At this point I think Musk wants to bankrupt Twitter for the tax write off.
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At this point I think Musk wants to bankrupt Twitter for the tax write off.
Private company?
I like the reaction at CBS News when they pulled out and all it got them was being laughed at.
I thought post #738 (which I'm not going to quote, because it's kind of long) was pretty well written. I do see how that's a plausible point of view. I don't really want to hear people bang on about religion, either, so I get where you're coming from with that. Unfortunately, this is not quite the same situation.
It wasn't all that long ago in the US that there was a significantly large group of people who felt they had the right, and perhaps the duty, to kill others who didn't look like them if they dared to act in any way that wasn't subservient (it wasn't JUST racial, though that is what most people know it as). This group wasn't really a group of radicals, at the time. They were pretty mainstream. Those other people were allowed to exist, though only if they didn't mix with general society, didn't ask to be treated as anyone else, and didn't really object to being killed when they stepped over whatever line.
I'm not talking about whether either group was right or wrong as we see it today. If you look at the people in the time that they lived, in the places that they lived, they were right. Sure, there's the KKK, and there was a fair amount of overlap between them and the larger societal group that I'm talking about, but talking about the KKK would be talking about some minority segment of the larger group, and talking about a minority segment would absolve the larger group unjustly. People turned out for lynchings. They took photos of themselves smiling beside hanging bodies. There weren't just a few people in many of those photos, either. It wasn't a few bad actors acting in the shadows of society, it was society itself.
So, did they have the right to that opinion? Did they have the right to kill people for how they looked? Did they have the right to kill people for acting like anybody else? Today we would say no, but virtually none of them suffered any consequence at the time, or in their later lives, so it's hard to say that at the time they did not. They had the right because society gave them the right. Since that time, society has taken away that right. Those people still exist. They still harbor those beliefs. The only change is that there are fewer of them, and they have no illusion that there will be no consequences if they act on their beliefs and get caught.
This is society. We have diverse and ever-changing norms. At times society has condoned murder, and at times it has not. This is only a more extreme example of the same discussion over trans people. The same case could easily be made for religion, though you'd have to go slightly further back to find the time when there were parts of the US (and England) where you could be executed for being either Catholic or Protestant, depending on the exact location.
Your beliefs DO matter. They shape the society we live in. There isn't an absolute right or wrong, but a whole bunch of people pushing in one direction or another. Personally, I feel that we should push for a world where people are not killed for who they are, but I also realize that isn't entirely possible. Niya might be willing to say 'no thanks, I don't see you as a woman', but it seems likely that he also knows people who would kill for being asked. It has happened in the US, and in circles that he seems likely to know about. We're probably all aware that there are people online who don't simply refuse, they actively harass anybody who doesn't feel the way they do....on nearly any issue, too, since we've banned people for being too aggressive in their love for VB6 (seriously).
If people don't push back, the other side will win. That very line could have been stated 100 years ago (and much more recently) in parts of the US where 'winning' was defined as not allowing us to murder them.
We won't see eye to eye. We hold our positions. One must keep on pushing.
So are you suggesting that censorship of views and speech is some sort of "pre-crime" control?
If so that doesn't explain all of the crimes that are being committed by those who aren't censored because their views and politics fall within an "accepted range."
If speech inevitably leads to crime I guess we should not let anyone communicate, hmm? Is that the goal? I can feel Klaus Schwab smiling from here.
Ye I think US still feel they have the right, and perhaps the duty, to kill others who don't look like them.
As much you won't ever admit it and as much I will never yeal to NATO side Ukraine and Afghanistan are the late examples.
Caution again, I'm not talking about the lovable US people, I'm talking about the leadership, unless someone is:
Insane in the membrane
Insane in the brain
Insane in the membrane
Insane in the brain
( :cool: )
Yes they do. They definitely exist.Quote:
Those people still exist. They still harbor those beliefs. The only change is that there are fewer of them, and they have no illusion that there will be no consequences if they act on their beliefs and get caught.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/21/us/co...day/index.html
You got to wonder what made this person believe these people needed to die. What convinced him that these people are evil or a threat and need to be eliminated. I don't believe your born hating a specific group. Something or someone or some group, had to create this hatred. I guess he could have been looking attention, his 15 minutes of fame. IDK, it's always leaves me shaking my head.
On a more light hearted subject, Trump and Twitter.
On Truth Social Trump has @ 4.7 million followers.
On Twitter he has @ 87.4 million.
It would be interesting to know why his followers on Truth Social is so much lower.
Truth Social is a newer platform. Trump got all those Twitter followers during the 2016 election and his 4 year term.
