leftists have become what they hated the most, horsehoe theory is real people, call it horseshoe fact
And what exactly have leftists become and what do they hate?
Freedom of speech, rationality, pragmatism to name a few. What else, lolz!
Because they’re evil, fascist, thought police for wanting to take away our god given right to tell entire groups of people that they’re subhuman on the internet. Unlike those valiant and heroic free speech and freedom of expression warriors that burn and ban books, police other people’s identities and cheer as a handful of conservative billionaires buy up all the free press and social platforms.
Edit: /s just in case.
Nobody has a problem censoring hateful and harmful content, so long as they’re the ones that get to decide what that means.
Nobody has a problem with getting a malignant tumor removed, so long as they’re the ones who decide whether they believe the diagnosis or not.
I have a problem with idea of gov sayimg what goes. Whatever gov. If it’s your site - whatever goes, goes. You set the rules. Sheesh.
But I admit I am nos so sure when it comes to giants like FB or X. If they were like that from the get go, sure, but sudden switch is iffy as hell.
“iffy” isn’t the same as “illegal.” They can change their policies whenever they want, provided that doesn’t violate any contracts, express or implied, with their customers. If they do violate a contract, they need to make fair restitution as per whatever the enforceable terms of the agreement are.
Contracts are only meaningful between parties with more or less equal power. When the power asymmetry is extreme, contracts are just a form of coercion. Consider the case of binding arbitration clauses.
I 100% agree, and there’s a very good chance those binding arbitration agreements will be thrown out by a court. In law, there’s a concept of equal compensation, and if a contract heavily favors one party over another, it is treated as null and void.
For example, at my last job, I pissed off my boss for standing up for myself, but my boss knew I was indespensible, so he transitioned me to a full remote contractor from a salary position. My job was the same, and I was expected to join regular team meetings, but I no longer had my benefits. Anyway, when COVID happened, they “eliminated my position” (probably cost cutting), so I applied for unemployment. It’s not available for contract employees, but they said it would be if I was a de-facto employee (I think that’s the right term). They investigated, my employer fought it, and they determined that I was, in fact, a de-facto employee because of how I and they saw the agreement. In other words, our contract was voided because it was one-sided and only benefitted the company, and they were forced to backpay my unemployment.
That said, many people don’t realize that and are “chilled” (pretty sure that’s the legal term) from taking action about it.
I believe we should change contract law to actively push back on this. Contracts should be as simple as possible, understandable by someone with an 8th grade education, and only include terms necessary to provide the service. I shouldn’t have to scroll through 30 pages of technical jargon to find out if my rights are being violated, that’s unreasonable and should invalidate the entire contract.
Misinformation and violent rhetoric about minorities is hate. It has no place in society and allowing it achieves nothing expect the proliferation of bigotry.
Why is this just about “minorities” and what is a “minority”? Who is going to define this definition? Why is this not also for hate of any kind such as calls for violence to “non-minorities”?
the law shouldn’t dictate this because that would require rigid definitions of misinformation and minorities. are Nazis minorities? What about Israelis? Or Palestinians?
is spreading a rumor misinformation? What if it is later found out to be true?
Fascist speech is not hard to point out. Advocating for the removal of the human rights of minority groups should result in legal punishment. Advocating for violence against minorities should result in legal punishment.
No one is born a Nazi. You should not be able to exist in society as a Nazi. You should face legal action for being a Nazi. We hung people at Nuremberg over this. We have already long since had established definitions of what inciting genocide is, of what spreading fascism is.
What is tiring about this conversation is that you have to balance real historically documented dangers of tolerating fascists, versus the theoretical dangers of whatever some internet person thinks might happen in an imaginary future.
I mean, it’s a tough call, right? “Regulating food sounds nice in theory but what if it gives some future government the power to ban pizza haha gotcha”.
Nobody is born a Muslim either, yet pointing out the hatefulness of Islam is considered racism.
the main problem I have with the government doing this is that they would be the ones to define who the minoritys are. If I remember correctly the US consider veterans to be a protected class, what if a government decided to extend minority status to those that themselves (as part of their “culture”) codified intolerance to existing protected minorities (such as certain religions with respect to homosexuality)?
I mean I’m not advocating for that though. I don’t think it’s impossible to restrict specifically fascist rhetoric. I don’t think it’s impossible to make it illegal to advocate for genocide of racial and gender minorities.
if the (US and many others) governments weren’t run by fascists I might agree, but I know that politics change and facist, homophobic, racists are always going to have a chance to be elected in a democratic (republic) system.
If this is already true then how does making it illegal to be a Nazi change that? If Nazis will already get into power (and then restrict non-nazi or anti-nazi speech), then what exactly is the risk of making it illegal to espouse Nazi ideology?
Sure, but should it be illegal? Unless it’s causing direct harm, I think the answer is no, regardless of how disgusting and hurtful it is.
