Fake news is fake. Untrue. Non-facts and non-events reported as actual facts and actual events. People need to put some effort towards determining the truth, rather than just jumping to believe or dismiss reports (as in a Snopes contributor writing an automatically skeptical article dismissing the Emory U Trump Chalk Hysteria.)
Whereas claims of harassment often have a subjective element. By their assessment of what constitutes abusive, violent or "damaging" speech some people demonstrate such a rare delicacy and finely-honed moral sensibility that I (or others) have to insist they need to own their own emotional reactions. This subjectivity can also be weaponized for internet arguments and utilized in bad faith ("Only a white male cis shitlord would deliberately cause pain to member of an abused, excluded disenfranchised group! You nust want all Xs to die!")
FB may have their responses a little backwards. Then again their response prioritization may reflect the degree or likelihood of legal responsibility (and the potential cost thereof)
Yes, we'll lead the world in labor-saving technology for the citizen surveillance and national oppression industries!!
We're number 1!!! We're number 1!!! We're...wait...won't this lead to massive unemployment among the "jackbooted thug", "enhanced coercive interrogation expert" and "truncheon-wielding pedestrian guide" demographics??
Hmmm...with a minimum of retraining, we can expect to see some strict adherence to mall littering regulations, eh? And a serious upgrade in the enforcement competence of theater ushers. The Invisible Hand resolves such problems, only now it'll grab you by the throat and ask if you've expressed any anti-government sentiments recently.
Amen. This is why I always oppose granting the government more powers, or greater regulatory scope: it just gives them more shit to sell off. (then when the FCC does good, it throws my whole model off!)
Then again, this is also why, much as I hate so-called 'progressives' (not sorry, they hated me first), the Republican party presents a wholly unacceptable alternative.
The parties, along with a gutless, cooperative press, allow the plutocratic class to filter "acceptable" candidates. In some countries, ones we routinely mock, the military acts as such a filter. I don't see our situation as much better.
Therefore Trump. And, to a certain extent, Bernie. Because people who want to improve the country, people who just want to preserve what's good about the country, people who just don't want to get screwed over any more...all feel totally betrayed by the parties. And the parties, aided by the press, respond to these expressions of outrage and betrayal with "wedge issues" and "culture war".
Mossack Fonseca deals/dealt with companies that actually HAVE money, big money. Usually weapon, drug, humn trafficking, corruption and scam money, but real money nonetheless.
Petty scammers who have to target people whose wealth is below the "enough money to hire a lawyer" threshold, even if they do it in volume, may be a level or two below making MFs' client list.
BTW, Hillary's tight with a lot of people who are in the first category. A true test of whether we actually have a real Fourth Estate that maintains any pretense of integrity. Or not.
I'm pretty sure Randy heard "Stairway to Heaven". He never sued.
When the result of a law is "ghoulish money-grabs by lawyers to benefit people who have created nothing", it's safe to conclude the law is bad. I was kind of looking for a characterization of such law more sophisticated than just "bad", but no, that's about exactly right.
Yeah, it would be good if the members of Led Zep were to come down on the side of the angels regarding copyright law, but as we all know, it's all about the big IP aggregators getting richer, not the artists.
And even that "benefit" is secondary to the apparent primary goal of the law here, which is more litigation, because the lawyers on both sides "win".
Benefit to society, as was actually mentioned in the way long ago??? A very distant third or fourth consideration.
That's very good, and if the case for concern about 'climate change', specifically AGW (I learned it was Anthropogenic Global Warming), were always made in such a manner, you'd see a lot fewer people expressing doubts about the motives of the doomsayers.
BUT. When people make their case with hyperbole and exaggeration, ad hominem attacks and insults, it's noticeable. How can ALL changes in climate be bad? How can more rain, anywhere, always be bad, and less rain, anywhere, also always be bad?? How can all extreme weather be blamed on AGW? People actually remember that we've always had extreme weather, and over-reporting does not make it, in reality, worse. And NAMING every bit of bad weather! What's that supposed to prove?? And noting the increased DOLLAR COST of severe weather events as support for "action to prevent climate change!"? WTF? It's like a damn marketing campaign...and that's how it appears to people who come away skeptical, myself included.
Most amazingly, people are falling all over themselves to trust the good will and competence of the UN and the US government to deal with this poorly-defined problem. W.T.F???
