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-UE
General politics thread (was: General U.S. politics thread)
Comments
I don't know about top management but there are proud employees who sure are loving their moment in the light. It's bottom up, not top down.
Anyways, if the CEOs had to be brought in like to the correct way of thinking by the NYT, AOC, etc, that doesn't change what they're quickly becoming. The monopolies are here, and they'll enjoy them once they forget how the came to be, and so it's hard for me to empathize with anybody not "wanting" this.
If I'm being entirely honest; if I was a major shareholder at Facebook or Twitter right now, I'd be calculating how much this "close the door behind you" precedent increases the long-term value of my shares.
I wish the MAGAs wouldn't try to keep giving us reasons for us to get sick of them but as I explained earlier this has been going on for at least a few months now. They're stuck (and seem to have really just welcomed the Q people to some degree), and it's not a good look.
Funny story: I was watching an episode of Kiratto PriChan where Miracle Kiratts become popular and some students from their school start a fan club, which then picks a fight with the Meltic StAr fandom.
When Mirai (leader of Kiratts) tries to stop her fans from escalating the situation, she's accused of secretly having been a Meltic StAr sympathizer all along.
I wonder how long till this happens to Trump himself.
And yeah, as far as an actual attempt to overthrow a (future) government, this was laughably bad, though...I'd say it still counts, barely, because that's what those people intended, with some people apparently planning on assassinations and hostage-taking.
That's because this sorely needed to have been done, and IMO, much earlier; for years Twitter has allowed him to get away with a lot of stuff that was against the site rules only because he was POTUS.
You write like this is an attempt at thought control as opposed to people exercising a sensible and by this point long overdue position. If some people want to engage in the broad spread of misinformation and the fomenting of violence, then they can find their own way of doing it. These companies need not carry that.
I'm not sure anyone's seeking such empathy anyway.
Anyhow, the "monopolies" on mass communication media have been around for quite a while now, and to look at this from a different perspective, if said communication media were implemented as a public service provided by the government, at least those people who don't like having their accounts shut down would be able to petition through the court system, but our current system instead has private entities in charge of those things, as part of the internet's "free, but with advertising" way of doing things.
Not sure what you mean by "close the door behind you" but I'm pretty sure many shareholders are perpetually concerned with long-term value anyway.
What bothers me more are the people who seemingly turned lolbertarian the moment Twitter et al. went with what they wanted, at which point they can/should do whatever they want with their platform and it's all okay, even
betterif they are/become a monopoly. People who no doubt didn't harbor those beliefs a week ago and who will no doubt stop harboring them the moment they feel like pressuring some platform into whatever.I miss early/mid 00s internet, a world where everything goes because nothing matters.
None of this will stop me from posting the MySpace pic in the images thread, tho.
Edit: Clarity.
Ironically I'd expect said hypothetical US-government-run version of Twitter to be even slower and clunkier at attempts to police hate speech and other such crap than a privately-owned resource. (For a comparison, see how in the old days on IJBM, when moderation decisions required a consensus of mods, problems often ended up continuing longer and potentially causing more drama than if one person just went and shut them down. I say "potentially" since the opposite isn't necessarily free of drama either.)
Yeah...
Step 1: Create Maverick company
Step 2: Turn it into a monopoly
Step 3: Prevent everybody else from creating Maverick companies by "begrudgingly" accepting circumstances when public opinion becomes pro-censorship
Well, before there was a pretense under which to pretend they weren't.
You do remember when I posted about #WalkAway and Brandon Straka being banned from Facebook right?
You might not know this, but when Donald Trump's brother died last year, #TheWrongTrump trended on twitter.
If you think "Well I don't really like the Democratic party anymore" is a position that deserves to be removed, and losing your contract over just attending Trump's speech is okay, then sure man.
Also, "misinformation" means literally whatever proponents want it to mean, and it has for at least a few years now.
Remember (considering your ongoing Bible project); "If the people of this world hate you, just remember that they hated me first."