For example, I can stand on the corner with a sign saying something disgusting like, “all Jews must die” or “all GOP members must die,” and as long as it’s not seen as an actual, credible threat, it’s not and shouldn’t be illegal. Should we, as a society, tolerate it? No, I fully expect people to confront me about it, I expect to lose friends, and I also expect businesses to choose to not serve me due to my speech. However, I also don’t think there should be any legal opposition.
The same is true for platforms, they should absolutely be allowed to tolerate or moderate speech however they choose. That’s their right as the platform owner, and it’s a violation of free speech to restrict that right. However, people also have the right to leave platforms they disagree with, other entities have the right to not boost that content, etc. That’s how free speech works, you have the freedom to say whatever you want, and others have the right to ignore you and not let you onto their platforms.
Okay, but are Jewish people supposed to just accept that you’re walking around calling for the mass murder of their communities?
Weimar Germany was a society that was governed on this principle of a “marketplace of ideas” where “unacceptable evil beliefs will naturally be rejected”, so is the modern united states. You can see two pretty clear examples of how this does not work and just allows fascists to promote their view points.
Say in you’re example you’re not just some guy on the street corner. Say you’re a media executive. Say you’re a politician. Say you’re a billionaire. Is it still permissible? Say you make a new political party called the “kill all the jews” party, and you make friends with all the major media executives to promote your views non-stop all day every day on the air. Is it still permissible? Say you buy out social media websites, and make it against the TOS for those websites to say anything denouncing of the “kill all the jews” party. Then you flood those websites with indoctrination material and fabricated news stories. Is it still permissible?
Hate speech can and should be faced with legal prosecution. You should face legal repercussions for calling for all Jewish people to be murdered. Freedom of speech should not protect violent bigotry. The goal of government should be to provide the greatest quality of life for all. That is incompatible with allowing people to spread violent hate speech and indotrinate others into violent bigotry. This mistake has been made time and again. Fascists are the ones who fight the absolute hardest for “freedom to say nazi shit”. Because of course they want it to be legal for them to do that, they’re nazis. Protecting them from legal consequences for being Nazis literally only benefits Nazis.
And it’s not just calling for mass murder, but providing the framework to organize it. There’s a point where a threat becomes specific and actionable, and at that point, it’s not protected speech any more, it’s incitement. the problem is that the courts have so far failed to recognize that the technique of stochastic terrorism is actionable, just as a more traditional threat is.
Protecting them from legal consequences for being Nazis literally only benefits Nazis.
Yep, it’s going to be cold comfort for the absolutists when they’re being mass-murdered. This is not genteel debate we’re talking about, it’s crimes against humanity, and I’m quite willing to sacrifice a few absolutist principles to prevent even more of such crimes being committed.
Fascism isn’t the only form of authoritarianism, and authoritarianism in general wants to control speech. If you can frame your opponents’ speech as “hate speech,” you can use the law to silence them, even if their speech has no chance of actually causing any harm. If becomes a political tool to maintain power.
The examples I gave are fairly extreme and most would consider them hate speech, but as soon as we allow silencing people over hate speech, we open the door to abuse for political purposes. The charges don’t even need to stick, you just need to tie someone up in the courts so they can’t properly campaign.
Look at less free countries like Venezuela or Russia, they go after speech first (e.g. journalists). That alone should give you serious pause when you hear any attempt to regulate speech.
We don’t have to, there’s no rule saying either we have Nazis or no one can say anything. I don’t agree that “saying nazi stuff” is nebulous enough that it could be construed to mean “saying not nazi stuff”.
I also don’t feel you adequately responded to my pointing out that protecting the rights of Nazis to be Nazis only benefits Nazis at the expense of literally everyone else and allowing Nazis to make political parties and manipulate society.
Your society has fundamentally failed to protect the rights of its citizens if Nazis can exist within it. They should face legal action for their views.
Allowing Nazis to say Nazi stuff doesn’t in any way limit your ability to say anti-Nazi stuff. Banning Nazi stuff enables law enforcement and courts to determine how broadly to interpret that. If Nazi simps (or actual Nazis) get into power, maybe they’ll decide your speech counts as “Nazi stuff.”
Your society has fundamentally failed to protect the rights of its citizens if Nazis can exist within it. They should face legal action for their views.
I strongly disagree. They should face social ostracization and be rejected by the public because their views carry no weight.
If Nazis exist in your society but only at the fringes because people have rejected their ideas, you’ve won. If the only way you can defeat dangerous ideas is by getting the “right people” in power to create laws, you’re on very dangerous ground.
Yeah, it’s quite the marketplace of ideas when some asshole is out in the street hitting you in the head with a lead pipe.
And excluding from power those who should never hold it seems an an entirely reasonable feature of a legitimate polity.
