freddybobs
Conveniently characterizing people who point out somebody who is supporting fascism as "conveniently characterizing" means you don't actually have to consider if they are fascist or even know what fascism is.
Fascism is a somewhat hard to define mechanism. The rhetoric appears clearly fascist. Musk uses said rhetoric and supports the administration using the rhetoric.
Pointing out a person using fascist rhetoric and supporting an administration that is doing the same, convenient or otherwise, appears somewhat accurate.
Unfortunately he joined up with 'v-jay' Adam Curry to do a podcast. That show is basically Alex Jones lite. For example laughing about the white supremacist terrorist killing of Heather Heyer, edge lording it didn't happen, "Crisis actors" etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlottesville_car_attack
Ugh.
I would post the link to the episode, but don't want to give them any traffic.
For that I had to create a microsoft account. I could then create a local account, and delete the microsoft account.
Which frankly is terrible. It has pushed me to now make Linux Mint my main personal OS. I've been using windows and been a fan of Visual Studio for decades.
Do you accept disinformation is a problem? Do you accept online hate is a problem? If you don't then all this is going to seem unnecessary. But you should just start with that.
If you do - well what do you suggest? A wide range of possible solutions sits under the "Ministry of Truth" pejorative. Some might be fine. Some draconian.
All such articles are pointing out is that things have apparently got much worse on Twitter/X. Which should be in no way surprising.
One of the properties of social media bubbles is that different people see different things. An anecdotal observation that you personally don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there. Indeed the bubble effect is arguably a large part of the problem.
Why are you talking about availability of books in book stores? Yes people can still legally buy and own a large range of books in book stores.
Has a list of banned books and some of the reasons.
Elsewhere, although I couldn't find the article they categorized the different reasons, and scenarios such as "explicit graphic examples of oral sex" were not a thing. In that categorization there were some banned for sexual content, but it was a tiny tiny fraction, like a fraction of a percent.
That sort of idea is commonly used as justification in the larger wedge of "protecting the children". But if you look at what is actually banned and the reasons (or even if the banned book has been read by the people banning at all), it's pretty clear that's not actually what this is about.
* It removes much of the medical and police cost * If people who are struggling don't have a roof over their head, it makes it incredibly hard for them to get a job. Having some stability meant that many could pick them selves up and get a job and so forth.
The end of the episode points out even though the programs were a success by most metrics - including being cheaper overall to tax payers - they were shut down.
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/youre-wrong-about/id13...
Here's the one on homelessness
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/homelessness/id1380008...
Theres a good one about the "wellfare queen" that is related and rather eye opening
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ronald-reagan-and-the-...
What I'd like to see is some concrete examples of things Adam Curtis gets wrong.
Unfortunately the article referenced doesn't appear to have the goods, and the crux of it appears to be a critique of the style. I like the style. It's accessible. It's interesting. It's engaging. Which was his intent as he has discussed in interviews.
Perhaps I should clarify on the EU law point. I made the point that most EU laws were copied, but the trade point was not about laws in the Uk. It's that UK companies will and do voluntarily comply with EU laws. They do that so they can continue to trade with the EU - the Uks largest trading partner. Moreover previously the Uk had a large seat at the table in deciding such EU laws. Now the Uk largely complies either by law or by necessity to trade with laws it doesn't even have a say in.
On bendy bananas, it also turns out...
> EU ‘bendy bananas’ regulation to remain despite Brexit
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-bendy-bana...
Not that this is some huge deal. It's just another (somewhat amusing) data point in a project that doesn't appear to have any significant tangible benefit.
Moreover I'd claim it isn't going to get much better, because how can it? The UK made trade much harder with it's main trading partner.
I don't think that's funny. It's dumb and tragic.
That is not a blip due only having recently left. It's due to their main trading partner is the EU and it will remain the EU. To trade with the EU you have to follow EU laws.
I'm afraid the bendy bananas was all FUD. And the "benefit" was chlorinated chickens.
Clearly that doesn't come close to solving anything and is expensive. It is a simple to explain non solution.
"The European Union jumped on the electric vehicle craze well ahead of other parts of the world, particularly after the Paris climate accord. But in typical socialist fashion, they weren’t content with simply encouraging people to switch to EVs."
"Edward Morrissey (born April 3, 1963) is an American conservative blogger, columnist, motivational speaker, and talk show host.[1] He goes by the nickname Captain Ed and he lives in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota.[2] He wrote his original blog, "Captain's Quarters", from October 2003 to February 2008. He now works full-time as a blogger for Hot Air.[1][3] and writes a column for The Week. He also participates in Bloggingheads.tv[4]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Morrissey
In an energy crisis, where for example people can't heat their homes, it doesn't seem to be surprising or inappropriate that there might be a need for restrictions.
It's ironic that there might be a restriction during an energy crisis against using an EV which is more energy efficient.
That doesn't change the big picture though.
It's unlikely to get much better anytime soon. Brexit alone has plenty more pain to give.
None of this really touches on the depth and breadth of what the Tories have done to the UK in the 12 years they have been in power. All with The Telegraph cheering them on.
