Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the a-new-year dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Mason Wheeler with a response to antipiracy outfits routinely claiming copyright infringement against sites that simply report when torrents are released:

People who like to invoke 1984, take note of this. Who is it here who is attempting to do away with "crimethink" by making it impossible to even have any knowledge of forbidden ideas in the first place, in order to make it impossible to reason about them?

In second place, we've got a comment from a debate about the latest attempt to ban discussion of "controversial issues" in school out of fear of teachers indoctrinating children. One commenter was accused from bigotry for being dismissive about the story of Noah's Ark (we'll get to that comment in the editor's choice), leading an anonymous commenter to chime in:

Bigotry involves unreasonable hatred or fear. Disagreeing with non-factual religious beliefs as a basis for childhood education isn't bigoted.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we've got a pair of responses to the comment which started that debate by defending the law as a reasonable move against indoctrination. Gary drew a key distinction:

Yes very reasonable. Except that teaching about history and civics (part of what they are supposed to be doing per the article) requires talking about all those banned subjects.

Critical thought is one of the most important things to teach in school. Dogmatic recitation of facts means accepting whatever "facts" you have been told. Like those fact about an ark full of animals.

And Thad brought in some follow-up questions:

1. How do you define "political or ideological indoctrination of children"?
2. Do you believe Rep. Finchem's definition of that phrase matches yours?
3. Do you believe Arizona courts' interpretation of that phrase will match yours?
4. If you answered "yes" to (2) or (3), why do you believe that?

Moving on to the funny side, in first place we've got wshuff responding to the EU's failed first attempt at building a list of evil pirate sites:

98% of pirated content is uploaded with a computer using an Intel CPU. — Signed "Somebody Not In Any Way Affiliated With AMD"

In second place, we've got Bamboo Harvester with thoughts on the registration aspect of the Fortnite dance copyright fights:

Technically....

...they should have been registered with the Ministry of Silly Walks...

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from Gorshkov on why the FCC is likely understaffed:

Because it would take at least 1,600 employees just to handle the complaints about Comicast

And finally, we've got an anonymous comment about Saudi Arabia's takedown of Hasan Minhaj's show about MBS:

Is that Mohammad Bin Salman, or Mohammad Barbara Streisand?

That's all for this week, folks!

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