Uriel-238 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Threads Bans Anyone For Mentioning Hitler, Even To Criticize

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2024 @ 05:28pm

    Circumventing Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies

    In the aughts I took more than a basic interest in the principal administrative figures of the German Reich, since the George W. Bush administration was doing things that bad-guys did in movies to show they were bad and we were supposed to dislike them. (Particularly, in 2003, Republicans on the street were endorsing extrajudicial torture, or claiming that waterboarding was not torture. It was Bizarro.) This interest and study turned out to be useful since there were very real examples of how the US was getting a bit reichy and yet the right would invoke Godwin's Law, insisting that comparison to Nazis was hyperbole. But then sometimes people or agencies said or did things that could be directly comparable to what a given person did in the German Reich. A good example is how Heydrich's Sicherheitsdienst were ordered only to hunt, arrest and detain undesirables if they were felons with a criminal record. And Heydrich promised to do so. But instead the SD went after everyone they could find. Detention centers quickly filled up (and would be expanded into the concentration camp system) which fueld the Jewish question Cut to the 2010s in which ICE was tasked with finding, arresting, detaining and deporting immigrants who were undocumented and convicted violent felons. They were already interested in hunting immigrants that didn't fit target parameters when Trump increased their latitude. And of course the detention centers overflowed, we had to outsource detainment to for-profit companies and they became riddled with filth and disease, even before the COVID-19 epidemic hit the United States. We don't have to compare anyone to Hitler, or call anyone Nazis. The Republican Party is walking the same walk and dancing the same dance. And saying the same things. I suppose it's only a matter of time before Threads outlaws mentions of Himmler, Goebbels or Heydrich, possibly a couple of dozen other historical names of people who informed NSDAP ideology.

  • On the post: Dear Jeff Bezos: The ‘Hard Truth’ Is That Cowardice Like Yours Is Why People Don’t Trust The Media

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2024 @ 03:15pm

    Beelzebub

    Referring to Jeff Bezos as Beelzebub reflects poorly on the Lord of Flies. The God of Ekron and arch-demon of Hell deserves better than to be compared to IRL Lex Luthor.

  • On the post: Five Decisions Illustrate How Section 230 Is Fading Fast

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2024 @ 09:31pm

    Optimistic

    Because then the internet will be generally out of reach of states that want to control it. It will legitimately belong to the global public. And that's why they're trying to kill Section 230, not to stop terrorists or fentanyl trade or CSAM or human trafficking, but because when state agents do something embarrassing or scandalous or brutal, it is more likely to get shown to the public. The reason we're considering alternatives to the current justice system is because of videos of law enforcement killing innocents. The reason Palestine is a such a hot controversy now (rather than say thirty years ago) is because we get to see viscerally how the IDF treats normal people. The worker class getting information freaks the ownership class out.

  • On the post: Five Decisions Illustrate How Section 230 Is Fading Fast

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2024 @ 06:47pm

    I'm slightly more optimistic

    Instead we'll have an underground internet where everyone is anonymized all to heck just to get their cat-pics. But it also means people need to be just as untraceable to get their cat-pics and argue politics as they would to get CSAM and signal to their militant brethren to proceed with the terror attacks. And when the thirteen-year-old gets caught by the FBI noodling around on the internet to chat with her fam, it's not going to look great when they charge her with federal crimes and give her the lengthy sentence it is due.

  • On the post: Five Decisions Illustrate How Section 230 Is Fading Fast

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2024 @ 06:43pm

    Oh it's gold alright.

    It's just molten, and not so useful when being dropped into it.

  • On the post: ExTwitter Is Such Hot Garbage Even British Cops No Longer Want Anything To Do With It

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2024 @ 01:56pm

    Trusting 12-year-olds

    More specifically, that people who are less trustworthy than 12-year-olds [to simply function in an adultlike manner] are enabled with billionaire levels of wealth and power more often than once every 500 years. This should be a rare event that becomes a notorious part of history, where everyone learns (in 4th-6th grade) that human society learned never to do that again.

