cattress 's Techdirt Comments
Latest Comments (240)
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On the post: What I Hope Tech CEOs Will Tell Congress: 'We're Not Neutral'
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On the post: John Oliver On Drug Raids: Why Are We Raiding Houses For Drug Quantities That Could Be Easily Flushed Down A Toilet?
cattress ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2021 @ 01:56amRe: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Not blissfully unaware, stubbornly refusing awareness. A lot of people think the concept of white privilege is a personal attack, and acknowledging that they likely benefitted from it is the equivalent of saying they didn't work hard for their accomplishments, that they never experienced hardship, or they knowingly used their shared whiteness to take an opportunity that they didn't deserve from a black person. And so they purposely shut down what they think they don't want to hear, when it's really not what they think it is.
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On the post: Law Enforcement, Social Media Users Turn An Act Of Kindness Into A Human Trafficking Investigation
cattress ( profile ), 24 Feb, 2021 @ 11:18pmRe: Acts of kindness are now suspicious
When I was about 6 years old, I got lost at the beach. I walked 2 miles, from one public beach to another, I kept thinking my mom was just a little further, and I have no idea what possessed me to keep going once I reached empty beach with no one in sight, but I did. And a little before reaching the next beach, a couple walking on the beach found me, and offered to help me get to a lifeguard to find my mom. And even though I had heard the stranger danger message, I wasn't afraid of them and accepted their help. And they walked me to the lifeguard and got his attention for me.
I could have turned around and ended up wondering around lost for hours more. These people would have you think predators were lurking every where, looking for very unlikely spontaneous opportunities to nab a victim.
It was a couple years ago that a toddler wandered off from her family and when a man brought her over to find her parents the father attacked him, so I'm not sure this is particularly new. -
On the post: Law Enforcement, Social Media Users Turn An Act Of Kindness Into A Human Trafficking Investigation
cattress ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2021 @ 10:44pmRe:
Yes. Racial biases persist regardless of denial. Most, though not all, moral panics drive fear over the ruination of young white women and girls virtue. Because we have never really reckoned with the racist sins of the past, and been dragged kicking and screaming into any minor degree of racial equality, we have never fully let those ideas go, often finding more insidious ways to maintain this position of supremacy. We have a lot more work to do, it doesn't make you a bad person to admit that we need to do better.
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On the post: Law Enforcement, Social Media Users Turn An Act Of Kindness Into A Human Trafficking Investigation
cattress ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2021 @ 09:54pmRe:
Perhaps if cops didn't make so many situations so much worse when responding, communities wouldn't be so hesitant to report actual crimes they have witnessed. Perhaps if cops made actual effort into solving violent crimes, or getting stolen vehicles returned to rightful owners without making the process more expensive and difficult, there might be a little more faith in the value of reporting crime. When cops start treating poor people, minorities, people experiencing overwhelming emotions due to being victimized, or due to a crisis, children and especially minority children, with care, concern, dignity, instead of tasing, handcuffing, insulting, threatening, shooting their dogs, and generally acting as though everyone they come in contact with is a grave threat, then we discuss why we shouldn't discourage the public from reporting things.
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On the post: Law Enforcement, Social Media Users Turn An Act Of Kindness Into A Human Trafficking Investigation
cattress ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2021 @ 11:05pmI have a sleep disorder and I function better in the later part of the day. So before the pandemic I would often do my shopping after 9, 10, or later at night, taking my baby, who I kept on my later schedule, with me. And I can't tell you how many times white women 55+ told me that there were kidnappers and sex traffickers lurking in and around Walmart, waiting in the backseats of cars, targeting moms with full hands, offering to help only to attack once you turned your back. And these horrid men - some even tried to claim they were illegal aliens, Mexicans specifically- just waiting in the shadows of the Elkton Walmart to grab a young mom (I was a new mom, but not exactly a young one at 37-38) and her baby girl and sell us. I always found some polite response, when I really wanted to laugh at them and tell them they are utterly ridiculous. My own mother tried to peddle the white van grabbing girls at the mall not long ago, claiming life is so much more dangerous now a days. The same woman that used to let me go to the movies with by best friend, and no adult starting at age 6, in 1987, when crime rates were significantly higher.
