Scary Devil Monastery 's Techdirt Comments

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• On the post: Why Falsely Claiming It's Illegal To Shout Fire In A Crowded Theater Distorts Any Conversation About Online Speech

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2021 @ 07:15am

  Re: Re: Re:

  "You'd already decided that you didn't like me, and seek to put words in my mouth." No words I have to put in your mouth but the ones you already spat out of there, I'm afraid. I could give you the benefit of doubt - assume you didn't know what you argued for, but you doubling down on your assertions with troll rhetoric tells us all where you're from. "...and thus you will be safe from censorship even while it muzzles me." He said, obviously not being censored at all. Tell me, when you choose to troll a thread, do you check to see how jaded the residents are first? Because you're neither the first nor the hundredth to try that exact way to shut down any commenter who spots your bullshit. "Ah. Yes, I will get right on putting up my own Facebook contender or my own Google Play store. That's surely a reasonable argument that you make." It certainly is. You can do it today, quite easily.
  Oh, wait...you infer that you are owed an audience? No, that's not how it works. You can set your soapbox up. You can climb it. You can scream out your message. You don't get to demand the mall or bar owner is compelled to host you for that purpose. But that this is your argument once again tells us everything we need to know about where you're coming from. Google was built by two techies in a garage. Facebook was nothing before it usurped the place of its predecessor. They don't owe you a place to speak. They aren't obligated to change the rules so you can compel the unwilling to hear you out. That's not how free speech works - that's just the alt-right parody of "freeze peach". "The audience itself gets to decide to listen or not. We're talking about third parties who get to decide whether your audience even has the opportunity to listen to you though." Ah, those third parties who keep making adjustment based on the desires of their audience, as a result of which the current moderation algorithms exist. To which you imply that the vast majority think they want to hear a bunch of racists, bigots, conspiracy theorists and religious fanatics spew hot garbage all over the social network they've chosen to patronize. Just quit it with the bullshit. The bar owner has decided what they will and will not allow. If the vast majority isn't fine with the rules they go elsewhere.
  We just keep coming back to the fact that the reason your views aren't being heard or allowed is because those views are considered repugnant by most normal people around. Because there really aren't all that many things which get you banned from major social media. Usually it's the demonstrably false and dangerous and the demonstrably malicious and/or utterly repulsive. "If that's not obvious, then there is no helping you." Utter bullshit based on flawed premises and malicious rhetoric aren't obvious no, and your insistence I can't be helped unless I start chugging the orwellian newspeak is just duly noted.

• On the post: The Faintest Hint Of Regulatory Accountability Has Tesla Acting Like An Adult

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2021 @ 06:33am

  Re: Is this Paid Fud?

  "But much of what you stated is half true, factually incorrect, or just plain fud." Well, there is some truth in Tesla suddenly showing a disproportionate amount of vehicle accidents...usually involving auto pilot. The issue is that Tesla is offering their technology to make driving more convenient by ostensibly removing the need for the driver to focus as hard on driving...and yet if the driver of the car relies on that convenience, risk happens. If you add assisted steering and assisted cruise control then those will be used and the driver come to rely on them.

• On the post: The Faintest Hint Of Regulatory Accountability Has Tesla Acting Like An Adult

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2021 @ 06:08am

  Re: Piling on sans facts maybe?

  "...in nearly all of those cases it has been driver error (or drunk) for failing to properly use what is essentially enhanced cruise control which Tesla calls "Auto Pilot"." Well, if the added bells and whistles increase the number of vehicle accidents as compared to what they would have been without those bells and whistles then occam suggests the fault can be found with those bells and whistles. Looking at the disproportionate amount of Tesla accidents involving that "auto pilot" the data is pretty clear that in the long run this feature adds an element of risk. Although we can certainly argue that it's because the people driving a tesla place unrealistic expectations on the systems it does not change the fact that a Tesla vehicle may run right across some kid in the streets while the driver was looking the other way, believing the smart systems can deliver performance they aren't rated for. Teslas blame in this is clear; although their warning labels are quite clear the functions of traffic-aware cruise control and autosteer cause risk with a complacent driver which a suitably paranoid driver running everything on manual avoids. This is not mature technology and shouldn't be rated for road use.

• On the post: As Prudes Drive Social Media Takedowns, Museums Embrace… OnlyFans?

