Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 14 Jan 2022 @ 2:20am
Re: Re:
"If this is the quality of pro-copyright fucknuggets your movement is doomed, friendo."
I think I recognize that particular brand of incoherent nonsense followed by an all caps statement that "PUNISHMENT awaits. Any day now".
My guess is Bobmail/Baghdad Bob/Jhon Smith/out_of_the_blue is in his "meltdown" phase again. It's where he fails to pour the products of his trembling sphincter into a wordwall before tipping it into the comment textbox. We've seen it before.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 14 Jan 2022 @ 1:50am
Re: Re: Re:
"After the Jan 6th coup attempt it's like the collective intelligence of the copyright camp just went down several notches. Not that it was a brightly shining font of wisdom before, mind you."
I remember when old Bobmail used to have these meltdowns on a regular basis, back on TorrentFreak. His love for fascism was obvious even back then and his recurring cries of "You'll all pay! PAY I Say!" were well known.
But he can't get back on Torrentfreak because there's login verification now and he can't dwell on Ars because they're even harder in their restrictions and so he's relegated to spending all his time here, prompting most of us to agree with Mike and Tim that "There's motherfuckers, stupid motherfuckers, and then there's you" about him.
It's just that every now and then poor Baghdad Bob just can't muster the energy to wrap a word wall around his sadism, ghoulish glee and fascist inclinations and that's when his loosened sphincter leaks stuff like what we just read in some poor defenseless text box.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 14 Jan 2022 @ 1:42am
Re: Why Techbribe why?
Ah, the incoherent ramblings lauding copyright and fascism finished with a "YOU'LL ALL PAY!". Pure Baghdad Bob drivel, like a word salad made by an AI weaned on Mein Kampf and old Rote Armee Fraktion PR slogans. Delivered, as per usual, with a random anon nick.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 14 Jan 2022 @ 1:37am
Re: would love to see
"It might Light up a few faces when they understand that there is no such thing as a REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT, except by label."
People keep saying this, especially older people. And I have to say they're wrong.
Democrats and Republicans used to be comparable. A few ideologists, a bipartisan divide between progressive and conservative, a similar bipartisan divide between authoritarians and liberals.
But that all changed after Reagan. The democrats are still business as usual - politicians of varying degrees of shady, occasionally trying to wedge a few actually constructive and benevolent bills in between carrying water for their biggest campaign contributors while largely being utterly ineffectual at addressing the most primary ills to plague the nations because that would upset those people they're beholden to.
It's just that today their Big Tent contains all the progressives and liberals while the republicans have slid down to where they now no longer have any platform other than populism and no ideology other than outright fascism.
You're half right. The democrats are largely the same as they always were. Their playbook remains that of stale old realpolitik.
The republicans, however, have changed to where they are no longer on the same page. Their playbook is now literally Mein Kampf. And that should surprise no one given that Hitler wrote that manuscript while thinking of how to undermine a barely functioning democratic republic by quiet means with his beer hall coup having failed.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 13 Jan 2022 @ 3:09am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'You broke the deal, we're returning the fav
"While the common man gets swindled to support the cause."
The common man, pinning his/her faith to the preachings of whatever cult holds their allegiance, has always been swindled though. The way to fix this is to teach people the value of critical thinking and education.
What will never work, though, is to point out to the common man that he's been grifted. We do not live in the world of fairytale where the boy who shouts makes people aware the emperor has no clothes. We live in the world where the people irately beat the stuffing out of the young troublemaker for loudly agreeing with the evidence of their own lying eyes.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 13 Jan 2022 @ 2:54am
Re: Re:
"True, race is a social construct, and not a difference in our humanity."
Hmm...not quite. Genetic markers do exist which categorize ethnic background. A few of whom point to environmental adaptation bringing a few characteristic appearance factors to the surface. Its just that none of those differences make any difference in the humanity of the person bearing them, because being better adapted to heat, cold, or UV radiation says nothing about your quality as a person.
The issue is that a lot of people are still stuck in tribalism and all too eager to look down on what they perceive as different. Visible aspects of ethnicity, behavior, culture, sexuality, gender, religion...all of these are will serve well as a ready excuse for the bigot.