One crisis in the natural world that I do find alarming is the apparent depletion of our national reserves of cynicism. Scary indeed.
Well, it's always good to see a sincere effort to expound on the realistic prospects regarding climate change.
And you were doing very well until you got to the part about "population is booming", which is absolutely not true and appears to be just a very dated piece of received "wisdom". It's an OLD "end of the world" panic scenario, (like Erlich's "absolutely unavoidable, billions of deaths due to starvation" and "The coming Ice Age"), but birth rates are falling in most parts of the world, in many places to below replacement level, except for those areas where women are still treated as property and breeding machines.
If SOME PEOPLE would get their hypocritical heads out of their progressive asses and help the women in said countries achieve equality in education, law and reproductive rights, the population problem would be "solved". There would still be more people than a lot of elitists would like, and I'll admit I have some ideas for dramatic population reduction myself, but we could dump the simplistic "just follow this curve, you'll see we're headed for 100,000,000,000 people! Unsustainable!" hysteria once and for all.
This may be yet another example of facts being subordinated to "The Narrative", but I thought your explanation was more well-intentioned and truth-oriented than that.
Yeah, I stopped listening when you start listing your evil straw men and lumping them all together. Not exactly the sign of someone I can trust to have done a rigorous, skeptical analysis...of anything really.
Also, your last comment is just bullshit. There are lots of people who accept the measured increase in global temperatures, but who are justifiably dubious of predictive models that somehow always have to be adjusted to fit reality, but only after their hysterical overestimations have been blindly accepted and loudly proclaimed. There are lots of people who would just like to point out that the "solution" to warming might be found in human adaptability, rather than greater government control of people's lives. There are people who would like to point out that the climate has always changed, and that a perfect harmonious equilibrium that we are charged with maintaining is a (religious>) myth.
But all these reasonable views are shouted down with ad hominem attacks, lies, threats, and insults. Which, in my experience, are not the rhetorical tactics of people confident they are defending "truth". So, props on being mindless "repeater of the goodthink", but I'm not impressed.
"Even if Mr. Seidman can prove he has been the victim of theft, that may not be enough. Trademarks are meant not to prevent companies from stealing others’ ideas, but to protect consumers from mixing up brands. Mr. Seidman will need to demonstrate that people might be inclined to confuse a yogurt manufacturer with a company that provides consulting services, or mistakenly believe that the two companies were otherwise connected in some way."
But go for it Mr. Seidman. Show us the virtue of "money-grubbing".
People could have used the word "how" regarding the provision of any service. Trademark or service mark, it still depends on confusion (deliberate or accidental) to make the case for violation.
He doesn't own the word "how", and, as was noted above, it wasn't even used in his magically 'transformative', innovative sense as a noun. It's an adverb. Too confusing? Maybe THAT'S why it shouldn't have been granted in the first place, or at least why the scope of protection offered him should be very, very narrow. And it is. Suing his own representation for failing to squeeze every penny out of every situation? Par for the course. Go for it.
If it's people like this giving corporations advice on "virtue"...well, that explains a lot. All your hair-splitting could have been avoided had he sought the services of an advisor on "Not appearing to be a total wanker". Hard to put that genie back in the bottle using the fine points of trademark law...
Sorry, I've just got a patent on "The process of publically diagramming sentences", which you are in violation of-without paying fees per the accompanying 344 page manual/payment schedule. I've made an exception for educational use, out of the goodness of my heart and to declare on my taxes as a 'charitable contribution'.
This latter based on the fact that any theoretical money not captured, that might have been captured, is "lost", "stolen" or "contributed willingly".
"Our financial system has broken itself because it encourages short-term profit hunting via stock value rather than investing in a company's future."
Exactly. Somehow, our business schools have produced "managers" whose idea of leadership is:
1) Bump the stock price by any means necessary 2) Cash out 3) Bail Repeat at one's next stop on the carousel. And this despite their being "well-compensated", to desribe it euphemistically.
Whatever the effect on the nations economic well-being, I can't forgive them for making me explain to my millenial children that "No, this is not actually what 'capitalism' is." Grrrr...
Given the 'quality' of some public art and its popularity with the public, that would be acceptable. Elitist art Nazis in positions of authority seem to have an almost vindictive attitude towards actual "popular" art and the benighted yahoos who like it (never mind these are the people who, you know, make up the "public").