  • On the post: ExTwitter Is Such Hot Garbage Even British Cops No Longer Want Anything To Do With It

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2024 @ 01:52pm

    Fantasy sale

    My fantasy would be to see it bought by a collective who decided to revert it back to Twitter (Or Tweety's and borrowing images of the Warner character), and preserving it as a public service, possibly sponsored with government grants and viewers like you. In the meantime, I suspect a few other billionaires might buy it out and try their hand, only to give up when their turn flying too close to the sun yields another net loss. In the end, social media I hope will prove to be best run as a public service with little-to-no internal agenda, and the real Twitter was the friends we made along the way.

  • On the post: ExTwitter Is Such Hot Garbage Even British Cops No Longer Want Anything To Do With It

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2024 @ 01:45pm

    4Chan

    I visit it from time to time in search of once-popular images I've lost. There are a lot more neonazis and open white supremacists on the board but there's also a lot more pushback against them. It seems to be the Megiddo of internet trolls, each trying to get a rise out of the other. Curiously, 4Chan is also one of the few refuges of furries, Bronies and probably other groups for whom it's not the subject of their perverse obsession that is generally offensive, but the sheer magnitude, which is for me an anthropological spectacle.

  • On the post: ExTwitter Is Such Hot Garbage Even British Cops No Longer Want Anything To Do With It

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 16 Oct, 2024 @ 12:54pm

    Like some mandelbrot cosmic horror

    That thing we said was going to happen before Musk bought Twitter, well it happenend and then just when we thought the new Twitter-iteration was stable it happens again and becomes worse. We're not sure the eldritch abomination that once was Twitter has yet reached its final form.

  • On the post: For Whatever Reason, NASA’s Inspector General Has Decided To Buy Itself Some Clearview Access

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 11 Oct, 2024 @ 06:40pm

    This just in...

    To address future budgeting concerns, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration has redefined its primary mission as National Security.

  • On the post: Chinese Access To AT&T/Verizon Wiretap System Shows Why We Cannot Backdoor Encryption

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2024 @ 01:40pm

    Another tick for the simulation hypothesis

    In sequence on my TD feed Chinese Access To AT&T/Verizon Wiretap System Shows Why We Cannot Backdoor Encryption and EU’s Commission’s Anti-Encryption Plans On The Ropes (Again) After Rejection By The Dutch Gov’t It's almost as if I'm reading a cyberpunk dystopian story by Neal Stephenson.

  • On the post: Oxford Study: Those Dastardly Video Games Are Good For Improving Your Mood

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 05 Oct, 2024 @ 09:51pm

    Then what about the Sandy Hook killer?

    Investigations into AL revealed that his favorite game was Dance Dance Revolution which obviously figured largely into his plans for the massacre. The devices of the devil are pervasive and insidious!

  • On the post: Oxford Study: Those Dastardly Video Games Are Good For Improving Your Mood

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 05 Oct, 2024 @ 09:46pm

    Nothing goes over my head!

    My reflexes are too fast! I would catch it!

  • On the post: Oxford Study: Those Dastardly Video Games Are Good For Improving Your Mood

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 05 Oct, 2024 @ 09:43pm

    What's your actual point?

    I infer from your pressure on this particular issue, whether or not ASD or ADHD is regarded as a mental illness is important to you. And from that I infer the term mental illness means more to you than it does to me. This is dangerous since I don't know what. In the 20th century when we assumed that crazy people were axe-killers like Pamela Voorhees and consequently no-one wanted to be assessed and treated (even though the US has been dealing with a mental illness epidemic for decades now). Diagnoses and mental health challenges should not become social stigmas. I can't say I trust where you're going. It shouldn't matter whether ADHD or ASD is a mental illness. A diagnosis is a tool to guide the treatment of a patient. It's not supposed to be a means by which patients are stigmatized or denied rights. I, too, qualify for SSI for disability, but it's on the grounds of major depression, what is the most common mental health diagnosis in the US. Outside of potential use in my treatment, my ASD diagnosis is not of concern to the government. Why do you care so much whether ADHD is a mental illness or not?

  • On the post: Appeals Court: Utah’s Age Verification Is Currently Unchallengeable Because It’s A ‘Bounty’ Law

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 05 Oct, 2024 @ 11:54am

    The other guys

    Why can't John, Paul, George and Ringo get involved?

  • On the post: Oxford Study: Those Dastardly Video Games Are Good For Improving Your Mood

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2024 @ 04:13pm

    Mental illness.

