Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Discussion in 'SBAF Blogs' started by purr1n, Dec 26, 2018.

  1. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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  2. gepardcv

    gepardcv Almost "Made"

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    “Cloud" means "other people’s servers". It’s beyond me why people with sensitive needs outsource such a vital role. It’s not like moving from AWS to Oracle’s offering removes the risk of some third party pulling the plug on you. There’s also some risk with DNS and domain hosting, but it’s at least somewhat manageable as various ‍☠️ outfits have shown over the years.
     
  3. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    I agree.

    Right now the E.U. is under pressure. Sure it can manage for a while but in the future we will need solutions that are not just temporary fixes. I am more in favour than against. Thing is if you want a strong E.U. you need a real "union" and not what we have now. Choices oh choices...
     
  4. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    I do not know Oracle but both IBM and Microsoft offer cloud migration services that can be even seamless.
    Of course Bazos giving Parler such a short notice effectively sabotaged a seamless transition. That, not removing the server, should be be investigated and can be potentially prosecuted.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2021
  5. Syzygy

    Syzygy Friend

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    Those are not the only two choices, and I never claimed to be for the repeal of 230. I skipped that debate, because I don't really want to repeal it. I would like it to be refined.
     
  6. Senorx12562

    Senorx12562 Case of the mondays

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    Your post was phrased as if it was your interpretation of Section 230 rather than a call for it to be amended. If it was an expression of how you wish Section 230 functioned, that preference is exactly what the state of the law would be if Section 230 had never been enacted. That's like saying "I wish driving drunk wasn't illegal, we should amend the drunk driving statute."
     
  7. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    Honestly, f**k Newt Gingrich with a rusty scythe. First, he has been and remains one of the major players that has led us to the level of polarization we’re now at. He’s also been an ardent Trump supporter, spouting the same lies and conspiracy theories about the election. It looks to me like he’s covering his butt, especially since he’s very quick to separate the mob from all the other Trump supporters.

    And he spends all of his time living in the right wing media sphere. He has no f'ing clue what actually has happened in Portland. There haven’t been 200 nights of violence. The protests went on for 100 nights, and most nights were peaceful. The vast majority of the violence was perpetrated by the police on the protesters. The wildfires effectively stopped the protests. A few isolated direct actions have been occurring at random throughout the city but it’s sporadic and ineffective. By making the thrust of his article about Portland, he’s deflecting from a deeper discussion of the causes of the mob on Capitol Hill. He’s playing to the same base he always plays to. There’s not a whiff of sincerity in that article and the fact that he’s posting it on the ultra-conservative site newsmax is evidence of what his goals are in publishing that load of horseshit.
     
  8. Syzygy

    Syzygy Friend

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    Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it was interpretation of the current state of things. IMO paired with should was intended to make it clear that I'd like amendments.

    I dunno whether that would in-effect revert to the state before 230 was enacted or not. No need to worry about that, rather let's start where we are at currently.

    Haha, either way, they're not asking for my input any way!
     
  9. Senorx12562

    Senorx12562 Case of the mondays

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    Nor mine, I assure you. Imo, (which no one has asked for here either), without Section 230, the only way to operate a business like Facebook, Twitter, or any other business providing a place for user-created content on the internet, without constantly being sued, is to not moderate content at all. If you think social media is a dangerous cesspool now, wait until you see what that looks like. And that is all that section 230 was intended to avoid. There is no way to moderate content without pissing somebody off. It really is all or nothing without that law. I have no skin in this game at all, as I have no social media presence at all, unless you count this.

    Edit: And the worst case scenario of all is any government entity, by statute, regulation, or otherwise, making content moderation decisions, not to mention the huge 1st amendment problems inherent therein.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2021
  10. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    I think I've said this before. In many ways I believe I align myself with the Republican ideology. I believe in small government.

    And as such, I believe any privately held communication entity has the right to ban the shit out of any Porker that does not suit its fancy. Said Porker has the right to go purse whatever other outlet will give him/her air time.

    Again, I believe in small government.
     
  11. Senorx12562

    Senorx12562 Case of the mondays

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    Amen brother. PREACH!
     
  12. robot zombie

    robot zombie Friend

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    Definitely agree here, I don't like the idea of the government telling social media who can and can't be around to say what. I think that ultimately just becomes a mess and opens the door for a different kind of manipulation. Saying they can't ban someone is defacto mandating that they can stay and do what they want, regardless of what the people who have built and run the thing wish for. If it were you or me on there posting like him we'd have been gone a long time ago.

