Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Jan 2022 @ 3:01am
Re: Re:
"These days they don't show up on articles featuring copyright behaving badly unless they're absolutely certain no one will reply to their attempts to get the last word."
Huh. Means they've finally managed to learn something.
Granted, after ten years or more worth of having every one of their insane assertions countered by dozens of saner people, factual reality, and in some cases, their own incoherent arguments I just wish they'd learned a better lesson than just "Never assert anything where anyone could respond".
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Jan 2022 @ 2:50am
Re: Re: late to the party as usual ... but
"The US is done. It thinks it can keep a stranglehold on it's creators and deprive itself of new technologies while simultaneously paying everyone in perpetuity for nothing and reigning supreme as a world superpower. It's delusional."
Although that's not the only place where the US is stuck in flagrantly insane or obsolete ways the main issue is that the bad decision-making of the past has enormous inertia. The fast way to fix all of what is broken is a rebuild from scratch.
And to think we're talking about the country which taught everyone else about social responsibility and was a world leader of social democracy under FDR...
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Jan 2022 @ 2:21am
Re:
""Would you patent the sun?" is a memorable quote. Too bad the IP maximalists nowadays would unashamedly answer "YES!"."
To anyone using that quote I'd recommend they read old Frederic Bastiat's "The Candlemaker's Petition". The urge of an industry risking redundancy lobbying for extreme powers of protectionism isn't exactly new...
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Jan 2022 @ 2:17am
Re: Re: observer notes
"The Supreme Court has famously said otherwise. See also: Eldred v. Ashcroft. The short version of it is: Congress can retroactively extend copyright as much as it wants."
To be fair though that only made the word "limited" do a lot of work. The constitutional still holds the implementation of copyright and patents as strictly optional. Yes, congress can retroactively extend copyright, if it so chooses. It can also withdraw it's support for such protection, rendering the entire structure of copyright law on a very shaky foundation, likely rendering most of the enforcement mechanisms outright unconstitutional.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Jan 2022 @ 2:14am
Re:
No and it isn't the short end of it either.
The most shameless panderers visavi the copyright cult used to all be democrat. Is it just me or have the more shameless and upsetting proposals of copyright maximalism lately started coming from traditional republicans?
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Jan 2022 @ 1:38am
Well, that's not really odd.
"So... there are some oddities and surprises in that list. Four out of our top ten stories... are actually not from 2021! In fact, three out of the top four are not from 2021. That's... weird!"
Consider what 2021 looked like and the titles. Anyone googling those topics will find them. And sadly, 2021 has been a very, very bad year when it comes to trends - as in a lot of people searching the web for answers to some very depressing topics.
"US stole millions", I imagine, is a natural query given the shit-show surrounding "Build Back Better". Kim Dotcom is the TPB Trial of the US and gets tossed around every now and then.
And "Neighbors, watching, surveillance, video" seem a likely go-to default given the political polarization just going into overdrive this last year. If your next door neighbor still has a Trump or Biden sign on their lawn, suspicion is soon to follow.
I also note that although I apparently inspire a lot of insightful comments I'm really not that funny. Think it'll help if I pepper my comments with Carlin quotes? 😅
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Jan 2022 @ 1:23am
The really interesting part here...
...is the case itself. When was the last time US Law Enforcement went after US servicepeople**?
At least in Virginia it looks like police departments are so riddled with malice when it comes to black people they are blind to the fact there's a man wearing military khakis, claiming to be a soldier, who they are treating like klansmen would a union soldier of color back in civil war times.
The US armed forces have historically been more aligned to republicans - a holdover from when progressives could be found in that party because the US army has generally been inclusive and willing to adapt before any other branch of government. As the likes of Admiral Grace Hopper and General Benjamin Davis can attest to. For the simple reason that wars are won by being pragmatic, not ideological.
I can see a lot of conflict rising there, because the current GOP shares absolutely no values with the US armed forces, whereas police departments all over the US looked at the new fascism and said "Fucking Finally!".
