Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 7 Jan 2022 @ 1:09am
Re: Re:
"Unfortunately, since its inception, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been irreparably tainted by its use as a political instrument."
In smaller scale plenty of countries have found their immigration bureaus tainted from the start. Apparently setting up an agency dedicated to keeping, mainly, non-white foreigners out of the country attracts a lot of people dedicated to racist ideals.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 7 Jan 2022 @ 1:03am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I refer to you the sentence the AC led with; "Regarding the 'compromised security' claim. It's simply not true that the only ones complaining about it are publishers."
This is where he gives credence to the "compromised security" claim from the publishers.
As others have also noted, his reasoning is...a bit skewed in the importance he places on "bulk downloading".
Yes, stolen credentials can be a hazard depending on the access those credentials provide.
But I have enough of a background in both STEM and IT to tell you that the access allowing bulk downloads of scientific articles do not pose a threat to the network. That part is bullshit from start to end.
A "threat" comes from credentials which allow vectors of attack or access to confidential documents. If the user network consists of more than ten people a presumptive attacker having similar access is already taken for granted and the network hardened against this precise eventuality.
The thing which raises my hackles here is that the AC describes a situation which could never happen. The credentials "stolen" would be the access login to Elsevier's page - not the university network.
There is only one thing threatening that university network - Elsevier going bananas over bulk downloads and demanding the university come down like a ton of bricks on whatever researcher shared their login and password to Elsevier's pages with undergrads and postdocs. A legal threat, nothing to do with security.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 7 Jan 2022 @ 12:43am
Re: Re: Say What?
"Shut the fuck up with your crap, all you're doing is heading down Koby-lane..."
Look through some of "Restless94110"'s commentary. He's way beyond Koby-lane.
By now I assume he only shows up here to copy-paste some argument which went down real well in his normal Stormfront forum and he still doesn't grok why anyone outside of that place refuses to give him the reciprocal reacharound over him stroking their egos by affirming their beliefs in the dystopian fairy tale they cling to.
The only thing he brings to the table is a reminder that the alt-right left their sanity by the roadside years back.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 7 Jan 2022 @ 12:37am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Say What?
"...you essentially have to start from the position that either the democrats across the country are vastly smarter and more able to plan than the republicans involved, the republicans involved are incredibly stupid and easy to fool, or a mix of the two."
Less entertaining when you consider that exact scenario is one of the more telling defining characteristics of fascists; The opposition is simultaneously contemptibly weak, feeble-minded and easily intimidated cowards - while at the same time being capable of persistent superhuman feats of power when it comes to oppressing the "Chosen Ones".
I refer to you here the nazi mythology of the jewish untermensch along with their belief that subhuman epitome of cowardice and short-sighted self-destructive greed managed to rule the damn world through super-secret shadow cabals.
Just recall Marjorie Taylor-Greene's "Jewish space lasers". In the eyes of the conspiracy nut the "opposition" is always portrayed as a superhuman capable of mind control and time travel while having access to super sci-fi technology. While being "inferior".
"'There's no solid evidence because the other side is way smarter than us' makes for an interesting argument/own-goal to say the least."
I used to counter neo-nazi conspiracy nuts with the statement "Gosh, we all need to convert to judaism. If you are to be believed we get super-powers and access to the Death Star if we do".
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 7 Jan 2022 @ 12:23am
Re: Re: Re: Youtube is a great example to illustrate how ...
"There's usually not only 2 sides to any discussion, so if you pretend any debate is binary you're already on a losing track."
That too, to be sure.
But the trend right now isn't that there are more than two sides. It's that one side uses factual reality as a basis and the other irately demands something be done about the invisible unicorns messing up the equally unperceivable ley lines in the back yard of the imperceptible sky wizard.
Democrat politician: "Let us discuss the deplorable state of health care and the pandemic to which more than 800000 americans have fallen in a mere two years..."
Republican grifter: "Screw your lies! What are we going to do about Liberal Sauron's man-eating orc horde about to emerge from Mordor and KILL US ALL ANY DAY NOW?!"
Republican grifter #2: "Ah heard they dun trafficked Red Riding Hood! We gun' defund the poh-leese when dat shit happens?"
Republican grifter #3: "It's the wrath of GOD! Repent, Sinners! And give all your money to the Chosen One that he may build us a wall against the unholy forces of the mexican rapist!"
There's not a plurality of sides in a debate here...It's one side bringing facts to the table and another side flipping that table while belting out dystopian fairy tales and thinly veiled reruns of Der Stürmer. If you could have described it as one side just being less credible I, for one, would be happy.
But you can't. The reality is that there are no two sides because there's only one side trying to debate. The other is shitting on the table and howling at the moon.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 5 Jan 2022 @ 3:13am
Re: Youtube is a great example to illustrate how ...
