Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | more dmamills's comments login

Yet another chapter in these pathetic cry-bullies' lives. What a waste of your life to be so dedicated to "defending" a forum to meticulously document and mock the existence of people that they find distasteful.

To pretend this is a crusade for free speech is laughable.


On the contrary. This whole episode is a test to see if we're ruled by codified principles or by angry people. While I loathe that site, it's pretty clear that it's an example of legal speech between willing participants. The notion that we can somehow make the world a better place by preventing speech from being heard is a very dangerous (but sadly common) notion.


> This whole episode is a test to see if we're ruled by codified principles or by angry people.

Here's the thing: No it isn't. This isn't a test, a crusade, the last dying breaths of free speech, or any other hyperbolic pearl clutching nonsense.

This is about a man having a hard time getting someone to consistently host his racist, homophobic, and downright deplorable content.


He seems to be hosting it himself, it's just that his counterparts on the other end of political extremism have campaigned to yank the cables out from under him.

The internet is built on peering relationships at the end of the day. Alice doesn't get to see Bob's website unless the intermediaries agree. In this case, the intermediaries are being made to disagree with Alice and Bob.


The internet is certainly built on "peering" relationships. So when someone finds out that you host a website where you spray your "white replacement theories", or your forum members spend a near decade documenting and mocking the existence of dozens of human beings.

You shouldn't be surprised when people don't want to be in a relationship with you anymore, or do business with you anymore.


You write as if the forum is simply Moon writing to himself on alternate accounts. There are tens of thousands of willing participants discussing legally with eachother.


Are ten thousand homophobic racists posters supposed to be more valuable than one?

What is zero times ten thousand?


If you think racist/homophobic people are in some sense "worth" zero, you're too far gone.


It's lovely of you to suggest that I'm "too far gone". That me, or people like me, might actually be the issue here. I suppose it's one of your only options at this point? What are you going to do? Actually defend the "legally discussed" content at the heart of this conversation?

I certainly believe that racist and homophobic content has absolutely zero value, and the people that produce it are diminishing their own self-worth. I believe spending your finite existence to disparage others for things they can't control is not a worthy use of time.

If that is the definition of too far gone, then I'm happy to be here.


> I suppose it's one of your only options at this point? What are you going to do? Actually defend the "legally discussed" content at the heart of this conversation?

What is the implication here? That I can't meaningfully defend someone's ability to discuss their ideas with other willing participants if I don't actually agree with the content of their message? Interesting stuff.

> I certainly believe that racist and homophobic content has absolutely zero value

To be clear, your original comment implied that the people themselves are of zero value. Regardless, if person A wants to listen to what person B has to say about race or sexuality, why does your opinion even matter? I don't give a fuck what you, or the relevant ISP thinks.

There are plenty of websites on the internet that cater to your sensibilities. Reddit, for instance. Perhaps you should go back.


> That I can't meaningfully defend someone's ability to discuss their ideas with other willing participants if I don't actually agree with the content of their message?

Not exactly. The implication is that it is all you can do. You have to wrap up all this hateful content and cover it in a blanket of "free speech" so that it is palatable for you to defend. There is no defending the actual content, just the abstract idea that should be allowed to be said.

Forgive me for not making my context clear in the original comment. I believe every human has value, I believe producing hateful content diminishes that value, and is not a productive activity.

I'm not sure what to say about the last bit of your comment. My opinion certainly doesn't matter. The legal rights of the companies' that are being asked to host this content is what matters. In section 2.6.7 and 2.7 of Zayo's Acceptable Use policy, they use open ended language so they can express their right to control what customers they do business with.

https://www.zayo.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/zayo-accepta...


If what KF is doing is so terrible it would be illegal, but it isn't.


> The legal rights of the companies' that are being asked to host this content is what matters.

I don't believe you. This is the first time you've brought this up, I'm inclined to believe this is just the strongest rationalization you can come up with. In reality, you don't want these people to discuss their ideas and you're shopping for any justification.