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 7 Jan 2022 @ 5:31am
Re: Re:
"Now, who is that government going to find as a more interesting target for further surveillance, those who records can be accessed on demand if they want them, or those who are hiding their activity."
That's a fallacious argument.
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
Attributed to Cardinal Richelieu.
THIS^ is the way most intel agencies operate. A few years back in Sweden an electrician had been communicating with a customer re a job. He'd used technical jargon and explained his explosive migraine made it impossible to finish the job today. He and his wife woke to find their door kicked in and masked individuals aiming rifles at their children. Not an experience I'd wish on anyone and one where tragedy was averted by luck alone.
The safest is to not provide anyone the ability to read anything you send - because the algorithm flagging keywords can't read context. Your communications being unreadable may or may not raise eyebrows somewhere but they also won't risk triggering enough unfortunate keywords to have a message sent to the local SWAT team with your address and a Code Red assault order.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 7 Jan 2022 @ 5:20am
Re:
"Let me guess, this narrative is being pushed by ISP's, data brokers and others that would like easy access to tracking all of your internet searches/history."
Probably not. Ten years ago implementation of encryption of any kind was often suspect at best and most routers were even leakier sieves than they are today. Some browsers might as well have come with built-in backdoors given the way they handled https, and too damn many webpages were still on old plaintext http.
That said VPN's still have a great deal of use today. It just isn't ubiquitously necessary.
VPN's still have a lot of use but given their popularity in a world where governments compete to be the next DDR Caveat Emptor applies more than ever before.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 7 Jan 2022 @ 5:06am
Re: Re: Re: same old song
"Hey, don't lump Winnie-the-Pooh in with the ex tangerine in chief."
True that. I may not care much for his Beariness Emperor Xi but I'll at least credit the thin-skinned fellow with more moxie than the average toddler. Can't say the same for Il Duce Arancione.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 7 Jan 2022 @ 4:48am
Re: Re: same old song
"The point of regulation is to (a) satisfy those who think private firms are inherently evil and need restraint over and above the ordinary rules of honest business (honor contracts, don't mislead, don't steal, don't lie, don't screw people, etc.)"
You mean, like Eisenhower did?
Yes, private corporations are inherently amoral. Given the opportunity most of them will gladly traffic children if doing so would get them better margins this quarter and it didn't land them in hot water. We really don't need more evidence on this by now.
And the thing is, that is how a corporation is supposed to work. The one and only thing they should care about is the profit provided the shareholders.
Take a long, good luck at the US today. Show me one single example where the business model isn't primarily made of grift. Where a single major company wouldn't be willing to pour poison in the water mains if it meant raising the Q1 profit.
"while (b) ensuring that the industry is successful and profitable (whether it deserves to be or not)"
I reference 2008-2009. Where lack of regulation resulted in a collapse which suddenly forced two presidents from either extreme end of the aisle to compete in bailing the major industries out because the 401(k)'s of the common citizen was pending on those industries not collapsing. Classical old republicans hauled out the old line about how everyone was a keynesian now.
"(c) providing a mechanism to erect barriers to entry to new firms who'd like to lower prices or innovate, which could lead to existing players seeing reduced profit or a lot of work."
Again, back here in the real world history paints a different picture where, once again, lack of regulations is what has provided businesses the monopoly status carrying the ability to run the newcomers out of business.
I honestly don't get it, OldMugWump. You people live in the reality which has given all those three assertions of yours the lie.
While europeans, living in incredibly regulated markets, are offered more choice than ever at lower prices and higher quality. Just when did the US begin parroting the blind old propaganda of the USSR about their failing system? Because I know for a fact that as recent as Eisenhower you guys were singing a completely different tune.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 7 Jan 2022 @ 4:34am
Re: Re: unfortnately
"ya right.. lets throw trillions of dollars at social bs... that can't be maintained..."
You realize the rest of the G20 does exactly that, and we maintain it just fine.