"Freedom of expression means that anybody who chooses do so should be entitled to listen to both sides before making up their own opinion, rather than being forced to have the government do that for them."
That would be a good point to make...if there were "two sides" in most of these debates. And I'll take ad notam that the government hasn't ever come down on any debate not involving hate speech or obvious and dangerous misinformation.
When the issue concerns a bunch of conspiracy nuts and racists insisting they have a right to be heard I actually don't find it concerning at all that the government has, in many european countries, banned the expression of those beliefs.
I used to hold it as important that the nazis and lunatics were able to say their piece in public so the rest of us could be reminded and warned what sort of monsters and deluded folk were out there. These days however, that's not necessary. What those benighted morons say in closed chambers will be raised to public awareness soon enough.
That being the case there is no need to mandate that the people with the equivalent urges of fetishized public defecation be guaranteed an audience.
"...pretty much any video that is not on the government line with regards to Corona or Russia will be deleted pretty much immediately."
Ah, yes, the ones saying the pandemic is a hoax/jewish bioweapon/curable with enough homeopathy and that Russia is justly governed under Great Leader Vladimir Putin?
The deletion of those videos aren't because the tyrannical EU wants them gone. It's because no platform wants to carry russian shills and conspiracy nuts when it drives away most of the audience.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 5 Jan 2022 @ 2:13am
But...that's always been the case.
"This means that the Chinese government is coming off less like a socialist nation and more akin to something like the Taliban, where strict control over culture is seen as some kind of spiritual requirement. "
Timothy, there's something I think you may need brought to your attention; When it comes to China strict control over culture has been the first overriding priority of government for two and a half millennia.
China has a long history of famines, social upheavals, anarchy, revolutions, etc - all of which led, in the end, to dynastic shifts after a great deal of suffering. And the country took a lesson from that history.
1) Social upheaval disrupts government.
2) Weak government causes massive harm through bad flood control, insufficient food production & storage, local warlordism and banditry, sectarian violence, organized crime and foreign usurpation and occupation.
3) *Suffering of the people causes social upheaval. Goto 1.
China will go, as they have in the past, to any length to preserve order. Controlling culture and social engineering is part and parcel of this. All of the Golden Shield project (great firewall, social credit ratings, border control) is an attempt to prevent chinese culture from changing. This is the core belief they have in autocracy. That government must be strong and remain completely, utterly unchallenged.
"If you open the window for fresh air, you have to expect some flies to blow in."
Deng Xiaoping, 1980's, favorite saying re foreign influence.
The perception is that any change in chinese culture eventually leads to the loss of government control and subsequent disaster as the nation fractions into warring tribes who then go on to starve because the emerging warlords won't give a tinker's damn about food production, sanitation, transportation and health care. It may take China another millennia before they acknowledge that with more modern science many of those issues which shaped their culture are simply no longer relevant.
But up until that point the PRC will always come down hard on any phenomenon which may threaten their culture. Foreign influence. Games. Religions growing too big. Corporations growing too influential. Provinces and minorities advocating secession or autonomy.
Emperors and dynasties may come and go. Prominent politicians and institutions just the face which needs to be preserved to accommodate the illusion of infallibility.
In the end all of chinese politics are as pragmatic as a knife fight. Utterly unburdened with any principle other than don't lose control. And the unceasing byzantine politics of the internal a necessity to make sure that none of the competing parties are ever seen as challenging the central authority.
As emperors go the Pooh Bear has a fairly strong standing. If he states video games are harmful to chinese culture then the bureaucracy's overblown reaction isn't just understandable. It was predictable ever since he was quoted as saying things to that effect.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 5 Jan 2022 @ 1:02am
Re:
"I wonder how much this will accelerate the pop of China's economic bubble."
None at all. At least not while we in the west ensure China has a steady job in being our supply chain.
China can afford to beat their home industry up quite mercilessly because it all floats on a foundation of job security and money freely offered by western industries willing to bend over backwards to kiss the Pooh Bear's ringpiece as long as it means access to the market containing 1/6th of the world's population, and the convenience of not having to own a single factory in the Land Of Tort.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 5 Jan 2022 @ 12:52am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"He simply seems to be saying that when people are "stealing" credentials it creates a security risk that may or may not be deliberate, but which takes time and effort to counter."
Well, yeah.
The major problem with that assertion is that although that much is correct, the assertion has nothing at all to do with copyright infringement.
Now if we're talking about people copying media, and the copyright cult's spin is "People who copy media further terrorism" then the comment from an AC of "Oh, yeah, terrorism is bad, there's something to what they say" is misleading at best.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 5 Jan 2022 @ 12:48am
Re: Re: Re: greed
"A better way would to be to require those who profit financially from the work to share a portion of their gains with the creator."