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2021 @ 05:47am

  Re: Re: Or run away, that's an answer too

  "I think you aren't living up to your own standards -- even an idiot like me can cite to the Backpage.com story, which is all about prudish moralizing busybodies wanting to suppress disfavored speech..." Except there's a closer example to hand where "disfavored speech" is those "conservative values" being "suppressed" by Facebook and where not being able to say the N-word on a social platform is being compared to the silly situation of clutching your pearls and heading for the fainting couch at the sight of a bared breast.

• On the post: As Prudes Drive Social Media Takedowns, Museums Embrace… OnlyFans?

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2021 @ 05:45am

  Re: Re: Here they go with their principles again

  "Little Cupcakes, the anonymous coward above me isn't wrong." And let's not forget that there is something monumentally wrong with the comparison of erotic imagery and - as he terms it, "undesired speech". An anti-vaxxer spreading trying to fool people into eating horse dewormer or a bigot screaming that gays aren't people isn't a comparable situation to someone seeing a naked breast. He is trying to compare someone throwing a fist to someone drawing a fist being thrown - as if they were equal. THAT is the big loss of context here, way before we even get into the debate on who gets to moderate their own property and in which ways.

• On the post: As Prudes Drive Social Media Takedowns, Museums Embrace… OnlyFans?

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2021 @ 05:31am

  Re: Here they go with their principles again

  "It’s the same goddamn principle. THE SAME." Bullshit it is. "disfavored speech" - as currently defined on major social media, either directly endangers people or actively demonizes people for being, well, gay, trans, black, jewish etc. Whereas disfavored images of the nude body can only reasonably do harm to the actual observer or the one depicted. Barring the latter's disagreement it follows that the first can simply choose not to visit that site. This fixes every problem. Cars aren't airplanes even if both are vehicles, a can of bleach isn't a jug of water even if both are liquid, and nude pics aren't hate speech. "...both are awful for doing so and should be opposed by any person who thinks that freedom of expression is actually important." Know how I can tell where you're coming from, bro, when you argue that not giving the nazi a safe space is tantamount to being a pearl-clutcher headed for the fainting couch over someone seeing a naked breast? Or were you really making that titanic whopper as an earnest mistake?

• On the post: As Prudes Drive Social Media Takedowns, Museums Embrace… OnlyFans?

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2021 @ 05:54am

  Well, it doesn't exactly come as a surprise.

  I've been saying for years that once you overlegislate popular and hard-to-reach phenomena - like porn and piracy - what you get isn't meaningful enforcement. Instead you first just get a safe space to which the undesired phenomenon migrates and when those rules are tightened they suddenly impact legitimate phenomena - who are then forced to migrate to the same place.

  Museums suddenly being served in the same storefront as porn is a good and early example of this.

• On the post: Why Falsely Claiming It's Illegal To Shout Fire In A Crowded Theater Distorts Any Conversation About Online Speech

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2021 @ 07:33am

  Re: LOLOL

  Wow. Some shitposter drops in, posts about four comments in a row all filled with bile and venom visavi the forums...I'd call it a hamfisted attempt if I didn't already know that for the usual trolls around here that's a high-grade effort.

• On the post: Why Falsely Claiming It's Illegal To Shout Fire In A Crowded Theater Distorts Any Conversation About Online Speech

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2021 @ 07:30am

  Re: Why should triggering a panic be legal?

  "A mob chanting "kill him" is not magically innocent of ensuing actions. That's not a limitation on free speech. That's a limitation on inciting murder." Yes, but as the OP shows, that exception is covered. "Shouting "Fire" in a crowded theatre is reckless endangerment." Or a bunch of people refusing to be the one possibly sounding a false alarm when smelling smoke. I think you need to go read the Holmes verdict referenced in the OP. It's quite clearly explained why you can not make that illegal. If the harm caused by rendering an act illegal is higher than what would be caused by leaving it legal then you probably shouldn't make a law against it. If you shout "Fire" in a crowded theatre here's what will happen; People will turn their heads. They will look at you. They'll sniff the air to see if there's smoke. They will not, like lemmings, stampede all over one another to escape - because they know that fire alarms are a thing. And if it's a false alarm the ushers will come in and escort you off the premises, telling you not to come back.