And best of all the grant-granting department gets paid to assess proposals, the contract for preparing the public space for the artwork gets handed out to someone on a particular political campaigns' donors list, same with the contracts for moving and warehousing the newly 'protected' art. All working as designed, and everybody gets paid except the artists.
Interesting. It's gotten to be a HUGE world economy out there. There's a LOT of money and it would appear that there's a fuckton of money in herding and hiding services with an emphasis on "No questions" expertise. And MF didn't exactly have a monopoly. No, when MF dropped the sanctioned companies' accounts (Often when, after years of loyal association and service, someone applied the aggressive hacker technique known as "a Google Search" on them, for like, totally no reason.) that money just went somewhere else. Tips, icebergs...
Lot of info on that site, lotta malfeasance, but I found myself particularly unmoved by the plight of the ex-wives trying to get their "fair share" of some ill-gotten billions for no more puttin' out than any trailerpark babymomma. Somehow:
"Offshore law firm jokes in emails as they help husband “protect” assets against “unpleasant” divorce."
...doesn't really generate much outrage with me. On the one side, funds gained or used in all kinds of vile ways, on the other, a mindless system that makes mind-boggling transfers of wealth sans wisdom or even sometimes, much regard for reality...not really a happy-making read, at all.
Not very "punk" at all. More "managed to get rights to the name of a dead band, now how can we milk a few $$$ from the corpse?"-ish.
It's caveat emptor all the way down for bands you loved 30-50 years ago. Starting with the fact that even if the bands have the same personnel and have spent the intervening decades perfecting their craft...you still won't be 19 again. Dammit.
It's easy to be cynical. It's a laborious task to be as widely and darkly cynical as is necessary to accurately model the real world.
TechDirt readership gets top marks for not being surprised that this is going on with the progressive "good guys". Not one single comment on the lines of "This is what I'd expect from the Rethuglicans!" Good. Cynical and informed enough to realize that there are no good guys in that game.
(But that's the value to politicians of emotional-but-irrelevant "wedge issues". To make people feel strong identification with one as opposed to another of two politicians, when both would, if in power, prefer rule and self-interest over "leadership" or "public service".)
On the post: Facebook Has Lost The War It Declared On Fake News
Re:
Whereas claims of harassment often have a subjective element. By their assessment of what constitutes abusive, violent or "damaging" speech some people demonstrate such a rare delicacy and finely-honed moral sensibility that I (or others) have to insist they need to own their own emotional reactions. This subjectivity can also be weaponized for internet arguments and utilized in bad faith ("Only a white male cis shitlord would deliberately cause pain to member of an abused, excluded disenfranchised group! You nust want all Xs to die!")
FB may have their responses a little backwards. Then again their response prioritization may reflect the degree or likelihood of legal responsibility (and the potential cost thereof)
On the post: Indian Government Agencies Demand Access To WhatsApp Messaging Groups
Re: Re:
We're number 1!!! We're number 1!!! We're...wait...won't this lead to massive unemployment among the "jackbooted thug", "enhanced coercive interrogation expert" and "truncheon-wielding pedestrian guide" demographics??
Hmmm...with a minimum of retraining, we can expect to see some strict adherence to mall littering regulations, eh? And a serious upgrade in the enforcement competence of theater ushers. The Invisible Hand resolves such problems, only now it'll grab you by the throat and ask if you've expressed any anti-government sentiments recently.
On the post: White House Threatens To Veto Bill Attempting To Gut Net Neutrality, Defang FCC
Re:
Then again, this is also why, much as I hate so-called 'progressives' (not sorry, they hated me first), the Republican party presents a wholly unacceptable alternative.
The parties, along with a gutless, cooperative press, allow the plutocratic class to filter "acceptable" candidates. In some countries, ones we routinely mock, the military acts as such a filter. I don't see our situation as much better.
Therefore Trump. And, to a certain extent, Bernie. Because people who want to improve the country, people who just want to preserve what's good about the country, people who just don't want to get screwed over any more...all feel totally betrayed by the parties. And the parties, aided by the press, respond to these expressions of outrage and betrayal with "wedge issues" and "culture war".
On the post: Copyright Troll Tries To Silence Anti-Troll Blogger With Law Enforcement Threats
Re: Panama Papers?