It speaks volumes about the origins of copyright that no such argument was ever made at its inception. It's why I keep claiming copyright needs to be abolished completely and author's rights fitted under trademark law instead - making an artist's/author's work part of their brand and protected as such.
This neatly removes the privilege to dictate who gets to make copies while still providing the creator of a work the right to deny use of their work in commercial and/or political venues.
"Of course, none of this applies to "learned journals" who charge scientists to publish in their journals and requiring a transfer of copyright to boot."
Curious, isn't it, how a Red Flag Act like copyright, implemented to further middleman grifters, serves the middleman grifters so well, eh?
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 5 Jan 2022 @ 12:43am
Re: Say What?
"They are."
After your strident calls that peaceful BLM protests deserved military intervention you now claim that people who invaded the capitol and beat the cop guarding it do death are within the bounds of 1A?
No, the US constitution quite clearly spells out that you are free to speak. You are not free to attempt to physically disrupt the election process. By your own constitution that is called insurrection.
That you can't english is your problem, not ours.
"Correct. It was a protest against the rampant fraud of the election that everyone could see and knows occurred."
You mean the one of which even republican vote watchers couldn't see an issue? The one where, when called upon in court, every last one of your people had to confess they had nothing but their own words for it?
The GOP did investigate the election and as you may recall the only voter fraud which was found was some of you guys trying to vote twice.
"And they are obviously correct. So why would you not be supporting their law suit?"
Because every actual expert of law and court of the land says otherwise?
"Because you are for fascist totalitarians?"
Says the man who has been advocating fascist totalitarianism in a hundred or more comments clearly visible by just scrolling down his comment history a few pages.
Give it a fscking rest already. The only thing you've convinced everyone on the fence about by now is that your side has to lie in every argument you make. You need to take that shit right back to the Stormfront circle jerk you people have got going, where the already deluded appreciate some online rando telling them their most dystopian derangements are true.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 5 Jan 2022 @ 12:33am
Re:
"Good. People who don’t respect the rules won’t be swayed into respecting those rules by people who follow the rules and go tsk-tsk at the rulebreakers."
Something more of the liberal crowd desperately needs to learn.
It does the sheep little good to predict the goodness of a diet of grass if the wolves are of a different mind
Terry Goodkind, Wizard's First Rule.
Rules and principles are a gentleman's agreement whereby opposing sides may agree to carry out their conflicts in an arena of debate, using arguments and logic as weapons. That's only possible when both sides believe words actually have meaning.
And it's become bitingly obvious the republicans have left that conviction behind. Just like personal responsibility and accountability, or consistent beliefs. Bringing to mind what was often said about the original nazis in times past.
Americans keep forgetting what their own scholars kept reminding them off; That "It can't happen here" was what non-nazi Germans kept saying all the way until Hitler wrote himself the ermächtigungsgesetz*.
No war has ever been won by refusing to adopt the effective weapons of the enemy or sticking to rules of engagement the adversary doesn't respect.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 5 Jan 2022 @ 12:15am
Re: Re: Re: Re: This holds true across party lines:
"In all seriousness size constraints seem to be considered perfectly constitutional. That only could help with concealment of guns more powerful than pistols."
Most constraints implemented don't really serve any sensible purpose other than mitigating the potential harm an assailant already in possession of a firearm and bearing lethal intent can cause easily, yeah.
The real issue remains twofold; Too big a proportion of people coming to the unspoken realization that in the US, land of opportunity they were literally born to lose...and decide to go down taking as many of the cool crowd, the haves, or just the people not in perceived misery as possible with them.
And the cult of death so prevalent, where a frightening proportion of americans cling to the belief that the gun - violence - is an effective solution to every problem in the end.
Piss-poor education, class divides, and a society stuck in a hindmost-be-damned rat race where the gold standard of "winning" is to, at some point, be able to stop spending ten hour work days just to make ends meet. While dreaming all the time about miraculously becoming one of the 1%.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 5 Jan 2022 @ 12:08am
Re:
"Fundamentally, people are uncomfortable with people and conditions that are "different"."
Here's a strange coincidence you might want to look into in that case; The common denominator between anachronism, conservatism, bigotry, racism and misogyny is that the adherents of such tend to be unimaginative...or at least unwilling to imagine a reality different than the one they've brought up to believe is true.
Fear of Change may be a necessary imperative in times of threat but have become the root of all evil in modern society when sudden weather pattern shifts or animal migrations are the likely precursors of some localized flooding or earthquake threatening the tribe. Or someone not believing in the divine right of the king is likely to propel bloody revolution.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 4 Jan 2022 @ 5:20am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Well, it doesn't exactly come as a surprise.
