Off-topic in the OTF

[Glurin]

I can't do any "exploration" until laws are changed, but I'm torn about legalization in any event. I consider the "War on Drugs" pointless & worse than futile, while knowing damn well that modern Americans are too damn immoral & irresponsible to not be worse than the historical example of China's opium dens.

I think the real problem with the war on drugs is that we've all forgotten just what it is we're trying to combat. It's not the drugs perse. It's abuse of those drugs.

This conflict sadly gets reflected even in the campaigns to legalize cannabis for medicinal purposes. A rather large portion of the proponents aren't as interested in medicinal properties as they are in just getting high. And on the other side, you've got legislators stuck in the "pot = universally bad" mentality who refuse to legalize anything to do with it, even for applications where the chance of getting any kind of high is a flat zero percent. Both of these people just hurt the cause for those who legitimately could benefit from it.

 

[Glurin]

Perhaps your perspective is different due to being outside of CONUS? Twitter, Facebook, & the rest are aimed at suppression & coercion of an American audience.

That could very well be the case. I saw it demonstrated a while back that those within the U.S. get vastly different search results on certain topics than those outside. Basically they just used a VPN to change the origin of the search. Inside the U.S., you'd get one set of results that were heavily weighted in favor of left wing politics, but outside the U.S. you'd get another set of results that were much closer to what a rational person might expect to see. You know, a lot like how countries such as China do things.

 

[jmervyn]

That could very well be the case. I saw it demonstrated a while back that those within the U.S. get vastly different search results on certain topics than those outside. Basically they just used a VPN to change the origin of the search. Inside the U.S., you'd get one set of results that were heavily weighted in favor of left wing politics, but outside the U.S. you'd get another set of results that were much closer to what a rational person might expect to see. You know, a lot like how countries such as China do things.

This is true. Some time before I quit Twitter, I verified it myself. Same is true of Google, and presumably of Facebook since it's far more geographically-oriented.

Fascist Jack claims it enhances the user experience. Considering that his customers *are* his product, that's unpleasantly like saying that preventing the cattle from smelling the blood of the slaughterhouse enhances their experience!

Such mechanisms are also somehow the way that some of the now-forbidden bot identifiers worked; I believe those are "now-forbidden" because they revealed some extremely unpleasant truths about just how many followers an account has which are bots vs. how many are real... I was about 95% real for my 3000 followers, while many "blue checked" actors & actresses (i.e. those who are part of Twitter's approved class) actually have under 3000 real followers but over 10,000 shown on their account.

 

[LozHinge the Unhinged]

This is true. Some time before I quit Twitter, I verified it myself. Same is true of Google, and presumably of Facebook since it's far more geographically-oriented.

Fascist Jack claims it enhances the user experience. Considering that his customers *are* his product, that's unpleasantly like saying that preventing the cattle from smelling the blood of the slaughterhouse enhances their experience!

Such mechanisms are also somehow the way that some of the now-forbidden bot identifiers worked; I believe those are "now-forbidden" because they revealed some extremely unpleasant truths about just how many followers an account has which are bots vs. how many are real... I was about 95% real for my 3000 followers, while many "blue checked" actors & actresses (i.e. those who are part of Twitter's approved class) actually have under 3000 real followers but over 10,000 shown on their account.

You "quit" Twitter?

Interesting semantics!

 

[superdave]

He does that a lot. There isn't a truth he can't stretch.

 

[Gorny]

One never really quits, one just takes breaks from the addiction.

 

[jmervyn]

You "quit" Twitter?

Interesting semantics!

One never really quits, one just takes breaks from the addiction.

Nope, actually quit. "Delete your account" &c.

I'd been perma-locked three times - Jack claims you can appeal, but that's horsecrap, the 'appeal' option vanishes after a month regardless of your response. The third time I was locked for mocking Jim Acosta's laughably ignorant claim that the Democrat Party isn't anti-Semitic in both a historical & contemporary sense.

I tagged Acosta, because he's a subhuman buttmunch, & Jack promptly locked my account. Like in minutes. They claimed it was hate speech. The original was fun because I included the "Flying Horse" energy drink commercial as an animation (see below).

I'd it for a while hoping against hope that Trump or Congress would do something other than gather a mailing list to hit up for campaign contributions.

Laugh all you want, but why do you imagine my Twitter handle was, "Quixotic"? I probably still have a Gab account but there's some seriously disgusting people on there so I haven't checked it in over a year.

 

[superdave]

Still have your Parler account? They won't ban you for hate speech.

 

[Glurin]

The problem is Twitter and the woke's rapidly expanding definition and selective enforcement of "hate speech". There's a reason the saying is "hate speech is the only speech that needs protecting". Who gets to define hate speech? We've seen what happens when anyone with a political agenda does so, and that history stretches back long, long, LONG before Twitter was even a silly idea that hit Jack in the shower one morning.

Try to imagine if Trump were in charge of Twitter and got to decide who to block.

Oh wait, we did see something like that. He tried to block people on his own Twitter account. The left sued and the judge ruled that he wasn't allowed to do it because free speech.

 

[superdave]

Do you have a problem with Americans exercising their First Amendment rights?

 

[Glurin]

Not at all, but apparently you do. Freedom of speech means you're going to hear speech you disagree with or may even find offensive. That doesn't make any of it hate speech or racist or sexist or whatever other ist you want to call it.

Twitter and the other social media giants are abusing section 230 to shut down free speech. Now that they have become the public square, they quite frankly shouldn't have the authority to do much more than remove blatant hardcore porn from their service. (Yes, there is legal precedent for this.) Unfortunately for the time being, they are protected from liability as a platform, but have the editorial power of a publisher. That combination is historically pretty much only ever seen in full on government sanctioned propaganda agencies.