• On the post: Why Falsely Claiming It's Illegal To Shout Fire In A Crowded Theater Distorts Any Conversation About Online Speech

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2021 @ 07:24am

  Re:

  "The First Amendment is obsolete, and that remains true no matter the formulation of some archaic ruling from another century or whether jackasses try to invoke it to justify the violation of civil rights." And so you'd have the First Amendment utterly abolished so government could compel speech from private entities? Is that where your argument is going? Because if so, Koby...oh, apologies, Bilvin...then we've heard and debunked that argument many times long before. Because in any sane and rational world where the first amendment is used it's up to every person to set up and stand on their own soapbox. Feel free to voice the "alternative view" on Gab or Parler. But no one owes you an audience. And if the vast majority of people do not want certain people to speak on their premises then no law should exist which would force them to let those people speak on their premises. Guys, I think I spotted the next alt-right shill.

• On the post: RFK Jr. Abusing The Courts To Harass Pseudonymous Blogger For Pointing Out RFK Spoke At German Event Organized By Far Right Extremists

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2021 @ 06:49am

  Re: Re: Re: Someone doth protest too much..

  "They were just dancing to Goose-Step Mama?" ...with lyrics in memory of Horst Wessel...

• On the post: Interpol Has Been Weaponized By Governments Seeking To Hunt Down Critics And Activists

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2021 @ 06:47am

  Re: 'You lied the last 12 times but I'm sure #13 is legit'

  One more repugnant abuse of interpol's warrant system is that once activated by any interpol member it isn't easy to call off. Assange was sought out by interpol for quite some time. Then, when Sweden recalled the APB, interpol refused to drop the red notice. In other words they'll keep pursuing a person even when no member state has a court case or charge to levy against that person.

• On the post: Interpol Has Been Weaponized By Governments Seeking To Hunt Down Critics And Activists

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2021 @ 06:42am

  Re:

  "How can anyone think it makes sense for a democratic country to arrest people on behalf of an Islamic dictatorship like Turkey?" Short answer? Because NATO. Turkey is a long-standing member, is located in a position of supreme strategic importance, right between europe and asia, has a standing army of about 600k, and likes to play the game of always being helpful towards other major players. Hence in terms of realpolitik, no one who matters cares whether Erdogan has every journalist in the country summarily rounded up and executed. "Why don't you give visas to Taliban to be patrol officers while you're at it???" Is this the part where I mention that the Taliban originated from the US support of the mujaheddin during the soviet invasion of Afghanistan? Or that Bin Laden (and much of Al-Quaeda, sic IS/DAESCH) started as a CIA-trained operative in that same war? Or that Saddam Hussein was once given the keys to Detroit for being such a nice friend to the US? Or that the US love for Saudi Arabia was so strong the FBI was specifically asked to back off from known saudi extremists learning to pilot passenger liners in the US for the suspected purpose of hijacking, right before 9/11? Suffice to say that when it comes to befriending and supporting the utterly obnoxious Turkey actually ranks among the less objectionable. With staunch and persistent US support interpol membership is a given. "like walling them off, stopping trade, and forgetting about them." Saudi Arabia kidnapped, murdered and dismembered a journalist in a foreign country and still stands as the US's staunchest friend and ally in the Middle East. Bluntly put Turkey could toss kurds and journalists alike in their own homebrewed endlösung and the leader of the free world would still veto any sanctions.

• On the post: Massachusetts College Decides Criticizing The Chinese Government Is Hate Speech, Suspends Conservative Student Group

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2021 @ 08:46am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Who do we piss off this week?

  "Qin emperor was a monster ... sort of guy who would cut through a peasant's legs to the marrow to see how he withstood wading in cold water." So he was. Also almost buried his new country trying to build himself that massive tomb of his. "The Communists would not stoop to trying to write that guy's apologies." If by that you mean the oligarchs running the country while telling the proles they live in worker's paradise, fine. But I hold that calling China "communist" is just falling for the PR. China is not and never has been communist. Not with Maoism lauding the "righteous capitalists". "...but don't get off on a cult of raw authoritarianism that recalls all that is the most backward in their country." Making a historical statement isn't "getting off" on anything. What China does, works. I don't like it, I hate and fear the possibility that authoritarianism may be an indispensible part of China's success story, and I really, really don't like what that would tell us about ourselves as a species. It's my hope that confucian principles and their focus on science-based social planning is what kept them stable for so long. But when no other nation has managed to sustain a similar long shelflife we can't know that. Nor will we be able to persuade the chinese as a people to divorce themselves from authoritarianism in a hurry. But not looking at this for what it is rather than shrugging and saying "Eh, they'll collapse soon, like any other dictatorship"...that's just being willfully blind.