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On the post: Without Twitter, Trump Is Left To Write Tweets He Would Have Said On Paper
cattress ( profile ), 09 Feb, 2021 @ 03:26amRe: What a pleasant start to the week
I couldn't agree more. And while I feel some level of satisfaction when karma comes around to settle a few scores, I try not to gloat or revel in another's pain. But for Trump, knowing that he is incapable of empathy or sympathy, and lacks even the most basic moral understanding that would inform him when to fake concern for others, apologize regardless of a lack of remorse, or simply know when to back off, if only to make his own life easier and smooth ruffled feathers, I am basking in joyous thoughts of him seeing planes towing signs calling him a loser, resigned to writing his petty, pathetic grievances on paper that no one will see, confused by his current situation not reflecting his deluded belief of self importance. I mean, damn, I love it. I don't wish any harm, I couldn't even muster sympathy for his family if he suffered some unexpected tragic end, and he has young grandchildren.
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On the post: Six More Houston Cops Involved In Deadly Drug Raid Are Now Facing Criminal Charges
cattress ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2021 @ 01:57amDon't forget chief Acevedo coming to the uniformed gang bangers' defense in this case while claiming to need to break encryption in order to sweep out the refuse working in the department who might have participated in the insurrection and haven't been identified in thousands of hours of footage publicly available.
Kinda seems like just a tiny bit of due diligence on his part to actually oversee his department should leave him with so few officers left that rooting out the insurrectionist would be least of his problems. -
On the post: House Republicans Have A Big Tech Plan… That Is Both Unconstitutional And Ridiculous
cattress ( profile ), 26 Jan, 2021 @ 11:27pmRe: Re: Re: Very Simple
First, it is not just difficult, but impossible to build a consensus of what is an "objective" basis for all moderation decisions that tech companies face.
There is no way to satisfy everyone's demands, especially when the grievance of some is not actually happening, and no matter how many times or how clearly this is explained and proven, they refuse to understand.
Third, companies have the right to make political based moderation if they want. It's their yard, they don't have to let any and everyone in their yard to play, and they don't have to let anyone keep playing in their yard that has begun to chafe their nerves. Sure, they should give a clear warning about the problem with a chance to fix it, which most more or less do, but their only obligation is whatever rules they wrote for themselves in their terms and conditions. If the government decides they want to write the rules, it's only a matter of time before social media platforms start dropping like flies. Starting with the smaller, newer companies who cannot afford to lose chunks of their user base and ad revenue by keeping content that offends and upsets, or continues to host content from someone who has basically earned being cancelled by being despicable and abhorrent; or the company cannot afford to fight lawsuits for moderating out business killing content that might be interpreted as politically motivated.
Certainly no one is going to invest in creating new platforms that can't make moderation decisions that are in the company's best interest.
This just leads to killing all competition to the big ones, who will probably have a seat at the table in making the rules with the government. -
On the post: New York Times Decides Kids Are Playing Too Many Video Games During The Pandemic
cattress ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2021 @ 03:40pmMoving target
Maybe instead of research money being spent on studies that are predetermined to find that yes, whatever activity children are interested in today that isn't the same as what older generations did, (or seem to have imagined they did, when in fact, they were not doing those idealistic childhood activities of bike riding and climbing trees, they watched TV and talked on the phone like everyone else because it was the 70s and 80s, not the 50s and 60s) and therefore a destructive force of evil that is precisely the reason for what's wrong with kids these days, we could actually study the best ways to teach kids how to self regulate and moderate themselves. Probably adults could use some tips, we are overindulgent too. The solution of "turning off the wifi during non-school hours" doesn't teach kids anything but that you are an authoritarian dick, and a hypocrite that doesn't trust them (hypocrite because all parents take their phone to the bathroom and play games or scroll social media, kids eventually figure out it doesn't take that long to poop).