 

[krischan]

Perhaps I'm overlooking something, but I think the "freedom of speech" passage of the US constitution only prevents you from the state suppressing it.

 

[jmervyn]

Perhaps I'm overlooking something, but I think the "freedom of speech" passage of the US constitution only prevents you from the state suppressing it.

This is partially correct, in that the desire is unilateral enforcement of such principles by government power, whereas the originalist intent is to *prevent* the government from such enforcement in the first place.

What you refer to is very much like that which the Proggy fascists hate regarding "freedom of religion" and "freedom of assembly", plus "freedom to bear arms" and "freedom from surveillance" involving other clauses.

They establish laws which allow them to incarcerate or financially ruin people attempting to exercise their freedoms, while proclaiming that anyone questioning any "freedom" to infringe on their own "freedoms" is beyond the pale. In other words, "freedom for me but not for thee".

That's how you get cases like the Christian baker targeted and ruined by queers demanding that they bake pornographic cakes, supported by government power, while at the same time Muslims refusing to provide taxi service to dog owners or possessors of alcohol is peachy keen.

Note the common thread? Use of government power to force the acceptance, acquiescence, or submission of others to one's own moral views, rather than any common or traditionally recognized one. One can observe it with the Left's adoration of public funding for "Drag Queen Story Hour" or police prevention of Christians having private religious services in their own homes.

It's why they've made such hay with the asinine claims of "insurrection", which were merely the arbitrary execution of an agitated, unarmed woman and several old people suffering heart failures or other diseases... including the lionized D.C. P.D. officer, Brian Sicknick, whose essentially natural death (he seems to have had a heart attack the day after the riots) was falsely portrayed as violent murder by Trump supporters.

Unable to defend their views, they desire violence using governmental force to oppress those with opposing viewpoints and beliefs.

Hence, fascist Progressives.

Fascist because they want to use government power to force obedience to the State (i.e. themselves), Progressive because they want to force unification behind the concept of 'big Government is better Government'. The words aren't quite synonymous; Mussolini wanted voluntary adherence to the State while Proggies want to put the gun to your head right out of the gate, but they're essentially identical in intent.

 

[superdave]

Perhaps I'm overlooking something, but I think the "freedom of speech" passage of the US constitution only prevents you from the state suppressing it.

Correct but in the case that I was arguing, Trump used his twitter as an extension of a Gov't chat. He blocked people from his twitter, stifling their free speech. A couple judges ruled on the case and told Trump to unblock them. If it was his PERSONAL account and he didn't use it for any gov't business, then he would have been free to block everyone.

 

[superdave]

It's why they've made such hay with the asinine claims of "insurrection", which were merely the arbitrary execution of an agitated, unarmed woman and several old people suffering heart failures or other diseases... including the lionized D.C. P.D. officer, Brian Sicknick, whose essentially natural death (he seems to have had a heart attack the day after the riots) was falsely portrayed as violent murder by Trump supporters.

Lot of words to say that you are Pro-Coup.

 

[Glurin]

Perhaps I'm overlooking something, but I think the "freedom of speech" passage of the US constitution only prevents you from the state suppressing it.

Not quite. There was a case way back, like circa 1920's or something, I forget the date, involving a woman in a company town handing out religious pamphlets. The whole town was company property, meaning private property. The company didn't like what this woman was doing and told her she wasn't allowed to do it. She sued and the court ruled that because the town square was the public forum for that town, freedom of speech still applies. Essentially, freedom of speech means jack squat if it's restricted to "free speech zones" where nobody can actually hear you.

 

[jmervyn]

Not quite. There was a case way back, like circa 1920's or something, I forget the date, involving a woman in a company town handing out religious pamphlets. The whole town was company property, meaning private property. The company didn't like what this woman was doing and told her she wasn't allowed to do it. She sued and the court ruled that because the town square was the public forum for that town, freedom of speech still applies. Essentially, freedom of speech means jack squat if it's restricted to "free speech zones" where nobody can actually hear you.

I didn't want to delve overly deeply into specifics, but what you've identified is precisely what I meant about unilateral exercise of said freedoms. Freedoms aren't freedoms unless they're exercised freely rather than unilaterally or selectively.

The "no demonstration" zones set up by the Democrat Party around their conventions are a fine example. I'm totally certain that Proggy fascists can dig up examples of the GOP doing similar things, which is precisely why the accusations of "deep state" or "uniparty" cannot be casually dismissed. It's little to do with political affiliation and everything to do with oligarchs wanting to extort, subjugate, or eliminate those who don't agree.

Ex-President Pant-Crease LightWorker the Magic Negro deeming that two city blocks in Washington D.C. are no-go zones for the commoners is another fine example.

You'll hear less about that than you will about President Pedophile pinching pre-teen girls' nipples on camera or falling down three times on a flight of plane-boarding stairs after sneering at Trump for treading carefully on black ice at West Point.

 

[superdave]

I just want to live in a country where I don't have to be afraid of being shot while buying groceries.

 

[superdave]

How do you dispose of your old hard drives?

I just filled one up with Lemon Party and Rickrolls and threw it away. I figure that in a thousand years an archeologist will dig it out of a landfill and discover the equivalent of the cave painting found in the Chauvet Cave of a hand showing the middle finger.

 

[d2lover]

I watched the first 5 seasons of YGO,

but only the first 3 where decent for me(albeit the plot armor)