Race isn't the social construct. The determination of worth is.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 13 Jan 2022 @ 2:32am
Re: Re:
"I'm amazed you're still believing in the strawman Mike who only exists in your head."
Baghdad Bob's made it pretty clear his whole world only exists inside his head. Why would the Mike he sees be any more real than the rest of his dystopian hallucination?
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 13 Jan 2022 @ 1:54am
Re: until the United States finds creative ways to break the cyc
"...by scrapping capitalism and moving to a more equitable and democratic form of government, i.e. communism!"
Except that people being people Communism won't work. The USSR actually tried but no regime today calling itself communist managed to get around the fact that people are neither perfect nor machines and thus there is communism remains an "if pigs could fly" theorem only spoiled by the absence of winged porcines.
China underlines this point by, in effect, having a market more red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalist by far than the US at this point.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 12 Jan 2022 @ 1:18am
Re: basically an admission of racist policing
"Translation: I decide whom to pull over based solely on that person's skin color. I believe that my behavior will be exposed if I use this system and continue my racist policing practices."
Random Not-A-Racist-But: "I can't help it if black and latinos are more often criminals than white folks."
Me: "assuming that's true why do you think that is so?"
Random Not-A-Racist-But: "They live in ghettos and they're poor. Criminal life comes naturally to them."
Me: "So why are they poor and live in ghettos?"
Random Not-A-Racist-But: "Because they're too lazy. It's just how they are."
Me: "Uh-huh. So basically you assume they are inherently lesser as a people?"
Random Not-A-Racist-But: "Don't you call me a god damn racist, asshole!!"
The lack of self-awareness of the average racist is staggeringly lacking - and when you hold a mirror up to them rather than reflect they throw a tantrum and try to blame their own shitty values on everyone else.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 12 Jan 2022 @ 1:00am
Re: What _will_ get police officers fired.
"Meanwhile, if killing unarmed black men in cold blood won't get police officers fired, you know what will?"
A manifestly unfair comparison. From the view of police leadership and unions killing a black man is often seen in a positive light.
Playing games rather than actively hurting or killing people means you aren't doing your job as a US law enforcement officer. No wonder the guy got the sack.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 12 Jan 2022 @ 12:54am
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"The US has the nasty habit of exporting the worst of their laws world wide, just look at the copyright laws that they have pushed onto other countries."
That is correct. This time around, though, they're messing with a different playing field; China. Not a bunch of brawling EU member states or similar markets.
And the difference becomes obvious when you look at the chinese emergence into the global market and their internal one. They've very gradually invited foreign companies, built their own replacements for such, and then driven every foreign company out of China as soon as their own became able to cover the internal market. This is the most clear when it comes to online services; WeChat, Baidu, MaiMai, Weibo replacing Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and Facebook. But I have no doubt they operate in similar fashion for every market need. As they have with Alibaba instead of Amazon, for instance.
If the US tries to hardball the EU then Germany and France may object but generally speaking no european nation is self-sufficient. Nor most other countries. We're not big enough and don't have all the relevant raw material resources and logistics at hand to cater to the needs of our consumer sector. So when Uncle Sam says "Fall in Line" we usually do.
China just isn't as vulnerable that way. They've got more territory and a bigger market than the US and europe combined. Full self-sufficiency isn't hard to aim for. Global markets are a nice to have, not a need to have for China.
And more than half the manufacturing of the world already takes place there. So this time around if Uncle Sam tries to tell China to fall in line they'll say no. And if he tries to hardball at that point we find out that although severing ties with US business would be tough for other markets, severing ties with the supply chain of everything is even more unacceptable.
In the short run legislation in the OP benefits the most massive of US actors at the expense of raising the entry bar for smaller companies significantly. In the long run it means the US as a whole is no longer globally competitive in that sector of the market. But that's all right. His friendly beariness, Emperor Xi, will gladly fill that void.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 12 Jan 2022 @ 12:35am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Maybe there is. But, I don't see anyone literally saying "do nothing", and the rest of us have eyes to see the natural consequences of what's actually being proposed."
