Definitely a resounding "yes" in the cases of Google and Facebook who practice censorship of free market and conservative views every day. They also censor views from medical professionals that support those who are evidently using fear of disease to place blame on the current administration for a "pandemic" that can be treated cheaply with existing therapies. Google and Facebook are suppressing the successful use of these therapies, imo, in order to maintain fear, cripple the economy, and to prevent Trump's re-election. Thousands of people have died and millions have lost jobs unnecessarily because of these actions.
Amazon Prime movie features often promote the same distorted and often racist worldview as other socialist propaganda vehicles.
Microsoft has gone from offering a product that empowers customers to invading the customers privacy. They do insist that the already addicted customers consent by accepting a contract that most don't read. Microsoft's near monopoly position in the market has emboldened MSFT management to take this unethical path.

Interesting idea. It surely has a good foundation. Though does this apply to the companies listed above?

Power corrupts. The earned (and unearned) wealth of some mega-corps is being used to manipulate government to provide unearned wealth, suppress competition, and to suppress freedom of speech in the process. I don't criticize them for their productivity, but for their corruption, use of government power to suppress competition, and manipulation of others by censorship of the internet to gain political power.

As far as I know all the mega corporations got their wealth by providing real value to the world. To mention a few mentioned on this site, and from the Forbes list:

Microsoft made computers accessible to everyone
Google (Alphabet) made information accessible to everyone
Facebook made personal connections accessible to everyone
Amazon made comfortable shopping accessible to everyone

3 of these 4 are also currently making the startup of a business super easy (just managed to create a full service on a .com domain for 12usd, years ago it was hundreds with less control over the infrastructure).

My point on political debates is just this: whenever one side is blamed, politicians already won. After all, both parties charge the above companies today for monopolistic practices (like having the formula of a great steel).

I agree, politics could and should be discussed at a place like this. I expected it. Maybe from a bit different angle. But as I wrote, I'm at the very beginning of understanding this forum and my place within it. So these are rather thoughts written down for debate, not some ultimate statements. And still definitely all amazed by the amazing arguments arriving with each message. :-)

Right, election year. That makes sense. Didn't register the connection between the two information. Thanks for the message.

Hmm, annoying others. I think I can manage that. ;-)

Welcome. It is always good to see a new member.
When the newcomer is from outside the US it is especially interesting, there are not many of us, at the moment the number could be up to two, but there was a Canuck here not long ago.

When I first read Atlas Shrugged, it was only 10 years ago, it was like reading the politics/economics/government in the daily newspaper. I'd look from book to paper, same, same, names and places were different but same stupidity.

As to your comment about politics- too much of it here?
Could be but it is easy to get obsessed by these day-to-day events, the faults of governments, the supporters of current fallacies be they the old doctrinaire left or the new post-modernists, big business cronyists, rather than thinking - thinking about underlying causes, explanations, and what to do.

The point you make about criticizing profit-making companies is important.
Recall the Atlas Shrugged speech by Francisco- what matters is not the amount of money you have but how you earn it.
So it is valid to comment on the mega corporations who are so financially successful-
what frauds or sharp practices are they in?
are competitors suppressed by cheating, by government restrictions that they have bought?
are the decision makers in government regulatory and purchasing agencies getting paid from the industry supposedly being regulated?
Answers that are not easy to get from msm are on here.

Discussion on this site is not just on a game with two big competing teams who are better described as gangs, these gangs acting more on hysteria than on values.
There is something else going on. It is not just corruption, there is wide support for national destruction in ethics and core values as well as economics, This wide support comes from a mass who are not acting in self interest, at least in any rational sense.
All of this is the concern of Objectivism and this site.
This is what politics is about.

Welcome to the group. We don't confine our topics to politics. Books are sometimes discussed. A lot of 'venting' goes on and sometimes we annoy one another (but we apologize right away). This being an election year, of course you know what the topic is. Best wishes N

Thanks a lot guys. Awesome messages from all of you. Sorry for not answering one byone, but they are truly providing a great value together to be honest.

1. It was awesome to see, that I got message as apolitical, just as much as about stressing the importance of politics at current time. Great diversity of thoughts here it seems, promising. :-)

2. Thanks, I was also considering to jump into a few discussions. I decided not to hijack any threads now. I'm pretty new and it takes some common ground to have worthy discussions, which I'm not sure, how much exists between me and others yet. Hence starting this one. I guess it's better to test the waters before jumping straight in. ;-) So staying outside of political discussions for now, and might just jump in later, if I have a better understanding of the community. It might take some time though, if thoughts are as diverse all around the place, as in this thread.

3. Big yes to laughter! I will make sure to check out the memes. This also sounds promising.

4. I haven't seen the Lego movie (isn't there more of it?), but I guess it's usual kids's stuff, let's love eachother and everyone is equal kind of theme. I guess there's nothing wrong with protecting kids from harsh reality. It's always been an agenda, just today harshness means something different from harshness during WWII.

5. You are right, whiney is not the right word. Though I wasn't thinking about passionate either (that is surely true too, but that wasn't my point). Let's try a second round (still has some unintended negative undertone, but can't think of a better one - try to remove the negative undertone of it ;-)) - "vocal to a level I can't understand". Please note, admittedly the can't understand is at least 50% on me and I know this. Just trying to gather the info I'm missing and so far other (admittedly rather left-wing) forums didn't provide it. Hence I'm here.

6. Yes, I understand the concept, that the US should remain like the wild wild west to some extent - as there is no other place like it. What I'm struggling with still is understanding, why is that the case? I mean yes, this is a gut feeling. I can sense that, whenever we discuss with my wife, whether we want to move to another country (expats already). But why is that the case? I mean with cold hard numbers and facts, instead of gut feelings. And within a historical context, what could be an analogue? Or if it's a unique situation in history, what makes it to be one?