I shouldn't be surprised that Every. Damn. Time universal health care, decent living wages or helping the poor comes up, some alt-right fsckwit shows up and tells us it's impossible for the US to do what the rest of the world has successfully lived with for fifty years or more.
"just because you have wealth, status, plenty of activities, and mobility, doesn't mean that criminal activity is off the table."
If poor people commit 99% of crimes and the wealthy perform 1% of crimes that's not a valid comparison.
There is no higher driver of criminality than poverty. Doubting that stopped being a thing among educated people three centuries ago.
It always gets me, how a certain type of witless asshat can keep advocating forking over ten pounds of cure, to the tune of gagging bagfuls of money, rather than spend a tenth that amount on prevention.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 7 Jan 2022 @ 4:22am
Re:
"Politicians love to “treat” symptoms without thinking about treating (or discovering) their root cause."
Root causes are expensive, complex and require persistent treatment.
Far simpler just to prescribe some aspirin.
If you are a successful politician you may have picked the proper base to address - the one happier with the aspirin providing the appearance of relief than with the idea they'll have to vote you in for two terms more and wait for that time until you provide the result.
If you're a successful and hard-working politician you may have picked a base sufficiently educated and patient so as to appreciate a quick fix is never a solution.
And if you're a grifter your base will be happy enough as soon as you can point the finger at some random minority and tell them "those guys" are to blame for all their ills...and they'll cheerfully self-medicate on grievance, forgetting all their daily woes.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 7 Jan 2022 @ 2:16am
Re: Just a friendly reminder
"That China, like all of you, applaud Twitter and Facebook's censoring of people."
I wish this was the first time I had to tell some alt-right fsckwit there's a difference between a government with violence monopoly prohibiting certain speech for everyone and a private entity tossing the unpleasant asshole out of their house.
Just reminding you that you people are still being morons.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 7 Jan 2022 @ 2:13am
Re:
"China reads Orwell's "1984" and responds with "Pffft....hold my baijiu""
Of course they will. They invented the "1984" society in Qin Shi Huang's days and never looked back. Difference being that their desire for control and social order is based in pragmatism. Millennia of famines, revolutions, uprisings, weak governments, and warlordism have shaped what they have today - a recipe ensuring the majority of the citizenry have access to education, opportunity, commerce, and prosperity while using the minority as patsies, scapegoats and warning examples unto others.
As long as you are a "proper" chinese...productive, educated, dedicated to social ideals...your life will be good under the benevolent Divine Ursine, son of heaven. Cater to the 90% and ensure their well-being. Throw everyone who won't fall in line under the bus.
Whenever some movement arises which has adherents thinking of that movement first, China second; Sects. Buddhists. Shaolin monks. Triads. Falun Gong. Tibetans. Uighyr. Etc...come down on them like a ton of bricks.
China's government and all its representatives being excessively thin-skinned is part and parcel of this; Never let anyone doubt the current order. National face must be preserved at all cost.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 7 Jan 2022 @ 2:00am
Re:
"To be fair, this isn't remotely new for China."
FTFY. Information control, censorship, coming down hard on dissidents and citizens of China desiring autonomy...is millennia old.
And the PRC was communist the same way it was mongol - a brief historical aberration in a coup or revolution, and then straight back to the oligarchic ultra-authoritarianism they've always had.
You can look at Taiwan before the 70's for a glance at how China normally operates under a strong leader. It wasn't until Chang Kai-shek bit the dust and Taiwan had heavy interaction with western values that they adopted a functional form of democracy. And even there you can tell from the common free-form brawling in their assemblies that they really haven't gotten used to not having a central authority keep the room to order.
I kid you not. Go to youtube. Search for "taiwan parliamentary brawl"...watch the scrolling pages of clips featuring politicians én másse partaking in the Fight Club over every issue.
"...they're increasingly more like Nazis, especially considering they're literally a step away from doing Holocaust 2: Muslim Edition."