• On the post: Massachusetts College Decides Criticizing The Chinese Government Is Hate Speech, Suspends Conservative Student Group

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2021 @ 08:33am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Who do we piss off this week?

  "You appear to be ignoring a lot of Chines History, of which recent events Include the Boxer rebellion, and that unholy mix of the Chines revolution and the Japanese invasion, along with the cultural revolution." No I'm not. I'm positing that a grand total of one century's worth of civil upheaval in a span of 2500 years, counting every rebellion since the early Han dynasty is a pretty good record. You're the one without context and a sense of scale here. 2500 years. With coups, invasions, low points, revolutions...all just being speed bumps before that bloody country just keeps on doing the same thing they've always done. For most of chinese history they've been the center of the world. The high point of culture and science. Then decadence sets in, they drop the ball, and revolution mor invasion happens. Then they get right back to the top of their game again, possibly under new management but with almost everything else unchanged.

• On the post: Massachusetts College Decides Criticizing The Chinese Government Is Hate Speech, Suspends Conservative Student Group

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2021 @ 08:25am

  Re: Re: Re:

  "That's pretty silly. The People's Republic of China is certainly not the same as the Qing Dynasty, which is certainly not the same thing as the Ming Dynasty. " Go ask the chinese. If you ask them about the dynasties every last one of them will say something to the effect of "Yeah, but it remained Hua Xia. Always". And they'd be right. When Genghis Khan invaded and took China China didn't become mongol. The mongols became chinese instead and the Yuan dynasty eventually continued as just another line of chinese emperors. For 2500 years the culture and national identity of China has been one and the same. In the same time of which every western nation has been merged, divided, shattered, rebuilt into different nations... "San Marino is the world's oldest democracy." So they are, and some 1700 years is a sterling record, dodging almost every upheaval to shake europe and standing out as probably the last inheritor of the roman style republic.
  But with a total population of some 33,000 people (less than 1/20 of luxembourg) it serves more as an odd example of the implausible as something the rest of the world has managed to mimic. China, meanwhile, started out with some 60 million people in the early Han dynasty (1/4th the estimated global population) and ended up with a contemporary 1,4 billion (1/6th of the global population). My point stands. For 90% of its history China has been the center of education, science, population density and culture. And the PRC today? I'm pretty sure that future shock aside a Han dynasty citizen or a Qing dynasty citizen would still be quite able to identify themselves and the country. They'd wonder a bit about the mandarins no longer being recognizable by a silly hat and the absence of a Son of Heaven. But for all intents and purposes the current PRC party serves the exact same function as the civil officials in ancient days and his high exaltedness the Pooh Bear serves well as a stand-in Emperor - complete with lese majeste regulation and lifetime appointment. The government's adherence to censorship and social engineering? Ancient practice.
  Civil Official/Party Members governing all of the executive? Ancient practice.
  Capitalist market red in tooth and claw meshed with the political system? Ancient practice.
  Catering to 90% of the populace while keeping the rest as public enemies for stability? Ancient practice. China is the same bureaucratic oligarchy its always been. Possibly also the world's oldest known example of corporatocracy given that the biggest businesses are and have always been part of the body politic and the ruling clans. So I don't think it's a silly statement to maintain that for all intents and purposes China has managed the problem of keeping a cultural identity intact for two and a half millennia. This is also why western powers find it hard going to sell them the idea of democracy of which history can only produce the successful example of...well, a micronation smaller than a suburb in any rural chinese township. I do know this; Unless the west gets its shit together, China will be the new top dog of the world and stay that way until, a few centuries down the line, the pendulum swings and they end up back at the same low which allowed the East India company and western colonialist powers to run roughshod all over them. Too many are looking at China and thinking it'll collapse any day soon, just like the USSR and the DDR. That, to me, is a hopelessly naive thought bereft of context and historical example.