Do any of you actually use Twitter? I do - fully. And the changes made by Musk were noticeable immediately.
Here's an important one. It was very difficult to previously report child exploitation to twitter - the form for doing so hard to find. Active lawsuits against Twitter for not removing content that was reported as well. That's all changed - checkbox for this type of bad activity right on the main "report post" page.
Finally! Some progress. You're starting to understand my point of view. It's small step but still a step forward. The rest of your post seems to indicate that you think it's all about being making society better and more tolerant but the truth is it's not. You seem to be the only one making an effort to understand my point of view so I'd like to try and make a case for why leftism is not the force for good you all seem to think it is. However, I want to avoid going down another rabbit where we end up chasing our tails in a never ending circular argument. I'd need to think carefully about how I could lay it so you could better understand why I'm so against leftism so I'll get back to that. I'm focused on something else at the moment so I can't put that much though into it right now. It warms my heart to know at least one of you is trying.
I don't think you really read or understood his post. You read:
and I think you stopped. I think I read a repudiation of your position. Not any kind of validation.Quote:
I thought post #738 (which I'm not going to quote, because it's kind of long) was pretty well written. I do see how that's a plausible point of view. I don't really want to hear people bang on about religion, either, so I get where you're coming from with that.
No, it isn't about that, and it's a bit hard to imagine how you read that into it. Dil got it wrong, also.
The point is pretty simple: Free speech isn't entirely possible, because there are groups whose speech requires the silencing of other groups. It has always been this way, and continues to this day, because it has to. This isn't a problem that will be solved.
Your probably right. I've watched Star Trek and they don't have free speech. lolQuote:
The point is pretty simple: Free speech isn't entirely possible, because there are groups whose speech requires the silencing of other groups. It has always been this way, and continues to this day, because it has to. This isn't a problem that will be solved.
But I did think your post talked about more than just free speech.
Seems clear there are still people who think they got the right to kill people for being different. I don't just mean trans. There's religion, ethnic reasons, which side of a border you were born, some still believe if someone brings shame to the family you have to kill them.
Do you not understand how this makes you sound? You keep telling us that we just don't understand what you're saying and, presumably, if we just did then we'd agree with you, yet you continually demonstrate that you don't understand where we are coming from - as demonstrated by the "cats and dogs" comment - and yet claim to understand us really well. Either you don't understand that this makes you sound an arrogant ass or you don't care. Either way, an arrogant ass you are.
This is just further demonstration of the fact that you don't listen and you don't understand nearly as much as you think you do. I have personally explained the difference between religious claims and gender claims to you but it seems that you've just discarded the whole thing. Let's try again.
I have no issue accepting that many religious experiences are real - I'm sure that many aren't but certainly wouldn't claim that about all - but their claims about the source of those experiences is what I dispute, or at least what I dispute there is evidence for. Transgender people, on the other hand, are not making any claims about anything external to themselves. Secondly, transgender people are not telling you how to live your life based on their experience, unlike religious people. The two are not nearly the same. We actually understand you better than you think. We just think that your position is a crock. If it wasn't, you would have to repeat stupid arguments you've heard from right-wing extremists to support it.
You see people imposing their views on others as leftism. You don't see the right doing the same thing? Religion, abortion, books, racial equality...., you. How convenient.
I don't like people trying to imposes their views on other. But that happens on the left and right.
Marriage equality for same sex couples. Sticking with trans issues, the denial of trans healthcare to adults as well as children. No one on the left is telling anyone to be trans. Plenty on the right are telling people not to be and, worse, not to accept those who are.
That's interesting. I'm actually surprised they're able to make any changes given the exodus of engineers and I'm sceptical of whether they've got the infrastructure left behind it to review and deal with such reports but, if they have, it sounds like a positive change.Quote:
Here's an important one. It was very difficult to previously report child exploitation to twitter - the form for doing so hard to find. Active lawsuits against Twitter for not removing content that was reported as well. That's all changed - checkbox for this type of bad activity right on the main "report post" page.
My take on Shaggy's post was slightly different, though I also agree with what you're saying. I think, when Shaggy was talking about people killing others with impunity he was referring to the US's troubled history with race. We're only about a century out from folks openly touting their desire to lynch black people and the KKK marching to Washington. We're only a couple of centuries out from the law enshrining that right. (The point being made was that free speech is a conflictive right - my absolute free speech would necessarily require curtailment of other people's free speech. And where we, as a society, draw the line changes over time)Quote:
Seems clear there are still people who think they got the right to kill people for being different. I don't just mean trans. There's religion, ethnic reasons, which side of a border you were born, some still believe if someone brings shame to the family you have to kill them.
