disown (u/disown) - Readit News

disown commented on YouTube bans Steve Bannon's podcast channel businessinsider.com/youtu... · Posted by u/jimmy2020

tpmx · 5 years ago

I'm not even in the US, but all of this banning makes me really curious about what's being banned and why.

Something that some of you may have missed: This banning thing already moved into the infrastructure/cloud services layer (AWS):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25707959

disown · 5 years ago

A stronger element of the power structure is silencing another. It's simple as that. Look at the relentless pro-censorship brigading on most social media. Lots of money, power and influence is being applied here. If this was china or russia, we'd call it a soft "purge". They'd call it promoting "harmony" or "protecting the people". Not sure what we are going to call it.

Seems like whatever battle Trump and his faction was waging behind the scenes the last 4 years failed and he simply failed to win over enough power/influence to his side. We'll never know what really happened, we can just guess.

But feels like history is happening. I don't think any of us have lived to through anything like this. I know I certainly haven't.

disown commented on Gab’s Response to Senator Mark Warner news.gab.com/2021/01/09/g... · Posted by u/_etyf

dvt · 5 years ago

Just as logical point, you can't really be a de facto "absolutist," as any kind of reductio argument would obliterate your position. But I'd say I'm as absolutist as one can get.

disown · 5 years ago

You claimed to be an absolutist though. And yes, you can be a free speech absolutist. Take a class in philosophy and educate yourself.

There are plenty of free speech absolutists who believe any speech, including direct threats, should be protected speech. That you should have the right to threaten anyone and everyone. Of course, acting out and carrying out the threats is illegal.

For example, if you said "I am going to kill you", free speech absolutist believe that should be allowed. Now if you actually killed someone, then you should go to jail. Meaning there differentiate the words "I am going to kill you" with "murder". In other words, murder is illegal, but saying you will commit murder is not. There is some nuance to it, but there are free speech absolutists out there.

But you are not a free speech absolutist. You lied about it. You aren't even pro-free speech. You comments clearly show that you align with the pro-censorship crowd because you use their terms and their logic.

Like I said, you are a meat eater pretending to be a vegan talking shit about veganism. But why?

disown commented on Gab’s Response to Senator Mark Warner news.gab.com/2021/01/09/g... · Posted by u/_etyf

dvt · 5 years ago

> Gab exists to promote freedom of speech, by which we mean all speech which is protected speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. No more, no less.

I'm a free speech absolutist, but violent speech, "fighting words," insurrectionist speech, etc. are not protected under any free speech doctrine. Free speech isn't some carte blanche that allows anyone to say anything at any time. That's not how it works†. I've argued in favor of free speech here on HN (and got the downvotes to prove it) more times than I can remember.

But this letter by Gab is absolutely disingenuous. Eric Coomer, a Dominion executive, for example, is not a public person. He has received death threats and is currently in a secure location due to credible threats to his family, children, and parents. At this very moment, on Gab TV, we have a live channel discussing his alleged fixing of votes (featuring Lin Wood). I mean, this is a blatant attack on a private person that has been proven to incite violence.

This has nothing to do with free speech, and Gab is an absolute cesspool of delusional QAnon conspiracies, anti-vaxxers, and adjacent movements. They're going to have a hard time monetizing (just as 4chan did).

† See Mill's Harm Principle.

disown · 5 years ago

> I'm a free speech absolutist

No you are not. Why lie? A free speech absolutist means that you believe any speech is acceptable. You comments clearly show you believe in limits to speech.

> but violent speech, "fighting words," insurrectionist speech, etc. are not protected under any free speech doctrine

"Insurrectionist speech". You just gave yourself away. It's not "free speech doctrine" that prevents it. It's a supreme court ruling. The US was mostly free speech absolutist until the courts ruled direct threats to be illegal.

In case you think america limited free speech before the 20th century...

Politicians could threaten each other and duel each other...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burr%E2%80%93Hamilton_duel

> I've argued in favor of free speech here on HN (and got the downvotes to prove it) more times than I can

As someone who has been downvoted defending free speech, I commiserate. But you don't strike me as a free speech guy. You have the strangest way of being "in favor of free speech".

> Free speech isn't some carte blanche that allows anyone to say anything at any time.

But you just claimed to be a free speech absolutist. That's exactly what a free speech absolutist believe. That you can say anything anytime.

> This has nothing to do with free speech, and Gab is an absolute cesspool of delusional QAnon conspiracies.

But you are a free speech absolutist. No?

Why do propagandists always do this? They pretend to be the other side and argue against the other side. It's like a meat eater pretending to be vegan and saying bad things about the vegan diet. And you have the gall to accuse gab of being disingenuous.

disown commented on EFF's response to social media companies' decisions to block Trump’s accounts eff.org/deeplinks/2021/01... · Posted by u/NoRagrets

colanderman · 5 years ago

They sort of have to be. In the fight to preserve electronic freedoms, freedom from censorship and freedom to operate a service as one pleases come at odds with each other in cases like this.