There's nothing "increasing" about it. And no, the closest contemporary form of nazism today would be the US GOP base. China has a rational, albeit horrible reason to do what they do. Same as the reason they came down on Falun Gong, Tibetan monks, Hong Kong believers in individual freedoms, and Winnie The Pooh.
Same as why they in olden days as an empire cracked down on buddhists, sects, and shaolin temples.
Face. Social order. A nation united.
China must appear undivided and culturally hegemonous. Every citizen of China must be a proper citizen of ancient Hua Xia. The government - whether emperors past or his present exalted Beariness - must be respected. Social order is to be preserved, unrest and dissent proactively destroyed.
This recipe is what has kept China as a nation in more or less unbroken cultural unity as a single country for thousands of years.
And the problem with telling them differently is this; You try telling a chinese politician about the merits of democracy and they will gently ask you to point out one single democracy of size to have lasted more than 500 years. You'll be able to point at a few flyspeck republics not all that democratic and of course to San Marino...and that's it. Not too surprising given that actual democracy didn't come back in vogue until about two centuries ago.
The chinese politician will likely say something along the lines of "It sounds intriguing. Can you get back to us in a thousand years or so? We'll have another look then".
China's cruelty is rooted in a pragmatic approach to order über alles which on good days comes off as a thoroughly unprincipled approach to do whatever it takes to ensure some 90% of the country is too well fed, educated and prosperous to even dream of opposing the government. While using the remaining 10% as patsies, scapegoats and examples made why it's not healthy to compare Emperor Xi to Winnie the Pooh. It's ugly. Cruel. But it works.
The same can not be said about nazism which is rooted out of a pseudo-religious tangle of lies peddled to convince the least educated and impoverished no-hope losers they are the "Chosen people" unfairly oppressed by some minority who are simultaneously subhuman inferiors AND strangely able to wield superhuman powers of oppression over the majority in the "superior" race.
Nazism only works until it's burned out every feckless moron dumb enough to believe in it since it inevitably comes into conflict with factual reality and science.
China's autocracy otoh, seems to work pretty well for the most part if what you want is a cohesive national entity remaining largely unchanged for a few millennia.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 7 Jan 2022 @ 1:21am
Re: Re: Re:
"When one of the options for a political office is Trump it's near impossible not to offer a better choice."
In reality, yes.
Look at what that base consists of though. We're looking at a lot of people with piss-poor or spotty education who were the ones hit the hardest by Reagan. And have been repeatedly told by the grifter of their choice that everything they've suffered is the democrats fault since they were old enough to walk.
Adherents of the american cult of ignorance Asimov wrote off, who grew up to believe education was unamerican - only to find out that without a college degree the only job they could hold was one they'd have to spend ten hour working days on to make ends meet.
To get through the day they self-medicate on that cheap and readily available drug of grievance they are fed in such bountiful supply by the GOP.
The democrats could win that base over, no sweat. They just have to stop talking in big words and start telling the GOP base whom to hate in simple catchy one-liners and talking points.
The better choice doesn't even have to do with politics, facts, or the prosperity of the citizenry now. It revolves around the candidate able to come up with the best chant to hold daily two minute hate sessions around.
On the post: Court Orders Twitter Reveal Anonymous Tweeter Over Sketchy Copyright Claim, Because That Tweeter Won't Show Up In Court
Re: Re:
"These days they don't show up on articles featuring copyright behaving badly unless they're absolutely certain no one will reply to their attempts to get the last word."
Huh. Means they've finally managed to learn something.
Granted, after ten years or more worth of having every one of their insane assertions countered by dozens of saner people, factual reality, and in some cases, their own incoherent arguments I just wish they'd learned a better lesson than just "Never assert anything where anyone could respond".
On the post: Senator Tillis Holds Secret Meeting With IP Maximalists To Discuss A Single US 'IP' Agency
Re: Re: late to the party as usual ... but
"The US is done. It thinks it can keep a stranglehold on it's creators and deprive itself of new technologies while simultaneously paying everyone in perpetuity for nothing and reigning supreme as a world superpower. It's delusional."