No, by now there isn't. Legislation you can use to deal with counterfeiting without causing fairly serious collateral damage has already been long passed - with great bipartisan support, at that. Hell, even legislation causing great inconvenience and middling harm has been passed long ago. We're at the point where further proposed "cure" has far better odds of killing the patient than the illness has.
If this metaphor was about controlling speeding vehicles we would have already implemented traffic signals, random radar traps and cameras, cruise control, GPS-mediated warnings when speed limits were exceeded...and a whole lot of cops on traffic duty monitoring almost every road.
This legislation is the equivalent of demanding every driver wears a tracker and logs their driving habits every time they enter a vehicle. On their own expense. Major trucking companies would have problems with this but will be able to manage. Individual drivers and small moving companies will be dead in the market.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 11 Jan 2022 @ 3:25am
Re: 'What do you mean we're not the good guys?!'
"This is not a political issue of left vs. right, nor is it a rift between Baltimore's citizens and their sworn protectors. This is simply a fight between good vs. evil..."
So, an issue between humanitarian liberal values and, ah..."conservative values"?
I think I'm beginning to understand Koby's perspective a little.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 11 Jan 2022 @ 2:27am
Re:
"I miss critical thinking & the reality of what you can see/hear/feel winning over those claiming it didn't happen like that."
That never really existed. Americans have subscribed to magical thinking all the way back to the pioneer times. P.T. Barnum could never have emerged from anywhere but the US.
There's an old Newsweek article which is still accessible with a bit of googling. Isaac Asimov's "The cult of ignorance".
It's well worth reading and highlights how the lack of critical thinking and the rejection of clearly observable facts have always been part of the US political landscape.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 11 Jan 2022 @ 1:54am
Re: Re: Re: Ima let you finish after you answer a quick question
"...it's easier to claim you're being oppressed when Nazis are banned than it is to ponder on why you share so many political beliefs with Nazis."
The issue of self-awareness isn't one the alt-right typically has.
I once spoke with a person who was adamant they weren't racist when they claimed black people just committed proportionally more crimes. Boiling it down this is what the convo looked like;
Him: "Black people commit a LOT more crimes, proportionally, than ordinary white folks".
Me: "WHY do black people commit more crimes, proportionally, than white folk?"
Him: "They're poor, lazy, live like animals in ghettos."
Me: "So why are they poor and live in ghettos?"
Him: "Because they can't be arsed to improve themselves."
Me: "Why not?"
Him: "Because they're not that smart and they're too lazy to work"
Me: "So is there ANY part of your assertions where you don't just assume black people are inferior to white people?"
Him: "I'm not a racist, you asshole!!"
This part has to be dealt with first. And that's a huge damn issue given that most actual racists will just take that <insert minority here> is lesser for granted and get really upset when people point out that view on reality they lean on for so much it might as well be part of who and what they are is dictionary-definition racism.
And then they get real upset and like any other emotional toddler try to deflect, project and throw tantrums so they won't have to realize they're doubling down on being horrible people.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 11 Jan 2022 @ 1:40am
Re: Re: Re:
"It ultimately comes does to who you trust, and just because you can trust the site you're going to visit to give you a more secure connection than you has before, that doesn't mean you should blindly trust everyone else involved in that transaction."
I recall "Trust, but verify" being the Word Of God way back when networking was just a bit newer.
It still receives as much respect as Caveat Emptor, though. I can still hear my old mentor in my first job - as a DBA - telling me that for the sake of my sanity I just had to recognize some people just couldn't be helped with any amount of advice and workarounds would have to be built to accommodate those...
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 11 Jan 2022 @ 1:35am
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"However, I've come to the realization that if my computer knowledge is a 5-6 on a 10-point scale, the average person is at about 2-3."
I find the realization that today there are still people calling tech support looking for the "any" button. And I'm not surprised at all that every support I've had to contact for the last ten years or so is inflexible to the point of absurdity. Examples abound of what happens when a Luser or PHB gets to tell the techies what they want done to the poor defenseless system in their care.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 11 Jan 2022 @ 1:24am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"I think there is a reasonable middle ground between the “Do Nothing, everything is fine the way it is and if you touch it the internet as we know it will be burnt to the ground” side and that bill."