If instead, the government had confiscated Parler's domains, or enjoined Apple, Google, and Amazon from booting them, I think EFF's response would (rightly/expectedly IMO) be very different.

As an EFF member I think they made the right call here.

disown · 5 years ago

> As an EFF member I think they made the right call here.

They didn't. They chickened out. The ACLU was more vocal in its opposition to censorship. That should show how cowardly the EFF is being right now.

You falsely made it seem like EFF only deals with or is concerned with government "suppression". That isn't true. Most of EFF dealings is with corporate "suppression".

Under normal circumstances, EFF would have been far more vocal. But since they are extremely biased in this case, they chose to be anti-free speech.

"The EFF was active in the United States presidential election 2016 because of online phishing related to the controversy over fabrication of election results. J. Alex Halderman, a computer security professor at the University of Michigan, wrote an article that was published in Medium in 2016 stating he thought it was advisable to have a recount on some of the election results from states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Frontier_Foundation

Don't you think EFF's belief in 2016 election fraud had anything to do with their lukewarm defense of Trump's free speech here?

They have a long history of questioning voting results, but only when republicans win...

"The EFF has long been an advocate of paper audit trails for voting machines and testified in support of them after the United States presidential election 2004."

I generally think EFF is a worthy enterprise, but it's obvious political bias is the reason for their pathetic "support" for free speech here.

disown commented on Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship state.gov/lifting-self-im... · Posted by u/octopoc

__sy__ · 5 years ago

I've lived in Taiwan for a short period of time. I absolutely love it there and I encourage everyone here to go check it out. Furthermore, the Taiwanese people deserve the right to self-determination, and our support if they decide to go their own way. That being said, considering the enormously strategic role that Taiwan plays in electronics supply chains (e.g. TSMC, Wistron...etc), it's always been odd to me that the U.S. chooses to placate Beijing, at the risk of losing a reliable partner (Taiwan) in a strategic industry.

disown · 5 years ago

> I've lived in Taiwan for a short period of time.

Are you the guy that keeps spamming blogs about "TSMC, chips and how taiwan is so important to the US" to HN?

> Furthermore, the Taiwanese people deserve the right to self-determination

Taiwan has 20 million people. Mainland china has 1.4 billion people. I believe the "self-determination" part is already settled.

> and our support if they decide to go their own way.

Nope. Let them settle it. We shouldn't have been involved in the first place.

> it's always been odd to me that the U.S. chooses to placate Beijing, at the risk of losing a reliable partner (Taiwan) in a strategic industry.

Are you serious? One is the second largest economy in the world. The other is taiwan.

Every week, there is some bullshit blog spam about how important TSMC is. Why is that? Who is paying for it?

disown commented on Advice from a 104-year-old PhD student [video] bbc.com/reel/video/p090s7... · Posted by u/hmart

dmos62 · 5 years ago

Here's an observation: people who've survived longer than most are quick to smile. I like checking out stories about them, because I know I'll see an energizing photo of an upbeat person.

disown · 5 years ago

> Here's an observation: people who've survived longer than most are quick to smile. I like checking out stories about them, because I know I'll see an energizing photo of an upbeat person.

There is the other side.

"Russian Woman, Who Claims to Be World's Oldest at 129, Says She's Had One Happy Day in her Life"

https://www.newsweek.com/russian-woman-claims-worlds-oldest-...

Also, there was a documentary a while back on nursing homes. Pretty much all "people who've survived longer" were miserable. I remember an old woman who out-lived her husband, daughter, friends, etc. I still remember what she said: "Everynight I go to sleep hoping god would take me, but I always wake up." A modern day Sibyl of Cumae.

I don't think "quick to smile" has anything to do with longevity. Misers and misanthropes also can outlive many.

disown commented on Wikipedia is 20 economist.com/internation... · Posted by u/kylebarron

shepherdjerred · 5 years ago

Wikipedia is incredible. I find it frustrating when friends say it's unreliable/not to be trusted.

Of course it's not perfect, but I've learned plenty enough from it to be well worth the trade-off

disown · 5 years ago

> Wikipedia is incredible.

It's good for surface level stuff. The apolitical superficial knowledge is where wikipedia excels.

> I find it frustrating when friends say it's unreliable/not to be trusted.

In terms of depth and breadth of knowledge of topics, it is sorely lacking. And it is highly untrustworthy when it comes to anything remotely political/historical/economic/etc - which are ultimately all political.

> Of course it's not perfect, but I've learned plenty enough from it to be well worth the trade-off

Definitely. It has it's uses like everything. But it is extremely flawed.