jon_akimbo

> cats can trust and respect?

I think you're doing the reverse of anthropomorphizing - assuming that because humans have an experience, then that experience must be unique to humans.

Cats have all kinds of trust signals: showing their belly to you, slowly blinking at you, circling you with tail up, fully grooming themselves where you can see them.

You won't see these signals if you don't treat the cat with respect, i.e.: invade their space without "asking" (letting them sniff your hand from a safe distance first), pick them up when their body language indicates they are just fine where they are, pet them on places that are vulnerable (belly, throat), touch their fur when your hands have lotions or other scents.

I'm going to disagree with you on that first sentence.

It's likely that cats can sense your superior attitude toward them. As a result, they avoid bond-forming behaviors that require trust and vulnerability and mutual respect. Which in turn has reinforced your false idea that all cats are indifferent.

I've been very close with two cats. They followed me around everywhere in our house wherever I went, sat next to/on me at every opportunity, cuddled with me in bed every night, scratched furniture if I ignored them, waited for me at the door, called out when I wasn't home by a usual hour, and became visibly depressed (eating less, losing interest in play) when I would away on holiday for more than a day.

The fallacy I see here is the assumption that today's hot topics will still be as relevant in 10 years and not (as I suspect) superseded by wholly different issues and problems.

Looking forward to seeing the Baader-Mainhof phenomenon on the front page later today or tomorrow.

People very concerned about this should spend some time reading ${opposing political group} social media. As you'll discover, people will believe what suits them. Veracity is of remarkably little interest to a remarkably high percentage of the population. Most people, and this is not an exaggeration, would sooner kill/die than change their mind. And if that's true, then consider the mental acrobatics individuals are willing to go through before they even reach that point.

It sounds like you're saying that what a company calls itself determines which ethical obligations apply to it. I can agree to an extent, but I suspect there's a different point here.

Twitter, per its own website, is "what’s happening in the world and what people are talking about right now." Is there any way to revise this sentence—or any other aspect of the Twitter brand—such that Twitter would no longer be subject to these complaints of censorship?

> It's pretty rational to focus more on the sites that have the most traffic when discussing bias, isn't it?

I feel that if a person is making an argument from principle, then that principle should apply everywhere and not just where politically convenient to them.

It's hard to take this argument seriously when the only companies mentioned are left-leaning tech companies such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google.

I suspect that the author's concern isn't censorship per se, but censorship of viewpoints he happens to uphold. If Twitter's suppression of conservative content is bad, then so is The Federalist's suppression of liberal content.

You're about to argue that one of these is a social media platform, while the other is a news outlet. In that case, what do you think is the essential difference that makes it okay for one to censor certain ideas but not the other?

You're conflating right to receive a basic necessity with the right to distribute a non-necessity.

You may have a right to receive water. But you don't have a right to pee in the water supply.

Nor should the private water company be obligated to ensure that your pee goes into the tap water of every household.