"As for sabroni's comment about leaving the USA: I think there is sufficient foresight and much less denial about the dismal future of the USA, but where would we go, exactly?"
There is also the difference in proportions. Some 75% of americans are not on board with Trumpism or the GOP shitting on the US constitution at every turn. Any actual confrontation isn't going to be one-sided.
7,4 million Hong Kong citizens against a highly unified nation of 1,4 billion though? That's 0,5% of the nation. Assuming every last HK resident opposes the PRC agenda to the point beyond merely feeling inconvenienced...which they really don't.
The Hong Kong freedom fighters are living in a shitty reality. I previously compared it to a single household in Washington D.C. announcing their secession from the US by taking pot shots at the passing beat cop. It's...not a winnable fight.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 4 Jan 2022 @ 3:07am
Re: Prior laws and examples
It's a shame most people who would use scripture to defend their actions tend to do so either because no secular law or philosophy will have their back or they operate from the unabridged version only they appear to have read wherein is amended at the end; "P.S. Lest thou faceth a Godless Liberal in Argument at which point none of the above applies. Love, God.
P.P.S. Go smite dem libs but gud, son!"
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 4 Jan 2022 @ 3:01am
Re: Re: Re:
"That's a different argument, and one with far more validity than the idiotic one being pushed by the publishers."
In a context which lacks relevance.
I'll agree that terrorism is bad.
I have issues with any argument which begins by assuming the assertion that "education breeds terrorists" is factually true and therefore by inference asserts that education is bad.
THAT is why the AC's comment on campus security is utterly irrelevant despite being a factually correct statement in itself.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 4 Jan 2022 @ 2:58am
Re:
"Regarding the 'compromised security' claim. It's simply not true that the only ones complaining about it are publishers."
Well, no, but in context the comparison becomes irrelevant.
Sure, stolen credentials are trouble for any network. The issue here is that Elsevier are making the analogy of a claim that masturbation causes blindness.
Sure, everyone will agree that blindness is bad - but the thing is that masturbation does not, in fact, cause blindness to begin with.
Similarly the assertion that "Pirate sites like Sci-Hub threaten the integrity of the scientific record, and the safety of university and personal data" is just bullshit from start to end.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 4 Jan 2022 @ 2:51am
Re: greed
"Nothing better than copyright leeches. Elsevier, Wiley, and the American Chemical Society have gotten fat on the hard work of others."
The wisest of the philosophers was asked: "We admit that our predecessors were wiser than we. At the same time we criticize their comments, often rejecting them and claiming that the truth rests with us. How is this possible?" The wise philosopher responded: "Who sees further a dwarf or a giant? Surely a giant for his eyes are situated at a higher level than those of the dwarf. But if the dwarf is placed on the shoulders of the giant who sees further? ... So too we are dwarfs astride the shoulders of giants. We master their wisdom and move beyond it. Due to their wisdom we grow wise and are able to say all that we say, but not because we are greater than they.
Isaiah di Trani (c. 1180 – c. 1250).
The above paraphrased most famously by Isaac Newton who boiled it down to "If I can see further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".
According to the US constitutional interpretation of copyright it is specifically made to 'progress science and the arts'. The copyright cult just keeps revealing that scam for what it is by at every turn insisting the only ones who get to stand on the shoulders of those giants are the people who pay the greedy third party who wants to charge a toll since the giant does not care who climbs him.
The protectionist Red Flag Act which is copyright needs to die in fire, it's primary and present purpose always having been to further the grifter standing between the author and his/her audience.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 4 Jan 2022 @ 2:42am
Re:
"Pirate sites like Sci-Hub threaten the integrity of the scientific record, and the safety of university and personal data".
Translation; "We've got no argument not rooted in grift and conmanship so we'll just trot out the old claim that anyone actually progressing 'Science and the arts' will make the sky fall instead."
The copyright cult is nothing if not predictable. Sci Hub being a website which brings primarily tax-funded studies to the public which paid for them means assholes like Elsevier risk losing their utterly redundant and highly lucrative position of standing in the way of progress in exchange for financial gain.
On the post: ICE Is So Toxic That The DHS's Investigative Wing Is Asking To Be Completely Separated From It
Re: Re:
"Unfortunately, since its inception, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been irreparably tainted by its use as a political instrument."
In smaller scale plenty of countries have found their immigration bureaus tainted from the start. Apparently setting up an agency dedicated to keeping, mainly, non-white foreigners out of the country attracts a lot of people dedicated to racist ideals.
Who knew, right?
On the post: Sci-Hub's Creator Thinks Academic Publishers, Not Her Site, Are The Real Threat To Science, And Says: 'Any Law Against Knowledge Is Fundamentally Unjust'
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I refer to you the sentence the AC led with; "Regarding the 'compromised security' claim. It's simply not true that the only ones complaining about it are publishers."
