Stephen T. Stone 's Techdirt Comments

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• On the post: 60 Minutes Edits Donald Trump Telling Them 60 Minutes Should Edit Donald Trump Talking About How 60 Minutes Paid Him For Editing Kamala Harris

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2025 @ 11:33am

  they edited Kamala to make her look sane and sober

  Please provide evidence that Kamala Harris was psychologically impaired, drunk, or both when 60 Minutes interviewed her. I’ll wait.

• On the post: 60 Minutes Edits Donald Trump Telling Them 60 Minutes Should Edit Donald Trump Talking About How 60 Minutes Paid Him For Editing Kamala Harris

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2025 @ 11:32am

  the man has never experienced being loved a day in his life

  From everything I’ve heard, his father mostly treated him like shit when he was a kid. Combine that with the wealth Trump inherited and the power he amassed as a public figure⁠—complete with flunkies who would never dare tell him “no”⁠—and the multiple wives (one of whom he assaulted and later credibly accused him of rape). Then look at how his own kids all but beg for his approval like man-children, to the point where they either don’t recognize or can’t admit their father is also a man-child. Not only does the man not know what love truly is, he doesn’t know how to give any love but a performative, surface level “affection” that can be withdrawn if he’s made upset. What’s sadder than that? A lot of other rich and powerful people are equally as broken and equally as immature. Look at Elon Musk. He might say he loves his children, but consider that after the attempt on Donald Trump’s life during his 2024 campaign, Elon started bringing one of his younger sons with him everywhere he went in a way that suggested he was using the child as a human shield. The man doesn’t know “love”; he knows a performative version of “affection” that lasts only as long as his children follow his wishes. That’s what happens when you give shitloads of money and power to narcissists: They make a show of displaying what they think love is supposed to be. But deep down, they believe love is given from others to them instead of given from them to others. They’ll never understand what love really is. They are all the worse off for it.

• On the post: 60 Minutes Edits Donald Trump Telling Them 60 Minutes Should Edit Donald Trump Talking About How 60 Minutes Paid Him For Editing Kamala Harris

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2025 @ 11:21am

  No wonder he hung out with Jeffrey Epstein.

• On the post: Symbolic Strength More Important Than Facts When It Comes To Misinformation

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2025 @ 09:56am

  You guys literally said it was impossible for it to have come out of a CCP lab

  Impossible? No. Highly improbable? Yes.

  [Fauci] lied about masks.

  And yet, mask-wearing during the pandemic helped wipe out an entire influenza strain in the US. Mask-wearing may not 100% prevent you from catching or transmitting COVID (or any other airborne disease), but it’s better than wearing nothing at all.

  The vaccine had negligible (low single digit %) effects on BOTH infection and transmission rates (that is a verifiable, scientific fact)

  Show me the peer-reviewed studies that back up your assertion of fact. I’ll wait.

  it’s only meaningful effect being severity of disease, mostly in the elderly

  You say that like it’s a bad thing that elderly people got less sick if they contracted COVID after getting the vaccine. Are you a death cul—I mean, Republican, by any chance?

  you are still whining that people do not believe you

  Well, who else are we going to believe: hucksters selling horse dewormer and people who think Tylenol causes autism?

  The “misinformation” was often correct.

  Name five instances in which the “misinformation” was proven to be 100% correct in the face of contradictory “information”. Make sure to cite credible sources; right-wing media, conspiracy fantasists, people who revel in their open ignorance, and your ass are not credible sources.

• On the post: Symbolic Strength More Important Than Facts When It Comes To Misinformation