    As for big/small government, I can claim neither. I think the level of government intervention needed varies. Sometimes they need to step back and let things run on their own, other times I think they need to get the f**k on it and stop letting things fall apart. However, I will say that I generally prefer that they do only as much as is needed. If they need to do something, they ought to be as thorough and specific as possible. Every minor change causes countless others. A targeted approach is usually preferable to a general one, even if it does take longer. It ends up costing less in the end when there is less course correction to be done. It is easier to do more later than undo what has already been done now. I believe that government exists to keep society in check so that it can continue to flow onward, not define its every aspect.

    Basically, let us all handle what we can and should handle, but help us with what we can't reasonably control or lift up on our own. The balance is constantly shifting with the times, and so must the systems that prop us up, and so also must we in our envisioning of and interacting with those systems. It's a constant game of holding, tossing, and adding stuff. An ongoing experiment since the dawn of the nation. To me, that's the beauty of democracy. It's adaptable to the ever-changing needs and desires of the people. In theory we ought to be able to scale it up and down just depending on what we are dealing with and what needs changing.

    Social media is in a weird place. There's no real precedent for it and with that lack of direction and hindsight come heaps of problematic things, no matter who you ask - they will simply mention different problems depending on their orientation. It's going to take us a while to figure out how to use it better and figure out how it all should operate. It is immensely powerful and I believe it actually will ultimately elevate us in way that we won't ever want to look back on, like going back to oil lanterns and telegrams. But nothing is free and there will be many difficult learning experiences along the way. Stuff like this is great. Things will change, but we won't see how for some time. In some regards, I think these conversations were a long time coming - inevitable, in fact. It just so happens that an impetus to do so has come to meet us.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2021
  13. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Nope. That's what they say. Reality is different. Migrated enough from AWS and GCP to Azure already. If Pander has terabytes or petabytes, it will be a bitch. Data gravity man. The cloud providers know about this full well and will do whatever to make sure their customers stay put - until they decide they don't. Then there are the cloud vendor provided services (load balancer, FW, reporting, analytics, identity, directories, management, logging, backup, scaling, caching, media, replication, etc.) where each cloud provider has their own version with their own terminology. One can architect something to be purely cloud vendor agnostic, but that would be dumb and defeat one of the two main points of cloud.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2021
  14. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    I'm not convinced by his reasoning about Twitter and other social media companies motivations for banning Trump and his followers. Nevertheless he correctly identifies the effect: Social media has conferred to themselves an immense amount of unelected power over democracy. I think we should be very skeptical about this, regardless of our politics.

    https://residentcontrarian.substack.com/p/trumps-social-media-bans-just-facilitated
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2021
  15. dark_energy

    dark_energy Friend

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    Sorry, not a lot of detail. With respect, strong and weak is another populist statement imo.

    Strong might be some underdeveloped and unexplored "biased" political view that in reality would be destructive and fail hard.

    -----------------
    With some regard to my understanding how the world might work... language and our perceptions are limited already. Realizing that we are using symbols and incomplete models to explain the world and get it to fit our perception. Populists and "just conformist" are the worst poison to this world you can have. They will fail at seeing the minimal "50% of reality" with their bias. Self-love when what you love sucks.
    -----------------

    Always open to learning more, not interested in bias and vague discussions and headlines "this happened" and "that happened".
     
    Last edited: Feb 7, 2021
  16. beemerphile

    beemerphile Friend

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    There is no Republican Ideology any more. It is a dysfunctional Jonestown personality cult. A noose is reserved for those who believe in a Constitutional Republic. Neither of the major parties believes in small government or personal liberty. That is more the realm of the Libertarian party. The problem is that a very very small percentage of Americans wants liberty and small government. The dingbat Libertarians want to legalize drugs which angers the Republicans and they don't believe in welfare which angers the Democrats. Liberty demands too much personal effort and offers the ability to fail as well as succeed. The majority are only interested in the latter outcome. The D's want the little guy to succeed regardless of his actions or abilities because "America does better when the little guy succeeds" and the R's want the same outcome for GM and Chrysler despite the incompetence of their multi-million dollar executives because they are "too big to fail" and all this goodness will trickle down into the parched mouths of the little guys. What the two parties offer their constituents is the other guy's money and laws to require everyone else to walk, talk, think, and act like they do. Such is the nature of a democracy and the reason that it is always a temporary form of government. All you hear anymore from politicians is "our democracy". You never hear "our constitutional republic". It is morphing over time into a pure democracy and that will be its downfall . A pure democracy is two foxes and a lamb voting on what's for dinner. A great deal of the change was made in 1913 with the passage of the 16th and 17th amendments and the creation of the Federal Reserve System. The final nail in the coffin of the Republic will be the elimination of the Electoral College.