Better advice would be, before arbitrarily determining that all screen time not related to school work is inherently bad and rotting your kids brains, have an open mind, and try to cultivate a shared interest by asking your kids to show you how to play (and don't ruin it with your adult lameness). Instead of setting strict limits, aside from bed time, and time to complete chores and school work, offer to introduce your kid to something you enjoy not screen related, or to take up an activity that you both might enjoy, like yoga or stargazing, or geocaching, which is kinda like Pokemon Go (of course based on your available time and money) and see how it goes. If you decide to put strict limits in place anyways, be prepared to come up with and put together pandemic safe activities that everyone will actually enjoy; normally a parent shouldn't be responsible for constant entertainment, but the pandemic puts so many limits on activities that it makes you an asshole to take away the main source of entertainment left without coming up with viable alternatives. -
On the post: New York Times Decides Kids Are Playing Too Many Video Games During The Pandemic
cattress ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2021 @ 03:19amRe: Re: Moral panics about our children
Ok, so I can agree that too many businesses fail to ensure living wages and good benefits for most of their workforce. And shareholders shouldn't be insulated from the effects underpaying and under insuring the workforce. And while the US should look to other Western countries to model more equitable compensation laws, we have to be careful not widen the chasm between the rich and poor from unintended consequences and failing to account for the inevitable resistance.
But I don't understand the rest. I'm a very crafty person with very, very little disposable income. Usually just $10-20 a month, which I also have to stretch to cover things like a new item of clothing, make-up, or shoes. Sometimes I have to wait for a special occasion or carefully budget to get something like a tool, but overall I have an abundance of supplies and materials for a range of projects. I get a significant amount of cheap stuff at the big box stores you are decrying, like the dollar store, and Walmart. And I reuse/repurpose all kinds of, well, trash basically, into some damn cool stuff. Heck, Bernie's famous mittens are made from old sweaters!
And cotton is not the end all, be all fabric fiber, which I have no trouble finding either. Synthetic fibers are not just (or always) cheap either. They have specific qualities that cotton doesn't, such as resistance to shrinking, moisture wicking, or can be spun into incredibly soft material like Minky. The oil companies have been allowed to get away with far too much for too long, and they should be held to account. But we don't have alternatives developed yet to just cast these synthetics aside.
It's not the corruption of capitalism for the bigger more successful companies to devour the littler ones. Capitalism is corrupted when the big companies lobby for laws that protect them from competition and the natural process of creative destruction.
Also, one of the most significant causes of wage stagnation in the US comes from the rise of healthcare costs. After WWII, the government instituted wage caps to try to combat inflation. Unions turned to securing benefits packages, including health insurance, creating the horrible employer based insurance system we have today. In addition, the government created insurance for the elderly and poor; in exchange for restrictions on the number of new doctors able to complete school and enter the field, in order to keep doctor pay from possibly dropping, the AMA agreed to let doctors accept reduced rates for Medicare and Medicaid patients. However, the increased life expectancy, baby boom, and innovation in safety and medical care stretched doctors too thin, leading to malpractice and the skyrocketing costs for malpractice insurance, causing doctors to increase their fees while the quality of care decreased. So there's plenty of corporate greed, but that's not the only reason people struggle to earn a living wage. -
On the post: Trump's Support Of Cops Pays Off: Multiple Police Officers Under Investigation For Illegal Invasion Of The Capitol Building
cattress ( profile ), 20 Jan, 2021 @ 04:20amRe:
Needn't hope, it's damn near guaranteed. Cops don't prevent crime- though that has to do with the reality that most people are victimized in private settings. And I can think of a few examples where cops were called to respond to a violent situation where say in NYC the cops didn't even get out of their car and rolled on by, leaving no possibility that the mother of an infant would survive her estranged husband's attack, or in a southern state (I can't remember which) when neighbors called for help when they saw a man attacking his ex-girlfriend, the cops claimed that they couldn't find the address and made no efforts to call dispatch or stop their circle jerk long enough to show up and stop the man from not only brutally murdering the young mother, but also their two or three small children, and even moving their bodies. FFS, none of these cops faced as much punishment as a fast food worker who forgets your fries, and innocent people died.