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2025 @ 01:47am

  It's definitely part of the reason they voted for Trump. He tells them a story about how the government⁠—and the Democrats, by extension⁠—have made the lives of undocumented immigrants, queer people, and [insert any more Repugnant Cultural Others here] better at the expense of “hard-working Americans”. He tells them a story about how things would be better if he could grab the levers of power and get rid of things like DEI and regulations and [insert any more conservative bugaboos here] so “real Americans” can be “unleashed” to make the country great again. Whether he’s got any data or studies to back up his stories doesn’t matter; the vibes are what drives people to believe him, especially if they line up with their view of the world. But it’s also a bit deeper than mere storytelling. Trump saw how to dupe Republican voters: Lying works, lying while giving them a scapegoat works even better, and lying while giving them a scapegoat and tacit permission to be openly awful people worked so well that he won two out of three elections with that approach. Trumpists want so badly to lash out at what they feel are cultural “chains” holding them back. He gave them permission to shittalk the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion; he gave them license to attack “wokesters” who tried to “force their beliefs” on everyone by way of asking for a little personally considerate language/treatment; he gave them sanction to generally not give a shit about communities and society in general, especially not the poorest members thereof. For all that is wrong with that son of a bitch, his ability to spin a story that gets the ignorant on his side is unmatched by anyone else in the GOP. (That’s a problem for the GOP, by the way.) The grand irony of our current political situation lies in how both parties have effectively made their platform “we’re the opposite of our opponents”. While the GOP has an actual plan to go with that contrarianism (Project 2025), the Dems only seem to have “we oppose Trump and everything he does”, and that alone isn’t a compelling platform. Zohran Mamdani might win the mayoral race in NYC because he talked about actual plans he has for the city and the values that those plans represent. While he talked about opposing Trump and whatnot, it wasn’t a centerpiece of his mayoral campaign⁠—nor should it have been. His use of social media to frame the narrative of his campaign has worked so well that the DNC would do well to examine why it worked and try to apply those lessons to their own campaigns. (They won’t, but still.) Narratives drive everything we do. We tell ourselves stories⁠—about ourselves, about others, about any- and everything⁠—all the time. Crafting a good narrative out of boring data takes either an incredible level of skill honed over years of work or being born a natural bullshitter. Trump falls into the second category, which is why he’s so good at making people think he’s being profound and intelligent when half of what he says is puffery (e.g., “the best [x]”) and “we’ll see what happens”–type deflections. Could Dems do the work to counter that kind of bullshitting? Yes. Will they? Not if they keep listening to the bozos who tell them to keep trying to win Republican voters by tacking to the right. Oh, and not for nothing, but a fun observation: The Dems could do worse than taking inspiration from pro wrestling in regards to campaign speeches and such. Give me a Dem who can cut a promo as good as Dusty Rhodes’s “Hard Times” and I’ll show you a Dem who fucking gets it. Of course a political speech should have some substance, but the best talkers in pro wrestling understand that the best promos tell a story that make people give a shit about seeing whatever match the promo is building up. That’s how you end up with a promo like “Cane Dewey”. Politics is all about narratives. The Dems need to learn that even with facts and figures and data and all that good shit on their side, they need to tell stories. Taking inspiration from Mick Foley may not be the best idea, but it sure as shit isn’t the worst.

• On the post: Symbolic Strength More Important Than Facts When It Comes To Misinformation

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 03 Nov, 2025 @ 05:49pm

  You’ll find a better form of debunking in storytelling. Giving people all the facts and figures you can find⁠—all the data, all the numbers, all the studies⁠—may not change their minds because they have a narrative in their head and saying “this is what the numbers prove” won’t exchange one narrative for another. It’s why blatantly false narratives such as “Haitian immigrants are eating pets” or “JD Vance is a couchfucker” stick in people’s heads even if you tell them “um, ackshually, what you saw was some fake bullshit, the data says [blah blah blah yakity-shmakity] and you’re a dumbass for believing the fake bullshit”. Nobody likes being told they’re an idiot; everyone likes being told a story. The trick lies in making the narrative compelling while also grounding it in fact. Trump managed to eke out wins in two of his three campaigns partly because he had better narratives/stories to tell than the Democrats⁠—or at least better enough stories that they struck a chord with Americans more than the narratives Democrats were trying to sell. While I hate giving the bastards credit for anything, the GOP really does excel at controlling and creating narratives (fact-based or otherwise) that help their agenda. You can’t fight belief with reason or else we’d all be atheists⁠—you have to fight it with stories and narratives that can replace shitty beliefs with something better.

• On the post: Man Arrested By Charlie Kirk Fan/Sheriff For Directly Quoting Donald Trump

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 03 Nov, 2025 @ 04:12pm

  Everyone should aspire to have something that they are responsible for doing just for the joy and satisfaction of doing it.

  That’s what hobbies are for.

• On the post: Man Arrested By Charlie Kirk Fan/Sheriff For Directly Quoting Donald Trump

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 03 Nov, 2025 @ 02:43pm

  A narcissistic sociopath.

• On the post: Man Arrested By Charlie Kirk Fan/Sheriff For Directly Quoting Donald Trump

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 03 Nov, 2025 @ 01:27pm

  This whole situation is bullshit and I hope the sheriff gets sued into oblivion and all that, but I wanna point out one little thing here:

  his post-retirement job

  Man, that is a bleak phrase when you think about it.

• On the post: Bari Weiss And The Tyranny Of False Balance

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2025 @ 07:16am

  the thought example isn’t framed that way — it’s that as soon as you let one Nazi in, they all come in and take over

  The story isn’t about a “takeover” in a military or tactical sense. It’s about people who are openly Nazis finding a “safe space” to hang out and forcing the vibes to shift in their favor: If you want to prevent that from happening in a place you own/operate, be it a bar or a social media service, you have to prevent the problem from becoming a problem. Ergo, if you don’t want your space to become a Nazi bar, you have to boot the Nazis out…

  I’m saying there are already lots of Nazis and racists and sexists in American bars (in your bar!) and haven’t tried to take over.