I do think you're also correct, though. There are still people who want that right today, both toward people of colour and just about any other minority. I don't think the motive for the recent Colorado mass shooting in a gay bar has been declared yet but it sure looks like it was a hate crime. If it wasn't it's not hard to find manifold similar examples.
And let's be clear, the people who engage in these acts feel entitled, often even feel a sense of duty, because of the things that are being said. When Boebert and others repeatedly refer to the queer community as "groomers" she is sending a message that queer people are a problem that needs to be dealt with, possibly violently, lest they abuse your children. Her sending "thoughts and prayers" really doesn't cut it in retrospect.
Words matter and the opinions that are allowed to be expressed unopposed matter. When people with hateful views find their opinion opposed, they frequently fall back on "free speech" as an argument but this is a misrepresentation of what's happening. Nobody in the West is lacking free speech. What they're lacking is free access to platforms and tacit approval of their opinions, neither of which they have a right to.
The Scots who founded the Ku Klux Klan to '˜serenade girls'
Don't look too hard for the origins of slavery in the US and the troubles that followed its downfall. You'll find people originating in Ireland and the UK wherever you turn.Quote:
Scots archaeologist and historian Oliver said he had often celebrated the disproportionate impact Scots have had on the history of other countries, but in the documentary he investigates a darker legacy and the links between racism today in the American Deep South and the Scots who first occupied it.
When their world was threatened, the southern states opted for Civil War rather than give up their slaves.
Following their defeat, six former officers, bored and fearful of the future now that black men had the vote, formed a fraternal society, and clan became Klan.
Historically the US has been of net German majority, with UK ancestry concentrated in New England and the old South.
Technically, you can't look too hard at the people in the US, either, with the exception of the natives. You'll find lots of English and Irishmen there, too.
I was avoiding the KKK, because that's hardly the whole story. They had a presence in the south, but the racial troubles went far beyond them. Saying that it was a result of the KKK would be the 'a few bad apples' excuse, when it very clearly was not. The pictures taken from lynchings show that it was a community exercise in which a wide range of people participated.
One other point is that Twitter is being treated as a public square, in this discussion. It is not. It's a for-profit platform funded on...well, whatever funding source people can come up with. That has been advertising in the past, but perhaps Musk can find some other stream. He tried the paid 'verified' accounts, and that blew up on him, but at least he has shown that he is trying to figure out some viable revenue stream other than advertising. I'm skeptical that he'll find one, but I wish him well in that endeavor, because I'm a bit disturbed that so many useful resources are supported entirely by ad revenue.
Still, it's not a public square. It's for profit, and if Musk doesn't want to drive Twitter into insolvency (it's not at all clear that such is NOT his goal), then he has to pander to his revenue stream to some extent. That isn't free speech, either. That is ultimately paid-for speech, even if the people who are paying are not necessarily the ones speaking.
Yeah, I got that. I just had something else on my mind.Quote:
My take on Shaggy's post was slightly different, though I also agree with what you're saying. I think, when Shaggy was talking about people killing others with impunity he was referring to the US's troubled history with race. We're only about a century out from folks openly touting their desire to lynch black people and the KKK marching to Washington. We're only a couple of centuries out from the law enshrining that right. (The point being made was that free speech is a conflictive right - my absolute free speech would necessarily require curtailment of other people's free speech. And where we, as a society, draw the line changes over time)
This is what was on my mind.Quote:
I do think you're also correct, though. There are still people who want that right today, both toward people of colour and just about any other minority. I don't think the motive for the recent Colorado mass shooting in a gay bar has been declared yet but it sure looks like it was a hate crime. If it wasn't it's not hard to find manifold similar examples.
My daughter has a close friend that's gay. He just got engaged and my daughter and one of her girlfriends were out at a gay club Saturday night with her friend celebrating his engagement. It just makes the Colorado incident strike a little closer to home.
I don't see how Twitter should be any different from newspapers of the past. Newspapers and radio and TV today have been allowed to operate under cabals of private and "public" oligarchs based on wealth.
Any effort to bust them up and force diversity of expression is impractical. Nothing less than declaring them public squares and requiring equal access can make them work.
I can't help but be suspicious of the effort spent arguing against that. It reeks of authoritarians feeling comfortably in ascendency trying to squash other voices and clamp down the Iron Curtain of their narrative.
Here's a short and timely video of the type the left doesn't want seen:
https://youtu.be/s4XcbM6nkBs
In what way IS it being operated any differently?
