There are some things we are just not in a good position to build ourselves

I'm in a good position to weather it

Just from the cost of shipping materials

But there are a lot of people who will be shocked, SHOCKED, at paying about $1500 more for their new 80" LED TV.

Rather than processing them on sight first

@Grenade123 why does anyone "need"an 80 inch tv?

Eh.

Amerifats are watching too much teeveez anyway.

That said, China is notorious for using subsidizes to fuck with market prices

They don't? I didn't make a comment about tvs

But we need cars, and cars are already too expensive

Yes. What China has done is take that "control means of production" mantra and supersize it.
They incentivize everyone to move production onto their soil.
If people don't get wise to this, they could end up being the only nation with a major ability to produce objects.
Not good.

@Grenade123 comment was tagged to the wrong person. My bad

Hence why I said China is notorious for using government government to mess with market prices.

Not saying the trade war is bad. But a war is a war. It's not just not being able to get a new 80" tv.

I don't think trade war with China is a bad thing.
We can last longer right now without their stuff, than they can without our demand.

It's not being able to afford to replace your car, leaving you without a way to get to work. It's small business being crushed because they can't get cheap enough steel to compete anymore.

No war is a guarantee win

And sometimes unavoidable

But there will be casualties, and by the end we may very well be left wondering if it was worth it

Hind sight is 20/20

20¢ a pound more for steel isn't gonna put a car buyer on a bicycle.
You'll keep your car longer before replacing it, or buy one with less gizmos in it.

I think this huge trade war alarmist stuff is basically globalists using media to scare ppl because this is lessening their control and profits

I'm just going to watch and see.

^

Not much choice in the matter

My area has a lot of steel and aluminum manufacturing and it has helped it grow a little bit considering it was shrinking due to those being the biggest employers

So I have a harder time saying it is bad and cars are already ridiculously expensive

Hey, do you guys think that this server is a bit of an echo chamber on its own?

possibly

for all the talk about people being in their own bubbles, we may very well be in our own bubble on this server

eh, there's a large variation in views
i've seen ppl speak from a left libertarian perspective, ppl defend left liberalism, various brands of right-wingers, and a couple of neonazi conspiracy nutters

the majority seems to be centre-right liberal, but there's room for other views to be expressed so i wouldn't call it a complete echochamber

(there'll always be *some* selection bias, cause tim attracts a particular audience, and many ppl do dislike his views or the atmosphere of the server will simply not be here, but that doesn't make it an echochamber imo)

If you really want I can easily shift left to mix it up. My dad is to the left of Karl fu@king Marx I swear to God. It's my natural home if I want "comfort food". That said, I came here because my previous belief that the vast majority of America thought like me was clear and verifiably wrong. I felt like Tim spoke to me in a way I could reason in my head. So far I haven't seen him say that GLBT people have no right to exist and must be converted or erased. Many venues I just could not enter because they deny my right to individual liberty.

I can find common ground on the right on the topic of individual liberty

And thus, I am reaching out

I wish others on both sides would work to find that common ground and reach out. We might lose the asshat 10-15% on both poles, but we'd be a stronger America for it.

Unfortunately the noisy poles get the press, get the attention, and therefore drive the narrative. We end up with Republicans making their literal highest priority above everything else including basic governance to make Obama a one-term president. And 8 years later we wash-rinse-repeat with the Dems screaming bloody murder to make the same hyperbolic case to make Trump a one-termer.

"Death Panels" ~2010

"supports violence" - 2018

It's past due for regulation of some internet companies and infrastructure to ban censorship. Change my mind.

Be careful what you wish for when you invite government intervention in free enterprise - is all i can really respond with.

Businesses make the best decision they can with stakeholder value in mind

"99% of all data in USA runs through Apple, Google, Twitter, and FB. Their willingness to collaborate with the state in unethical censorship to shape public opinion forfeits their right to be considered private. They are no more private than the Federal Reserve is Federal"

The Libertarian argument that free markets will solve this problem is as of yesterday (Joyent banning Gab) a void argument. Is more government the solution? Probably not - they're not ideal role models for data privacy either. Perhaps a multi-industry oversight committee

There's no conspiracy in publicly-held other than self-interest

So you argue that the government directed that Gab get closed?

And not that publicly held companies made decisions with their valuable brand in mind?

Given he's been in office almost two years, that means Donald Trump had it out for Gab?

No - that's not the argument

I'm listening

Gab was overdue to get killed. And it had the "nazi alternative" problem already.

But it is a canary. We are rapidly approaching something far more dangerous. And realChainLight is right, given how Gab was killed (first it was removed from the Apple and Android stores, then it was successively de-funded and now kicked off by it's service provider) is a template for anything else inconvenient that comes around.