There really isn't. People just keep looking at a reality which literally has no middle ground and keep saying "Nerd harder". That won't work.
Either you have a globalized community and a communications medium which works across it...or you have a version of the chinese firewall. It's the literal analogy of you demanding there must be a way for a woman to be "just a bit" pregnant.
The problem with catching the counterfeiter selling the 500$ bag is that in order to find the bags which are counterfeit you need to monitor every transaction involving handbags which means monitoring all of online retail. Bringing us to the proposed legislation. It places the same burden on webpage operators as it would on a mall owner suddenly being told he'll personally be responsible for every unlawful act happening in his mall.
In short, this legislation calls on enforcement mechanisms not seen even in the worst old soviet satellite states to be effective.
"It’s not about shutting down companies but it is about removing counterfeits form the online marketplace in a reasonable measured reliable way without attacking the marketplaces themselves."
And that's not happening. This shit has been tried for a few thousand years and the only way it was ever settled turned out to be by shutting the borders and make sure nothing crossed them from the country manufacturing the knockoffs.
I.e. you can do this. But it'll mean the US exiting the global marketplace. Because few companies with a US HQ can afford the burden of surveillance required.
On the post: Josh Hawley Was The Democrats' Partner In Trying To Regulate Big Tech; Then The Public Realized He Was A Fascist
Re: Re:
"If this is the quality of pro-copyright fucknuggets your movement is doomed, friendo."
I think I recognize that particular brand of incoherent nonsense followed by an all caps statement that "PUNISHMENT awaits. Any day now".
My guess is Bobmail/Baghdad Bob/Jhon Smith/out_of_the_blue is in his "meltdown" phase again. It's where he fails to pour the products of his trembling sphincter into a wordwall before tipping it into the comment textbox. We've seen it before.
On the post: Josh Hawley Was The Democrats' Partner In Trying To Regulate Big Tech; Then The Public Realized He Was A Fascist
Re: Re: Re:
"After the Jan 6th coup attempt it's like the collective intelligence of the copyright camp just went down several notches. Not that it was a brightly shining font of wisdom before, mind you."
I remember when old Bobmail used to have these meltdowns on a regular basis, back on TorrentFreak. His love for fascism was obvious even back then and his recurring cries of "You'll all pay! PAY I Say!" were well known.
But he can't get back on Torrentfreak because there's login verification now and he can't dwell on Ars because they're even harder in their restrictions and so he's relegated to spending all his time here, prompting most of us to agree with Mike and Tim that "There's motherfuckers, stupid motherfuckers, and then there's you" about him.
It's just that every now and then poor Baghdad Bob just can't muster the energy to wrap a word wall around his sadism, ghoulish glee and fascist inclinations and that's when his loosened sphincter leaks stuff like what we just read in some poor defenseless text box.
On the post: Josh Hawley Was The Democrats' Partner In Trying To Regulate Big Tech; Then The Public Realized He Was A Fascist
Re: Why Techbribe why?
Ah, the incoherent ramblings lauding copyright and fascism finished with a "YOU'LL ALL PAY!". Pure Baghdad Bob drivel, like a word salad made by an AI weaned on Mein Kampf and old Rote Armee Fraktion PR slogans. Delivered, as per usual, with a random anon nick.
I'm sure we're all impressed.
On the post: Josh Hawley Was The Democrats' Partner In Trying To Regulate Big Tech; Then The Public Realized He Was A Fascist
Re: would love to see
"It might Light up a few faces when they understand that there is no such thing as a REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT, except by label."
People keep saying this, especially older people. And I have to say they're wrong.
Democrats and Republicans used to be comparable. A few ideologists, a bipartisan divide between progressive and conservative, a similar bipartisan divide between authoritarians and liberals.
But that all changed after Reagan. The democrats are still business as usual - politicians of varying degrees of shady, occasionally trying to wedge a few actually constructive and benevolent bills in between carrying water for their biggest campaign contributors while largely being utterly ineffectual at addressing the most primary ills to plague the nations because that would upset those people they're beholden to.
