Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the so-you-say dept
This week, both our winners on the insightful side come in response to the protestor who is charged with destroying property for giving CBP agents the “duress mode” password to wipe his phone. In first place, it’s an anonymous comment extending our characterization of what the DOJ is doing here:
While simultaneously pushing to institute secret courts with secret evidence for immigration-related “terrorism.”
In second place, it’s That One Guy with a comment about the bigger problems with these border searches:
The mere existence of ‘you have no constititional rights’ zones is a legal abomination
I would like to think that the judge involved will see through the government’s farce of a case and realize that they and the legal system they represent are being weaponized against the citizenry here but far too many(read: more than zero) judges buy the ‘it’s not a fifth amendment violation to force people to unlock their devices despite the entire point of forcing someone to do that is to provide evidence to incriminate them’ argument so who knows?
For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we’ve got an anonymous comment about Trump’s cuts to national security staff:
Every US adversary is aware of this, of course
As a result, they know that — for the moment — all they need to do is sit on their hands. There’s no need to spend any money, incur any risk, or make any effort: all they have to do is nothing.
And wait. Chances are they won’t have to wait long: Trump is not only an absolute moron with rapidly advancing dementia, he’s impulsive and chaotic, and at some point he will do something well beyond merely stupid in Iran. And that will be the right moment to take action, i.e.., for China to seize Taiwan or Russia to deploy tactical nukes in Ukraine. The US will be unable to respond because there will be nobody left with the capability of grasping the situation and constructing an actionable plan.
Next, it’s Thad with a comment about the persuasive abilities of AI chatbots:
I remember reading a story about an in-development game show where children would listen to two people discussing a particular specialist subject and guess which one was a real subject matter expert and which was an actor.
The show never made it past development because it didn’t work: the children would consistently find the actors more believable than the real subject matter experts.
The thing is, knowing stuff is an entirely different skillset than persuading people of stuff. And AI is very good at making statements that read, to human psychology, as confident and convincing. But it doesn’t know anything except statistical probabilities and repeating patterns within its training data.
Over on the funny side, both winning comments are again about the CBP duress mode story, and the first place winner is another anonymous response:
“What are you in for?”
“I killed eight people. You?”
“I got a TSA agent to wipe my phone.”
“Shit, they’ll put anyone in here now, huh?”
In second place, it’s Thad again, this time with a suggestion for everyone thinking about installing GrapheneOS:
And set the duress passcode to “1-9-8-4”
For editor’s choice on the funny side, we’ve got a pair of comments about the bizarre news that RFK Jr. is going to host a cooking show. First, it’s Bloof pointing out what a great on-air personality he’ll be:
With his soothing Krang from TMNT voice, the man is a natural host of Podcasts and television shows. I’m sure Bari Weiss had him on the shortlist of hosts for 60 minutes too, but he was so in demand because of his velvet voice, she had to settle for the young, handsome, charismatic Ross Douchehat.
Finally, it’s one more anonymous commenter with a pitch for the show:
101 Ways To Get The Tire Tracks Out Of Your Raccoon Ragú.
That’s all for this week, folks!
Comments on “Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt”
I am really curious to see if any actual chefs not only work with RFK, but how many will do a RL cost analysis of what it costs, not for wholesale costs, but actual per meal cost.
There was a list of some of the “simple recipes” he was planning on doing. Using fresh ingredients like Salmon and Tuna and Goose. Going to me local grocer, a serving size of each costs more than some people spend for a full-week’s meal plan and that is just for a single meal’s single serving.
Its not more that they don’t want to eat healthy, they just can’t afford to.
Re:
Health influencer’s version of “healthy” is expensive. ACTUAL healthy food is pretty affordable.
Re:
Your local grocer has goose?
Re: Re:
My local grocer has a large flock of Canada geese living beside it; does that count? They make a huge mess of the parking lot, so it’d actually help everyone out if people occasionally took one. I suspect that’s easier said than done, but it wouldn’t cost any money. (Hell, airports should probably be paying people to remove them from nearby properties, after the experience Sully and Skiles had.)
Another reason why unilateral leadership sucks.
The show [getting children to determine real experts from actors] never made it past development because it didn’t work: the children would consistently find the actors more believable than the real subject matter experts.
This was a notorious problem in the George W. Bush administration since Bush the decider was clearly more swayed by emphatic shows of confidence than arguments by experts supported by facts. His experts would struggle to get him to listen when politicians (often with ulterior agendas) were also in the room.
Of course, in the Trump administration, there just aren’t any experts in the room at all, and our peerless leader is completely swayed by the confidence and (and aristocratic rizz) of foreign agents. Our oligarchs really need to find some less squishy puppets.
In a recent video, economist (and Nobel laureate) Paul Krugman lamented how elected officials were disinclined to listen to awkward economists in favor of well-dressed lobbyists.
It should never be easy to strip away rights from someone.
In a functional liberal society¹ it should be extremely difficult for a person in authority to deny someone rights. If an official or law enforcement officer or state agent (or corporate interest) violates the rights of an individual there should be stark accountability and consequences.
History has shown us that there won’t be. The public is far more afraid of criminals than they are of the brutality of state agents, even as we have a long history of police gunning down suspects who are neither armed nor resisting. Even as we have federal paramilitaries abducting people without due process and detaining them in torture prisons.
Granted, that fear may have more to do with propaganda than an inherent disposition. The US has a long running fascination with copaganda, true crime and serial killers.
¹ I hate how often I have to predicate thoughts this way, now.