If I thought there was a good alternative to the government I'd propose it. But I'm just not seeing it. Europe is already in on the act on the side of the censors. The US is the last place where the government could be enlisted in support of free expression. Unfortunately, you need a power center. Most people don't care about censorship and when done effectively you never hear of it. The government seems the most natural power center to me.

Yes, give the government the power to decide what is or isn't censorship. That couldn't back fire

The NSA Prism Program which allowed officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats for users of Google, Facebook, Apple and others. @wikileaks @Snowden Have both leaked mountains of data proving that the state and #BigTech collaborate against people and organizations 24/7, 365 days a year.

The people are the enemy of the state

These publishers have coordinated or collaborated the mass “deplatforming” of journalists across multiple platforms who report from their own scripts while bots, scammers, and violent terrorist groups are allowed to stay, is further proof that controlling the narrative is more important than public safety and yes Trump might not come out and say that's his position but there's people in his administration that are working to ensure a the internet is purged of wrongthink

afaic, there are three options
1. the current way: companies are allowed to censor whomever they want and don't have to give anybody a platform
2. the risky way: the government forbids unjust censorships, meaning companies are basically forced to provide their services against their will
3. the super suspicious way: the government runs its own social media platform, where *anybody* can say *anything*, so companies aren't forced to give a platform and ppl who are censored by the private sector can still have a voice... but the government has an even easier time with surveillance

the current way might suck for some people, but i'd say it's clearly the least shitty system

at least, i don't see a way around it

@Grenade123 That's a very simplistic way of looking at it. I'm saying that if a customer is denied service for an non-economic reason, the company gets a fine.

There's not too much play here from what I can tell.

~~ofc the chances are high that there's a good option i simply haven't thought of~~

What is a non-economic reason?

@shinsoo Yeah, I feel similarly. Of these I think #2 is the only real option. #1 is an oligarchy of a small number of companies and pressure groups. #3 is an oligarchy of government bureaucrats.

So companies forfiet their ability to choose who do business with?

@Grenade123 do you want to make an argument that James Wood is really costing Twitter that much money?

A man causing a scene cannot be kicked off?

I mean, that's how it works for the phone company.

You don't see much issue there.

Do you really want to argue against the baker

Yes. And quit dodging my question.

You assume I like how things currently are

In the case of the baker, there were alternatives and clear religious and free expression imperative. The baker offered to sell a standard service without issue.

The Patriot act is law now, does that mean things are okay?

Now make your argument for banning James Woods.

Quit dodging and changing the topic.

I don't need to make an argument for banning James woods, because I'm not the one advocating they need a reason

So you think that they should just ban James Woods.

And when they get around to banning you...

I don't use social media

If there is a demand, someone will supply it

Not necessarily.

Corporations make decisions for financial reasons

You need the ability to meet that demand.

discord is social media

we're being social rn

And if they banned me, I'd go out to the real world where I remember that social media is a gaint bubble and normal people live outside that bubble.

You're naive.

In the case of Gab, in my mind it was fear of brand damage being associated with a psychopath as well (although i could be wrong here) fear of lawsuit

@shinsoo and my statement stands. They ban me I go back to the real world

@DrYuriMom that's actually one of the funny things about these kinds of laws. They can provide cover.

I'm naive. The left have been controlling social media and the news for a while, yet trump won.

Explain to me how he did that if the power they already have is not enough

you can face repression for your views offline too

I may be naive. I wouldn't be here if i wasn't willing to admit that possibility.

@Grenade123 Ok, they go and rally around social media and convince everyone online to go against your interests and you can neither organize nor talk.

I'm sorry, but last I checked, I could still kick socialist out of my house and hold meetings there

And use the police to get them off my lawn

You're also not running a phone company and advertising fairly standard services to the public.

I can host a webserver on my computers in my house.

Non sequitar.

exactly, people will kick you off their property if you're using it to spout stuff they don't like

Your webserver is too small to matter.

good luck getting the same audience in your living room as you can reach online

But AT&T can't just deny phone service because if they did they could control democracy--Western Union actually did it once.

The internet is the new phone.

It's only too small too matter if I don't talk to people

Except it's even bigger and more important.

Is Jones gone?

He seems to still be able to harass a sitting politician

It's the phone service, the mail service, television, shopping and finance all at once.

These are all already regulated because of the potential for abuse.

And all (aside retail) are banned from simply discriminating for non-economic reasons.

All things the government is involved in, monitors, and uses to accuse me of terrorism and throw me in jail or put me on a drone hitlist

@Grenade123 And when his money runs out? He hasn't seemed too effective.