  …and when I say “Nazis”, I mean people who are open and avowed Nazis⁠—the kind of people who wear Nazi symbols on their clothes or have Nazi (or Nazi-adjacent) tattoos. Of course there will be people in such spaces who have heinous beliefs. But if they know that being open about those beliefs will get them kicked out, they’re likely not going to be as open about them as they might want to be. And that’s the point: When you give a Nazi the boot, you send a clear signal that Nazis and their bigoted ilk aren’t welcome, which also implies that people who share the bigoted views of those assholes should either shut up about it or leave. That’s how you avoid letting a place become a Nazi bar.

  folks — like the Techdirt folks — have used the “Nazi bar” idea as a way of trying to de-platform people. Invite Ann Coulter to your university and soon you’ll have a Nazi bar!

  Three things.

  1. Even if your speech is protected by the First Amendment, you have no right to a platform or an audience.
  2. If a speaker is so controversial that a whole bunch of people object to that speaker’s presence as a threat to the safety of certain groups (e.g., queer people), those objectors have every right to say so even if the place that invited the speaker decides to ignore those objections.
  3. Ann Coulter is a horrible person and while I’ll defend her right to speak her mind, I won’t defend what she says while exercising that right⁠—and neither should anyone aside from the bigots and death cultists who believe in MAGA conservatism.

  Just like [CBS News] ignoring the issue at the heart of Bari Weiss’ question won’t make it go away.

  Here’s the problem with that question: It’s one she made sure would have to be asked. She contributed to the right-wing project to destroy trust in institutions of knowledge and journalism. She helped sway people into thinking CBS News, NBC News, CNN, the New York Times, and other “left-wing” news outlets were hopelessly biased against conservatives (despite evidence showing that no, they were not) and tirelessly promoting “woke leftist” values like “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (which are somehow bad things nowadays). Her question is a non-starter because she sees the answer to it when she looks in the mirror. Conservatives, even those who aren’t in the halls of political power, will always see themselves as victims instead of victimizers⁠—as people who are always acted upon instead of people who have the agency to act on their own. Bari Weiss helped change the atmosphere; if she wants to know why the atmosphere changed, she should start by interrogating herself.

• On the post: As Social Media Restrictions Spread, Is The Internet Entering Its Victorian Era?

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 30 Oct, 2025 @ 11:05pm

  Thirdly, the burden for raising a child falls upon the child’s parent(s). The government can take some action to help prevent children from being harmed, but it shouldn’t be trying to parent every child in the nation as if they’re all the same person. Fourthly, intent and impact are not the same. An attempt to regulate social media could backfire spectacularly in any number of ways. The Devil paves the roads of Hell with the best intentions of Man, and Man is ever willing to provide those bricks with bad decisions made with good intentions that end in worse outcomes. Any regulation should be carefully considered from both short-term and long-term perspectives. For that matter, social media should’ve been thought about the same way. Humanity was not ready for the kind of connection that services like Facebook and Twitter gave the world; we might never be ready for that. But that should give us pause to consider how we regulate social media: Can we destroy what’s bad without taking out what’s good or must we take out what’s good to destroy what’s bad?

• On the post: As Social Media Restrictions Spread, Is The Internet Entering Its Victorian Era?

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 30 Oct, 2025 @ 02:59pm

  This low-key feels like the author wants to justify the de facto censorship of credit card companies and payment processors refusing to do business with adult-oriented websites. I’d like to be proven wrong, but I won’t be surprised if I’m right.

• On the post: Trump’s Government Of Spite: Political Performance Art For Assholes

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 30 Oct, 2025 @ 02:56pm

  All their cruelty comes, more often than not, from a single concept: a fear of death and what comes after it. Consider the techbros: So many of them are trying to extend their lifespan (and their youth) beyond every known human limit. Others look to technology to save their consciousness, be it cryogenics for their brain or uploads to a “cyberbrain”. I could even be convinced that the huge push for AI is, in some way, connected to the idea of “living forever” through an artificial consciousness meant to mimic a specific living person. Conservative Christians⁠—including the ones in public office⁠—see Heaven as their reward for a life “well-lived”. But so many of them think “living well” means doing so at the expense of everyone else. They’re not necessarily afraid of death, but they’re afraid of dying and either having no real impact on the world or having the least “toys” when their time comes. Their cruelty is a demonstration of the kind of sociopathic thinking that comes from believing in a god/deity/savior who favors making others suffer, which is exactly what you’ll find in the conservative Christian vision of their vengeful God. Maybe my theory is off. But consider a separate theory alongside it: “These people are eternal 12-year-olds.” Conservatives in general these days seem to have hit their peak of emotional maturity at 12 years old; just look at how many of them think the AI slop of Trump as Master Chief is literally The Coolest Thing Ever™. Tell someone with so much stunted emotional growth that they’ll die one day and they’ll have an obvious reaction: lashing out and denying reality, then trying to stave off both death and old age. These people don’t want to confront reality because it means confronting the one reality that binds us all⁠—and the fear that there may be nothing beyond this one life we all get. That’s how you end up with people who are happy to hear about SNAP expiring and poor people potentially starving to death: Such ghoulish people have the minds of children who think their lives would be so much better if those “others” would just die.