And don't forget cops all over the country piling hundreds of thousands of rape kits up in closets until some ran out the statute of limitations, and made up bullshit excuses for never testing them. Your badge-licking garbage is profoundly ignorant. I hope a cop is around the next time you think you need one and you get a taste of why calling them almost always results in them making the situation so much worse. Hint, they don't give a fuck about you and will treat you like a non-compliant suspect just because you are distressed over a crime committed against you. -
On the post: Bad Idea: President-Elect Biden Wants To Turn 1/6 Into The New 9/11
cattress ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2021 @ 08:31pmRe: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I think this whole thing comes from some founders of BLM that declared themselves (or maybe even just herself) trained Marxist revolutionaries. I'm pretty sure most of the more recent accusations come from this, along with a few people involved in Antifa activities mentioning communist and socialist ideals. I think it's mostly innocent ideas and hopes for a better society for everyone that are completely blown out of proportion, and as someone mentioned above, an attempt to tie socialism to nations so thoroughly corrupt that no financial system could have overcome, like Venezuela, instead of Sweden, or any other North Western European nation.
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On the post: Jack Dorsey Explains The Difficult Decision To Ban Donald Trump; Reiterates Support For Turning Twitter Into A Decentralized Protocol
cattress ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2021 @ 07:22pmRe: Re: Bullshit
Trump is a special case, and money isn't the only reason for trying to avoid booting him from the platform. Yes they were making money off his presence, but the risk of losing money because of some awful thing he did has always been looming. Capitalism works both ways.
And kicking him off the platform, when he was still going to be commanding a huge amount of attention as President for years to come, while still solidly in the good graces of right wing media, before his words could be as definitively linked to real life violence (more so than say the El Paso and synagogue shooters who were likely emboldened by him) would have done tremendous damage to the business. Hate on social media all you want but the truth is that it gives a voice to many who wouldn't have one otherwise, the vast majority of which are not trolls and neo Nazis.
Again, I'm not denying that money is a significant driving force, but I see most things in shades of gray, rather than clearly defined terms of black and white. Things just rarely aren't that simple. -
On the post: Bad Idea: President-Elect Biden Wants To Turn 1/6 Into The New 9/11
cattress ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2021 @ 05:07pmRe: Re: Re: Re: Re:
This is one of those cognizant dissidence situations that undermines the MAGA cult. Many, if not most of white supremacy, white nationalist groups are admittedly socialist! Only, and Bernie Sanders totally nailed this during the debates, they want socialism for themselves, but not other races, ethnicities it otherwise minority groups. Basically socialism for me but not for thee, which is also what things like corporate welfare (like subsidies, tax breaks, and protectionist trade practices)boils down to. Both parties want socialism, they just want it for different groups. And I'm pretty sure that the nationalist socialist white supremacy movement is part of the drive to declare that Democrats are not just socialist, but actually communist, and communism is so much more awful than socialism. And of course they really make themselves look dumb by holding the Nazi regime as an aspiration, because Nazis were communist. Stalin was a nationalist socialist, responsible for more death than Hitler, his just wasn't as targeted, resulting from widespread famine, starvation and disease from endless war.
Truth is that Trump mirrors the rise of Mussolini most closely, a fascist-nationalist. Lots of blaming the nation's problems on the "other", as in immigrants and foreign countries, claiming to fight for the common man, who has been a victim that everyone else ignored. Sound about right?
And in addition to trying to paint the Democrats as the evil communist, they love to throw "Marxist" around too, when they themselves are mostly middle class, workers railing against the so called elite, especially rich capitalist like Bezos, and their favorite boogieman Soros.
I mean, the Dems are pretty confused on who the "bad guys" are too; there is a lot of blame on capitalism that is actually the result of cronyism, which happens when government gets involved in regulation without sufficient knowledgeable, representative over site, (especially in local level governments that can be influenced by spending a lot less money than a State or National government would cost).