This is where he gives credence to the "compromised security" claim from the publishers.
As others have also noted, his reasoning is...a bit skewed in the importance he places on "bulk downloading".
Yes, stolen credentials can be a hazard depending on the access those credentials provide.
But I have enough of a background in both STEM and IT to tell you that the access allowing bulk downloads of scientific articles do not pose a threat to the network. That part is bullshit from start to end.
A "threat" comes from credentials which allow vectors of attack or access to confidential documents. If the user network consists of more than ten people a presumptive attacker having similar access is already taken for granted and the network hardened against this precise eventuality.
The thing which raises my hackles here is that the AC describes a situation which could never happen. The credentials "stolen" would be the access login to Elsevier's page - not the university network.
There is only one thing threatening that university network - Elsevier going bananas over bulk downloads and demanding the university come down like a ton of bricks on whatever researcher shared their login and password to Elsevier's pages with undergrads and postdocs. A legal threat, nothing to do with security.
On the post: Federal Court Tells Proud Boys Defendants That Raiding The Capitol Building Isn't Covered By The First Amendment
Re: Re: Say What?
"Shut the fuck up with your crap, all you're doing is heading down Koby-lane..."
Look through some of "Restless94110"'s commentary. He's way beyond Koby-lane.
By now I assume he only shows up here to copy-paste some argument which went down real well in his normal Stormfront forum and he still doesn't grok why anyone outside of that place refuses to give him the reciprocal reacharound over him stroking their egos by affirming their beliefs in the dystopian fairy tale they cling to.
The only thing he brings to the table is a reminder that the alt-right left their sanity by the roadside years back.
On the post: Federal Court Tells Proud Boys Defendants That Raiding The Capitol Building Isn't Covered By The First Amendment
Re: Re: Re: Re: Say What?
"...you essentially have to start from the position that either the democrats across the country are vastly smarter and more able to plan than the republicans involved, the republicans involved are incredibly stupid and easy to fool, or a mix of the two."
Less entertaining when you consider that exact scenario is one of the more telling defining characteristics of fascists; The opposition is simultaneously contemptibly weak, feeble-minded and easily intimidated cowards - while at the same time being capable of persistent superhuman feats of power when it comes to oppressing the "Chosen Ones".
I refer to you here the nazi mythology of the jewish untermensch along with their belief that subhuman epitome of cowardice and short-sighted self-destructive greed managed to rule the damn world through super-secret shadow cabals.
Just recall Marjorie Taylor-Greene's "Jewish space lasers". In the eyes of the conspiracy nut the "opposition" is always portrayed as a superhuman capable of mind control and time travel while having access to super sci-fi technology. While being "inferior".
"'There's no solid evidence because the other side is way smarter than us' makes for an interesting argument/own-goal to say the least."
I used to counter neo-nazi conspiracy nuts with the statement "Gosh, we all need to convert to judaism. If you are to be believed we get super-powers and access to the Death Star if we do".
On the post: The Copyright Industry Wants Everything Filtered As It Is Uploaded; Here's Why That Will Be A Disaster
Re: Re: Re: Youtube is a great example to illustrate how ...
"There's usually not only 2 sides to any discussion, so if you pretend any debate is binary you're already on a losing track."
That too, to be sure.
But the trend right now isn't that there are more than two sides. It's that one side uses factual reality as a basis and the other irately demands something be done about the invisible unicorns messing up the equally unperceivable ley lines in the back yard of the imperceptible sky wizard.
Democrat politician: "Let us discuss the deplorable state of health care and the pandemic to which more than 800000 americans have fallen in a mere two years..."
Republican grifter: "Screw your lies! What are we going to do about Liberal Sauron's man-eating orc horde about to emerge from Mordor and KILL US ALL ANY DAY NOW?!"
Republican grifter #2: "Ah heard they dun trafficked Red Riding Hood! We gun' defund the poh-leese when dat shit happens?"
Republican grifter #3: "It's the wrath of GOD! Repent, Sinners! And give all your money to the Chosen One that he may build us a wall against the unholy forces of the mexican rapist!"
There's not a plurality of sides in a debate here...It's one side bringing facts to the table and another side flipping that table while belting out dystopian fairy tales and thinly veiled reruns of Der Stürmer. If you could have described it as one side just being less credible I, for one, would be happy.
But you can't. The reality is that there are no two sides because there's only one side trying to debate. The other is shitting on the table and howling at the moon.
On the post: The Copyright Industry Wants Everything Filtered As It Is Uploaded; Here's Why That Will Be A Disaster
Re: Youtube is a great example to illustrate how ...