• On the post: Pete Hegseth May Be The Defense Department Boss, But Top Officers Say He’s No Leader

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 30 Oct, 2025 @ 11:12am

  Assuming Trump makes it to the end of this term without either dying of a heart attack or having the Twenty-Fifth Amendment invoked due to his increasing dementia (and plummeting poll numbers)? I think the unraveling will happen if Trump seriously tries to run for a third term⁠—or, despite his saying otherwise, he tries to get on the GOP ticket as Vice President to route around the Constitution. (The argument could be made that he can’t do that, but when has that ever mattered to him.) Mike Johnson was asked about that possibility; he said it’s not possible and Trump is just “trolling”, but I’d bet on him seriously considering whether to back such a blatantly unconstitutional move. It’s the calculus that every other Republican, including the MAGA true believers, is probably scared of doing: “Do I back the rule of law to spite Trump or do I back the rule of Trump to spite the law?"

• On the post: Bari Weiss And The Tyranny Of False Balance

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2025 @ 11:21am

  We live in America, where all three of those kind of people are pretty regularly present and likely to be in any place of business you go into. If they’re not bothering the other customers, then it’s not a problem

  The problem is that when the bigots start feeling like they “own” the place and invite more bigots to hang out, the vibes will always shift in their favor. You can’t give them a single goddamn inch if you already know what they’re about. Letting them stay when you know they’re troublemakers is as much of a choice as kicking them out⁠—it’s a “tell” about where your values lie. I’ve openly defended the notion that Nazis should have the rights to speak their mind and associate with one another without government interference. I still believe that, too. But as far as where they do those things? Well, if a bar wants to avoid being associated with Nazis, that bar should have the right to refuse service to/kick out those Nazis. I haven’t seen a single counter-argument to refute that position that isn’t rooted in ignorance of the law or support for Nazis and their ideology. Feel free to make one yourself if you wish, but I doubt you’ll do any better.

• On the post: Mexican Government To Tax Violent Video Games It Says Make Kids Violent

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2025 @ 11:14am

  The older I get the more I think real life violence is simply caused more by people going: “Why am I not rich, well educated and in a great job? What do my kids have to look forward to in life except to be forcefed more of the same shit I had to eat?”

  Search for the root of a given crime and you’ll find poverty/economic anxiety more often than not.

• On the post: Mexican Government To Tax Violent Video Games It Says Make Kids Violent

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2025 @ 11:10am

  The adverse effects of tobacco, alcohol, and vaping are well-known and proven. One can’t say the same for violent video games.

• On the post: Mexican Government To Tax Violent Video Games It Says Make Kids Violent

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2025 @ 11:08am

  Are we saying that violent content in video games doesn’t harm children, or that it doesn’t cause children to do harm?

  What “we” are saying (read: what I am saying) is that children could be affected by violent content, but the burden of “protecting” children from those effects belongs not to the makers of such content or the government, but to parents. Taxing violent video games won’t stop the spread of whatever “social contagion” the Mexican government believes is caused by those games. It’ll only make people look for black markets so they can route around the taxes.

• On the post: Trump Continues To Attack Biden For All The Stuff Trump Officials Did While Trump Was Still President

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2025 @ 10:57am

  He thinks it was an IQ test!

  Hence “all but admitted”: Either he knows it was a dementia test and isn’t saying so (which I doubt) or he doesn’t know it was a dementia test (which I doubt less), but either way, he’s never said words to the effect of “I took a dementia test”. He did admit to the MRI, though which should worry Republicans because…well, why would he need an MRI if he is the healthiest POTUS ever?

• On the post: Trump Continues To Attack Biden For All The Stuff Trump Officials Did While Trump Was Still President

  

  Stephen T. Stone ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2025 @ 10:18am

  Instead of looking like a mismanaged disinformation campaign, it just looks demented.

  Considering how Ol’ Donny all but admitted to taking a dementia test and flat-out admitted he’d recently had an MRI done, maybe he sounds demented for a good reason.

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