Although that's not the only place where the US is stuck in flagrantly insane or obsolete ways the main issue is that the bad decision-making of the past has enormous inertia. The fast way to fix all of what is broken is a rebuild from scratch.
And to think we're talking about the country which taught everyone else about social responsibility and was a world leader of social democracy under FDR...
On the post: Senator Tillis Holds Secret Meeting With IP Maximalists To Discuss A Single US 'IP' Agency
Re:
""Would you patent the sun?" is a memorable quote. Too bad the IP maximalists nowadays would unashamedly answer "YES!"."
To anyone using that quote I'd recommend they read old Frederic Bastiat's "The Candlemaker's Petition". The urge of an industry risking redundancy lobbying for extreme powers of protectionism isn't exactly new...
On the post: Senator Tillis Holds Secret Meeting With IP Maximalists To Discuss A Single US 'IP' Agency
Re:
"Promoting the progress of learning was phased out of copyright long ago."
It was never part of copyright in the first place. In practice the bit about "promoting science and the arts" was never implemented.
On the post: Senator Tillis Holds Secret Meeting With IP Maximalists To Discuss A Single US 'IP' Agency
Re: Re: observer notes
"The Supreme Court has famously said otherwise. See also: Eldred v. Ashcroft. The short version of it is: Congress can retroactively extend copyright as much as it wants."
To be fair though that only made the word "limited" do a lot of work. The constitutional still holds the implementation of copyright and patents as strictly optional. Yes, congress can retroactively extend copyright, if it so chooses. It can also withdraw it's support for such protection, rendering the entire structure of copyright law on a very shaky foundation, likely rendering most of the enforcement mechanisms outright unconstitutional.
On the post: Senator Tillis Holds Secret Meeting With IP Maximalists To Discuss A Single US 'IP' Agency
Re:
No and it isn't the short end of it either.
The most shameless panderers visavi the copyright cult used to all be democrat. Is it just me or have the more shameless and upsetting proposals of copyright maximalism lately started coming from traditional republicans?
On the post: Techdirt 2021: The Stats.
Well, that's not really odd.
"So... there are some oddities and surprises in that list. Four out of our top ten stories... are actually not from 2021! In fact, three out of the top four are not from 2021. That's... weird!"
Consider what 2021 looked like and the titles. Anyone googling those topics will find them. And sadly, 2021 has been a very, very bad year when it comes to trends - as in a lot of people searching the web for answers to some very depressing topics.
"US stole millions", I imagine, is a natural query given the shit-show surrounding "Build Back Better". Kim Dotcom is the TPB Trial of the US and gets tossed around every now and then.
And "Neighbors, watching, surveillance, video" seem a likely go-to default given the political polarization just going into overdrive this last year. If your next door neighbor still has a Trump or Biden sign on their lawn, suspicion is soon to follow.
I also note that although I apparently inspire a lot of insightful comments I'm really not that funny. Think it'll help if I pepper my comments with Carlin quotes? 😅
On the post: PD Whose Officers Brutalized A Black Soldier For Driving To A Well-Lit Area Sued By Virginia Attorney General
The really interesting part here...
...is the case itself. When was the last time US Law Enforcement went after US servicepeople**?
At least in Virginia it looks like police departments are so riddled with malice when it comes to black people they are blind to the fact there's a man wearing military khakis, claiming to be a soldier, who they are treating like klansmen would a union soldier of color back in civil war times.
The US armed forces have historically been more aligned to republicans - a holdover from when progressives could be found in that party because the US army has generally been inclusive and willing to adapt before any other branch of government. As the likes of Admiral Grace Hopper and General Benjamin Davis can attest to. For the simple reason that wars are won by being pragmatic, not ideological.
I can see a lot of conflict rising there, because the current GOP shares absolutely no values with the US armed forces, whereas police departments all over the US looked at the new fascism and said "Fucking Finally!".
