Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the comment-period dept

This week, both our winners on the insightful side come in response to the woman who hopes to sue for half of the GoFundMe proceeds for a Starbucks barista she fought with after refusing to wear a mask. In first place, it's Grey bringing some perspective to her claim that she can't wear masks due to a disability:

As an actual disabled person....

Every person playing this fake "I'm disabled" game should spend one day in my body. If you are so medically fragile that a mask is a risk, you shouldn't be exposing yourself to the public for your own safety.

??

I can understand the need to feel normal. Those of us who already have their ability to interact with the world limited by circumstance usually don't enjoy additional restrictions.

I've been disabled for almost 30 years now.

I'm up to 7 shoulder procedures. Plate, 6 screws, Suprascapular nerve nearly severed on the right side due to bone regrowth. Left side anterior Bankart, right hand crushed in a press, both feet spiral fractured through the arches, jawbone dislocations, hip dislocations.

"You're so big, you can't be disabled." (6'5") I look "normal", and my life has been a string of random people trying to fight me for using disabled parking, I've had a Vet go after my (at the time ) 17 year old daughter for inheriting my genetically bad connective tissue.

I walk with a cane, sometimes 2. Can't lift them much past my hips.

I can't even wear glasses that hook down at the back, otherwise the frames cut through the tops of my ears. Straight-arm glasses are a pain to find.

I can go on. Look up Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, rest is bad luck/manager took safety off the press that would have saved my hand.

My circulation draws my blood out of my limbs, concentrating it in my torso, I get heat exhaustion anywhere over the mid 70's. A mask is sheer torture. I still wear one when I go out.

My mask ties at the base, and crown of my skull. If I can manage it, with my shoulders, anyone healthy enough to walk around can do it.

People who pull this fake disabled crap just make my life even harder.

In second place, it's Samuel Abram frustratedly pointing out some (admittedly abstracted) hypocrisy:

What chutzpah!

These people who would sue over being denied service because they were maskless would kill their parents and then beg for mercy from the judge on the grounds that they're orphans.

It's amazing that these dipshits can simultaneously think that a retail establishment should deny you service for being gay but not for wearing a mask. What doublethink.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with one more comment on that post, this time from an anonymous commenter with some other added perspective:

Due to fragrance allergies (the stuff used in most soaps, hand sanitizers, laundry detergents and shampoos), my household has always had to practice social distancing. Our reaction to the current social distancing and facemask guidelines/requirements has been "Now maybe people will gain some degree of understanding of what we have always dealt with."

Unfortunately, some people will just never understand.

(as an aside, the hand sanitizer requirements in many places now mean that we always have to wear surgical gloves in public to prevent severe reactions -- but we're fine with that; it's part of being slightly unique in a larger society.)

Next, it's Stephen T. Stone with a response to people who blame YouTube for bogus copyright takedowns:

Reminders for those who want to say “YouTube should just ignore the requests, then!”: YouTube’s takedown system is largely automated, and even if it weren’t, YouTube would likely still honor fraudulent takedown requests to avoid the legal consequences of ignoring a legit request. YouTube’s system is a branch of the poisonous tree; the trunk of that tree is the DMCA takedown system, and the root is copyright in general.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Bloof responding to the mad claim that "cancel culture" should be solved with stronger copyright:

I twisted my ankle while jogging earlier. As I limped to go sit down, I couldn't help but feel that it that never would have happened with stronger copyright laws in place and suffering is nothing compared to those of authors whose works might be looked at by people who haven't paid full price.

In second place, it's Norahc with another response to the Starbucks mask affair:

Why does it seem like those that refuse to wear a mask are among the first to don the tinfoil hats?

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with Scary Devil Monastery's reply answering that question:

It's the other way around.

Obviously the enlightened people who are on to the illuminati mind control conspiracy have come up with the mask because being forced to wear one means your hat stops working - at which point the mind control rays will have you start believing all sorts of rubbish, like for instance, that there's a pandemic around which kills more people in the US than a 9/11 every two days...

Finally, we've got an anonymous response to the promotion of libertarianism-via-photos-of-dead-pets as a solution to the failures of "smart" pet feeders:

ah, the libertarian is here folks, problem solved! all we need are a few dead pets,,

That's all for this week, folks!

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