As to feeling comfortable in ascendency, that's pretty much the point. Society is going to choose winners and losers. Everybody gets to pull as much as they can in whichever way they want, but there will be people pulling in the opposite direction. Who ever is ascendant now, should feel none too comfortable, as there will still be people pulling in other directions.
Sour grapes can make for good whine, but they're still sour grapes.
The difference is that a "winner" platform with global reach inherently suppresses any opposition. That's a far cry from yesteryear when a town might have 5 major papers and any number of smaller ones serving segments of the local society based on national origin, language, trade/profession, or community.
You can shout that equal access already exists, but it is pretty hard to compete with monopolies. Especially those that get favored status via cash and messaging political "donations" (bribes) that gain them subsidies and special treatment.
It sounds like you are claiming it would be fair for someone like Musk to turn the tables and re-institute censorship but choose to support a different ideology and suppress those in opposition. I'm sure that's not your meaning, but is that what it would take to change your mind?
That's true, and you couldn't shout very loudly in a newspaper. I've said it before: A position that is a 0.1% minority means there might not be two people with that belief in a small town, but in a country of 330 million, it's many hundreds of thousands, who can all find each other now.
I doubt that anybody would say that equal access exists. I'm not sure that anybody can suggest a means by which equal access COULD exist.Quote:
You can shout that equal access already exists, but it is pretty hard to compete with monopolies. Especially those that get favored status via cash and messaging political "donations" (bribes) that gain them subsidies and special treatment.
Change my mind about what? It would demonstrate my point quite effectively. Totally free speech isn't possible. What we have is based on societal norms and majorities. There have been times throughout history when those societal norms and majorities have been quite appalling. We could go back there. For those who don't like the current norms and majorities, we're already back there. It doesn't change anything. If free speech isn't possible, then somebody WILL be censored. More censorship certainly doesn't prove that position wrong.Quote:
It sounds like you are claiming it would be fair for someone like Musk to turn the tables and re-institute censorship but choose to support a different ideology and suppress those in opposition. I'm sure that's not your meaning, but is that what it would take to change your mind?
I understand that Elon Musk has made the explicit decision not to allow Alex Jones back onto Twitter. I'm wondering what our local free speech advocates think of that decision. Do you think that Alex Jones should be allowed back? It seems like a free speech absolutist, which Musk claims to be, would say "yes".
Further, do you think that anyone should be able to say anything on Twitter, as long as it's not illegal, or maybe even then? Is there a line and, if so, where do you draw it? Something I notice with the gun control debate in the US is that many people claim to want no restrictions on people's access to guns, as per the second amendment, but very few people actually walk the walk. Most people are OK with certain restrictions but not others. They have their own line but they draw it in a different place. Many people complain about restrictions and cast it as restrictions being bad but, when push comes to shove, they are actually in favour of certain restrictions themselves. It's really just a matter of what restrictions you're OK with and why.
Lots of fast tap dancing going on here, but nobody is being fooled. Musk has turned on the lights and now the rats are in a panic.
Did you ever consider answering the actual question I asked? It seems you rarely do actually address a point anyone raises. I wonder why. It's a pretty simple question.
I really couldn't care less about Twitter. I don't use it and never have. It's not like I ever lobbied to get people banned from it. My involvement here is because Elon Musk is making claims that some people are taking at face value and I don't think they should. In the case of Alex Jones though, I would think that a free speech absolutist would be in favour of allowing him to speak, even if they disagree with what he says. It seems that Elon Musk really just draws the line in a different place, but he still draws a line. My question is whether you and others also draw a line or not. My guess is that you do but you don't want to admit it and that's why you won't answer the question. You may have thought that your gloating would deflect attention from that but it really just did the opposite.
I don't care about Alex Jones one way or another. Why should I? He's a nut and doesn't have any impact on me one way or the other. is he really that scary to you?
Any why is this all about me again? Is this some sort of verbal trap tactic you use in making personal attacks hoping to silence voices that might let light into your bubble? You sure like to do the same thing over and over again. It isn't very effective, so you may as well try to make a point if you have one instead.
From out here in the peanut gallery, it's clear who the tap dancers are. IMO You and Niya the only one who aren't tap dancing, you both deliver all your points with your heart on your sleeve. The rest of us are tap dancing to various degrees. That said, if there was a rainbow extending to the moon, Dilettante has tap danced his way there and back a few times. I tihnk it's his MO.
Anyway, despite all I said, tap dancing is actually really nice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-b4M8jssX8
Are you calling me Bugs Bunny?
https://youtu.be/bYKGNNmL6oM