Downplaying the problems of the youth today because six hundred years ago kids had to deal with a plague, is a new one for me.

"You think you've got it rough? Well six hundred years ago there was a conquest of the Mongols. I bet you feel pretty stupid about your suicidal ideation now!"

This one-upmanship about the problems people face is toxic, and frankly boomer logic.


"Toxic" and "Boomer Logic" are lazy mind numbing cliches and no one is one-upsmanshiping anything.

Problems have always existed. What is different now?

A couple of things (in my opinion).

1) Entities, through media, are blowing up minor or hypothetical or non problems into existential crisis hammered 24-7 for political or financial gain. Happening on all sides of the political spectrum.

2) Kids aren't growing up learning a rational assessment and approach towards problems as much as was the case in the past. We "solve" too many small problems for children leaving them feeling powerless to solve the bigger problems later in life.


A gift? Maybe depending on how full you are seeing the glass at any given time. But perhaps OP was trying to say:

When you bring a human into the world, you are going have to explain a lot of it to them.


In this thread: people explaining kids to people with kids


The worst genre of HN comment is “single childless dude questions others’ parenting”. It’s not just this thread.


The suggestion of this comment being that the people making the least are the people causing the problem?


No, that its not an issue of shear dollars its an issue of prices being targeted toward the people that make the least.


I'm sorry, I don't understand what you are trying to say with this.


It's fine, I actually wasn't expecting it to be a hot take or I would have explained my view better.

edit: I thought you said didn't. My point is that wages are correlated with inflation, and increasing wages does not increase quality of life.


> increasing wages does not increase quality of life

That's a whopper of a statement. What are you basing that on? As someone whose increased wages allowed for home ownership and breathing room for emergencies, this seems intuitively incorrect, but we don't have to rely on intuition: there are solid studies that found the same, as well as pointing out the broader societal impacts of wealth inequality related to low wages, e.g. https://healtheconomicsreview.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....


Thats not what I mean... I mean from a macro level increasing wages through something like a minimum wage. When you increase minimum wage, the new minimum wage becomes the new low wage and the quality of life goes back to where it was before through inflation.

edit: should be standard of living instead of quality of life.


I completely disagree that higher wages does not increase quality of life. Especially when we are discussing minimum wage workers. Certainly there is a threshold at which the increments have a diminishing effect. But minimum wage workers are still roughly around 50 thousand dollars a year away from that point.

When you are making minimum wage, every dollar counts in relieving the stress of simply trying to exist.


Realizing now I conflated quality of life with standard of living.


One of the world's richest men using the homeless as a punchline.


The homeless aren't the punchline. The punchline is all of the Twitter employees who lobbied for permanent work from home and thus no longer need that large empty building.

I guess I'm curious to hear the downside to converting Twitter HQ to something useful like housing for the homeless. Twitter is a very progressive company, I would hope their employees would see the value in a move like this. The fact that this tweet has ruffled their feathers says a lot more about them, than Musk.


10 years ago I was homeless and broke, please don't take offence on my behalf.


In the same way you shouldn’t claim to speak for all homeless.


When did they claim that?


You must be fun at parties.


This is the biggest thing to happen to twitter since the trump presidency. Both big for twitter, and awful for society.


What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

That’s why free speech policies shouldn’t be dictated by partisan concerns. You never know who will be in control of your social media platform in the future.


Twitter doesn't have "free speech policies". It has moderation policies. They're not enforced evenly, but no platform has solved this.


I mean, there's a difference between platforms trying solve the issue and Twitter that gives a badge repeat offenders as long as the target of their bigotry is deemed acceptable..


Tell that to Elon Musk. He regularly silences his critics.


Suppose the president got up every day and issued a presidential address in which he said "we should kill all mintorities". Would you be opposed to this?

Thats an extreme example, but the point im illustrating is that in reality, as a society, we do not approve or endorse all speech, and it is obviously true that censorship is useful. You can see quite clearly that were the president to do this, it would have consequences.

