We need a list of Who’s Who on the Big Tech world who are or once were hired by the Biden administration, and vice versa. It’s like a swinging door. Republicans need to make this a campaign issue, if the can get their actual sh*t together.
Take yourselves back 250 years. How would the Boston tea party be viewed? The feeling of self importance among responders is stultifying. I haven’t read anything that amounts to an “intellectual” comment. I’m about ready to pull a “Walden”.
Two things: reading through some of the comments, there seems to be a misunderstanding of the proud boys and path keepers. They have proven themselves to be violent and not so dedicated to the democracy! So really fringe nuts.
Second: the article isn’t really about the PB’s or OK’s and that is a hard question to be answered and asked! We don’t want to censor anyone’s free speech! But, how to calm blatantly false narratives or at least steer readers to facts?
"What the woke Left doesn’t seem to realize is that the sort of economic desperation they seek to inflict on their enemies is exactly what produced Trump in the first place." - I wonder if that isn't precisely the ultimate goal of wokeness, namely to foster the conditions for Trump-like figures (or worse) to arrive on the scene, so that the movement can validate their own existence.
Your ability to convey thoughts is very admirable. I am considering translating this into Spainish because the immigrants I meet in Florida put family and the ability to make a living first.
And this week the Sacks theory came true: in Canada, Trudeau is cutting anyone associated with the truckers' protest--and, even more chillingly, any Canadian who "contributed"--out of the financial system. Banking rights, credit, insurance, investments, anyone "associated" with the protest will be de-platformed from the Canadian financial system.
But I'm sure Trudeau's orders sounded better in the original German . . .
You correctly point out what is coming but you fail to totally characterize tis danger. Even you pick and choose whom to defund/deplatform: who wouldn't want to attack Proud Boys or Oath Keepers. Ban one and you ultimately ban them all. You have to know that. Either we allow free speech or we don't. If its uncomfortable then combat it in its existence not by trying to eliminate it. These are ideas -- they don't follow orders. Any of this thought censorship ultimately leads to a police state. Only self-government can keep us free.
If you think about the supply chain needed to distribute an application or platform like Parler, it's things like programming languages, database software, programmers, compute (physical machines or virtual cloud hosting), networking (i.e. public IP address), domain name, app store distribution, payment infrastructure. When companies AWS, Apple, Cloudflare, PayPal all get together to deny service to companies like Parler, if Internet companies like Comcast join the mix and prevent such companies from getting an IP address on the Internet, there really is no "go build your own" alternative.
The modern Internet, with apps distributed through Apple and Android app stores, are the modern public square. Neither the physical public square, nor potentially re-building your own Internet from the ground up, have a critical mass of people - the network effect of the current Internet is too strong. If that's where people are, where their ears and eyes are, then that's where someone who wants to be part of the public conversation has to be.
So we either need to (a) somehow make that not be where public conversation is, (b) ensure people have well-protected rights to participate there, or (c) admit that we'd prefer to devalue protected free speech.
(b) is essentially government going after "Big Tech", which feels illiberal in its own way.
There are lots of places in the world you can go to if you like (c), it's not what the American Experiment is about though.
Maybe (a) is possible if enough people and organizations can operate in a principled way, and enough people vote with our attention and dollars in that direction. I think Bari and Substack seem principled in this way, I just hope some big controversy later on doesn't cause Substack to lose its way in the future. And hopefully Substack and things like it become big and successful enough that the supply chain it relies on (IP, DNS, compute/hosting) can't get away with just pulling the plug on it, and avoids getting too ugly like Parler that it's hard for anyone to go to bat for it.
There is only one way to stop the madness. Well, actually two. The first is vote Republican in 2022 and 2024 - straight party vote. It sucks, but Dems are taking us over a cliff. If they want to go, fine. But I ain't goin' without a hell of a fight.
Second - borrow from the Dem playbook. Aggressively confront and shame these people until they give up. That's going to take an awful lot given how shameless they are. But we must not falter and we must not fail. If the US goes down, the rest of the world goes to ... in a haybasket.
This is no time for half measures and I sure wish near-militancy wasn't the only answer. But given the most recent "eff you to the SCOTUS and the Constitution" (eviction moratorium), Dems don't care a whit about what most people want (which is basically to be left alone to live their life as they see fit) and so don't worry about public pressure. Besides, the media has their back (CNN is so far down the government propaganda rabbit hole that "they ain't never comin' back".) and any "passive messaging" is quickly squashed.
This is a brass knuckled street fight folks. Accept that in your options become clear.
Some of these proposed "bans" are focused on suspect classes. For example, exclusion of pro-life speech based on religious conviction is prohibitted. It'll be interesting to see how courts interpret this effort to push unwanted ideas out of the public square.
"....who wouldn’t want to ban the Oath Keepers or Proud Boys?" How about classical civil libertarians like the old ACLU that defended the right of Nazis to march through a Jewish neighborhood home to Holocaust survivors? How about just ordinary people of any political inclination with enough historical perspective to realize that an updated version of Martin Niemöller's, "First they came for the Communists..." might well begin "First they came for the Proud Boys..."
Of course Trump is a demagogue: he fits the standard definition as a political leader who appeals to the prejudices of the common people against the elites. Perhaps your objection is really that the elites have, in fact, become so corrupt, and that the prejudices of our common people are sufficiently reasonable that a bit of demagoguery is actually salutary to the body politic. I might be inclined to agree, thought I think Trump, due to his narcissism, was sub-optimal for the role.
Wow.
We need a list of Who’s Who on the Big Tech world who are or once were hired by the Biden administration, and vice versa. It’s like a swinging door. Republicans need to make this a campaign issue, if the can get their actual sh*t together.
