And yet their coal usage has plateaued for the last few years, and actually likely started to decline in 25.

So no country should ever ban someone from entering.... unless they're an immigrant of course!

I'm not saying they shouldn't. I'm saying they're getting exactly what they're dishing out, and even for the same reason (disagreement over how much free speech should be allowed).

So, like being a citizen then?

You gotta name the domain!

I'd rather not face the ire of ICANN, sorry.

I know better. They read this site. They know that all it takes is some company to issue some trademark litigation and they fold. No basis, no question, just here you go.

what would they do to you...?

well, condescension aside, literally what would they do? there's nothing remotely illegal about posting the name of a site in a forum. and here you are trying to get me to be as scared as you are about posting a basic fact in a forum and why would I be?