Anyways I mainly came here to clear up this;
I should have said something along the lines of "The Trump truther MAGAs being influenced by Lin Wood", because the overall MAGA movement is large and chock-full of different sorts of ideals and frankly, very good.
Donald Trump gave American politics a lot of good, and he inspired a lot of good, and for that I'll never stop appreciating his efforts and his overall record as President.
In addition, I did not expect the establishment Republicans to get on the wha habben? political theater train so quickly;
"I'm so very determined to do this thing I didn't do for all the time when it was actually feasible for me to achieve it!"
All they had to do was repeal or properly enforce Section 230. Even Trump has to take responsibility for some of this for only trying to get something done in a defense bill a few weeks ago that (obviously) everybody rejected.
Finally, Amazon Web Services have decided to stop hosting Parler. I wonder, when Visa and Mastercard and Paypal work closely with law enforcement who have decided that people who tweeted or sympathized with the term "MAGA", once it's deemed a full-on dog whistle for terrorist sympathizers, to deny them service, if anybody will care.
When Tinder takes down profiles with MAGA theming (which is happening), that's okay too.
Private companies, after all.
Darning heckity.
Private danged companies.
Pre-empting "That would never happen!";
"We will unify if you disavow what you believe in. It's that easy!"
I only found these two tweets whilst looking for yet another analyst who suggested Kayleigh McEnany should never get a job ever again. I can't find it anymore (stuff's moving fast right now), but it exists.
Uh, no? What pretense are you even thinking of?
Actually, no, and I just did a search for "Straka" but found nothing, but it occurs to me that half a day ago I was testing IJBM's site search feature and I think it's kinda broken anyway.
And if I had my way I would have gotten on their case for very impolite gravedancing.
Though, wanting someone dead isn't quite the same as actually deciding and planning to go kill someone and/or cause property damage, and perhaps even taking action toward such an end:
How is what's happening "Well I don't really like the Democratic Party anymore"?
That does seem harsh, but you seem to be going further than complaining about harshness and implying that it's a devious attempt at establishing political power rather than "this looks bad for our company".
Also, maybe hanging out with the wrong crowd has consequences, who'd have thunk.
No, in this case it means perpetuating various unsubstantiated claims of massive voter fraud, ones that state officials -- among them even Republicans -- have noted are baseless.
You can't just make up a position and claim that to be a valid other side.
Maybe because Donald Trump gave American politics a lot of bad, and he inspired a lot of bad.
Lindsey Graham's always been a slippery sleazeball anyway.
It's ironic how you're worried about "MAGA" being systematically suppressed by law enforcement while the other side is worried about Trump sympathizers in law enforcement itself.
Sidenote: I don't like the idea of shaming people out of ever getting a job again or something like it. I mean, they're still people and they still need to make a living (I guess I might revisit this argument of mine if universal basic income ever becomes a thing), and besides, it's entirely possible that someone who's done something horrible also has a useful skillset by which they could contribute positively to society anyway, and besides, people can and do sometimes change. But, bottom line is, they're still human beings, even if they have been or are (associated with) assholes, and infinite revenge isn't exactly practical.
That's what #WalkAway is.
Have fun in the new world expunged of all wrongthink and wrongassociation man.
Also, that image is trying to smear Bongino by extremely tenuous association (look at the stats on that reply post and tell me it seems influential in any way) and that's just sad.
You honestly think everybody peddling this should be banned? I don't. People should be allowed to say whatever, even about the US Election, even if it's dumb and unfounded.
You should be able to acknowledge that by itself, this is not incitement.
Then again, you don't, so as I said;
Did you really just change the words in my post because somebody who had roundly criticized a lot of what 45 had done already putting "Donald Trump did good things" into the universe was just something that couldn't be stood for?
GMH, serious question; is there any Democratic politician you think is as bad as Lindsey Graham?
Oh great, now you're even breaking out the 1984-style lingo for the sake of fearmongering. No, simply having a different political opinion/ideology does not automatically mean that that opinion/ideology has to be treated with kid gloves, given equal time, and portrayed as feasibly true/sensible.