`So you think that they should just ban James Woods.` If James Woods acts in a way that without a shadow of a doubt violates the platforms terms of services I don't think alot of people would argue against. Only problem is the TOS are too vague for interpreation, selectively enforced and most times users are punished without a crime. If Twitter equally enforced their TOS they'd have maybe half of the daily active users tomorrow

Very good options: get kicked off a platform and stop having socialist yell at me, or get drone strikes.

"Drone strikes" has to be the slippery slope of the year.

Perhaps we should remove 230 so James woods can sue for their vauge terms

Not an argument Grenade.

Removing 230 is on the table.

Is it? Need I go find the list of America citizens Obama had killed for no reason? And Trump hasn't stopped?

But I'm not sure it would be enough. I think it would open up for the SPLC and well-heeled NGOs to just sue people they don't like to oblivion.

I guess Snowfen was a lair and they have none of those programs right?

We're talking about social media and internet censorship. Not military action.

Bullshit, all government action is military action

And you think somehow not regulating tech censorship somehow removes the NSA monitoring programs?

It won't. Law enforcement will do what it wants regardless.

Removing 230 means they have to stop banning oland editing or be open to be sued into oblivion

Because protection for platform was around to protect libraries before social media

See, you're right, but I also see it backfiring and really helping the really well-heeled organizations at the expense of everyone else.

Infact, 230 was enacted to protect platform censorship from lawsuit

Section 230 would need explicit reform. Something closer to common carrier, which is what I'm arguing.

You're just saying "repeal 230 and no regulation because it's governmnet"

You and Beemann...

No, because it is a bad law

I have less of a headache banging on an anvil. Atleast the anvil can bend and realize when it's wrong.

I'm agreeing. I'm saying "repeal" isn't enough.

A company wanted to censor curse words but not he considered a publisher.

Yes, I've seen your video.

230 was the only part of the entirely shit law to follow

Are you reading what I'm saying?

Can you quote exactly what 230 says

Is this for me or Grenade?

Either or

@SantaSoc not ATM. Busy.

Here's the law. I don't have it memorized.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

@pratel we have free speech because the Constitution limits government power, not grows it.

Free speech is a principle as well as a legal doctrine.

So reading that law, how does it habe a negative impact?

Have*

According to Grenade (we've had this argument before), it essentially allows explicit curation and provides protection from what users post anyway.

de facto allowing tech to have it's cake (perform censorship) and eat it too (be immune from lawsuits based on what people post).

I think ability to sue should perimetered as well then.

On concentrated power: use ctrl+F to find the section with the sentence: "Western Union carried Associated Press reports exclusively"

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/books/review/excerpt-the-master-switch.html

----

One idea I like, is that you can voluntarily submit to regulation. If you carry everything without discrimination you get immunity. Otherwise you're open to any lawsuits that might happen.

Because more lawsuits congest the judicial system and what would be small aggregated claims vs issues like mass censorship of humans just like "wham i dont like you".

Well, that would level the playing fields

If all participants in the market have to carry whatever in put there, the brands are equally stained

And lawsuit protection

Simply opening up everything to lawsuits seems to me like a good way to get well-heeled NGOs to use tort as a means of political harassment.

I think it would open up more censorship, not less.

That said, there are venues where you'd necessarily want to be able to curate, I'm not against leaving companies to have a choice.

Wait, did someone delete their post?

I haven't.

Hmm

Well someone suggested that we force all speech carriers to carry whatever is put there and to protect against lawsuit. That was what I was responding to when I said it'd level the playing field and equally sully brands so it wouldn't go against the market.

Not sure how society would like where that would lead, though

I'm imagining how that could backfire to enhance crimes

As I see it, criminal activity is handled as it currently. By finding and punishing the criminals.

You could try and make a similar argument about the postal service after the recent bomb scare.

But bombs travelling through the mail is rare and the guy responsible (we think) is in custody and looking at hard time.

Would this eliminate any private forum, though? Would there be any ability for people to be selective in who they associate with?

As I said, I'm open to it being optional (I think it may be the best way to be honest. A similar system exists for Fedex and UPS).

Only really major players matter for one. So you should be able to run a small website as you want (you're really not providing a service for others in that case). There is also a distinction between a service like discord that allows users to create and join small private groups (in which case the users select who is in the group) and the company blanket banning certain users or groups. I'm only concerned with the latter.

@pratel why do you keep straw Manning. They would only be open to lawsuits if they keep banning. And if they want to, you are right. NGO and SPLC would keep pressuring to ban people on Twitter... Which would force more and more people to make an alternative and kill Twitter.

Yeah, what alternative? Gab? I give it less than 2 weeks.

And I'm not straw manning. Point me to where I'm straw manning.

You think if only the SPLC could use Twitter no alternative would pop up?

That's not what would happen.