Nazis will limit my speech if they get into power one way or the other, what are you talking about lol. If they get into power they will literally kill me, that’s their stated goal.
Okay, well, in FreeSpeechAbsolutismLand the nazis will now run around convincing everyone that being a Nazi is totally cool and you should do it too, fast forward and congratulations Hitler just got elected because the Nazis bought out the major media organizations and indoctrinated everyone into Nazism. Now, let’s review. Is there anywhere along the way that the government could have done something to prevent Nazis from taking over the country?
Like, come on, this is so ridiculous. You’ve been so convinced by conservatism that restricting the right to say literally anything immediately turns your country into Soviet Russia that you’re here protecting Nazis. It’s just foolish. You’re acting like it’s absolutely impossible to have any laws at all because inevitably they will be misinterpreted to their extreme. It’s like “should murder be illegal because what if people in power decide fetuses count as people and are therefore murder-able” like no we can actually restrict specific things. I don’t see many people advocating the legalization of murder so as to prevent abortion rights from being restricted by advocates of fetal personhood.
I’m looking forward to whenever someone decides that your beliefs are “hate speech” and suddenly you’ll be the one supporting free speech.
“Free speech” is a morally neutral thing. Most leftists don’t go on about “free speech” because it’s not a value we hold. We value tolerance of people of different races, genders, sexualities, and so on. The issue is not speech in general – it’s the content of speech that matters. “Free speech” sidesteps the issue of what is actually being said.
Well, at least you’re honest about being against free speech.
It is censorship, PERIOD
Well, it is censorship.
People just wake up to a realization that some censorship should exist, and it makes many uncomfortable.
Other than that, don’t be tolerant of the intolerant, and you’ll be fine.
Meta’s anti-LGBT rules are closely knit to their ending the fact-checking: It is science denialism and linked to racism and vaccine skepticism.
Homosexuality and gender identity are not considered mental illnesses, Sex is not a binary, and Race is not connected to intelligence.
Bigots never liked science on these three, and now they use political power to impose their narrative.
Meta never moderated such discourse. Nor reddit nor twitter nor youtube. There was no censorship to end here. What this is, it is a free pass to punch down trans and gay people. It is incitement to violence, and Zuckerberg and Musk must go to the gallows for it.
Don’t get me started on the toxic harassment these platforms have allowed against African and Carribean reparation activists, how they have destroyed the lives of feminists, and how they have named all Palestinians terrorists.
At this point race realists and gender essentialists have ensured political and technological control of the narrative.
There is no room for debating sealioning trolls on this one. If they don’t understand the social dynamics against gender/sex/minorities at this moment, they are no better than brownshirts.
It is permabans and hooks and jabs all the way, for every single weird freak that backs this deranged hateful shit.
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You people bring up those arguments for years and years. Having a gender identity that mismatches your genitals is not a delusion. This is a hundreds or so medical organizations opinion. If you are willing to educate yourself, rather than being an ignorant piece of shit. This has been the case for YEARS, at this point if you have not gotten the message, you don’t want to be educated.
That link leads to no where
Switch invidious backend from the links on the top
I don’t know what to do from here
See where it says “switch backend” try one of those links. Or watch it on youtube if you are not concerned about privacy.
Alright hold on lemme give it a watch
In what way do trans people hurt you?
But calling people moronic before having a conversation does seem mean. Matter of fact a trans person just did.
We see how cool headed are men when pay-gap is brought up.
Fucking cry-babies, they call everyone a snowflake and want to concern troll endlessly, but the moment sexism and racism comes up in a discussion they lose their shit.
Imagine when a trans person is perpetually punched down by the whole of society and still have to be nice because of strict tone policing.
To me, a trans person has every right to call you a moron when if you tried to debate their existence and rights, especially now that blatant transphobia is legitimized and normalized.
Did you just assume my gender?
It’s your responsibility to correct someone if they misgender you. It’s their responsibility to accept the correction and respect your identity after they have been corrected.
As I would do. You wanna be called a chick when you’re a dude? Cool fine. I can respect that. But the fact is playing extreme dress up doesn’t make you whatever it is you’re saying you are
You claim in your username you are a guy. I respect your pronouns, sorry if this is confusing.
Valid lol
Never said they did
You really don’t have a clue what trans people are do you? The reason some of us require access to hormone replacement and surgical healthcare is specifically because of the way that our bodies are. Accepting trans people is not in any way illogical or unscientific. It is an acknowledgment that gender is not a simple binary option. We would expect gender to exist identically across the entire world if that were the case. It doesn’t. Western imperialists have a long history of enforcing a binary patriarchal view of gender onto conquered peoples. And people have always resisted that too, non-binary gender and trans gender people have always existed under differing names throughout human history.