It's just that today their Big Tent contains all the progressives and liberals while the republicans have slid down to where they now no longer have any platform other than populism and no ideology other than outright fascism.
You're half right. The democrats are largely the same as they always were. Their playbook remains that of stale old realpolitik.
The republicans, however, have changed to where they are no longer on the same page. Their playbook is now literally Mein Kampf. And that should surprise no one given that Hitler wrote that manuscript while thinking of how to undermine a barely functioning democratic republic by quiet means with his beer hall coup having failed.
On the post: How The Financialization Of Music Could Lead To Demands For Perpetual Copyright
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'You broke the deal, we're returning the fav
"While the common man gets swindled to support the cause."
The common man, pinning his/her faith to the preachings of whatever cult holds their allegiance, has always been swindled though. The way to fix this is to teach people the value of critical thinking and education.
What will never work, though, is to point out to the common man that he's been grifted. We do not live in the world of fairytale where the boy who shouts makes people aware the emperor has no clothes. We live in the world where the people irately beat the stuffing out of the young troublemaker for loudly agreeing with the evidence of their own lying eyes.
On the post: NYPD Officers Are Again Whining About Being Asked To Document Their Biased Policework
Re: Re:
"True, race is a social construct, and not a difference in our humanity."
Hmm...not quite. Genetic markers do exist which categorize ethnic background. A few of whom point to environmental adaptation bringing a few characteristic appearance factors to the surface. Its just that none of those differences make any difference in the humanity of the person bearing them, because being better adapted to heat, cold, or UV radiation says nothing about your quality as a person.
The issue is that a lot of people are still stuck in tribalism and all too eager to look down on what they perceive as different. Visible aspects of ethnicity, behavior, culture, sexuality, gender, religion...all of these are will serve well as a ready excuse for the bigot.
Race isn't the social construct. The determination of worth is.
On the post: Big Tech 'Antitrust Reform' Agenda Sags, Revealing Mostly Empty Rhetoric
Re: Re:
"I'm amazed you're still believing in the strawman Mike who only exists in your head."
Baghdad Bob's made it pretty clear his whole world only exists inside his head. Why would the Mike he sees be any more real than the rest of his dystopian hallucination?
On the post: Big Tech 'Antitrust Reform' Agenda Sags, Revealing Mostly Empty Rhetoric
Re: until the United States finds creative ways to break the cyc
"...by scrapping capitalism and moving to a more equitable and democratic form of government, i.e. communism!"
Except that people being people Communism won't work. The USSR actually tried but no regime today calling itself communist managed to get around the fact that people are neither perfect nor machines and thus there is communism remains an "if pigs could fly" theorem only spoiled by the absence of winged porcines.
China underlines this point by, in effect, having a market more red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalist by far than the US at this point.
On the post: The VPN Is On Everybody's Shitlist After Years Of Scammy Providers And Empty Promises
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Are you suggesting AT&T would lie to its consumers? Its bread and butter?
...Sorry, can't even type that with a straight face...😂
On the post: NYPD Officers Are Again Whining About Being Asked To Document Their Biased Policework
Re: basically an admission of racist policing
"Translation: I decide whom to pull over based solely on that person's skin color. I believe that my behavior will be exposed if I use this system and continue my racist policing practices."
Random Not-A-Racist-But: "I can't help it if black and latinos are more often criminals than white folks."
Me: "assuming that's true why do you think that is so?"
Random Not-A-Racist-But: "They live in ghettos and they're poor. Criminal life comes naturally to them."
Me: "So why are they poor and live in ghettos?"
Random Not-A-Racist-But: "Because they're too lazy. It's just how they are."
Me: "Uh-huh. So basically you assume they are inherently lesser as a people?"
Random Not-A-Racist-But: "Don't you call me a god damn racist, asshole!!"
The lack of self-awareness of the average racist is staggeringly lacking - and when you hold a mirror up to them rather than reflect they throw a tantrum and try to blame their own shitty values on everyone else.
On the post: Please Join Techdirt In Celebrating 'National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day!'
Re: What _will_ get police officers fired.
"Meanwhile, if killing unarmed black men in cold blood won't get police officers fired, you know what will?"