7. I wanted to make a special point of thanking you all for the very civil tone. I hope I don't offend anyone with my questions. Trust me, there's no harmful intention from my part. Though I know I have a quite weird way of learning - challenging the edges of the idea, but it's rather to understand the limits than to prove anyone wrong. I assume any guy is just as right from their perspective as anyone else. Though we still need to live together, hence trying to understand as much as I can. It makes it easier.

So again, thank you all for your awesome answers. And just be blunt and tell me, if I overstep some boundaries of the forum. After all, I'm here to learn the local customs at this stage. :-)

We must explore and be aware of present day culture and politics or should I say, Post Moderns use of Cultural Marxism, Crony Capitalism and cowardice viewed through the lens of Ayn Rand and other adaptive philosophies.

And if you find that depressing...check out IN THE MEME TYME published every Sat here in the gulch and partake of the healing effect of laughter.

Many major cities in our country are being destroyed by Marxist anarchists . In MPLS a billion dollars in damages alone , all to protest the death of a career criminal. The division of citizens has never been fertilized by the liberal leftists like what we see today. Many here know this is a fight for our lives as we know it. Passionate might be an alternative to “whiney” depending on what group you mean.
BTW the Scandinavian co that produces LEGOS pushes a communist agenda to our children (see The LEGO movie) , that is totally against what our founding fathers stood for. I see it as an attack on my liberty.

Greybear22,
You are free to participate in discussions that interest you. You are also free to ignore.
Many here feel we are at an inflection point in the US. If freedom in the US is usurped. The rest of the world will also cave to the deep state masters.
We have a news media in America that is pushing for a Marxist agenda, many posts are to provide a rebuttal to their sick agenda.

Yeah, interesting. I'm apolitical. I don't even vote. Realize that the violent, abusive, angry leftists are typically found in the Democratic party. For me, that leads to a tendency to really dislike that party. There are good Dems, too. At the same time, I know some real statist idiots who watch Fox news and are proud Republicans.

I tell my friends, 'I'm not political. I'm philosophical." That always ends any discussion they're getting wound up about, for a variety of reasons. A is A

There are a lot a effective thinkers here...

It's odd. I managed to open it on desktop now, though mobile doesn't work for some reason. Anyway. It seems to be an interesting hobby. I can see the end result, but how do you do it? I guess it can also be taken to private to avoid going off-topic. I'm new around and figuring things out, but please feel free to send me a PM, if there is such a functionality.

Thank you for message. It pretty much reassures, that this is the right forum for these discussions. I will try to do my best. :-)

On that note: My initial question would be the one, I posted here. I hope I posted it to the right place. But I already got a number of messages, so seeing the forum is so live, I'd rather double check it. Is this the right topic to ask such a thing? To add to the original one: Is recent times really that different? If yes, how so? Of course due to the exponential growth of everything, at any point, the current change seems to be a lot. But honestly, I don't see as big of a difference between today and 10 years ago, as there was e.g. between 1930 and 1940. Or 1910 and 1920. Or 1840 and 1850 (in Europe at least, I'm not a history expert). I just feel like people are easier to offend these days. Not as a complaint. All the easier for me. Though I'm just trying to understand. Back in time, certain groups seemed to be more sensitive. How did even the strongest groups become so whiney (sorry for the word usage, no offense. But I don't have a better one for it).

Thanks for your response. Unfortunately the link you sent doesn't work for me. But I really appreciated the attenpt to end on a good note. It's a hard, but very rewarding art, trying to be positive. :-)

Greybear, there are many brilliant and deep thinkers and objectivists at Galts Gulch. An excellent way to have the conversations that you want would be to submit a thought provoking topic. And welcome.

Just to end on a good note, here are a few of my favorite things in the real world: https://imgur.com/user/KnapperDan

A very cool & unusual job working out in nature and a niche hobby that I've gotten especially good at through 7 years of practice.

I hear you, and I think it does have a pretty direct relationship to the current climate. Corporations & politicians here have been making VERY big moves (more all at once than any one of us can even keep up with: Battles for more money and less constitutional laws to tighten controls on the herds) and they control the narratives that get seen on TV and the main social networking sites. By mixing in just the right amount of "triggering" and distracting little spin & shift of blame, they appear on the surface (to the couch potatoes) to be giving both sides a voice without actually having to do so, but are censoring out anything that comes too close to the truth or the real culprits. Divide & conquer is currently being tried with all gas and no brakes. Consequently, those who are doing their own research and seeing through at least some of the mind-hacking are seeing how rapidly the mushroom people are becoming dangerously brainwashed by the controlled platforms (that they get banned from for trying to show others how they're being lied to). We were essentially lulled to sleep by distracting entertainment around scrambling to keep up with the ever-increasing bills as our free speech was quietly slipped away (and a ton of people just realized it). It is killing our economy, killing small businesses, killing in the name of "public health", killing our education system, building more monopolies, and those who can see even some of what's going on are growing more frantic/panicked.

But it's easy carried away and start finding people or groups to point to as "devils" and other people or groups to hold the keys to our salvation, and much harder to unplug from the altar-net distractions and actually take a hard look at our own demons & what's making us weaker in our own lives.

I'm with you. Just here looking for better people and better, deeper, conversations that leave me with new ideas/concepts to consider and see how they might apply & be utilized in my own life. There are good folks like this to be found, but they've never in my experience been the loudest or the most popular.

I still feel like I have to follow the current climate at least a little in order to try to stay 1 step ahead of whatever comes down the line next, but it's such a dirty, bloody mess that certainly don't enjoy it following it. I'd rather talk about ideas, dreams, and enjoyable things. Welcome to the Gulch!