Take yourselves back 250 years. How would the Boston tea party be viewed? The feeling of self importance among responders is stultifying. I haven’t read anything that amounts to an “intellectual” comment. I’m about ready to pull a “Walden”.
Two things: reading through some of the comments, there seems to be a misunderstanding of the proud boys and path keepers. They have proven themselves to be violent and not so dedicated to the democracy! So really fringe nuts.
Second: the article isn’t really about the PB’s or OK’s and that is a hard question to be answered and asked! We don’t want to censor anyone’s free speech! But, how to calm blatantly false narratives or at least steer readers to facts?
"What the woke Left doesn’t seem to realize is that the sort of economic desperation they seek to inflict on their enemies is exactly what produced Trump in the first place." - I wonder if that isn't precisely the ultimate goal of wokeness, namely to foster the conditions for Trump-like figures (or worse) to arrive on the scene, so that the movement can validate their own existence.
Your ability to convey thoughts is very admirable. I am considering translating this into Spainish because the immigrants I meet in Florida put family and the ability to make a living first.
You sound like some Left wing lawyer ..."intended"...what an ass hole, sounds more like you.
And this week the Sacks theory came true: in Canada, Trudeau is cutting anyone associated with the truckers' protest--and, even more chillingly, any Canadian who "contributed"--out of the financial system. Banking rights, credit, insurance, investments, anyone "associated" with the protest will be de-platformed from the Canadian financial system.
But I'm sure Trudeau's orders sounded better in the original German . . .
You correctly point out what is coming but you fail to totally characterize tis danger. Even you pick and choose whom to defund/deplatform: who wouldn't want to attack Proud Boys or Oath Keepers. Ban one and you ultimately ban them all. You have to know that. Either we allow free speech or we don't. If its uncomfortable then combat it in its existence not by trying to eliminate it. These are ideas -- they don't follow orders. Any of this thought censorship ultimately leads to a police state. Only self-government can keep us free.
If you think about the supply chain needed to distribute an application or platform like Parler, it's things like programming languages, database software, programmers, compute (physical machines or virtual cloud hosting), networking (i.e. public IP address), domain name, app store distribution, payment infrastructure. When companies AWS, Apple, Cloudflare, PayPal all get together to deny service to companies like Parler, if Internet companies like Comcast join the mix and prevent such companies from getting an IP address on the Internet, there really is no "go build your own" alternative.
The modern Internet, with apps distributed through Apple and Android app stores, are the modern public square. Neither the physical public square, nor potentially re-building your own Internet from the ground up, have a critical mass of people - the network effect of the current Internet is too strong. If that's where people are, where their ears and eyes are, then that's where someone who wants to be part of the public conversation has to be.
So we either need to (a) somehow make that not be where public conversation is, (b) ensure people have well-protected rights to participate there, or (c) admit that we'd prefer to devalue protected free speech.
(b) is essentially government going after "Big Tech", which feels illiberal in its own way.
There are lots of places in the world you can go to if you like (c), it's not what the American Experiment is about though.
Maybe (a) is possible if enough people and organizations can operate in a principled way, and enough people vote with our attention and dollars in that direction. I think Bari and Substack seem principled in this way, I just hope some big controversy later on doesn't cause Substack to lose its way in the future. And hopefully Substack and things like it become big and successful enough that the supply chain it relies on (IP, DNS, compute/hosting) can't get away with just pulling the plug on it, and avoids getting too ugly like Parler that it's hard for anyone to go to bat for it.
Just gonna drop this right here…
https://www.nospyphone.com/
This is about the Apple client-side photo scanning. Obviously the algorithm can be trained to detect any picture…for our own safety of course.
There is only one way to stop the madness. Well, actually two. The first is vote Republican in 2022 and 2024 - straight party vote. It sucks, but Dems are taking us over a cliff. If they want to go, fine. But I ain't goin' without a hell of a fight.
Second - borrow from the Dem playbook. Aggressively confront and shame these people until they give up. That's going to take an awful lot given how shameless they are. But we must not falter and we must not fail. If the US goes down, the rest of the world goes to ... in a haybasket.
This is no time for half measures and I sure wish near-militancy wasn't the only answer. But given the most recent "eff you to the SCOTUS and the Constitution" (eviction moratorium), Dems don't care a whit about what most people want (which is basically to be left alone to live their life as they see fit) and so don't worry about public pressure. Besides, the media has their back (CNN is so far down the government propaganda rabbit hole that "they ain't never comin' back".) and any "passive messaging" is quickly squashed.
This is a brass knuckled street fight folks. Accept that in your options become clear.
Some of these proposed "bans" are focused on suspect classes. For example, exclusion of pro-life speech based on religious conviction is prohibitted. It'll be interesting to see how courts interpret this effort to push unwanted ideas out of the public square.
It's all out war
OMG, I'm sure you're right
"....who wouldn’t want to ban the Oath Keepers or Proud Boys?" How about classical civil libertarians like the old ACLU that defended the right of Nazis to march through a Jewish neighborhood home to Holocaust survivors? How about just ordinary people of any political inclination with enough historical perspective to realize that an updated version of Martin Niemöller's, "First they came for the Communists..." might well begin "First they came for the Proud Boys..."
Interesting. But Trump’s not a demagogue. AND Andrew Torba is building GabPay. There WILL be an alternative to PayPal soon.
Of course Trump is a demagogue: he fits the standard definition as a political leader who appeals to the prejudices of the common people against the elites. Perhaps your objection is really that the elites have, in fact, become so corrupt, and that the prejudices of our common people are sufficiently reasonable that a bit of demagoguery is actually salutary to the body politic. I might be inclined to agree, thought I think Trump, due to his narcissism, was sub-optimal for the role.