A manifestly unfair comparison. From the view of police leadership and unions killing a black man is often seen in a positive light.
Playing games rather than actively hurting or killing people means you aren't doing your job as a US law enforcement officer. No wonder the guy got the sack.
On the post: How To Destroy Innovation And Competition: Putting SHOP SAFE Act Into Innovation And Competition Act
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"The US has the nasty habit of exporting the worst of their laws world wide, just look at the copyright laws that they have pushed onto other countries."
That is correct. This time around, though, they're messing with a different playing field; China. Not a bunch of brawling EU member states or similar markets.
And the difference becomes obvious when you look at the chinese emergence into the global market and their internal one. They've very gradually invited foreign companies, built their own replacements for such, and then driven every foreign company out of China as soon as their own became able to cover the internal market. This is the most clear when it comes to online services; WeChat, Baidu, MaiMai, Weibo replacing Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and Facebook. But I have no doubt they operate in similar fashion for every market need. As they have with Alibaba instead of Amazon, for instance.
If the US tries to hardball the EU then Germany and France may object but generally speaking no european nation is self-sufficient. Nor most other countries. We're not big enough and don't have all the relevant raw material resources and logistics at hand to cater to the needs of our consumer sector. So when Uncle Sam says "Fall in Line" we usually do.
China just isn't as vulnerable that way. They've got more territory and a bigger market than the US and europe combined. Full self-sufficiency isn't hard to aim for. Global markets are a nice to have, not a need to have for China.
And more than half the manufacturing of the world already takes place there. So this time around if Uncle Sam tries to tell China to fall in line they'll say no. And if he tries to hardball at that point we find out that although severing ties with US business would be tough for other markets, severing ties with the supply chain of everything is even more unacceptable.
In the short run legislation in the OP benefits the most massive of US actors at the expense of raising the entry bar for smaller companies significantly. In the long run it means the US as a whole is no longer globally competitive in that sector of the market. But that's all right. His friendly beariness, Emperor Xi, will gladly fill that void.
On the post: How To Destroy Innovation And Competition: Putting SHOP SAFE Act Into Innovation And Competition Act
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Maybe there is. But, I don't see anyone literally saying "do nothing", and the rest of us have eyes to see the natural consequences of what's actually being proposed."
No, by now there isn't. Legislation you can use to deal with counterfeiting without causing fairly serious collateral damage has already been long passed - with great bipartisan support, at that. Hell, even legislation causing great inconvenience and middling harm has been passed long ago. We're at the point where further proposed "cure" has far better odds of killing the patient than the illness has.
If this metaphor was about controlling speeding vehicles we would have already implemented traffic signals, random radar traps and cameras, cruise control, GPS-mediated warnings when speed limits were exceeded...and a whole lot of cops on traffic duty monitoring almost every road.
This legislation is the equivalent of demanding every driver wears a tracker and logs their driving habits every time they enter a vehicle. On their own expense. Major trucking companies would have problems with this but will be able to manage. Individual drivers and small moving companies will be dead in the market.
On the post: Baltimore Police Union Blames City's Murder Rate On Defunding Efforts That Never Happened
Re: 'What do you mean we're not the good guys?!'
"This is not a political issue of left vs. right, nor is it a rift between Baltimore's citizens and their sworn protectors. This is simply a fight between good vs. evil..."
So, an issue between humanitarian liberal values and, ah..."conservative values"?
I think I'm beginning to understand Koby's perspective a little.
On the post: Baltimore Police Union Blames City's Murder Rate On Defunding Efforts That Never Happened
Re:
"I miss critical thinking & the reality of what you can see/hear/feel winning over those claiming it didn't happen like that."
That never really existed. Americans have subscribed to magical thinking all the way back to the pioneer times. P.T. Barnum could never have emerged from anywhere but the US.
There's an old Newsweek article which is still accessible with a bit of googling. Isaac Asimov's "The cult of ignorance".
It's well worth reading and highlights how the lack of critical thinking and the rejection of clearly observable facts have always been part of the US political landscape.
