So. With Elon’s closeness with Trump and he’s desire for X to be the US’S ‘Everything App’, could he force any payment of taxes, goods and services to only go through X? Is this possible with his powers? Do you think it’s possible or likely to happen? I just envisage him making it mandatory for you to use it for everything and if you don’t, you’ll have to face fines or other consequences. (I’m from the UK so I may not understand how this might pan out, I just think he’s crazy enough and cozy enough with Elmo to force it).

  • TsarVul@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    He sure could. Did you know that USPS is technically a government-granted monopoly by way of the Private Express Statutes?

    Drumpf could grant X (The everything App (Formerly Known As Twitter)) the same privileges. Maybe not directly, but ultimately it’d have the same result, if they created a service that routed payments through it, and forced citizens to use said service and then grant said service a monopoly.

  • notabot@lemm.ee
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    8 hours ago

    I’m sure he could and would. All he’d need to do is dictate that X is the only payment provider all government departments may use to improve ‘efficiency’.

  • Lenient_vegetable@lemm.ee
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    10 hours ago

    It could well be you know. Trump is not tech saaavy and elon could push for it as its his dream. The thing to watch is Larry Ellison go look up everything he owns and what he is in control of.

      • Lenient_vegetable@lemm.ee
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        7 hours ago

        Thats the bunny yep. He owns a lot of media and news companies. And he is now i think contracted with government data gathering via the AI stuff a quick search will show ypu all the pies his sweatty fingers are in.

    • tehWrapper@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      Just make a payment for something to people and they only can claim it by signing up to use the everything app?

      • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        16And the second beast required all people small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, 17 so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark— the name of the beast or the number of its name. 18Here is a call for wisdom: Let the one who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and that number is 666.…

        Revelation 13:16-18

        It’s somewhat interesting to see how they align though

        • FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          It is not that interesting to take a single prediction of a totalitarian leader controlling commerce (there have been many) and play games with the number 666 while ignoring that earliest manuscripts had 616 and the beast is mortally wounded / crowned with ten crowns / originates from the sea / persecutes Christians etc etc none of which applies to Trump…

          “Babylon” in revelation has some similarities to New York and Trump has connections there. The arrogance / grandstanding too. The full picture painted is more interesting, personally, than wading into numerology.

          I think people just latch on to 666 because it’s mysterious (it has a first century meaning, so is literally ‘meaningless’ - and all its numerology - as far as a modern day fulfillment goes).

          • bitcrafter@programming.dev
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            3 hours ago

            Also, as I understand it, the Book of Revelation essentially only barely squeaked its way into the Bible anyway under the belief that its author was the same John as the John that wrote the Gospel of John; if it had been believed to have been authored by anyone else then it would have been left out because it was hardly a unique representative of its genre.

          • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
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            6 hours ago

            No previous attempt has been tied to having a specific number to buy and sell like this one does though as all accounts are essentially numbers.

            Then there’s all the other signs which are also metaphorical (you really should know that and it is noteworthy when someone doesn’t) . I don’t believe in this but it’s odd.