Man and Woman are not and never have been determined by biology. When you choose what pronoun to use for a stranger, you do not need to first look at their blood tests or their genitals. If you gender a stranger wrong, and they correct you you generally just apologize and move on. When I was a young child and had long hair people frequently referred to me as a girl. It was never an issue when they would be corrected on that. They didn’t need to see my blood tests or my genitals to believe me when I corrected them. Because that’s not how gender works, it is not and never has been a product of biology. It is associated with different bodies, but that is not its basis.
Trans people are not denying reality, rather we are acknowledging it and saying people should have the choice of what gender is assigned to them. That instead of assigning it everyone should be free to state their own gender. That this process is not disruptive or damaging to any aspect of society (and it isn’t, there has never been one single legitimate peer-reviwed non-discredited study that showed that it is).
You might love having a cock and a flat chest and being a man but I absolutely hated it! It was the driving force behind multiple suicide attempts throughout my adolescence and early adulthood. I’ve been on hormones for a decade and it has made me a million times happier, I got reassignment surgery 2 years ago and I have never been a healthier person and never felt as good about my own body. It has had a very provably fantastic effect on my well-being. It is entirely scientific.
Hi LadyAutumn, thank you for writing this up. I’m really glad you’re here. Just wanted to say that since a sad troll is trying to make it seem like we’re not. But that guy doesn’t speak for me, and I’m so happy your transition has been healthy and life-affirming. Best wishes :)
Here I am, going to get downvoted into oblivion, but you already speak about the topic so I want to ask.
Trans people have the cure for their condition - that being surgery. Why shouldn’t being trans (before actually transitioning!) considered being ill?
Sorry if I come as rude but in today’s hellscape there’s really no way to ask that without sounding like a douche.
gender dysmorphia is the illness, and transitioning is the cure.
First, surgery is not sth every trans person seeks, nor the first thing that they seek.
Equating trans with surgery shows that you know next to nothing about the topic.
Again, if you want to educate yourself here
Being trans is a reality not a condition. Like (some) veterans have PTSD, that does not mean being a veteran is mentally ill.
World Health Organization lists gender incongruence under “conditions related to reproductive health” not mental conditions. American Psychiatric Organization has “gender dysphoria” under mental conditions, but clearly states this is to get access to care, being trans in itself is not a mental condition.
Finally, the fact that there is a “cure”, does not mean there must necessarily be an illness, for example abortions are health care for unwanted pregnancy this does not mean pregnancy is an illness.
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you’re missing the point of being transgender.
the goal is not to claim that they were born a different gender. that would be delusional, and transgender people can be totally rational.
the point is simply to live as their preferred gender, and ideally be accepted as such.
when they live as their preferred gender, they are able to feel happy and content, just like everyone else. it’s not that difficult to consider how miserable we would feel if people misgendered us. it’s a common insult.
treating everyone as the gender they prefer is a simple act of kindness. you can choose to be an asshole about it, but you’re not standing up for the truth, you’re just choosing to be an asshole.
Do you need to see proof that someone is, has been, or can become pregnant before you can agree they are a girl or woman?
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I’ll ask again since you seemingly didn’t understand.
Before you can decide if someone you’re referring to or talking with is a girl or a woman, do you need to see proof that they are pregnant, have been pregnant, or can become pregnant? Do you put a hold on every social interaction you have until you are presented with such proof?
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I live on my own and support myself and my family with a full-time job in technology.
And yeah, people like you are very predictable in your arguments. Like how you didn’t even argue against anything I said. Because you can’t, there is no actual counterargument except to deny everything and assert God. Took me all of 10 minutes to type my response. This concerns my rights and freedoms, the rights and freedoms of my community, and the rights and freedoms of vulnerable people like trans youth and disabled trans people. I will never accept an attack on their rights.
I don’t live in the US, so I’ll have to ask 9 days until what exactly? Go off buddy you’re so cool spreading hate speech about minorities on the internet. Your ideological allies got shot by allied soldiers landing on the beaches of Normandy in June of 1944. That’s who the group of people with views and strategies most closely aligned with your own are. You should think a bit about what that says about you.
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I think the difference is between protecting wealth and power vs protecting basic human rights.
It’s censorship one way or the other. The paradox of tolerance comes into play. We can’t ignore hate, it needs to be visible so people can be on guard, but we also can’t let it take over by letting it run roughshod and unchecked. Those in charge of media and social media are in the first camp - protecting wealth and power, letting hate run rampant. It drives profits and engagement, the extremes of politics they support give them control.
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Ok Elon
It IS censorship and they should stop saying it isn’t, but they should clearly say “we will censor X because Y” and be transparent about it. Censorship where the majority of population agrees with it is still censorship, but approved and accepted for the greater good.
Now, the question is what does “hateful” mean? And where does “hateful” start and begin? Is saying “I hate my neighbour” and “I hate Nazis” the same? Is “I hate gay people” and “I hate Manchester United” the same? Why not focus on violence instead of hate. We should have the freedom to hate (hear me out…) but in the end it is a feeling and a preference and no censorship will change that. What should be prevented at all costs however, is violent content. People can love or hate whoever, but they shouldn’t be allowed to call upon any type of violence towards them.