"Freedom of expression means that anybody who chooses do so should be entitled to listen to both sides before making up their own opinion, rather than being forced to have the government do that for them."
That would be a good point to make...if there were "two sides" in most of these debates. And I'll take ad notam that the government hasn't ever come down on any debate not involving hate speech or obvious and dangerous misinformation.
When the issue concerns a bunch of conspiracy nuts and racists insisting they have a right to be heard I actually don't find it concerning at all that the government has, in many european countries, banned the expression of those beliefs.
I used to hold it as important that the nazis and lunatics were able to say their piece in public so the rest of us could be reminded and warned what sort of monsters and deluded folk were out there. These days however, that's not necessary. What those benighted morons say in closed chambers will be raised to public awareness soon enough.
That being the case there is no need to mandate that the people with the equivalent urges of fetishized public defecation be guaranteed an audience.
"...pretty much any video that is not on the government line with regards to Corona or Russia will be deleted pretty much immediately."
Ah, yes, the ones saying the pandemic is a hoax/jewish bioweapon/curable with enough homeopathy and that Russia is justly governed under Great Leader Vladimir Putin?
The deletion of those videos aren't because the tyrannical EU wants them gone. It's because no platform wants to carry russian shills and conspiracy nuts when it drives away most of the audience.
Nice try.
On the post: China's Regulatory War On Its Gaming Industry Racks Up 14k Casualties
But...that's always been the case.
"This means that the Chinese government is coming off less like a socialist nation and more akin to something like the Taliban, where strict control over culture is seen as some kind of spiritual requirement. "
Timothy, there's something I think you may need brought to your attention; When it comes to China strict control over culture has been the first overriding priority of government for two and a half millennia.
China has a long history of famines, social upheavals, anarchy, revolutions, etc - all of which led, in the end, to dynastic shifts after a great deal of suffering. And the country took a lesson from that history.
1) Social upheaval disrupts government.
2) Weak government causes massive harm through bad flood control, insufficient food production & storage, local warlordism and banditry, sectarian violence, organized crime and foreign usurpation and occupation.
3) *Suffering of the people causes social upheaval. Goto 1.
China will go, as they have in the past, to any length to preserve order. Controlling culture and social engineering is part and parcel of this. All of the Golden Shield project (great firewall, social credit ratings, border control) is an attempt to prevent chinese culture from changing. This is the core belief they have in autocracy. That government must be strong and remain completely, utterly unchallenged.
The perception is that any change in chinese culture eventually leads to the loss of government control and subsequent disaster as the nation fractions into warring tribes who then go on to starve because the emerging warlords won't give a tinker's damn about food production, sanitation, transportation and health care. It may take China another millennia before they acknowledge that with more modern science many of those issues which shaped their culture are simply no longer relevant.
But up until that point the PRC will always come down hard on any phenomenon which may threaten their culture. Foreign influence. Games. Religions growing too big. Corporations growing too influential. Provinces and minorities advocating secession or autonomy.
Emperors and dynasties may come and go. Prominent politicians and institutions just the face which needs to be preserved to accommodate the illusion of infallibility.
In the end all of chinese politics are as pragmatic as a knife fight. Utterly unburdened with any principle other than don't lose control. And the unceasing byzantine politics of the internal a necessity to make sure that none of the competing parties are ever seen as challenging the central authority.
As emperors go the Pooh Bear has a fairly strong standing. If he states video games are harmful to chinese culture then the bureaucracy's overblown reaction isn't just understandable. It was predictable ever since he was quoted as saying things to that effect.
On the post: China's Regulatory War On Its Gaming Industry Racks Up 14k Casualties
Re:
"I wonder how much this will accelerate the pop of China's economic bubble."
None at all. At least not while we in the west ensure China has a steady job in being our supply chain.
China can afford to beat their home industry up quite mercilessly because it all floats on a foundation of job security and money freely offered by western industries willing to bend over backwards to kiss the Pooh Bear's ringpiece as long as it means access to the market containing 1/6th of the world's population, and the convenience of not having to own a single factory in the Land Of Tort.
On the post: Sci-Hub's Creator Thinks Academic Publishers, Not Her Site, Are The Real Threat To Science, And Says: 'Any Law Against Knowledge Is Fundamentally Unjust'
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"He simply seems to be saying that when people are "stealing" credentials it creates a security risk that may or may not be deliberate, but which takes time and effort to counter."
Well, yeah.
The major problem with that assertion is that although that much is correct, the assertion has nothing at all to do with copyright infringement.
Now if we're talking about people copying media, and the copyright cult's spin is "People who copy media further terrorism" then the comment from an AC of "Oh, yeah, terrorism is bad, there's something to what they say" is misleading at best.