On the post: The VPN Is On Everybody's Shitlist After Years Of Scammy Providers And Empty Promises
Re: Re:
"Now, who is that government going to find as a more interesting target for further surveillance, those who records can be accessed on demand if they want them, or those who are hiding their activity."
That's a fallacious argument.
THIS^ is the way most intel agencies operate. A few years back in Sweden an electrician had been communicating with a customer re a job. He'd used technical jargon and explained his explosive migraine made it impossible to finish the job today. He and his wife woke to find their door kicked in and masked individuals aiming rifles at their children. Not an experience I'd wish on anyone and one where tragedy was averted by luck alone.
The safest is to not provide anyone the ability to read anything you send - because the algorithm flagging keywords can't read context. Your communications being unreadable may or may not raise eyebrows somewhere but they also won't risk triggering enough unfortunate keywords to have a message sent to the local SWAT team with your address and a Code Red assault order.
On the post: The VPN Is On Everybody's Shitlist After Years Of Scammy Providers And Empty Promises
Re: Re: Re:
"Personally, I'll stop using VPNs when the companies I use for commercial and banking stop using them to protect their own data."
This right there. When companies handling large sums of money start forgoing an intranet...that's when I'll stop using one as well.
On the post: The VPN Is On Everybody's Shitlist After Years Of Scammy Providers And Empty Promises
Re:
"Let me guess, this narrative is being pushed by ISP's, data brokers and others that would like easy access to tracking all of your internet searches/history."
Probably not. Ten years ago implementation of encryption of any kind was often suspect at best and most routers were even leakier sieves than they are today. Some browsers might as well have come with built-in backdoors given the way they handled https, and too damn many webpages were still on old plaintext http.
That said VPN's still have a great deal of use today. It just isn't ubiquitously necessary.
VPN's still have a lot of use but given their popularity in a world where governments compete to be the next DDR Caveat Emptor applies more than ever before.
On the post: Top Disney Lawyer To Become Top Copyright Office Lawyer, Because Who Cares About The Public Interest?
Re: Re: Re: same old song
"Hey, don't lump Winnie-the-Pooh in with the ex tangerine in chief."
True that. I may not care much for his Beariness Emperor Xi but I'll at least credit the thin-skinned fellow with more moxie than the average toddler. Can't say the same for Il Duce Arancione.
On the post: Top Disney Lawyer To Become Top Copyright Office Lawyer, Because Who Cares About The Public Interest?
Re: Re: same old song
"The point of regulation is to (a) satisfy those who think private firms are inherently evil and need restraint over and above the ordinary rules of honest business (honor contracts, don't mislead, don't steal, don't lie, don't screw people, etc.)"
You mean, like Eisenhower did?
Yes, private corporations are inherently amoral. Given the opportunity most of them will gladly traffic children if doing so would get them better margins this quarter and it didn't land them in hot water. We really don't need more evidence on this by now.
And the thing is, that is how a corporation is supposed to work. The one and only thing they should care about is the profit provided the shareholders.
Take a long, good luck at the US today. Show me one single example where the business model isn't primarily made of grift. Where a single major company wouldn't be willing to pour poison in the water mains if it meant raising the Q1 profit.
"while (b) ensuring that the industry is successful and profitable (whether it deserves to be or not)"
I reference 2008-2009. Where lack of regulation resulted in a collapse which suddenly forced two presidents from either extreme end of the aisle to compete in bailing the major industries out because the 401(k)'s of the common citizen was pending on those industries not collapsing. Classical old republicans hauled out the old line about how everyone was a keynesian now.
"(c) providing a mechanism to erect barriers to entry to new firms who'd like to lower prices or innovate, which could lead to existing players seeing reduced profit or a lot of work."
Again, back here in the real world history paints a different picture where, once again, lack of regulations is what has provided businesses the monopoly status carrying the ability to run the newcomers out of business.
I honestly don't get it, OldMugWump. You people live in the reality which has given all those three assertions of yours the lie.