I guess the short answer is that Trump supporters pretend the socialism they want isn't socialism, probably because they feel entitled to benefits because they are more equal than others. -
On the post: Everything Pundits Are Getting Wrong About This Current Moment In Content Moderation
cattress ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2021 @ 01:16amRe: Re:
Fact checking is fine by me, in fact I was joking with my husband that at bare minimum, whenever Trump was speaking on TV, there should be a meter at the bottom of the screen, akin to Politifact, that would point to pants on fire lies, through a more neutral area that would include indecipherable garbage and impossible to substantiate claims, to true. But Trump is an exceptional case of dishonesty (and often so were his people), and I'm not sure that much fact checking can be done on scale nor that it's appropriate to do so for the rest of the world.
I think the platforms should open up for third party and personal moderation and curation options. People like choice, and it lessens the expectation that the platform can create one perfect moderation system that makes everybody happy all the time.
And we need to create and fund policies to direct antiterrorism intelligence to focus on de-radicalizing, and specifically the goal being preventing violence by getting people to disengage with extremist instead of arrests and prosecution. Of course, that takes time, and a shit-ton of people, and currently about 1/3rd of our population have been brainwashed and thinks they are facing an imminent existential threat. So we are probably going to shit the bed as usual, and end up further marginalizing minority and vulnerable communities, and make a bunch of old white guys even richer. -
On the post: Everything Pundits Are Getting Wrong About This Current Moment In Content Moderation
cattress ( profile ), 11 Jan, 2021 @ 10:21pmRe: Re:
AC isn't wrong about how deplatforming can drive people underground, force them out of sight while not actually hindering, at least not for long, the problematic activities. FOSTA/SESTA did this sex workers, making work more dangerous, and victims harder to find. A lot of these people hell-bent on violence and chaos will reconstitute elsewhere, say Telegram for instance.
Of course, there has been not just red flags for potential violence, but massive blinking signs with arrows and blaring sirens indicating something afoot, visible from space, that some (some meaning the Capital Police who were given detailed reports of the impending violence from Data vacuums like the NYPD, plus FBI analysis) law enforcement seems to have turned a blind eye to. So just because the information that could thwart a violent attack, was readily available, doesn't mean it will actually be paid attention to.
What concerns me is that these dangerous groups will migrate entirely to encrypted platforms, do or attempt something violent, possibly on a large scale, and suddenly law enforcement will have everyone supporting "legal backdoors" and destroy encryption.
These assholes are going to be yet another reason why we can't have nice things. -
On the post: Politics Is Not A Game
cattress ( profile ), 07 Jan, 2021 @ 10:10pmRe: Hysterical Blatherings
In case you weren't paying attention, a woman was shot to death trying to climb through a broken window to Congress where a number of congressmen had not yet evacuated. I'm not blaming her, and I'm really torn over whether her shooting was justified or not. She was rather hell bent on getting inside, but I don't know if she was fully aware of the armed cops on the other side, as there was a lot of shouting from all directions. And regardless of her QAnon following, we have no idea what she intended to do once inside, and cops certainly had no idea how dangerous she might or might not be. She never should have been able to make it that far into the building, but she did, and she lost her life. I think it's pretty fucking serious to everyone but you, and the only whiney crybaby is the president who can't face reality. Party crashing doesn't result in getting shot to death.
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On the post: Trump's Police Commission Suggests Doing The Same Things That Haven't Worked For Years Will Reduce Violent Crime
cattress ( profile ), 31 Dec, 2020 @ 01:33amJust the fun stuff
Crimes with specific victims, victims that put names and faces to acts of violence, traumatized victims with emotion, in distress; with devastated families including parents and children of victims, and often times tragic stories and continued difficult situations require things like empathy, sympathy, human decency, listening skills, actual investigation work and critical thinking that is actually a skill police screen out of recruits. Solving crimes that are not committed by notorious serial criminals or organized groups, that will not earn some news article write up or community honor declaring the officers heroes, and won't automatically lead to promotion simply don't offer enough incentive to bother with. Who wants to deal with traumatized victims when you can dress up like a soldier, move in coordinated groups, using codewords, under the cover of night, and be all tactical? Interview emotional family and friends, sort out and track down the elderly neighbor with nothing better to do but be nosy's potential leads, or use fun new technology like stingrays and drones, search databases without having to talk to another human being,and when you do have to deal with the public, you can either rough up anyone not sufficiently cooperative, or even play dress up bad guy edition in an undercover operation. Best of all, lots of arrests of an organized crime group means lots of paperwork to be filled out at overtime pay rates, fancy goodies and cash that may or may not end up being included in evidence records. If the case wouldn't make a tv or movie plot, the appetite to solve it isn't there. I can't help but wonder if this commission of insanity look at things like the litany of bullshit excuses for why rapekits piled up up into the hundreds of thousands around the country (and whether they are becoming backlogged again)? I know that is more of a state and locality issue, but serial attackers were discovered when kits finally got tested, and local governments do work with the feds, and often follow their lead.
