Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the and-we're-back dept
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Nimrod with a comment about the lack of checks and balances for RFK Jr.:
Observation
If a member of organized crime were to manage to get themself elected President, they would probably try to delegitimize the legal system, law enforcement and government authority in general. After enriching themself and their cronies, of course. Maybe they’d even start a war or two as a diversion. They’d also put as many “friendly” judges in place as they could, particularly in the higher courts.
It’s a good thing we’d never elect such a person. /s
In second place, it’s MrWilson with a comment about MAHA’s call to eliminate the whole childhood vaccination schedule:
This is another instance where you’d be fine with the stupidity if it didn’t affect innocent people. Like with covid, you were fine that dumbasses got themselves infected, but it led to grandmothers and children and random people they encountered getting infected and sometimes dying, so it wasn’t okay. It was fine if some random 50 year old Trump supporter wanted to get the ivermectin shits or waste money on homeopathic “cures.”
But this is expressly the same evil abuse as Christian Science and Jehovah’s Witness parents who refuse medical care for their children, preferring they die than benefit from modern science and treatments.
It also undermines the entire “parents rights” narrative that conservatives like to spin whenever an issue comes up. You don’t get to kill your children just because you’re a brainwashed dumbass. Except, in America, you actually do. And that’s fucking horrible.
For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from TKnarr that is similarly about the consequences of the administration’s stupidity:
The sad thing is that you should take what Trump says seriously in the same way you should take what the Joker says seriously. Because they’re literally an insane clown with only a tenuous hold on reality, but they’re an insane clown with a tanker-truck full of SmileX who absolutely will blanket the city with it. The people who claim you shouldn’t take him seriously or literally? Are the ones who paid him to do that and are now worried someone might connect the dots that lead back to them.
Unfortunately our version of Bruce Wayne really is the brainless billionaire he-bimbo Batman’s secret identity pretends to be.
Next, it’s Epic_Null with a comment about the impact of social media on kids and teens:
We also should not forget though that we have children who are fairly restricted in where they go. A child who is not allowed to go to the park on their own is not exactly likely to turn into a teen who hangs out at the mall.
If we want independent people who use third spaces… we have to make laws and culture that supports people being independent and using third spaces.
Over on the funny side, our first place winner is an anonymous comment about Stephen Thaler’s latest loss in his quest to get copyright protection for the generations of his AI system:
Does Thaler believe he got thrown under DABUS?
In second place, it’s an anonymous reply to our guest post entitled Human Problems: It’s Not Always The Technology’s Fault:
There is one golden rule – It’s always someone else’s fault, and they owe me a lot of money.
For editor’s choice on the funny side, it’s another somewhat slow week when it comes to jokes, so we’ll keep it to just one pick — another comment from MrWilson, this time about Roblox’s rollout of AI-powered real-time rephrasing of profanity in chat:
Holy forking shirtballs!
That’s all for this week, folks!


Comments on “Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt”
Labels...
The common label someone would give Trump and his family, based on similar things happening elsewhere (especially in Africa) would be a ‘Tinpot dictatorship’ – but since he got an entire political party on board, it became a fascist dictatorship instead.
Re:
Fascist, certainly. Dictatorship, not yet. He’s trying to rig our elections but he hasn’t succeeded yet.
Re: Re:
If you don’t understand that he’s ALWAYS been acting AS a dictator, and that far too many of his orders HAVE been obeyed by his political party, which would not otherwise have happened – (because they would make no sense otherwise) – then you’ve not been paying attention.
I know that it can be hard to truly recognise what’s hapening when you’re stuck in the middle of it, but from the outside, it’s pretty damn obvious.
That some (and the judiciary) are resisting Trump’s often ILLEGAL (dictated!) orders, does not mean they don’t exist.
The only thing that matters for a dictatorship to exist is for such authoritarian leader to gain power. That Trump managed to take over an existing political party and got elected does not make him ‘not a dictator’. What that does, is make it a ‘fascist dictatorship’.
Getting him out of power IN ANY WAY does not mean it wasn’t a dicatorship.