On the post: Sci-Hub's Creator Thinks Academic Publishers, Not Her Site, Are The Real Threat To Science, And Says: 'Any Law Against Knowledge Is Fundamentally Unjust'
Re: Re: Re: greed
"A better way would to be to require those who profit financially from the work to share a portion of their gains with the creator."
It speaks volumes about the origins of copyright that no such argument was ever made at its inception. It's why I keep claiming copyright needs to be abolished completely and author's rights fitted under trademark law instead - making an artist's/author's work part of their brand and protected as such.
This neatly removes the privilege to dictate who gets to make copies while still providing the creator of a work the right to deny use of their work in commercial and/or political venues.
"Of course, none of this applies to "learned journals" who charge scientists to publish in their journals and requiring a transfer of copyright to boot."
Curious, isn't it, how a Red Flag Act like copyright, implemented to further middleman grifters, serves the middleman grifters so well, eh?
On the post: Federal Court Tells Proud Boys Defendants That Raiding The Capitol Building Isn't Covered By The First Amendment
Re: Say What?
"They are."
After your strident calls that peaceful BLM protests deserved military intervention you now claim that people who invaded the capitol and beat the cop guarding it do death are within the bounds of 1A?
No, the US constitution quite clearly spells out that you are free to speak. You are not free to attempt to physically disrupt the election process. By your own constitution that is called insurrection.
That you can't english is your problem, not ours.
"Correct. It was a protest against the rampant fraud of the election that everyone could see and knows occurred."
You mean the one of which even republican vote watchers couldn't see an issue? The one where, when called upon in court, every last one of your people had to confess they had nothing but their own words for it?
The GOP did investigate the election and as you may recall the only voter fraud which was found was some of you guys trying to vote twice.
"And they are obviously correct. So why would you not be supporting their law suit?"
Because every actual expert of law and court of the land says otherwise?
"Because you are for fascist totalitarians?"
Says the man who has been advocating fascist totalitarianism in a hundred or more comments clearly visible by just scrolling down his comment history a few pages.
Give it a fscking rest already. The only thing you've convinced everyone on the fence about by now is that your side has to lie in every argument you make. You need to take that shit right back to the Stormfront circle jerk you people have got going, where the already deluded appreciate some online rando telling them their most dystopian derangements are true.
On the post: NY Senator Proposes Ridiculously Unconstitutional Social Media Law That Is The Mirror Opposite Of Equally Unconstitutional Laws In Florida & Texas
Re:
"Good. People who don’t respect the rules won’t be swayed into respecting those rules by people who follow the rules and go tsk-tsk at the rulebreakers."
Something more of the liberal crowd desperately needs to learn.
Rules and principles are a gentleman's agreement whereby opposing sides may agree to carry out their conflicts in an arena of debate, using arguments and logic as weapons. That's only possible when both sides believe words actually have meaning.
And it's become bitingly obvious the republicans have left that conviction behind. Just like personal responsibility and accountability, or consistent beliefs. Bringing to mind what was often said about the original nazis in times past.
Americans keep forgetting what their own scholars kept reminding them off; That "It can't happen here" was what non-nazi Germans kept saying all the way until Hitler wrote himself the ermächtigungsgesetz*.
No war has ever been won by refusing to adopt the effective weapons of the enemy or sticking to rules of engagement the adversary doesn't respect.
On the post: NY Senator Proposes Ridiculously Unconstitutional Social Media Law That Is The Mirror Opposite Of Equally Unconstitutional Laws In Florida & Texas
Re: Re: Re: Re: This holds true across party lines:
"In all seriousness size constraints seem to be considered perfectly constitutional. That only could help with concealment of guns more powerful than pistols."
Most constraints implemented don't really serve any sensible purpose other than mitigating the potential harm an assailant already in possession of a firearm and bearing lethal intent can cause easily, yeah.
The real issue remains twofold; Too big a proportion of people coming to the unspoken realization that in the US, land of opportunity they were literally born to lose...and decide to go down taking as many of the cool crowd, the haves, or just the people not in perceived misery as possible with them.
And the cult of death so prevalent, where a frightening proportion of americans cling to the belief that the gun - violence - is an effective solution to every problem in the end.
Piss-poor education, class divides, and a society stuck in a hindmost-be-damned rat race where the gold standard of "winning" is to, at some point, be able to stop spending ten hour work days just to make ends meet. While dreaming all the time about miraculously becoming one of the 1%.
On the post: New Year's Message: The Arc Of The Moral Universe Is A Twisty Path
Re:
"Fundamentally, people are uncomfortable with people and conditions that are "different"."