Does that mean we should make certain speech illegal? Not necessarily. Does it mean we should curtail the reach of certain speech? I think it is good for Twitter to do this.

The distinction is that speech being possible is different than speech being emphasized or broadcasted.


If we elect a president who does this we already lost as a country.


How so? A more transparent twitter would be better for society. That's what he and Jack are pushing for.


> Jack are pushing for.

Twitter went further down the ideological rabbit hole with Jack at the helm.



And both might be related. Motivation for any billionaire to back Republican top candidates is to repeal all Billionaire Tax legislature that might pass soon.


> ...Billionaire Tax legislature

No such thing will ever happen. This is just political theater for the sake of appeasing the "sour grapes" faction on the left. There is no political will to tax unrealized gains, tax wealth, etc.


I see this move as an opportunity to gatekeep politicians on his platform in exchange for favorable treatment.


Considering we only have 2 political parties in the US, if you oppose the policies of the party in power you only have one other option. I'm a libertarian and don't have a team I root for, but it's a fact that plenty of hyper-wealthy people support the Democrats.


So society is that dependent on twitter?


I don't know where the implication that society is dependent on twitter is hidden in my comment. But no, society isn't dependent on twitter, is it relevant to society? Certainly.


Luckily your stating something with no actual argument points to support your statement doesn't hold any weight whatsoever to whether it has any truth to it or not.


You want argument points to support the idea that Twitter is relevant to society?

It is the fourth most visited site on the internet. It has well over three hundred million active users. It was one of the main methods of communication for the last sitting president of the united states. It is worth more than three billion dollars. It is currently what this subset of society in this thread is discussing because we find it relevant.


My bad, I was thinking of your "and [Elon buying 10% of Twitter is] awful for society" comment - unless I misunderstood what you that was awful for society.


Well, the definition "awful for society" is fairly anecdotal, so my reply won't be able to be built upon hard facts.

But in my opinion, Elon Musk is a very smart man who not only sees, but has reaped massive value from Twitter. He is notable for tweeting misleading information to affect the stock price of his companies. These actions resulted in a lawsuit from the SEC in 2018.

The ripple effects of stock manipulation are hard to directly tie to the concept of "awful for society". But it certainly feels like when money is given one place, it is taken from another. When that transfer of money is based on misinformation, it creates pain. I personally am doubtful that the billionaire feels any of it, but someone else will.

I also don't believe that Musk has learned any lesson from the lawsuit either. He is currently trying to fight the tweet pre-approval stipulation in the courts. Putting a financial investment into the company to me personally, looks like someone who has found, or is looking for a loophole.


So I'm curious then what you think about short sellers who can bet against Elon Musk, and therefore they're financially incentivized to generate negative press (whether factual or not), and that Elon is very vocal against that practice?

I presume you're primarily referencing his "Funding secured" tweet - which arguably with Elon's pretty solid judgement, he may have well had funding secured - say through verbal agreement - just perhaps not through official legal channels?

It's also arguable as to whether what he's said is misleading or not, and which what he says, what the SEC wants him to do vs. what the Constitution gives him the foundational right to do seem to be at odds.

Because you didn't give any specific examples of his supposed misleading, it's hard to actually argue you further.

You also haven't tied anything you said back to how him buying ~10% of Twitter is awful for society though?

You must also dislike Bitcoin then because the vast majority of what people see, that hypes them up to buy into Bitcoin, is shallow propaganda/is highly misleading - and those people ultimately will lose their money once the blockchain designed to mimic MLM-Ponzi schemes collapses?


Yes, the idea of short sellers using nefarious methodologies to provide value for themselves is also "awful". This is essentially the crux of my argument about Elon's usage of twitter. I'm of the mind that more than one awful thing can exist in society at the same time.

I'm sorry that I didn't base my argument on what "he may have well had". But when I think about it that way, sure, he may have well had never done anything wrong. The courts disagree, but they also might not being taking into account what he may have well had.