Petty scammers who have to target people whose wealth is below the "enough money to hire a lawyer" threshold, even if they do it in volume, may be a level or two below making MFs' client list.
BTW, Hillary's tight with a lot of people who are in the first category. A true test of whether we actually have a real Fourth Estate that maintains any pretense of integrity. Or not.
On the post: Led Zeppelin 'Stairway To Heaven' Copyright Case Will Go To A Jury... Meaning Band Will Almost Certainly Lose
When the result of a law is "ghoulish money-grabs by lawyers to benefit people who have created nothing", it's safe to conclude the law is bad. I was kind of looking for a characterization of such law more sophisticated than just "bad", but no, that's about exactly right.
Yeah, it would be good if the members of Led Zep were to come down on the side of the angels regarding copyright law, but as we all know, it's all about the big IP aggregators getting richer, not the artists.
And even that "benefit" is secondary to the apparent primary goal of the law here, which is more litigation, because the lawyers on both sides "win".
Benefit to society, as was actually mentioned in the way long ago??? A very distant third or fourth consideration.
On the post: US Chamber Of Commerce Actually Just US Chamber Of Our Highest-Paying Members
Re: Re: Re: Re:
BUT. When people make their case with hyperbole and exaggeration, ad hominem attacks and insults, it's noticeable. How can ALL changes in climate be bad? How can more rain, anywhere, always be bad, and less rain, anywhere, also always be bad?? How can all extreme weather be blamed on AGW? People actually remember that we've always had extreme weather, and over-reporting does not make it, in reality, worse. And NAMING every bit of bad weather! What's that supposed to prove?? And noting the increased DOLLAR COST of severe weather events as support for "action to prevent climate change!"? WTF? It's like a damn marketing campaign...and that's how it appears to people who come away skeptical, myself included.
Most amazingly, people are falling all over themselves to trust the good will and competence of the UN and the US government to deal with this poorly-defined problem. W.T.F???
One crisis in the natural world that I do find alarming is the apparent depletion of our national reserves of cynicism. Scary indeed.
On the post: US Chamber Of Commerce Actually Just US Chamber Of Our Highest-Paying Members
Re: Re: Really?
And you were doing very well until you got to the part about "population is booming", which is absolutely not true and appears to be just a very dated piece of received "wisdom". It's an OLD "end of the world" panic scenario, (like Erlich's "absolutely unavoidable, billions of deaths due to starvation" and "The coming Ice Age"), but birth rates are falling in most parts of the world, in many places to below replacement level, except for those areas where women are still treated as property and breeding machines.
If SOME PEOPLE would get their hypocritical heads out of their progressive asses and help the women in said countries achieve equality in education, law and reproductive rights, the population problem would be "solved". There would still be more people than a lot of elitists would like, and I'll admit I have some ideas for dramatic population reduction myself, but we could dump the simplistic "just follow this curve, you'll see we're headed for 100,000,000,000 people! Unsustainable!" hysteria once and for all.
This may be yet another example of facts being subordinated to "The Narrative", but I thought your explanation was more well-intentioned and truth-oriented than that.
On the post: US Chamber Of Commerce Actually Just US Chamber Of Our Highest-Paying Members
Re: Re: Really?
Also, your last comment is just bullshit. There are lots of people who accept the measured increase in global temperatures, but who are justifiably dubious of predictive models that somehow always have to be adjusted to fit reality, but only after their hysterical overestimations have been blindly accepted and loudly proclaimed. There are lots of people who would just like to point out that the "solution" to warming might be found in human adaptability, rather than greater government control of people's lives. There are people who would like to point out that the climate has always changed, and that a perfect harmonious equilibrium that we are charged with maintaining is a (religious>) myth.
But all these reasonable views are shouted down with ad hominem attacks, lies, threats, and insults. Which, in my experience, are not the rhetorical tactics of people confident they are defending "truth". So, props on being mindless "repeater of the goodthink", but I'm not impressed.
On the post: Dov Seidman Now Suing His Agent Over The Use Of The Word 'How' By Third Party Ad Agency
"Even if Mr. Seidman can prove he has been the victim of theft, that may not be enough. Trademarks are meant not to prevent companies from stealing others’ ideas, but to protect consumers from mixing up brands. Mr. Seidman will need to demonstrate that people might be inclined to confuse a yogurt manufacturer with a company that provides consulting services, or mistakenly believe that the two companies were otherwise connected in some way."