Someone hating someone doesn’t change a thing, but someone calling for attacks against someone - this is a whole new dimension and deserves total censorship.
Censorship isn’t policing people’s feelings, you’re allowed to hate. Why should you be allowed to express hate, and make those people feel unwelcome?
Your questions are also not as morally grey as you think. Manchester United isn’t hated for a core part of their being, they’re not victims of violence, they’re not a class of person who has been enslaved or erased or mistreated throughout their existence.
Individual freedom needs to take a back seat to collective freedom, and the freedom to self expression, identity, and well being for all. Freedom to oppress isn’t freedom. Nobody is free unless we’re all free.
It’s simple. If your rights infringe on my rights, and there is no way for me to avoid the “you”, whatever it may be at the moment, it should be regulated.
Go ahead and hate gays, but on a multicultural/multi-national platform that over a 3rd of the population use, you shouldn’t be allowed to project that because it makes gay people feel unsafe. It infringes on their humanity.
Just because a group is immune to the intricacies of this, re: straight and white, shouldn’t be a license for them to say and do whatever they want.
Try a group of gay people against straights, see how long that group lasts. Why the double meaning
Well, I partly agree. Collective freedom does come before personal freedom. But, not everyone hates just because of the “being”. For ex. a lot of refugees in Germany are hated not because they are from middle east, not because they are islamic, but for the sole reason that they are abusing the welfare system. They get free social apartments with monthly allowance that is higher than some peoples pensions, from which they still need to pay their apartment. It’s not hate because of what they are, but because of what they do. And that is ok, because we hate pedophiles not because of the person, but because what they do or did in the past. Also, there is no freedom from feeling offended and unwelcome. It is a feedback. A boy can feel unwelcome in a girls locker room, no problem there really. Feeling unwelcome probably has some reason behind it. You either should not be there, or you should be or not be doing something.
Although you have the start of a point here all you’ve done is stereotype a class of people. Hate people that abuse welfare, whether immigrant or not.
I hate welfare abusers -> some immigrants are welfare abusers -> I hate immigrants as a class of person
That’s not rational
A tolerant society can not tolerate intolerance.
Sure, but there’s an lot of people classifying disagreement as hatred and using that to stamp out the discourse we need to have as a society.
Take positive discrimination. Some see it as corrective action for historical injustices. Some see it as newspeak it for just another form of discrimination and two wrongs don’t make a right. There’s a societal discourse that needs to happen there.
Nobody is preaching hatred, but I expect I’ll get shit for even suggesting there’s a ethical argument against DEI.
It would help if you re-thought your argument from the perspective of a person with the intelligence to understand the difference between discourse and intolerant hate speech. Yes. We are discussing hatred.
No, don’t drag DEI into this. There is no equivalency in this discussion. It just shows your biases to even remotely associate it.
You are proving the parent’s point and you don’t even realize it.
It is intolerant hate speech targeted at people who are specifically targeted by racist, genderist, ableist, and sexist double standards, going against the very pillars of democracy and modern science, to serve a religious and corporatist agenda. What was your point, mfer?
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DEI, when applied in the real life, usually means if there’s two people with similar enough skillsets, one hires the more disadvataged one. Some programs use a scoring system, where being marginalized grants you extra scores on top of what you get on the tests, sure, but it’s usually pretty low (10-20 max for a 450+ max score system). It also involves training for the HR, so their prejudices can be overwritten with actual fact.
However, when I first heard about DEI in 2012 (!), it was that people told me I could get fired for being white just so the workplace can expand its “diversity”, while the guy telling me its existence told me how can I help Fidesz to win the next elections, and that I should become a hardcore conservative ASAP because I would grow out of leftism.
You’re talking about equality vs equity. DEI is equitable.
Running a company with people who are all exactly the same is such a stupid idea that it doesn’t even merit a discussion. How are you going to understand your market, your demographics, cultural changes? Dumbest shit I’ve heard in awhile.
And society != government.
The law should tolerate intolerance, outside of credible threats of violance/restrictions of others’ rights. However, society shouldn’t tolerate intolerance, meaning we should shut down intolerance in all privately controlled spaces, and confront intolerance in all public spaces.
This is extremely wrong. The government is most definitely our society. Trying to pretend the government is not made up of us is ridiculous and reeks of othering.
I have read several of your posts and they all rely on government bad private sector good methodology. It reminds me of good old fashioned anti-government propaganda pushed by corpo bootlickers.
The government is and always will be a tool of society. I can certainly appreciate your apprehension with our current government in the US. I also appreciate your diligence in defining the difference between public and private spaces.
The government is most definitely our society.