On the post: Baltimore Police Union Blames City's Murder Rate On Defunding Efforts That Never Happened
Re: Re: Re: Ima let you finish after you answer a quick question
"...it's easier to claim you're being oppressed when Nazis are banned than it is to ponder on why you share so many political beliefs with Nazis."
The issue of self-awareness isn't one the alt-right typically has.
I once spoke with a person who was adamant they weren't racist when they claimed black people just committed proportionally more crimes. Boiling it down this is what the convo looked like;
Him: "Black people commit a LOT more crimes, proportionally, than ordinary white folks".
Me: "WHY do black people commit more crimes, proportionally, than white folk?"
Him: "They're poor, lazy, live like animals in ghettos."
Me: "So why are they poor and live in ghettos?"
Him: "Because they can't be arsed to improve themselves."
Me: "Why not?"
Him: "Because they're not that smart and they're too lazy to work"
Me: "So is there ANY part of your assertions where you don't just assume black people are inferior to white people?"
Him: "I'm not a racist, you asshole!!"
This part has to be dealt with first. And that's a huge damn issue given that most actual racists will just take that <insert minority here> is lesser for granted and get really upset when people point out that view on reality they lean on for so much it might as well be part of who and what they are is dictionary-definition racism.
And then they get real upset and like any other emotional toddler try to deflect, project and throw tantrums so they won't have to realize they're doubling down on being horrible people.
On the post: The VPN Is On Everybody's Shitlist After Years Of Scammy Providers And Empty Promises
Re: Re: Re:
"It ultimately comes does to who you trust, and just because you can trust the site you're going to visit to give you a more secure connection than you has before, that doesn't mean you should blindly trust everyone else involved in that transaction."
I recall "Trust, but verify" being the Word Of God way back when networking was just a bit newer.
It still receives as much respect as Caveat Emptor, though. I can still hear my old mentor in my first job - as a DBA - telling me that for the sake of my sanity I just had to recognize some people just couldn't be helped with any amount of advice and workarounds would have to be built to accommodate those...
On the post: The VPN Is On Everybody's Shitlist After Years Of Scammy Providers And Empty Promises
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[Edit typo]
"I find the realization that today there are still people calling tech support looking for the "any" button disturbing" that should have been...
On the post: The VPN Is On Everybody's Shitlist After Years Of Scammy Providers And Empty Promises
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"However, I've come to the realization that if my computer knowledge is a 5-6 on a 10-point scale, the average person is at about 2-3."
I find the realization that today there are still people calling tech support looking for the "any" button. And I'm not surprised at all that every support I've had to contact for the last ten years or so is inflexible to the point of absurdity. Examples abound of what happens when a Luser or PHB gets to tell the techies what they want done to the poor defenseless system in their care.
On the post: How To Destroy Innovation And Competition: Putting SHOP SAFE Act Into Innovation And Competition Act
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"I think there is a reasonable middle ground between the “Do Nothing, everything is fine the way it is and if you touch it the internet as we know it will be burnt to the ground” side and that bill."
There really isn't. People just keep looking at a reality which literally has no middle ground and keep saying "Nerd harder". That won't work.
Either you have a globalized community and a communications medium which works across it...or you have a version of the chinese firewall. It's the literal analogy of you demanding there must be a way for a woman to be "just a bit" pregnant.
The problem with catching the counterfeiter selling the 500$ bag is that in order to find the bags which are counterfeit you need to monitor every transaction involving handbags which means monitoring all of online retail. Bringing us to the proposed legislation. It places the same burden on webpage operators as it would on a mall owner suddenly being told he'll personally be responsible for every unlawful act happening in his mall.
In short, this legislation calls on enforcement mechanisms not seen even in the worst old soviet satellite states to be effective.
"It’s not about shutting down companies but it is about removing counterfeits form the online marketplace in a reasonable measured reliable way without attacking the marketplaces themselves."
And that's not happening. This shit has been tried for a few thousand years and the only way it was ever settled turned out to be by shutting the borders and make sure nothing crossed them from the country manufacturing the knockoffs.
I.e. you can do this. But it'll mean the US exiting the global marketplace. Because few companies with a US HQ can afford the burden of surveillance required.
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