    Ben Franklin understood this risk, but the warning went unheeded...

    https://constitutioncenter.org/lear...he-constitution-a-republic-if-you-can-keep-it

    The Socialists and the Fascists disagree on which to rob and which to enrich.
     
  17. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    It is a bit too late for just skepticism. Even ACLU understands that. IMO two things happened:
    1. The social media platform are planning to eliminate any voices that would get Americans to think less about the culture wars, and more about incredible, not ever seen before accumulation of wealth and the power that comes with it. But most importantly no one should be able disturb the source of this wealth which is selling for American prices and paying Chinese wages to workers.
      Irrespective of his pretty disturbing personality, that is the #1 why Trump had to go, and the same applies to a pretty nice person like Bernie Sunders. Elizabeth Warren would be next.
      The voices of the left, real left, Glen Greenwald, Matt Taibbi are being eliminated with same vengeance as Crowder. Of course if this is not enough the next step will be purely economic measures: payments processors, banks, internet providers, employers etc will be involved to suppress the dissent. It already started.
    2. The second thing is that any dissenters, on the left and right, finally understood that there is no truce, no coexistence. That for democracy to exists Google, Amazon, Twitter, Facebok etc must be broken, that the whole idea of private enterprise does no apply anymore to this size and political power. And of course smart people like Bazos and Zuckerberg know that too. And they understand that the people they are trying to eliminate must never again come to power.
    It is going to be very ugly. And this is not being done through conspiracy, this is consensus based on the common, and correct understanding of the danger.
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2021
  18. dark_energy

    dark_energy Friend

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    There are independent open "freedom of speech" social media platforms.

    I noticed that that I strongly dislike the recommendation generated feedback loop on certain platforms. I always liked Youtube for experienced content creators who give you insight into technology, DIY, repair, tools, music etc. I would disable All generated suggestion if I could. I dont need them.

    What you have with the mainstream social media, is that "someone else" is telling you what you should like or do, the AI or whatever it is feeding you information. "Guiding you." I'd be concerned about the information gathering also... Is this balanced, when the owner of company does not want to share their info but all else should conform to the Cookies hive mind of "common good "that they have created. De-platforming - leaving is a good option, because of all the noise you can live without.
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2021
  19. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Too early to say. It remains to be seen how other platforms will pop up. Things change. It wasn't that long ago Microsoft ruled computing, and Internet Exploder was the number one browser.

    I don't think Twitter directly helped Trump or any other Republicans in getting elected or staying in power. If anything, it was probably the other way. If Twitter is seen as catering to progressive causes, this will energize conservative groups to go the polls. In actuality, I feel this has already happened. Things work in mysterious ways. Not everyone likes Twitter. Most people aren't on it or even care about it.

    In the meantime, there are alternate platforms such as Parler and 8chun. And then there is antitrust looming.

    It takes time and things will always change.
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2021
  20. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Please let us not suggest killing 47 U.S. Code § 230 without deeper consideration to possible outcomes.

    If there was any law that tended to be anti-statist, anti-lawsuit, pro-individual, and pro-small-entrepreneur, then this would be it. Removing 230 would result in small sites like SBAF being much less fun if not kill it altogether considering the amount of off-the-cuff shit that is said.

    It would be the big companies that already rake in billions that will win out in the end. This because only they can afford an army of moderators and lawyers.

    Trust me, if we get rid of 230, which is actually extremely simple when it comes to matters gov't, today's Internet goliaths will mold its replacement to further monopolize their powah. We have already seen this with the health insurance companies and big mega cosmic banks. We saw "too big to fail" turn into "even bigger big banks too big to fail and the killing of small banks" because of Dodd-Frank.

    Do you really want CNET and RTings to be your only sources of information for portable audio?
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2021

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