That’s absolutely not true. To use a sports analogy (any sport), the government is the referees, and society is the culture around the game (cheers, rituals, etc). If nobody shows up to the stadium, the refs have nothing to referee, yet society carries on.
We try to set up rules that match the values we hold (i.e. no dangerous tackles), but if we try to rig the game in our favor, the other team will use those same rules against us. If we give the referees too much leeway in interpreting the rules, we open ourselves up to bribery and unfair game calling.
As you rightly said, government is a tool of society, but it’s also a dangerous tool. The same tool can guarantee equal protection under the law like the civil rights movement in the US, or it can guarantee unequal protection like in Nazi Germany. The difference comes down to what powers we let the government have.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
You can throw “fascists” (general term for the right wing these days it seems) in there as well. Once you give the government power to regulate speech, it becomes very easy to abuse. If you can control the narrative, you can hold on to power.
they all rely on government bad private sector good methodology
While I do most closely align with libertarians than either major party (who are stereotypically pro-private sector), I don’t think this is a good summary. I think government is a dangerous tool and we should be very careful in using it to solve problems. However, I also think large corporations are also dangerous, and we should have tools to keep them in check. For example:
- rescind corporate protections for larger orgs - if a company is worth more than a certain amount, it no longer needs public protection and should be expected to carry insurance for any debts
- expose executives to criminal prosecution
- set strict limits on election interference, and get money out of elections
- I believe in NIT, a formulation of UBI that has less sticker shock, so people can walk way with confidence from bad employment situations
We absolutely need checks on both the private and public sectors, the first to prevent any one individual or group from having an outsized influence, and the second to prevent weaponization of the state’s monopoly on force. I believe government should be decentralized, but powerful in the limited roles it has.
I know people who have ran for office and been successful on the city/county level. They made a difference in our communities. The people in government are not any different than you or I.
On a local level there is not even a doubt that we have a lot of control. I have “lobbied” local, state level, and federal level and I can tell you we have less control over the federal side. This does not mean we have no control though.
We are literally the government. The government has the power to regulate speech and exercises it’s authority regularly. The judicial branch is well known for regulating free speech in the public sector. We have a lot of laws for things like broadcasting or radio in the private sector.
Unfortunately our government never really caught up with the Internet age quite yet. The regulations they have wrote heavily favor corporate interests. Concepts like Net Neutrality were politicized instead of embraced. We still lack basic privacy protections. We gave hundreds of billions of dollars to telecom to provide fiber throughout the country and they squandered it.
We are forced to use shitty private companies for communication. We have to go through third parties for all our banking needs. Meanwhile these companies lie, cheat, and decieves us. Truly a libertarian hellscape where private interests control everything.
The very reason you dislike the government is the very reason we are here today. Our government is so ineffective it has basically given into private interests. This is particularly noticeable in the Tech sector.
I think it is past time to write a new constitution that actually works for everyone. We need to shed the “for the rich by the rich” part of our government and basically grow up. Governing should be highly regulated and designed to resist corruption.
The people in government are not any different than you or I.
Yup, and I’ve thought of challenging my state rep because he always runs unopposed. I honestly don’t have time for the job, but my rep is such an idiot that maybe it’s worth risking the very remote chance that I’ll win. I doubt I’d get >20%, and that’s including all the protest and pity votes in my district.
Concepts like Net Neutrality were politicized instead of embraced.
It’s also not at all what it says on the tin.
Ideally, something like that wouldn’t be necessary at all because nobody owns the internet. Yet for some reason everyone wants to regulate it. If I pay for service, I should get the advertised speed, regardless of what I’m accessing. If someone like Netflix wants to host a cache at my ISP, go for it, but it should only be hit if my DNS resolves to that cache (and I control my DNS).
Yet ISPs, governments, and big tech companies all think they own it. Just back off.
Truly a libertarian hellscape where private interests control everything.
More like a nightmare for libertarians. Everywhere I look there’s cronyism, and that’s distinctly anti-libertarian. Banks get bailed out when they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar instead of the execs serving jail time. ISPs violate their contracts and nobody holds them to task.
Our government is so ineffective it has basically given into private interests.
I think the opposite is true. Our government is so effective that special interests rarely need to lobby, because our reps sell us out on their own. If you want to see who representatives are loyal to, look no further than their campaign contributions.
The problem is that we keep expecting government to solve our problems without ensuring that they’re actually loyal to us, the people. And why should they? It’s not like we’re going to vote them out next time, we’ll keep voting with our tribe because maybe this time they’ll listen (they won’t).
