Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the talk-it-out dept

This week, our top comment comes in response to Charter's claims that a lawsuit over its terrible broadband is just the result of an evil tech conspiracy. One anonymous commenter suggested that maybe they aren't so crazy:

I pretty sure there is a Google/Netflix cabal that is against Charter communications. Unfortunately for them the cabal is their customers who would like use Google and Netflix.

In second place, we have an anonymous suggestion for how to deal with the problem of invasive drug searches that go nowhere:

This should have been very easy for the court to get right:

Did the medical personnel enter into the record a warrant, secured by Customs and Border Patrol, directing them to perform these procedures? If yes, medical personnel are immune and the suit goes after CBP because they were "just following orders." If no, medical personnel are liable.

  • Simple.
  • Motivates medical personnel to demand a warrant before performing procedure
  • Creates naturally public paper trail

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with a response from Toom1275 to the WIPO blocking the Pirate Party while inviting a group whose website said it existed to battle space lizards:

Well space lizards aren't that much more fictional than IP maximalism's ability to protect creativity.

If you believe one is real, it isn't that much further of a leap to then accept the other.

Next, we've got an anonymous comment that repurposes an anti-terrorist mantra in response to the government's prosecution of protesters:

They hate us for our freedoms

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is David with a response to comparisons between Europe and America:

You cannot compare the Internet in Europe with the Internet in the U.S.

Can you even imagine how many shootings there would be in Europe if they had Comcast?

In second place, we've got a simple anonymous quip about how the lawyers in the Monkey Selfie case must have reacted to a judge's call for a do-over:

I'll bet they went bananas

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with a response from Ninja to the earlier comment about space lizards:

To be fair space lizards do less harm to creativity than copyright maximalism.

And finally, we've got another anonymous commenter pushing back against the idea of copyright that lasts "forever minus a day":

"Whoa lets not be hasty there. Forever minus a second seems way more fair."
-RIAA

That's all for this week, folks!

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  1. identicon
    David, 3 Jun 2018 @ 12:49pm

    You know what?

    When I read

    Next, we've got an anonymous comment that repurposes an anti-terrorist mantra in response to the government's prosecution of protesters:

    They hate us for our freedoms

    It wasn't clear to me whether the government hated the protesters for their freedoms, or the protesters hated the government for its freedoms.

    Either way the problem appears to be that all men were not created equal, nor endowed with equal rights.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 3 Jun 2018 @ 3:54pm

    Lawrence’s Law Of Gun-Control Debates

    No discussion about the harms of guns can go on very long without somebody trying to conflate guns with cars.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    Toom1275 (profile), 3 Jun 2018 @ 4:23pm

    Re: Lawrence’s Law Of Gun-Control Debates

    Wow, you're definitely as pathological as Blue with that off-topic shitposting.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    Bergman (profile), 3 Jun 2018 @ 8:16pm

    Re: You know what?

    The US government has no freedoms. The US system restricts federal government to specific enumerated powers, which reserving all other authority to the states or the people.

    In turn, each state is granted only the powers found in its constitution (charter), and anything the state is not allowed to do is reserved to the people.

    Under the US system, anything not specifically granted to government is illegal; Anything not explicitly forbidden to citizens is legal; And any statute that disagrees with the Constitution is illegal.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    Bergman (profile), 3 Jun 2018 @ 8:18pm

    Re: Lawrence’s Law Of Gun-Control Debates

    That's because it's such a natural connection to make -- cars are many times more dangerous than guns, both guns and cars have neutral and even good uses, and there is no constitutional protection for the right to own a car.

    The only way you can honestly claim that guns are uniformly evil is if you genuinely believe that a woman who fights off a rapist is more evil than the rapist!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 3 Jun 2018 @ 9:52pm

    Re: Re: Lawrence’s Law Of Gun-Control Debates

    Never mind the obvious self-masturbation method of promoting oneself. Is this going to be a recurring thing, Lawrence? Every week? You're starting to go full blue, Lawrence.

    You never, ever fucking go full blue.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 3 Jun 2018 @ 10:43pm

    Re: guns and cars have neutral and even good uses

    Tools have constructive uses, while weapons like guns are purely destructive.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    David, 4 Jun 2018 @ 2:37am

    Re: Re: Lawrence’s Law Of Gun-Control Debates

    Guns have no "good" uses. Arming both a criminal and a non-criminal will increase rather than decrease the likelihood that the former, having training, intent and first opportunity, kills the latter, so the net payoff for distributing guns to everyone is negative.

    The Second Amendment is about an armed militia for the defense from outside attacks, not for civil war inside of the U.S.

    The oft-cited Switzerland does not make acquisition and maintenance of weapons as easy as buying candy. Weapons and munitions are handed out and regularly inspected by the army and governed by military regulations. Consequently they aren't trivial to come by for criminals in spite of their ubiquity.

    The U.S. constitution talks about a "well-regulated militia" but that's not what the U.S. policies are about. The U.S. policies are about an arms race in civil warfare, gaining no outward advantage in return for an internal escalation of death and violence.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. icon
    Ninja (profile), 4 Jun 2018 @ 6:42am

    Re: Lawrence’s Law Of Gun-Control Debates

    But you always get to space lizards apparently. Suck it Godwin, I just coined my own law!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Wendy Cockcroft, 4 Jun 2018 @ 7:24am

    Re: Re: Re: Lawrence’s Law Of Gun-Control Debates

    Confirmed correct, David. Every 2nd Amendment fan ever brings up the possibility of taking on the US government in an armed insurrection, pretending that the state wouldn't unleash the full force of its military might upon them.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. icon
    Toom1275 (profile), 4 Jun 2018 @ 8:04am

    Re: Re: guns and cars have neutral and even good uses

    See, if your goal is to convince those of us with a brain that you're not crazy, than fantasy-world woowoo like that really isn't helping you.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2018 @ 8:07am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawrence’s Law Of Gun-Control Debates

    Yet that still hasn't gotten rid of all the terrorists fighting guerilla warfare. And the full might would include nukes. You really think they would nuke themselves?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2018 @ 11:22am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawrence’s Law Of Gun-Control Debates

    You really think they would nuke themselves?

    The Day We Bombed Utah

    In May 1953, the Atomic Energy Commission conducted a "safe" nuclear test shot called "Dirty Harry" near St. George, Utah. Within a few days, more than 4,000 sheep were dead of a mysterious illness. Within a few years, a plague of cancer and birth defects had rippled through the area . . .

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2018 @ 1:28pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Lawrence’s Law Of Gun-Control Debates

    Already have. Hundreds of times.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. identicon
    Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 4 Jun 2018 @ 2:50pm

    Re: fantasy-world woowoo

    When your bullets come with safety features designed to absorb the force of the impact and minimize the damage to the people they hit, then you can talk.

    Until then ... yawn

    link to this | view in thread ]

  16. icon
    Toom1275 (profile), 4 Jun 2018 @ 3:12pm

    Re: Re: fantasy-world woowoo

    If I did drugs, I'd ask you to share what the fuck you're smoking that made you come up with that.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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