    I've been contending with major depression for my entire life. Was diagnosed in my early twenties. Around fifty, I was diagnosed with ASD, and was the subject of my therapist's PHD thesis. What of it?

  • On the post: Oxford Study: Those Dastardly Video Games Are Good For Improving Your Mood

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2024 @ 03:29pm

    Harris might win

    Here's hoping. Right now, there are a number of efforts to subvert election results in battleground states, and efforts to stop those. Extra sweet is the possibility North Carolina (which has gone from staunch GOP to leans GOP will be in play which might render some of these subversion efforts moot). Then there's the possibility of a procedural coup, which is to say Trump loyalists might try to sabotage the election and transition process. If the election is decided by the House, then Trump wins (we expect). Then there's the possibility of a violent coup. Pro-publica has been reporting on Trump-loyalist segments of the military as well as militia groups and police departments who might be willing to try to seize power by force. Folks from DHS have suggested they are ill-prepared for such attempts, but that is old information from when Project 2025 wasn't as well known. And if the violent coup is unresolved (or if Trump wins and enough Americans decide Hell, no ) we might be up for a protracted civil war, which is more likely to look like an epidemic of terror attacks than a pitched battle with lines. So there's a lot at play, and while it would be super-nice to see it all resolved and at peace with Harris sworn in on January 20th, I can't trust it until I see it happen. 2016 and 2020 both had too much chaos to infer a quotidian 2024 election. That said, I hope Harris wins and is sworn in, and I hope she is able to pass a regimen of election reform, judicial reform, regulatory reform and social safety nets to pull the US working class out of precarity, which, according to CIA analysts, is the recipe for pulling away from the precipice of one-party autocracy. And that is a supersized ask. Miles to go before we sleep.

  • On the post: Oxford Study: Those Dastardly Video Games Are Good For Improving Your Mood

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 03 Oct, 2024 @ 04:43pm

    Can confirm.

    Video games are part of my management regimen for staving of major depression, including the occasional bout of elevated suicidality. In fact, in these modern times of climate crisis disasters, towns literally sinking into the sea and the US being one general election away from one-party autocracy, I've been depending on symptom management -- including video games to distract myself from the real world -- more than ever. When video games don't come loaded with content that takes advantage of fatigue and mental illness (looking at you, lootboxes, microtransactions and FOMO marketing) they are now commonly recommended for people who suffer from mental illness, whether soldiers with PTSD or kids trying to survive school with ADHD. That said, yes, video games are a tool in the box of mental health management. Not all games are for everyone, and in my case, it's easy for me to obsess on a given game until I blink and suddenly I'm exhausted, famished, dehydrated and smelly.

  • On the post: Appeals Court: Utah’s Age Verification Is Currently Unchallengeable Because It’s A ‘Bounty’ Law

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 03 Oct, 2024 @ 02:39pm

    Thought experiment

    I wonder how difficult it would be to create a robust bounty law that allows citizens to sue people who win bounties created by other bounty laws, making it a spoiler.

  • On the post: New Yorker’s ‘Social Media Is Killing Kids’ Article Waits 71 Paragraphs To Admit Evidence Doesn’t Support The Premise

    Uriel-238 ( profile ), 02 Oct, 2024 @ 01:20pm

    Kids are not dying from social media, but kids on social media scare us, so we're going to lie.

    So far, there are issues because child mischief extends to on a computer and now on the internet, so bullying takes place on social media rather than (or alongside) in the school halls, but it seems to me grown ups are afraid of: ~ Kids learning about sex stuff and getting a buzz from looking at porn, especially LGBT+ sex stuff if they're so inclined. ~ Kids learning about actual history of their societies rather than the propaganda taught in history and government classes, by which they might realize they can't trust their elders and authorities. ~ Kids learning that no, in fact, there is no clean pathway from school to a functional, satisfying career, and in fact they're going to be run through half a dozen gauntlets competing with their peers for limited sustenance-income jobs. Lather-rinse-repeat until they wash out, all in support of billionaire vanity projects. And they might realize their society is not raising them in good faith, but to exploit them. That last one may just be me. Still, it's not about how kids will be harmed, but how they will be informed and lose their innocence.

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