Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

Techdirt

from the pen-and-sword dept

This week, Stephen T. Stone takes both top spots on the insightful side. In first place, it’s a comment about Yelp asking the court to stop the Texas AG from suing them because they warn users about Crisis Pregnancy Centers, in response to a (snarky) question about what the issue is:

Sincere answer to what I acknowledge is snark: The whole point of CPCs is to trick people into going there so they can be talked out of abortions. To that end, anything that warns people about the lack of reproductive healthcare (including abortion services) at CPCs is an existential threat to those facilities. Of course a Republican would hate that.

In second place, it’s a comment about the eternal question of whether Elon Musk is stupid, malevolent, or both:

Sufficiently advanced narcissism is indistinguishable from gross stupidity.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with an anonymous comment addressing that same question, and making the argument that he might be intentionally trying to destroy Twitter:

It’s actually not irrational. Twitter was one of the greatest tools for the plebs to organize for justice, including economic justice. Justice, especially the economic variety, would be bad for Elon’s goals of being a neo-feudal Lord.

There was every rational reason for Elon to tear down Twitter. I just don’t know if I believe he’s rational enough to have done it intentionally vs him actually believing he’s doing a good job.

Next, it’s an excellent anonymous comment about copyright:

The entire premise of copyright to begin with is that you can’t own ideas or words. They belong to society as a whole as soon as they’re shared. Government also recognized (at least they used to recognize) that people tend to jealousy guard ideas and innovation if they spend a lot of time and energy creating those ideas, because they fear they will lose time/money/credit etc. To make them more likely to share, the government gave sole right to control the money and republication of their ideas for a set time, understanding, “hey, we know this took time and effort, so you can profit from your ideas for a while in exchange for bequeathing them to society for the ultimate benefit of all.”

Somewhere along the way, that whole concept was lost. Now it’s all intellectual property. Creators now believe that they do own the ideas, and more, should have the right to form multigenerational baronies off the ownership.

And that is the source of all this. If society and creators still understood that no one owns an idea, they wouldn’t seem to feel entitled to deny access their ideas the same way landowners can deny trespassers.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Thad with a comment on our post about the fallout from Unity’s licensing changes:

Unity Fallout? Don’t be silly. Fallout is Creation Engine.

In second place, it’s ThatOtherOtherGuy with another comment about Yelp and the Texas AG:

Paxton’s Yelp Score?

I don’t use Yelp, but I’m guessing one star?

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from That One Guy about Elon Musk being forced to pay the legal fees of the executives he fired:

‘How dare you try to force me to honor my word?!’

Legally binding contracts, one of Elon’s greatest banes.

And finally, it’s an anonymous response to the questionable suggestion that the enshittification cycle could be curbed by forcing companies to pay dividends:

That ought to curb the relentless focus on shareholder value…

That’s all for this week, folks!