Here's a strange coincidence you might want to look into in that case; The common denominator between anachronism, conservatism, bigotry, racism and misogyny is that the adherents of such tend to be unimaginative...or at least unwilling to imagine a reality different than the one they've brought up to believe is true.
Fear of Change may be a necessary imperative in times of threat but have become the root of all evil in modern society when sudden weather pattern shifts or animal migrations are the likely precursors of some localized flooding or earthquake threatening the tribe. Or someone not believing in the divine right of the king is likely to propel bloody revolution.
On the post: Chinese Govt. Arrests More Pro-Democracy Icons In Hong Kong, Including Music Stars
Re: Re: Re: Re: Well, it doesn't exactly come as a surprise.
"As for sabroni's comment about leaving the USA: I think there is sufficient foresight and much less denial about the dismal future of the USA, but where would we go, exactly?"
There is also the difference in proportions. Some 75% of americans are not on board with Trumpism or the GOP shitting on the US constitution at every turn. Any actual confrontation isn't going to be one-sided.
7,4 million Hong Kong citizens against a highly unified nation of 1,4 billion though? That's 0,5% of the nation. Assuming every last HK resident opposes the PRC agenda to the point beyond merely feeling inconvenienced...which they really don't.
The Hong Kong freedom fighters are living in a shitty reality. I previously compared it to a single household in Washington D.C. announcing their secession from the US by taking pot shots at the passing beat cop. It's...not a winnable fight.
On the post: Tenth Circuit Denies Qualified Immunity To Social Worker Who Fabricated A Mother's Confession Of Child Abuse
Re: Prior laws and examples
It's a shame most people who would use scripture to defend their actions tend to do so either because no secular law or philosophy will have their back or they operate from the unabridged version only they appear to have read wherein is amended at the end;
"P.S. Lest thou faceth a Godless Liberal in Argument at which point none of the above applies. Love, God.
P.P.S. Go smite dem libs but gud, son!"
On the post: Sci-Hub's Creator Thinks Academic Publishers, Not Her Site, Are The Real Threat To Science, And Says: 'Any Law Against Knowledge Is Fundamentally Unjust'
Re: Re: Re:
"That's a different argument, and one with far more validity than the idiotic one being pushed by the publishers."
In a context which lacks relevance.
I'll agree that terrorism is bad.
I have issues with any argument which begins by assuming the assertion that "education breeds terrorists" is factually true and therefore by inference asserts that education is bad.
THAT is why the AC's comment on campus security is utterly irrelevant despite being a factually correct statement in itself.
On the post: Sci-Hub's Creator Thinks Academic Publishers, Not Her Site, Are The Real Threat To Science, And Says: 'Any Law Against Knowledge Is Fundamentally Unjust'
Re:
"Regarding the 'compromised security' claim. It's simply not true that the only ones complaining about it are publishers."
Well, no, but in context the comparison becomes irrelevant.
Sure, stolen credentials are trouble for any network. The issue here is that Elsevier are making the analogy of a claim that masturbation causes blindness.
Sure, everyone will agree that blindness is bad - but the thing is that masturbation does not, in fact, cause blindness to begin with.
Similarly the assertion that "Pirate sites like Sci-Hub threaten the integrity of the scientific record, and the safety of university and personal data" is just bullshit from start to end.
On the post: Sci-Hub's Creator Thinks Academic Publishers, Not Her Site, Are The Real Threat To Science, And Says: 'Any Law Against Knowledge Is Fundamentally Unjust'
Re: greed
"Nothing better than copyright leeches. Elsevier, Wiley, and the American Chemical Society have gotten fat on the hard work of others."
The above paraphrased most famously by Isaac Newton who boiled it down to "If I can see further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".
According to the US constitutional interpretation of copyright it is specifically made to 'progress science and the arts'. The copyright cult just keeps revealing that scam for what it is by at every turn insisting the only ones who get to stand on the shoulders of those giants are the people who pay the greedy third party who wants to charge a toll since the giant does not care who climbs him.
The protectionist Red Flag Act which is copyright needs to die in fire, it's primary and present purpose always having been to further the grifter standing between the author and his/her audience.
On the post: Sci-Hub's Creator Thinks Academic Publishers, Not Her Site, Are The Real Threat To Science, And Says: 'Any Law Against Knowledge Is Fundamentally Unjust'
Re:
"Pirate sites like Sci-Hub threaten the integrity of the scientific record, and the safety of university and personal data".
Translation; "We've got no argument not rooted in grift and conmanship so we'll just trot out the old claim that anyone actually progressing 'Science and the arts' will make the sky fall instead."
The copyright cult is nothing if not predictable. Sci Hub being a website which brings primarily tax-funded studies to the public which paid for them means assholes like Elsevier risk losing their utterly redundant and highly lucrative position of standing in the way of progress in exchange for financial gain.
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