Personally, I would be ashamed to work for anyone with such a failure rate, one that has done nothing but grow while the crime rates have decreased and the the technological and forensic tools are night and day when compared to peak crime rates. And I might very well hang myself if my bosses proposed doubling down on failed policies, while demanding more money and unconstitutional violations of my fellow citizens rights just so that we could be effortlessly incompetent. -
On the post: Presidential Commission On Law Enforcement Says Pretty Much Everyone But Cops Are To Blame For The Shitty State Of American Policing
cattress ( profile ), 28 Dec, 2020 @ 11:55pmAbolish police unions
Cracks me up, Republicans and conservatives hate unions; and police forces that formed in the North came from capitalist paying for private security specifically to break up unionization efforts and worker protests. (As opposed to the South, where police forces started out recapturing escaped slaves. Ultimately, all police enforcement was deployed as a means to protect the rich from the poor, which was made up of the people of color, the people not born in the US, in particular those from predominantly Catholic nations.)
And yet, not a word about eliminating police unions, who render every suggested improvement, including "comply now, complain later", utterly useless. Transparency, civilian review boards, better training do nothing when police unions negotiate all the exceptions of transparency under dubious protecting the investigation claims, have rights that either give no power to civil (or any other kind of disciplinary mechanism) or have multiple routes to overturn their decisions; and if the government sets training requirements, unions ensure they are not funded and then cry about officers making 80k a year being asked to pay for ongoing training like what is required of most other professionals to maintain their licenses; or that the training comes from a group of the union's choosing, which just enriches friends and retirees, and not only fail to teach de-escalation tactics, they harden their belief that as cops they are heroes risking life and death every moment of the day. Or they do like that scumbag union leader in Minneapolis, and fund precisely the kind of dangerous training that cops were prohibited from taking because of how it promoted them to act violently.
Police unions are dangerous, and there is good reason for state and local officials to fear trying to reign them in. And tasking prosecutors, even ones from different districts with holding cops accountable, when they depend on the officers to do their jobs is unrealistic. The federal government is supposed to protect civil rights, to enforce The Constitution. Things like the DEA and ATF are unnecessary enforcement divisions that don't need special treatment from how these duties would be run under the umbrella of the FBI. Take most of that funding to expand civil rights enforcement, and empower this department to investigate police (as well as all forms of detention) on all levels. To ensure that they are not obstructed from investigation and enforcement, which should follow a similar model to the military that includes a judge or tribunal adjudication, states must not be permitted to recognize police unions or allow them to bargain collectively or individually for people who are supposed to be representing the government, just like the military.
Re: Re: Re: Yes, WE KNOW, CORPORATISTS LIED UNTIL GAINED POWER.
Ooh! Ooh! I know, pick me!
In the form of a question: What is a tired and thoroughly debunked claim of conservative viewpoint censorship that no one wants to argue with Koby about again?
Don't pretend that you don't know full well it's not conservative views being censored. It's hateful views that dehumanize others, spreading of dangerous lies about vaccines, masks, and the pandemic, and spreading dangerous lies that have resulted in violence regarding the 2020 election that just so happen to come almost entirely from "conservative" people that are getting shut down. The misinformation, lies and propaganda were allowed to spread until well after there were real word harms.