• On the post: Massachusetts College Decides Criticizing The Chinese Government Is Hate Speech, Suspends Conservative Student Group

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2021 @ 07:06am

  Re: Re: Re:

  "Wherever it originated, the US had such a bad response to it that it couldn't have been a factor in the plans of your hypothetical evil dictator. Unless Trump was your evil genius's plant to undermine the pandemic response. :D" You say that with a smile but if there's any conspiracy theory I'm inclined to believe these days it'd be the one where Trump had been Putin's stooge since their first meeting. ...handing twenty years worth of ME leverage and foothold to Russia.
  ...Alienating the Kurds for good, handing them as well to Russia.
  ...fucking US industry right up the ass with the chinese "trade war" and subsequent trade deal with worse terms for the US.
  ...Consistently undermining faith in the US government and political system.
  ...actively kept the US out of any foreign affair involving Russia.
  ...systematically dismantling key US agencies.
  ...breeding and feeding the disillusioned and disaffected morons in his base a fever dream resulting in 66% of the GOP being prepared to secede from the US.
  ...actively screwing up the pandemic response to the point of creating half a million more dead americans than statistics would produce if he just sat on his god damn hands. If there's an evil genius involved it'll be the one sitting in the Kremlin. *"Finally, the virus is dangerous, but mostly in its contagion rates while it's actual death rate is not high enough to qualify as a "weapon". Well, yeah. Sure, the end result may be a million dead americans, mainly among the morons too dumb to vaccinate...but weapons-grade it's not. A hemorrhagic fever with three weeks incubation time is what you'd be aiming for in that regard, which would lay half of the population in caskets and completely paralyze the affected countries within half a year. Even so, a bioweapon won't be used on it's own - and this is the utter moron bit of the alt-right conspiracy crowd. If you want to take someone out you don't just kick him once in the nuts and then back off until he gets up in rage. Honestly, there was a time when conspiracy theories, wild as they were, at least had some logic to them. These days the Qanon bullshit is just one steady stream of disjointed dystopian fairy tales where liberals and China are at Snidely Whiplash levels of "Evil, just because, without gain or motive".

• On the post: Donald Trump Asserts Fair Use, 'Absolute Immunity' In Lame Attempt To Evade Copyright Suit By Eddy Grant

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2021 @ 05:47am

  Re: Re: Re: This is exactly what copyright was designed for

  "You may not like the concept of copyright, but these sort of cases are exactly why it was invented." No, at best any positive use of copyright is an unintended side effect. Both in the case of Queen Anne's statute and the US article 8 nothing has ever been mentioned about the positives involving artists taking control. The UK version only describes the "public benefit" of giving control to publishing houses and the US version states only "for the progress of science and the arts". Copyright stakeholders - who aren't artists - have always been riding the idea that copyright exists to provide artists with control. None of which has ever been true. "Not simply using the music without permission." Beg to differ. Big, public, televised occasion with specific music giving the ambience to a political performance? That's brand and trademark right there. Hell, Nintendo has won several cases against fanart using trademark law on premises by far more flimsy.

• On the post: Donald Trump Asserts Fair Use, 'Absolute Immunity' In Lame Attempt To Evade Copyright Suit By Eddy Grant

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2021 @ 04:35am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  "...it's also true that a constant of NYC is that there are con men willing to prey on the good will of other people." Well, yea, but it's never been part of NYC's image that some 20% of New Yorkers are so daft they'll give the grifter the shirt off their backs and then march in that grifter's defense. Ponzi and Madoff trying to run in elections would have gained exactly zero votes back in the day - and that's counting their own families.

• On the post: Trump's Broken Social Media Venture Is Valued At Billions Of Dollars And Its Breaking Experts' Brains

  

  Scary Devil Monastery ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2021 @ 04:20am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: The foundation of stocks

  "The media paints GameStop as an attack. That’s a steaming heap of shite. A bubble perspective of fake news. " Well, I wouldn't call it completely "fake". I'm pretty convinced there was a lot of spite in the reddit-mediated backlash play. "Regardless of where it went GameStop started as the consumer middle finger to an industry that forgot it needs the consumer to buy the product. " Whoa there, Kemo Sabe, the "industry" which got hurt certainly does not need the consumer. Because that industry isn't about products and services but about shuffling money around in a game of texas hold'em with the deck sufficiently well marked so as to hopefully guarantee a payoff for the major players.
  And the damage done was simply due to a new player coming in and removing the markings on the deck mid play, causing those major players to lose a lot of money. Most of which they had taken as loans which in turn affected those lending them the stake. The domino effect causing a lot of zeroes to vanish from quite a few ledgers. What I find more interesting is the concept that so much more "money" could evaporate than was actually invested from any side. It's almost as if much of it was derived from calculating losses against expected rather than real returns. It's almost as if the "free market" of the west these days has less to do with Adam Smith's ideas of capitalism than it does with P.T. Barnum's ideas of showmanship.

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