You just said it would

And don't pretend it would. They might purge 30% of people. But if those 30% just give up. That's space where the SPLC has uncontested mindshare over the remaining 70%.

More over, SPLC would sue to get someone banned. Then some other grounp would sue back for being purged

No. I said they'd sue to get the 30% removed and harass your alternatives into oblivion.

Republicans suing for censorship, Regressives suing over hate speech

Not if the other party lacks the resources of the SPLC.

A republican super pac has less resources than the SPLC?

You really underestimate how much money the SPLC has and how little the Republican party really cares.

Oh they care when it comes to midterms

By then it's too late.

And if you want to play the "Republican Super PAC" card, remember the Dems have way more money. You'd need to include that too if you want to pull parties into it.

Yes, and they would all be suing Twitter

Killing it

Or, Twitter goes hands off, and they can't sue

You and Beemann both somehow believe simultaneously that "removing section 230 would kill social media" and yet "people would make alternatives" despite Gab getting harrassed to hell and back and the SPLC literally being created to sue organizations it doesn't like out of existence.

It's not just Twitter though. It's your fabled alternatives.

And twitter wouldn't really have the option to go hands off if they lack any protections.

I'm done. I have stuff to do and I don't feel like arguing with an anvil anymore.

They won't lack protection. Now, the old law protecting platforms might need to be updated so the wording covers social media. But it's the same protection keeping you from suing library for mein Kampf

It's the same protection 230 extended to platforms that censor

And I'm saying that won't be nearly enough. And remember which one of us made excuses when someone asked about section 230 earlier.

Sorry, I should go. But you and Beemann can drive me nuts in how repetitive and inflexible you guys are.

I'm still walking around NYC

Hence why I'm disappearing

You and Beemann are hilariously naive on this. We went over this earlier. You haven't rebutted anything.

You have a hilarious trust in the ability for government to pass effective regulation.

It's like trusting the EU to pass something that didn't take away your freedoms

Ah, the old game of "who's going to screw us over more?"

Basically

At least with companies I have the option not to use them

But I dislike the flip flop of calling for regulation. "Oh, if a baker won't make you a cake, open your own bakery"

"Twitter won't let me on their platform! I demand to be let on their platform!"

Government regulation got us here, and you want to regulate us out of it. Then bitch when the left does the same shit.

^^

Beautifully said

well, the alternative to twitter is not likely to survive the week. it is being kicked off its host later today, and has lost both payment processors.

saying the invisible hand of the free market will fix this problem is making the presumption that there is a free market. but it appears the barriers to entry are very high and that other actors within the market are colluding. moreover, the concept of a free market assumes rational actors seeking profit. that doesn't appear to be the case here, as profit is being forgone for ideological reasons.

@Atkins you fail to get my point. I don't care if Twitter would end up sued to death if you removed it's protection. I don't care if gab is dead if Twitter dies to. I know this is strange for people these days but we got along just fine before Twitter. And I don't think Twitter is even a net good for communication

who are you to tell people how they can and cannot communicate?

I wouldn't be telling anyone anything

I'd let people make their pleasure or displeasure known and felt

you are advocating for a policy that would destroy the ability of social media to exist, and you know it. you just said you don't care.

without protection from liability for the posts made by their users, social media sites could not exist. they would be sued into oblivion. you know this.

and you are OK with it because you personally don't like certain platforms.

You miss the point where I said I am for updating the old platform protection so that if social media doesn't curate, it is protected

who defines what qualifies as curation?

What publishers do

Decide what can and cannot be written

Decide what writers on their staff can and cannot say

They do that, they can get sued for what their writers write.

ok, what if i want to tell everyone on the platform about big dick energy pills that'll give you rock hard erections for hours. only $99.99

There's already something like this and it's a problem

Then you sue the person, not the platform

yeah, but under your policy it would be protected.

No, the platform would be

If you want to remain e.g. kid-friendly, you have to buy into a whole lot of baggage

you can't sue someone for wanting to give you massive boners all night long

Then too bad, if it's lawful speech, it's allowed

It means that if you try _any_ kind of moderation, you're on the hook for all content

the end result of that chain of logic is /b/

which barely survives

Porn laws might make something like that unlawful speech without some kinds of protection

on the edge of bankruptcy and federal seizure

what porn laws?

Those that require porn sites to have the 18 and over check box

i've seen viagra and cialis commercials on TV.

perfectly family friendly

Okay, why can't they be on social media?

why indeed? we can have every second reply to every post be about big dick energy that'll make your woman swoon

We could. We could have bots. How do you prove an account is a bot?

i constantly receive messages from helpful people telling me about 7 ways to DESTROY toenail fungus

i'm trying to say that there are lots and lots (and *lots*) of unforeseen consequences to your approach.