I tried my best to elaborate on why I felt that him purchasing a stake in twitter was awful for society in my last comment. I am sorry that you didn't find it meaty enough for you to argue on, but perhaps that is for the best.

and yes, I also believe bitcoin and MLM ponzi schemes are also awful.


Twitter is largely responsible for shaping media perspective and narrative, so yea, I'd say society is pretty dependent on twitter.


In what ways do you think having Elon Musk on Twitter's board will be bad for society?


This development makes Trump being reinstated on Twitter more likely. His reinstatement would make a Trump presidency less likely, IMO.

Most people (or at least HNers) would agree that decreasing the likelihood of another Trump presidency would be a good thing.


totally agree. trump not being on twitter is increasing any chance he has in 2024


> This development makes Trump being reinstated on Twitter more likely.

Maybe.

> His reinstatement would make a Trump presidency less likely, IMO.

That's...an interesting opinion, but I don't see any strong reason to believe it is true, or even more likely to be true than the opposite effect.

> Most people (or at least HNers) would agree that decreasing the likelihood of another Trump presidency would be a good thing.

For people (at least, US voters) generally that appears to be less true of Trump than literally every other potential candidate, as Trump currently is both the strongest by far polling candidate for the Republican nomination in 2024 against other potential Republicans and the strongest against potential Democratic opponents, winning my most general election head to head polls.


I understand he polls we’ll head to head, but most Americans would prefer he not be the next president (whether they prefer a democrat, republican, or something else). And I cannot imagine that most HNers want another Trump presidency.

I would speculate that part of the reason he’s polling so well (relatively speaking) right now is that he’s been off twitter for the last year.


> I understand he polls we’ll head to head, but most Americans would prefer he not be the next president

That's true of literally every possible candidate; no candidate is preferred by the majority of people, and Trump is preferred by the largest minority.

> I would speculate that part of the reason he’s polling so well (relatively speaking) right now is that he’s been off twitter for the last year.

I would speculate that almost the entire reason is that he successfully took over the Republican brand and people are dissatisfied with the present conditions, largely due to economic conditions, particularly inflation.


[flagged]


Is Elon a Republican or Conservative? I've seen variations of this regarding balancing ownership and improving free speech, but aside from a few cryptic tweets about cancel culture, has Elon ever said anything? In interviews (especially the famous Rogan interview) he seems pretty disinterested in politics.


Anyone who isn't an outspoken liberal is a conservative. Welcome to American politics.


In America, progressives/leftists actually lump in “liberals” as “conservative” now since traditionally “liberal” means support of typical Enlightenment values, democracy, and free market capitalism. But I’ve noticed that people who vote Republican refer to progressives/leftists as “liberals”, so it’s all very confusing.


I think he's even claimed to be some variant of anarchist. Not that I take that specifically to heart. I just think he's politically eccentric.

Though to the "conservative" or maybe libertarian angle don't forget the "coronavirus panic is dumb" tweet.


Be civil. That is the most uncharitable reading of a comment I’ve seen today.


This is completely my opinion, but I believe people are risking time and capital because they are motivated to get their money laundered cleanly, and at a stable exchange rate.

The Cutest YC Startup in the world can't wipe out the swaths of: illegitimate casinos, drugs dealers, and content for sale so awful I cannot describe it here. The foundational transactions the whole system stands on.


> With the current trend of "self improvement"

Expecting long term income from trend followers.


Thanks you for your contributions and for walking the walk!


And we shall call it:

Real

Simple

Syndication


RSS was only part of the solution, the other half... was Google Reader: the homepage's "Suggested" section learned what you were starring/following and provided new content. I found tons of new stuff to read with that.


RSS is as you mentioned, syndication. Not discovery.

I guess apps like feedly have RSS recommendations, but that's not the same thing.


RSS made building discovery apps extremely easy. Today you can’t aggregate content at all most of the time unless you are the platform.


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: