This statement misses the boat:
"The fact that we can’t tell which nightmare scenario is real pretty much captures everything wrong with this administration’s approach to national security."
The real thing wrong is that there has never been a thing any administration could not justify in the name of "national security", which effectively makes the whole legislation effectively extra-judicial and unconstitutional.
The only difference is how far each successive administration has been willing to go with this license.
Trump certainly picks ground-breakers, I'll give ya that.
I think a general strike is the most powerful expression of the will of the people, apart from outright revolution.
Leaders across various civil society organizations, unions, etc. need to start lines of communications to work out logistics around planning, because once planned you don't want false and failed starts.
None of this internet meme "hey let's have a general strike on the 15th of the next month" shit either.
If Trump takes an import tariff off a product that comes from Canada that Tesla needs, I think Canada should immediately slap a US-only export tax on that same product.
Cory Doctorow recently pointed to an article on nakedcapitalism.com which was the transcript of a colloquy amongst 3 professors and a host about a new approach to modern economics which does not ignore the politics part of political economy.
The general thesis starts with capitalism as power and goes from there.
The neat thing is, I think it unites right-wing populism with left-wing populism in the sense that both are aggrieved with what the powerful/rich/elite do with and to democracy. I think both agree that the average person lacks a great deal of agency in the modern world and that needs to change.
Perhaps we can sway some right-wing populists, who think the solution is to pick the "best billionaire" to put all the "bad billionaires" in their place and we get fascism, perhaps we can convince them we need to redistribute power (wealth, income) down the hierarchy.
Here are the links:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/02/capital-as-power-in-the-21st-century-a-conversation.html
https://capitalaspower.com/2025/02/capital-as-power-in-the-21st-century/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBOU4xBg2pA
I watched the whole video and got some aha moments, although the conversation is rather dry. But I'm hoping it gains traction (I want Cory to Absorb it all and add it to his current corpus of ideas then polemic the hell out of them).
"even though the private sector tends to demand far more accountability than the public sector" is a pretty broad brush, isn't it? I expect better from Techdirt authors.
If you believe you are free from bias you might be just fooling yourself. Even honourable people who think sexism, racism, anti-transism, etc. are wrong subject to bias.
The point is to constantly be on the lookout for your own bias first, then help others with theirs.
It seems to me that as/if politics seeps lower down into the structure of the executive branch, the corresponding legislative scrutiny following it down is a good thing. That is, one begets the other.
Ideally, perhaps, these positions would be less political and this would not be necessary.
Does anyone have a comment on how this compares to immigration judges(?) which are deemed executive (I think)?
Perhaps I should say, in the final sentence:
Can law do better at delegating some of the operations of dispute settlement by enforcing standards on private law?
How much does (sovereign, national?) law regulate private law?
Obviously law supersedes private law and I expect that in most cases private law is based on contract law, but is there any more oversight, policy-setting than that?
For example, I think it is widely believed that arbitration in the case of unequal parties (think customer and corporation, or employee and employer, but not two divorcing spouses, say) that the arbitrator is in the pocket of the more powerful (funding) party.
Can law do better at delegating some of the operations of law by enforcing standards on private law?
Now that story about Canada creating a law making it so that saying sorry can't be used in a lawsuit as an admission of guilt doesn't sound so silly now, huh?
Gah typos and illegal characters..; open(BRAIN, ") { print MOUTH "Uppon information and belief, to the best of my recollection, and I have to say, my recollection isn't 100%, ", $_; } close(BRAIN) close(MOUTH)
open(BRAIN, ") { print MOUTH "Uppon information and belief, to the best of my recollection, and I have to say, my recollection isn't 100%, ", $_; } close(BRAIN) close(MOUTH)
Presumably all the effort that the photographer went to in taking the photos was to make the photos as close to faithful representations of the actual public domain work. In a sense, while it takes some skill to know what to change, the reality is that finding what is a faithful representation is much more of an algorithmic work than a creative work, and the end result is, by definition, as close to the original work as possible.
That to me is enough to make the resultant work not copyrightable, even if it does involve a lot of skilled labour.
If instead the photographer took the photos from special angles with special lighting and lens choice, then the resultant photo would be a creative work and subject to independent copyright.
Blaming Netflix like this is like blaming the invention of containerized cargo in the 50s for the sad state of there being no tiny over-staffed non-containerized cargo ships that take 2 weeks to load and unload using hundreds of full-time dock workers.
Witness the Dual State
Plain as day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_state_(model)
National security
This statement misses the boat: "The fact that we can’t tell which nightmare scenario is real pretty much captures everything wrong with this administration’s approach to national security." The real thing wrong is that there has never been a thing any administration could not justify in the name of "national security", which effectively makes the whole legislation effectively extra-judicial and unconstitutional. The only difference is how far each successive administration has been willing to go with this license. Trump certainly picks ground-breakers, I'll give ya that.
General Strike
I think a general strike is the most powerful expression of the will of the people, apart from outright revolution. Leaders across various civil society organizations, unions, etc. need to start lines of communications to work out logistics around planning, because once planned you don't want false and failed starts. None of this internet meme "hey let's have a general strike on the 15th of the next month" shit either.
Export taxes
If Trump takes an import tariff off a product that comes from Canada that Tesla needs, I think Canada should immediately slap a US-only export tax on that same product.
Typo/Autocorrect Error
Providence -> Province
Capital as Power
Cory Doctorow recently pointed to an article on nakedcapitalism.com which was the transcript of a colloquy amongst 3 professors and a host about a new approach to modern economics which does not ignore the politics part of political economy. The general thesis starts with capitalism as power and goes from there. The neat thing is, I think it unites right-wing populism with left-wing populism in the sense that both are aggrieved with what the powerful/rich/elite do with and to democracy. I think both agree that the average person lacks a great deal of agency in the modern world and that needs to change. Perhaps we can sway some right-wing populists, who think the solution is to pick the "best billionaire" to put all the "bad billionaires" in their place and we get fascism, perhaps we can convince them we need to redistribute power (wealth, income) down the hierarchy. Here are the links: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/02/capital-as-power-in-the-21st-century-a-conversation.html https://capitalaspower.com/2025/02/capital-as-power-in-the-21st-century/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBOU4xBg2pA I watched the whole video and got some aha moments, although the conversation is rather dry. But I'm hoping it gains traction (I want Cory to Absorb it all and add it to his current corpus of ideas then polemic the hell out of them).
Even though...
"even though the private sector tends to demand far more accountability than the public sector" is a pretty broad brush, isn't it? I expect better from Techdirt authors.
Re: ?
If you believe you are free from bias you might be just fooling yourself. Even honourable people who think sexism, racism, anti-transism, etc. are wrong subject to bias. The point is to constantly be on the lookout for your own bias first, then help others with theirs.
Politics vs Law
It seems to me that as/if politics seeps lower down into the structure of the executive branch, the corresponding legislative scrutiny following it down is a good thing. That is, one begets the other.
Ideally, perhaps, these positions would be less political and this would not be necessary.
Does anyone have a comment on how this compares to immigration judges(?) which are deemed executive (I think)?
Re: Private Law Oversight
Perhaps I should say, in the final sentence: Can law do better at delegating some of the operations of dispute settlement by enforcing standards on private law?
Private Law Oversight
How much does (sovereign, national?) law regulate private law?
Obviously law supersedes private law and I expect that in most cases private law is based on contract law, but is there any more oversight, policy-setting than that?
For example, I think it is widely believed that arbitration in the case of unequal parties (think customer and corporation, or employee and employer, but not two divorcing spouses, say) that the arbitrator is in the pocket of the more powerful (funding) party.
Can law do better at delegating some of the operations of law by enforcing standards on private law?
Mugshots
What are the chances that the training set for criminals is based on mugshots?
Third world country
It seems to me that the US is 80% a third world country, 20% first world.
Idle resources
You know the trope of a school district with a classroom of idle (on-probation?) teachers who daily 'work' is sitting and passing time?
I wonder if the NYPD assigns fine officers to useless make-work tasks thus wasting taxpayers' money?
Eh?
Now that story about Canada creating a law making it so that saying sorry can't be used in a lawsuit as an admission of guilt doesn't sound so silly now, huh?
Re: It could be a planted loop.
...getting techdirt to self sensor
Is this a new euphemism for masturbation?
Re: Re: Lovecruft FBI meet
Gah typos and illegal characters..;
open(BRAIN, ") {
print MOUTH "Uppon information and belief, to the best of my recollection, and I have to say, my recollection isn't 100%, ", $_;
}
close(BRAIN)
close(MOUTH)
Re: Lovecruft FBI meet
open(BRAIN, ") {
print MOUTH "Uppon information and belief, to the best of my recollection, and I have to say, my recollection isn't 100%, ", $_;
}
close(BRAIN)
close(MOUTH)
Effort
Presumably all the effort that the photographer went to in taking the photos was to make the photos as close to faithful representations of the actual public domain work. In a sense, while it takes some skill to know what to change, the reality is that finding what is a faithful representation is much more of an algorithmic work than a creative work, and the end result is, by definition, as close to the original work as possible.
That to me is enough to make the resultant work not copyrightable, even if it does involve a lot of skilled labour.
If instead the photographer took the photos from special angles with special lighting and lens choice, then the resultant photo would be a creative work and subject to independent copyright.
Analogy
Blaming Netflix like this is like blaming the invention of containerized cargo in the 50s for the sad state of there being no tiny over-staffed non-containerized cargo ships that take 2 weeks to load and unload using hundreds of full-time dock workers.
Oh the humanity!