But this is a problem when the 20th century was WON by the right – because it meant they got to make all the arguments and definitions in their own favour, rather than what humanity itself needs. As such you’re falling for far right propaganda in not recognising how and why Trump is actually a dictator, even though the evidence is overwhelming.
Will starting WW3 by fiat change you opinion?
Re: Re: Re:
Trump doesn’t have supreme power(yet), and while dictators can certainly be elected, their elections tend to be complete shams. Trump’s wasn’t.
So I would agree with Thad that Trump isn’t there yet, despite his best efforts.
Re: Re: Re:2
And this is how and why authoritarians WIN – because they’ve managed to convince people that it’s not the actual authoritarian behaviour itself that matters, but how and why it came to exist.
Like I said – the right has managed to define such matters for their own benefit as a matter of propaganda, and all everyone here is doing is demonstrating just how successful such propaganda has been.
But then, that’s why all this was always going to be inevitable in the US – one of the most heavily propagandered nations/populaces in the world with a stong underlying authoritarian streak.
I’d hope that many others of my age that were truly educated about WW2 etc. over here in Europe also wouldn’t be so blind.
Re: Re: Re:3
Europe’s got its own problems with ascendant fascist movements; it’s not just happening in America.
I know that it can be hard to truly recognize what’s happening when you’re stuck in the middle of it.
Re: Re: Re:3
Make up your mind. Is Trump an authoritarian or a dictator?
Because I would agree with the former, but certainly not the latter.
Re: Re: Re:
And Ian McKellen’s been acting as Magneto for 25 years, but that doesn’t make him Magneto.
Re: Re: Re:2
Put less glibly:
Words mean things. And “dictator” doesn’t just mean “authoritarian”. A dictator is someone who wields absolute power.
Trump wants to be a dictator. He acts like a dictator. His minions are doing everything in their power to make him a dictator.
But he’s not. He doesn’t wield absolute power.
If he did, he wouldn’t be ranting about the Supreme Court ruling against his tariffs.
If he did, he wouldn’t be ranting about Jerome Powell not lowering interest rates, and Pirro wouldn’t be ranting about Boasberg dismissing her retaliatory charges against him.
If Trump wielded absolute power, he wouldn’t be panicking that the opposition party is going to win the midterms and impeach him.
That’s not to say it can’t happen or that it won’t happen. It could very definitely happen at some point in the near future. As implied by my use of the word “yet”.
There are a lot of things that could tip this, and soon. The SAVE Act is one possible vector.
But it hasn’t tipped yet. He does not wield absolute power. Far too much power, yes. Absolute, no.
So you can take your condescension and your caps lock and shove them up your ass. I don’t need what’s happening in my backyard explained to me from the comfortable distance of someplace that spells “realize” with an “s”.
Re:
some commentary I’ve been hearing of late is that there are no fascists anymore. Sure, they’d all love to do it, to build fascism- but you couldn’t sell anyone on fascism these days. Not one person is eager to lay down their life for the state, blood and soil and collective living-and-dying-for-the-country. You can’t step in the same river twice; you can’t build 1930s fascism today even if you had all the power in the world.
Doesn’t mean they’re any less bad. What they’re trying might be worse, and it’s coming with the global threat of catastrophic climate change bearing down on us.
Just an offside
PART of the civil war was based on a fact that the North did not have enough jobs for the poor. Which is REALLY based on how restrictive making a business and protections get stupid.
But even now our nation can not create Enough jobs, and its getting worse as we automate. And Much of that is against Capitalists, and part against the Nation.
As the nation Found out(and doesnt work any more) is that WAR CREATES JOBS. IT DONT CREATE JOBS, any more, It Sends millions to war, so that we dont need as many jobs.
And as Proven, Once it ends we go into depression, When all those in the war COME HOME.
And as Capitalist NEVEr loose money of their own. They Export what National Products we have and raise Prices Higher. Our major exports are Food around the world, grains, and beef mostly. But Other nations are NOT liking our Food products as WE TAKE SHORT CUTS in the growing process.
Do I need to suggest that as these wars End, Trump will NOT be in office. That Stocks will drop abit. And the repubs will try to Blame WHO?
…that’s your example of a thing teenagers do? Hang out at the mall?
Have you actually spoken to any since the Clinton Administration?