High taxes, high inflation, real wage decreases, worse trade, less freedom, less importance. And for what?
Who can blame young people seeing this. For years. Getting worse and worse. And thinking, hmm, maybe I'd be better off somewhere else.
Hmm. "Scrap time that goes to waste?" Doesn't that depend on how that time is used and the opportunity cost. That time could be a hobby, social interaction or trying something that could be super valuable. To capitalism. To the human experience.
Another common error around surveillance capitalism, is to apply the average to deprecate the harm. Statics on average screen time are pretty large
https://explodingtopics.com/blog/screen-time-stats
7 hours - thats the average. Some of that time might have been productive.
What does the 10% worst percent look like? How much of that is "waste?".
I confess I don't know what technofeudalism precisely is. I do think the corrosiveness of tech such as social media, phone use and surveillance capitalism in general is underestimated.
https://thoughtmaybe.com/the-spiders-web/
This was by design as a way to keep UKs importance post empire.
> The charity’s list of the “world’s worst” 15 tax havens includes the Cayman Islands, Jersey and the British Virgin Islands, which, like Bermuda, are under the sovereignty of the UK. It warned that allowing these territories to act as tax havens “undermines Britain’s efforts to be an outward-facing, responsible member of the international community”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/12/bermuda-is-wor...
The market is artificial. For an example it it operates (largely) within constraints that are external - laws.
Modifying the money supply is a lever that can be used to achieve goals - such as a desired inflation rate.
Whether its a good idea or when and how is the appropriate way to use it is another question. Implying it is bad because it is "artificial" begs the question of what's "natural". The market is clearly not natural.
That shouldn't really need explaining, but since you ask, in many scenarios black people are treated as if they matter less than other people. In the justice system. By the police. Education. Employment opportunities. It's a declaration that black people matter as much as anybody else.
There is more to it than that. I can't claim to be an expert. In principal the idea seems pretty simple though.
> Decoupled from any course of actions being prescribed, for the majority of ....
I'm not sure what any of that means. The zeitgeist you say? The latest thing (TM)? You seem to think "Black Live Matters" is some kind of unknowable thing, but now your using terms that super nebulous and hardly likely to be broadly agreed upon.
> There are a few things wrong with this statement. If a guy goes to a "pussy hat" march with the intention of getting girls, are you confident in calling that "virtuous regardless?" The virtue of a thing is often inextricably linked to the motive, and you're dismissing motive out of hand.
It is arguably less virtuous. But the guy still did a virtuous thing in helping the people on the march at least in the eyes of the people on the march presumably.
> Secondly, you're saying that no better paths are suggested.
Yes. Generally speaking.
> Let's go back to BLM and try to map that onto a suggested course of action.
No lets not.
The article is about electric vehicles. So now is an opportunity for you to suggest a better path. You have not.
Moreover the example you use BLM? I mean you claim to not to really know what it means. If you don't know what it means it's hard to take the rest of it very seriously.
> 1. Virtue is linked to motive in many (most) peoples' analyses.
Therein lies part of the rub with "virtual signaling" concept. To invoke it assumes you know what the motivation is.
> 2. Actions are rarely, if ever, universally regarded as virtuous, or the proper course of action
That is not a requirement of the critique.
If the point is to question the reasoning behind the act, the act is still virtuous regardless. If the problem is it won't work well or well enough, how strange that typically no plausible better path is never suggested. Well other the implied - do nothing.
To clarify. There are people who want fascism. Who want authoritarianism. Who are purposefully breaking political discourse. Who think women should be forced to have babies even if there is incest and rape. That if they get an abortion they could potentially get the death penalty. That white people are superior. That overthrowing the democracy is good (if they are doing the overthrowing). And on and on...
So no and 'to be fair', 'the other side of the proverbial fence' absolutely do not 'also see the same problem.'
And that's not even getting into the attempted coup.
I'd say that's all pretty terrifying.
I think I'd agree that in 2018, if you were paying attention, that the 'smell' was that's where we were heading.
Now we are here.
Interesting choice "Chinese communist party". I mean really?
How does [ESG](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental,_social_and_corp...), what on earth has that to do with the communist party. Well known for their social and corporate governance?
Also from Thiel
* His vindictive taking down of [Gawker](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/hogan-t...)
* Billionaire Republican donor Peter Thiel is bankrolling election conspiracists and primary challengers against Republicans [more](https://www.salon.com/2021/10/15/peter-thiel-bets-on-the-far...)
* [Funding Trump](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/technology/republican-tru...)
* Leaving Facebook to concentrate on [Trump support/funding](https://newrepublic.com/article/165404/peter-thiel-china-mid...).
* Some more about leaving [meta](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-07/peter-thi...)
* An article about his ['philosophy'](https://perell.com/essay/peter-thiel/)
I mean it doesn't even make any sense for a gay man. Hasn't he noticed Trumps, and more recent GOP LGBTQ take? Is it the ends justify the means? Is it, it only applies to the small people? Who knows.