While europeans, living in incredibly regulated markets, are offered more choice than ever at lower prices and higher quality. Just when did the US begin parroting the blind old propaganda of the USSR about their failing system? Because I know for a fact that as recent as Eisenhower you guys were singing a completely different tune.
On the post: Baltimore Police Union Blames City's Murder Rate On Defunding Efforts That Never Happened
Re: Re: unfortnately
"ya right.. lets throw trillions of dollars at social bs... that can't be maintained..."
You realize the rest of the G20 does exactly that, and we maintain it just fine.
I shouldn't be surprised that Every. Damn. Time universal health care, decent living wages or helping the poor comes up, some alt-right fsckwit shows up and tells us it's impossible for the US to do what the rest of the world has successfully lived with for fifty years or more.
"just because you have wealth, status, plenty of activities, and mobility, doesn't mean that criminal activity is off the table."
If poor people commit 99% of crimes and the wealthy perform 1% of crimes that's not a valid comparison.
There is no higher driver of criminality than poverty. Doubting that stopped being a thing among educated people three centuries ago.
It always gets me, how a certain type of witless asshat can keep advocating forking over ten pounds of cure, to the tune of gagging bagfuls of money, rather than spend a tenth that amount on prevention.
On the post: The Making Of A Moral Panic, Courtesy Of The NY Times
Re:
"Politicians love to “treat” symptoms without thinking about treating (or discovering) their root cause."
Root causes are expensive, complex and require persistent treatment.
Far simpler just to prescribe some aspirin.
If you are a successful politician you may have picked the proper base to address - the one happier with the aspirin providing the appearance of relief than with the idea they'll have to vote you in for two terms more and wait for that time until you provide the result.
If you're a successful and hard-working politician you may have picked a base sufficiently educated and patient so as to appreciate a quick fix is never a solution.
And if you're a grifter your base will be happy enough as soon as you can point the finger at some random minority and tell them "those guys" are to blame for all their ills...and they'll cheerfully self-medicate on grievance, forgetting all their daily woes.
On the post: It's Great That Winnie The Pooh Is In The Public Domain; But He Should Have Been Free In 1982 (Or Earlier)
Weird.
I didn't know His exalted Beariness, Emperor Xi Jin Ping, was in the public domain.
Does that mean China really doesn't have a leg to stand on when we poke fun at him?
On the post: Chinese Government Dragnet Now Folding In American Social Media Platforms To Silence Dissent
Re: Just a friendly reminder
"That China, like all of you, applaud Twitter and Facebook's censoring of people."
I wish this was the first time I had to tell some alt-right fsckwit there's a difference between a government with violence monopoly prohibiting certain speech for everyone and a private entity tossing the unpleasant asshole out of their house.
Just reminding you that you people are still being morons.
On the post: Chinese Government Dragnet Now Folding In American Social Media Platforms To Silence Dissent
Re:
"China reads Orwell's "1984" and responds with "Pffft....hold my baijiu""
Of course they will. They invented the "1984" society in Qin Shi Huang's days and never looked back. Difference being that their desire for control and social order is based in pragmatism. Millennia of famines, revolutions, uprisings, weak governments, and warlordism have shaped what they have today - a recipe ensuring the majority of the citizenry have access to education, opportunity, commerce, and prosperity while using the minority as patsies, scapegoats and warning examples unto others.
As long as you are a "proper" chinese...productive, educated, dedicated to social ideals...your life will be good under the benevolent Divine Ursine, son of heaven. Cater to the 90% and ensure their well-being. Throw everyone who won't fall in line under the bus.
Whenever some movement arises which has adherents thinking of that movement first, China second; Sects. Buddhists. Shaolin monks. Triads. Falun Gong. Tibetans. Uighyr. Etc...come down on them like a ton of bricks.
China's government and all its representatives being excessively thin-skinned is part and parcel of this; Never let anyone doubt the current order. National face must be preserved at all cost.
On the post: China's Regulatory War On Its Gaming Industry Racks Up 14k Casualties
Re:
"To be fair, this isn't remotely new for China."