No, for government to actually be worth trusting, we need massive reforms to realign the federal government with the interests of the people. State governments are often better (esp in smaller states) because there’s less to get from buying those reps, though that’s not exactly true in my area (Utah, where the predominant church largely calls the shots on important legislation). Some options:
- eliminate what campaign funds can be spent on, and largely eliminate rallys (candidates can host one town hall in each state), political ads, etc
- replace House districts with proportional representation in each state
- replace FPTP with something like STAR or Approval voting
In general, get money out of politics as much as possible, and attack the two party duopoly. That probably won’t fix it, but it’s a start.
write a new constitution
Maybe. I’m not sure what I’d change that couldn’t be fixed with an amendment or two though, and that’s likely way easier than replacing the Constitution (which I largely like).
If they’d come for the Nazis first, the remainder of that over-repeated list would not matter.
Trying to pretend the government is not made up of us is ridiculous and reeks of othering.
Oh, the incoming US government is made up of us? There is no “us” that includes both me and those thieving, murderous, lying pieces of shit.
And as the man said, if my thought-dreams could be seen, they’d probably put my head in a guillotine.
Yup it is, you must understand the incoming administration is just a fraction of the actual government.
I totally agree with you that Aotus and his handlers along with a lot of our representatives are pieces of shit. We definitely need to vote them out. Hopefully we will still be able to when it is all said and done.
Really though we need some serious reforms to restore our confidence.
Whole censoring content should get flipped otherway round. Meaning instead doing it from up to down like it is done now, it should be done down to up. Instead coverments, companies, platforms doing censoring, there should be tools to do it by end user.
If I say “X is shit”, then that is my opinion. But if some other user do not like that i said “X is shit”. Then that person should have way to filter out “X is shit” content.
So end user is person who decides what is shown, not some higer entity.
individuals create echo chambers: if someone spouts intolerant garbage, and the people who fight that garbage block the speech, there’s nobody to oppose it and without voices speaking out against it, it becomes mainstream
if society doesn’t enforce rules around hate speech, it places a burden on minorities to defend themselves from hate, otherwise hate becomes the mainstream viewpoint
You have it backward. Censorship is what creates echo chambers.
Here on Lemmy, people who claim to advocate for freedom of speech and information, demanding for social networks to be shutdown and people to be censored based on unknown and ambiguous criteria, without even understanding the implications of it.
Details at six
in a year Lemmy will be a cesspool of extremist thoughts and opinions. left, right, doesn’t matter.
the average Lemmy user is become far more caustic towards any differing opinions and that directly increases the toxicity of the platform.
this is why mods are trying to be pedantic about the rules in communities, but unfortunately they’re only accelerating it.
for a truly free and moderated platform a mechanism must be put in place that allows the community itself to self-moderate. unfortunately every new platform wants to start out as Twitter or Meta or Reddit. All three of these platforms failed in their goals of becoming a better socialmedia platform while exceeding expectations for financial viability.
IMO communities should have a cap limit of members that can grow over time of positive growth. if there’s negative growth the community must resolve the issues together or be forced to shrink and lose members.
this doesn’t mean the community blocks access, it just means you can’t post content or comments.
And we say we are living in a democracy. Mark my word, there is not a SINGLE democracy in the world. It sounds good on paper but the technicalities are far from theory.
Democracy isn’t about getting your own way.
True democracy (Direct Democracy) can’t happen - you’d need to vote in every single decision. Without everyone’s decision, nothing could get done. It’s bad enough for a family of four to agree what movie to watch, let alone a whole country. It would be democratic if most people watched what they wanted, but the logistics for a country ain’t gonna work.
That’s why most Western countries in the world have Representative Democracy - we elect people to do that stuff on our behalf, and are aware of affecting factors. And by and large, it works. Sure, there are always failings and scandals and someone can point these out, because human beings like to cheat and have their own agendas, and of course, power corrupts. Sadly, there is no form of government that is safe from subversion.
If you don’t like a decision, vote for a representative that you think will do more of what you want. Or form an effective protest.
That’s the problem. You can elect any representative but you can’t ensure its a good one if the voters themselves are the choke-point, maybe you decide not to vote, vote based on trends, vote in panic or vote for some ideology rather than what should really matter to everyone in a long term.
I wonder how is US a true democracy. Its a two-party system, you can argue its better than China’s one-party system or Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (ahem!) but that’s all there is to it.
The voting system used is important. “Pick the one you want, most votes wins” sounds perfectly usable but it trends towards two main parties. There is undue pressure on the voter to choose the main party they dislike the least so avoid the main party they dislike the most. It gets worse the deeper we look at the “winner take all” (first past the post) voting system (used in the USA, UK).
I don’t know what an effective protest would look like but that’s probably the better option. People tend to get insulted or bored if you try to explain how their vote doesn’t really matter.
More UN bullshit.
Are we redefining words now?
“BAAAHHH!!! YOU’RE CENSORING MY HATE SPEECH, RACIST SLURS AND DEATH THREATS!!! WAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”
That CANNOT be the arguement you stand behind.
The argument is the dictionary.
Which one?
I mean, we do that. Just say it’s good to censor bad things. There’s nothing wrong with that, so don’t lie about what you’re doing.