It's rather obvious the part of the picture that's relevant and that's not part of Bongino's quote.
It's one thing for people to individually say stuff that's false; it's another thing for an organization to make a concerted effort to spread false information. I should note that we do have existing jurisprudence addressing defamation.
It's not incitement, but incitement isn't the only problem that's going on here.
It's just as Mark Zuckerberg said: "social networks were a mistake."
I don't think we're getting anywhere.
I'm moving on.
It was a reply to your comment about political theater. If one thinks that he did good, then one might criticize the response as "political theater", but if one thinks that he did bad, then one might see same response as "finally coming to their senses" or "unable to keep riding the Trump train for political gain".
I've never thought to compare different "levels of badness", as it's not really quantifiable, but I do currently have negative opinions of a variety of Democratic politicians for a variety of reasons, including Aaron Coleman, Alan Grayson, Joe Sestak, Rod Blagojevich, Corrine Brown, Tulsi Gabbard, and possibly also (pending further research) Andrew Cuomo, Ro Khanna, Carolyn Maloney (as well as her primary opponent Suraj Patel), either or possibly both of Richard Neal and Alex Morse, Clint Curtis, Bob Menendez, Ilhan Omar, and others.
https://www.uscp.gov/media-center/press-releases/duty-death-uscp-officer-howard-liebengood
This was an off-duty death, and not much information is currently available, though there is currently unconfirmed information that he took his own life, and that this happened as a result of the rioting.
Also, here's someone's tweet regarding how Officer Sicknick was injured. (Possibly disturbing.) Image apparently taken from video footage but I haven't run across the video yet.
Meanwhile, here's an officer who reportedly led the people who broke into the building down the "wrong" hallway, for about a minute, which allowed senators and staffers to escape the Senate chamber before they broke into there as well.
This man may have saved many lives.
Edit: This officer's name may be Eugene Goodman.
https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/absolute-hero-capitol-police-officer-led-insurrectionists-away-from-senate-entrance/
For what it's worth, there are various reports that police may have let in and/or opened the gates to some of the protesters at some points, and while other people have been saying that that's an outrage, I'm hesitant to conclude it to be malfeasance until I know more details, because falling back can be a strategically valid tactic.
Whoever he is, thank you.
Meanwhile, there's a good amount of footage and other accounts coming out which suggests that the event was far more violent than it has seemed. For example, this tweet apparently shows someone (probably a cop guarding the door) being beaten by one of the protesters (I'm not sure it shows what the tweet text says it shows, but still).
There's also a video of a cop getting squeezed between two doors. There are also suggestions that the protesters were surprisingly well-prepared, with information such as maps of the tunnels and knowledge of where certain offices are (e.g. Rep. Jim Clyburn's lesser-known second office) and some military-style tactics and resources (e.g. they notably had access to and used tear gas themselves).
TIL North Lauderdale and South Miami had (in 2008 and 2014 respectively) floated proposals to split Florida into two states.
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/sfl-flbnewstate0507pnmay07-story.html
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/os-state-of-south-florida-20141021-post.html
This is from 2013.
I wonder what's happened to this during the pandemic.
Might have just stayed unoccupied; that seems most likely.
This is great for Dramacoin.
...that they yanked trading on some securities because of possible concern that they would be unable to pay out if people wanted to cash out their sudden earnings.
FWIW, this might actually not have been possible or at least as easy just a few years ago when stock trades required commissions, typically $7.95 or $4.95 per trade. And back then, that was considered friendlier to non-institutional investors than the prior status quo which involved going through brokers and paying much higher commissions.
(I prefer commission-free trades anyway, and that remains my position after this event. I mean, if you short a stock and you get left holding the bag, that's your own bet gone bad.)
Regardless, I paid a visit to r/LegalAdvice (because Reddit is now the leading force in the world's on-goings) and apparently that's not market manipulation.
Law's weird yo.