FTFY. Information control, censorship, coming down hard on dissidents and citizens of China desiring autonomy...is millennia old.
And the PRC was communist the same way it was mongol - a brief historical aberration in a coup or revolution, and then straight back to the oligarchic ultra-authoritarianism they've always had.
You can look at Taiwan before the 70's for a glance at how China normally operates under a strong leader. It wasn't until Chang Kai-shek bit the dust and Taiwan had heavy interaction with western values that they adopted a functional form of democracy. And even there you can tell from the common free-form brawling in their assemblies that they really haven't gotten used to not having a central authority keep the room to order.
I kid you not. Go to youtube. Search for "taiwan parliamentary brawl"...watch the scrolling pages of clips featuring politicians én másse partaking in the Fight Club over every issue.
"...they're increasingly more like Nazis, especially considering they're literally a step away from doing Holocaust 2: Muslim Edition."
There's nothing "increasing" about it. And no, the closest contemporary form of nazism today would be the US GOP base. China has a rational, albeit horrible reason to do what they do. Same as the reason they came down on Falun Gong, Tibetan monks, Hong Kong believers in individual freedoms, and Winnie The Pooh.
Same as why they in olden days as an empire cracked down on buddhists, sects, and shaolin temples.
Face. Social order. A nation united.
China must appear undivided and culturally hegemonous. Every citizen of China must be a proper citizen of ancient Hua Xia. The government - whether emperors past or his present exalted Beariness - must be respected. Social order is to be preserved, unrest and dissent proactively destroyed.
This recipe is what has kept China as a nation in more or less unbroken cultural unity as a single country for thousands of years.
And the problem with telling them differently is this; You try telling a chinese politician about the merits of democracy and they will gently ask you to point out one single democracy of size to have lasted more than 500 years. You'll be able to point at a few flyspeck republics not all that democratic and of course to San Marino...and that's it. Not too surprising given that actual democracy didn't come back in vogue until about two centuries ago.
The chinese politician will likely say something along the lines of "It sounds intriguing. Can you get back to us in a thousand years or so? We'll have another look then".
China's cruelty is rooted in a pragmatic approach to order über alles which on good days comes off as a thoroughly unprincipled approach to do whatever it takes to ensure some 90% of the country is too well fed, educated and prosperous to even dream of opposing the government. While using the remaining 10% as patsies, scapegoats and examples made why it's not healthy to compare Emperor Xi to Winnie the Pooh. It's ugly. Cruel. But it works.
The same can not be said about nazism which is rooted out of a pseudo-religious tangle of lies peddled to convince the least educated and impoverished no-hope losers they are the "Chosen people" unfairly oppressed by some minority who are simultaneously subhuman inferiors AND strangely able to wield superhuman powers of oppression over the majority in the "superior" race.
Nazism only works until it's burned out every feckless moron dumb enough to believe in it since it inevitably comes into conflict with factual reality and science.
China's autocracy otoh, seems to work pretty well for the most part if what you want is a cohesive national entity remaining largely unchanged for a few millennia.
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"When one of the options for a political office is Trump it's near impossible not to offer a better choice."
In reality, yes.
Look at what that base consists of though. We're looking at a lot of people with piss-poor or spotty education who were the ones hit the hardest by Reagan. And have been repeatedly told by the grifter of their choice that everything they've suffered is the democrats fault since they were old enough to walk.
Adherents of the american cult of ignorance Asimov wrote off, who grew up to believe education was unamerican - only to find out that without a college degree the only job they could hold was one they'd have to spend ten hour working days on to make ends meet.
To get through the day they self-medicate on that cheap and readily available drug of grievance they are fed in such bountiful supply by the GOP.
The democrats could win that base over, no sweat. They just have to stop talking in big words and start telling the GOP base whom to hate in simple catchy one-liners and talking points.
The better choice doesn't even have to do with politics, facts, or the prosperity of the citizenry now. It revolves around the candidate able to come up with the best chant to hold daily two minute hate sessions around.
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