Censorship will attract scrutiny, they prefer term “modding” and they do it as charity, boy, take off your pants…
No one said it had to be platformed, but call a spade a spade
We’re always redefining words, that’s how language works. This isn’t even close to the most egregious within the last couple decades.
Language works when words have a common meaning between the speaker and the listener. When 2 parties have 2 different interpretations of the same word because 1 decided they were going to manipulate into meaning something different from the commonly understood one, language breaks down, and we get senseless arguments among people who otherwise agree outside of semantics.
So no, that’s not how language works.
Literally means figuratively now.
Yes, language changes, that is why you don’t rely solely on individual words to define your argument.
The reason people might argue despite agreeing outside semantics is that they never bothered to go beyond a very basic explanation of their argument. If your sole disagreement comes from a differing interpretation of a word… then do your best to define your argument better. Otherwise you’re just arguing for the sake of arguing.
Literally means figuratively now.
Which is an excellent example of how stupid this is because this word has literally lost all meaning, thank you.
then do your best to define your argument better.
My argument is that manipulating definitions to suit an agenda is stupid nonsense.
Yeah, “purchasing” movies or shows comes to mind. When streaming services revoke access and never grant a way to download them, did you ever really purchase the movie or did you just rent it?
An excellent example of the negative impact of the manipulation of definitions.
I mean there has always been illegal speech, we just don’t usually call it censorship.
It’s only censorship if it’s something I personally agree with.
It’s not a right to harass people, and you’re not entitled to others’ megaphones
I don’t disagree with you. But calling it anything other than what it is is disingenuous and misleading. Like when you buy a movie and it isn’t available to download and the streaming service takes away access, did you really purchase that movie or did you just rent it? Words have meaning is all I’m saying.
Is it not censorship to allow violent assholes to scare minorities into silence?
I’d say that censorship when enacted by governments is violence and there’s no smaller minority than the individual. That said, if the UN Rights Chief wants to censor certain things, he should just say it. Besides, I don’t put much faith in an org who puts Iran as the chair of the human rights council. Stances like this and the OP’s link are reasons why there’s a ground swelling in the US for withdrawing from the UN.
No they just have oppositional defiance disorder. Not recognizing that protecting every individual also means working against prejudiced hate means you’re going to fail every time.
No, that’s not what “censorship” means.
You have probably not heard of the heckler’s veto
Words also have connotations.
Human rights violations aside The EFF and Techdirt have already said that it is hate speech and effectively suppresses the free speech of gay and trans. Do you know better than these sources? The latter is like the very person who states that anti-hate speech laws are First Amendment violations. He said it loud and clear: this is actual censorship of LGBT voices.
Censorship means that some higher authority wants some information not to be seen by certain people. The target of censorship is therefore the readers/listeners and not primarily the person writing/speaking. Hence if the readers/listeners don’t actually want to read/hear the hateful drivel that some person shouts into the void, removing it isn’t censorship but content curation.
And what if 50% of people want to read what you consider hateful drivel?
They can go somewhere else and talk to each other there.
Also block the source of speech.
But they don’t care to block, the goal is to suppress the speech.
The problem with blocking is this. It’s not a communally accepted part of any website. Here’s what I mean by that. Lots of websites say they allow you to block people. What they mean is they allow you to mute people. This can mean something as simple as you can still see their posts but you can’t interact (but they can see and interact with your posts (upvote/downvote etc), but can’t talk to you. That’s problematic. I feel like a block should mean block. I. E. The web host or platform completely isolated you from one another so that it appears on the user side of things as if you never existed. But that’s problematic too. On Lemmy, if I block someone I lose all post history related to that section of the post where the interaction took place. I can’t go back to my own comments. I cannot see my own comments.
Then there’s the problem of block or mute lists having a finite number. If you have a ten year old account somewhere and you have been muting or blocking people for all ten of those years, eventually you will run out of available space on the block list and there’s no good way to purge the list. You very often can’t back it up, can’t auto purge accounts that are dead or no longer in use, can’t even generally see if the people you blocked are still active in a way that insulates and protects you.
If the goal is to suppress speech that implies that the person/entity doing the suppression is in a position of authority and not following the will of their constituency. So if a mod gets hundreds of reports about a post or comment, some action is warranted because the community is speaking out against it.
That’s important to what we’re talking about here.
like how the right redefines free speech to mean hate speech
Which is absolutely disgusting, especially when they try to apply it to private platforms, where that right doesn’t exist.
Free speech means the government cannot arrest you purely for your speech. It doesn’t mean social media has to let you on your platform or retain your hateful posts.
It’s literally censorship, but I argue it’s acceptable - even desirable and laudable - censorship
What?
@Ledivin actions against discriminating someone for their racial, sexual, ethnic belonging are in line with constitutional demands
…and what does that have to do with what i said?