Thiel is a 'libertarian' on steroids. Again - that doesn't make much sense with the Trump or current GOP (it may have made more sense in the past).
He must be okay with some serious cognitive dissonance.
I don't know if it's true or not - but if it's false, the real issue would be a credible news source, The Times, got it wrong, not reddit.
I wouldn't take anything too seriously from [Project Veritas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas) who have an ongoing issues of distorting, misrepresenting and the like - the ACORN case being most obvious.
"Elon doing this is now massive peer pressure in the opposite direction."
What is the opposite direction? Why is that better/good? I honestly don't know what the opposite of "woke" is, because "woke" is used as a reactive response. It's whatever it needs to be to attack.
This all seems part of a wider "culture war". Like many wars it's actually hard to know what underlies it.
"Libertarian" style free speech is widely available. Unfortunately it seems to just degenerate into trolling and the worst of human behavior. (say like 4chan/8chan etc).
If you want "Authoritarian Conservative" you can go to Truth Social or "r/conservative" on reddit.
"this is likely great news for proponents of free speech"
Free speech protects citizens from the government. If twitter doesn't want Nazis (or whatever) on it's service then it can do that. It is not a free speech issue.
This is the problem. For effective propaganda you don't want it to be easily detectable as such. Therefore the majority of your material isn't directly propaganda. I read somewhere it's 5-10% is the payload. You don't make that obviously propaganda of course too.
On a channel like RT or Sputnik this is how you are going to operate - not least because those channels are for an external audience, who does have other sources.
Inside of Russia your propaganda probably works roughly similarly, but you can have more of it, and you can be more confident the audience doesn't regular access other sources. In a time of war you can go full propaganda.
I've watched RT in the past and been surprised by some of the reporting, and covering things that seemed not really covered by regular sources.
The problem is because of what it is it's very hard to know what's real reporting and what is propaganda payload.
So I avoid it.
I don't think there is a problem limiting it's availability. Right now it's super freely available.
What's the bar you might ask? That's hard. Partly it's intent, and that's hard to prove. You could also work out how much and how bad the propaganda is on a channel. Again not necessarily easily.
Really though the problem here is a trust problem with Putins Russia. It's well documented their activities in disinformation and with election interference.
They are not currently a good actor. This is covered in part of Hypernormalization documentary (and others).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT0bzehQgO8
If you believe this is the case (as I do) then the bar for their restriction is actually pretty low. I think it's in the interest of the world that access to propaganda vehicles, such as RT and Sputnik, should be limited.
There are facts. There are ways to make rational arguments based on those facts.
Those arguments don't have to be the same, or even produce the same results to be useful - because they state their basis and how, based on that they produce their conclusions.
That is a really useful and powerful thing.
> If the Telegraph controlled the "fact checker" the Guardian wouldn't exist. If the Guardian controlled the "fact checker", the Telegraph wouldn't exist.
Why? Having a fact checker that explains (even arguably incorrectly) why something is wrong isn't censorship.
A newspaper could be a factchecker (and sometime are) - if they explain their reasoning, or have some transparent way to see their reasoning.
This feels like a 'let perfect be the enemy of the good' type situation. Fact checking doesn't mean everything will be correct. It doesn't need to. Much like science doesn't claim to have the correct answer for everything - it's to the best of our knowledge based on the scientific method.
If the democrats are 'conservative' what are the republicans and the people that are voting for them? They are reactionary. They do want change - but as a reaction. That the things desired are not compatible or even necessarily well defined: `religious values based government`, `returning culturally to a previous era`, `small government/government is the problem`, `reversing globalization`, `blowing it all up to rebuild`.
It is also reactionary in terms of being against whatever the democrats are for. So much so that they will reverse their previous position, if the democrats agree with it. An obvious example of this would be Merrick Garland. Or the ACA.
There are other more mundane 'conservative' values that remain - like low taxes, corporate interests, maintaining the social/financial hierarchy, traditional family values perhaps. They remain, but arguably aren't as significant as they were in the past.
Assuming this is correct it means: republicans want big changes. That it's largely undefined what these big changes would actually be in practice. Moreover it is logically impossible for them to deliver in practice. They can appear to temporarily deliver on being 'not democrats'.
Perhaps it is. Or perhaps it's necessary to get things done. Who knows?
It's a kind of an odd argument though. That "discerning Americans" will jump on board when they see some other people doing "some things" such that it indicates to them that it must be real.
Why work through that indirection? It's so arbitrary and can be arbitrarily moved. It's a blame shifting mechanism - I won't worry about this until "gulf stream environmentalists", "china", somewhere/someone else does something that I think is enough. I won't say what that is or what I'll actually do and by when. Or if I do and I make it to that point I can always find some other "issue".
Perhaps that's the point. I mean delay and distract was the big tobacco plan - and many of the same people apparently moved to fossil fuel companies.
A more serious and beneficial approach would be to look at what climate science predicted and what happened. Then look at what their future predictions are like.
If you take the IPCC reports they have generally underpredicted the rate of climate change.