But go for it Mr. Seidman. Show us the virtue of "money-grubbing".
On the post: Dov Seidman Now Suing His Agent Over The Use Of The Word 'How' By Third Party Ad Agency
Re:
He doesn't own the word "how", and, as was noted above, it wasn't even used in his magically 'transformative', innovative sense as a noun. It's an adverb. Too confusing? Maybe THAT'S why it shouldn't have been granted in the first place, or at least why the scope of protection offered him should be very, very narrow. And it is. Suing his own representation for failing to squeeze every penny out of every situation? Par for the course. Go for it.
If it's people like this giving corporations advice on "virtue"...well, that explains a lot. All your hair-splitting could have been avoided had he sought the services of an advisor on "Not appearing to be a total wanker". Hard to put that genie back in the bottle using the fine points of trademark law...
On the post: Dov Seidman Now Suing His Agent Over The Use Of The Word 'How' By Third Party Ad Agency
On the post: Dov Seidman Now Suing His Agent Over The Use Of The Word 'How' By Third Party Ad Agency
Re: Re:
Note that this allows members of the public to diagram sentences at home, for their own amusement or understanding.
On the post: Dov Seidman Now Suing His Agent Over The Use Of The Word 'How' By Third Party Ad Agency
Re:
This latter based on the fact that any theoretical money not captured, that might have been captured, is "lost", "stolen" or "contributed willingly".
On the post: Elon Musk Clarifies That Tesla's Patents Really Are Free; Investor Absolutely Freaks Out
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Exactly. Somehow, our business schools have produced "managers" whose idea of leadership is:
1) Bump the stock price by any means necessary
2) Cash out
3) Bail
Repeat at one's next stop on the carousel. And this despite their being "well-compensated", to desribe it euphemistically.
Whatever the effect on the nations economic well-being, I can't forgive them for making me explain to my millenial children that "No, this is not actually what 'capitalism' is." Grrrr...
On the post: Swedish Court: Wikipedia Hosting Photos Of Public Artwork Is Copyright Infringement For Some Reason
Re: e.g. Portlandia
And best of all the grant-granting department gets paid to assess proposals, the contract for preparing the public space for the artwork gets handed out to someone on a particular political campaigns' donors list, same with the contracts for moving and warehousing the newly 'protected' art. All working as designed, and everybody gets paid except the artists.
On the post: Terabyte-Sized 'Panama Papers' Leak Confirms The Continuing Rise Of The Super-Whistleblowers
Lot of info on that site, lotta malfeasance, but I found myself particularly unmoved by the plight of the ex-wives trying to get their "fair share" of some ill-gotten billions for no more puttin' out than any trailerpark babymomma. Somehow:
"Offshore law firm jokes in emails as they help husband “protect” assets against “unpleasant” divorce."
...doesn't really generate much outrage with me. On the one side, funds gained or used in all kinds of vile ways, on the other, a mindless system that makes mind-boggling transfers of wealth sans wisdom or even sometimes, much regard for reality...not really a happy-making read, at all.
On the post: Terabyte-Sized 'Panama Papers' Leak Confirms The Continuing Rise Of The Super-Whistleblowers
Re:
Now no need for the /sarc tag.
On the post: Punk Band Misfits Issues Trademark C&D To 'Punk Rock Flea Market,' Receives C&D From Flea Market In Return
It's caveat emptor all the way down for bands you loved 30-50 years ago. Starting with the fact that even if the bands have the same personnel and have spent the intervening decades perfecting their craft...you still won't be 19 again. Dammit.
On the post: San Francisco Legislators Dodging Public Records Requests With Self-Destructing Text Messages
TechDirt readership gets top marks for not being surprised that this is going on with the progressive "good guys". Not one single comment on the lines of "This is what I'd expect from the Rethuglicans!" Good. Cynical and informed enough to realize that there are no good guys in that game.
(But that's the value to politicians of emotional-but-irrelevant "wedge issues". To make people feel strong identification with one as opposed to another of two politicians, when both would, if in power, prefer rule and self-interest over "leadership" or "public service".)
On the post: San Francisco Legislators Dodging Public Records Requests With Self-Destructing Text Messages
Re: Going Dark
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