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Comment Re:Censorship isn't a violation of 1st Amendment (Score 1) 176

Great so we can count on these platforms to ban Rachel Maddow and other conspiracy theorist that think the real world is the Manchurian Candidate?

I believe that if you look it is the liberals who need to think up a new name, because the vast majority of them, who are sane and rational are aghast at the socio-political philosophy being espoused by the identitarian left. When Nancy Pelosi Is the voice of reason you know that the loudest screamers are loony toon.

Comment Re:Totally agree... (Score 1) 176

Not at all.

A private company has the right to control the views expressed on their private platform as long as they do not pretend they are not shilling for one side or the other and as long as they are not a monopoly. If they are a monopoly in their space then they are like the phone company which is not allowed to listen to people's communication or prevent communication which does not break the law. If they are not a monopoly censoring also makes them responsible for the posts of bad actors that are on their side of the political spectrum.

As for government control, I welcome it. The U.S. federal government can only exercise control in conformance to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits them from interfering with free speech, so any government regulation of Facebook or Twitter should require the platforms to only interfere with speech which is illegal, a very small and well defined subset of speech. Typically such violation are enforced in court under incitement to violence laws or civil slander and libel laws. All other speech is protected. So bring on government regulation. It should only make Facebook. Twitter and the others stop censoring.

Comment Re:Totally agree... (Score 1) 176

Exactly. Which is why they keep being dragged before congress to explain themselves. And why when their CEO went on Rogan's podcast he got roasted. On the one hand he says he wants Twitter to be the new public square and that people have a right to be heard and on the other he's censoring speech. His hypocrisy is palpable.

Comment Re: Get this off my Slashdot! (Score 1) 377

True. I also know someone who required full on drug addict style intervention to "get off" WOW.

This still doesn't give a pass to parents who were too disengaged to see this happening to their kids. Way before that they should have noticed that there was a problem and took steps to intervene.

To begin with if everyone eats together almost every night kids don't starve. With the communication tools in existence now between schools and parents there shouldn't be anyone who doesn't know their kid is skipping school. If you watch your kids doing their homework then you know they are not skipping it for gaming. And finally if your kid spends 100% of their non-school time in front of a computer or game console and you are allowing it then you're the problem.

Yes this is only a real addiction for certain people, but good parenting will catch that early and even for non-addicts parents should be limiting time in front of the screen, be it TV, computer ar game console.

Comment Re:Good (Score 1) 102

Whole Foods has high prices because it's it is an example of the sale of Veblen goods, that is people who shop at WF do so because shopping there has snob effect. The fact that things are overpriced is the reason to shop there.

There is the whole "food at WF is more expensive because it is healthier", But that is generally fake science, because there are no actual studies proving that "organic foods" which only have to meet USDA guidelines are actually healthier. The USDA don't require they be healthier, only that they meet certain criteria in how they are raised, which may or may not be healthier than other practices.

So by lowering prices Amazon might just lose customers, since that would mean that the 'little people" could shop there.

Comment Re: Should it be? (Score 1) 322

As someone who has a great respect fro journalist I resent the confluence of the terms Washington Post and journalist in the same sentence.

Real journalists have integrity. Real journalist do research. They have multiple independent sources for their stories. They do not publish 'facts' that they can not verify. They do not conflate opinion and fact without identifying which is which.

More real journalism is being done on YouTube than you will see in the Washington Post if you were to take all of its issues for the past two decades.

And I'm not just talking about conservative sources either. Their is a large contingent of moderate left liberals who are shaking their heads and their fingers at the mainstream media and their identitarian left masters for the lies and propaganda they are spreading.

It might actually save Democracy. The big news media companies are dying. The progressive on-line propaganda sources are dying. Independent journalism might be the thing to reform how journalism is done.

Comment Re: Forgot the Censorship Icon (Score 5, Insightful) 322

The answer to crazy conspiracy theories is not censorship. It is information.

In the United States, because of our cherished First Amendment, there is no such thing as 'Hate Speech'. There is just speech, which is protected. If you don't like what someone is saying then don't listen to them. If you believe that their speech poses a danger to society then use your right to free speech to convince everyone else why they are wrong.

The answer to crazy theories and disgusting rhetoric is intelligent debate. It is not shouting people down, getting people banned, or preventing speech.

When you shut people down and prevent them from speaking what you have done is to leave them only one avenue by which to express themselves, and that is violence.

The monster in NZ states in his manifesto exactly what his plan was. The purpose of his attack was only peripherally to kill people he didn't like. His attack wasn't even directed at NZ, though they have been following his plan as if they were co conspirators of his. His attack was directed at the U.S. His purpose was to push the left into banning weapons, censoring speech and taking away rights, because he knew the left doing this was likely to cause the right to stubbornly resist such actions. Initially politically and legally and eventually violently, should the left persist in their actions to curtail rights. NZ is moving right along that path.

Meanwhile, as everyone here can attest, people who want to see the banned information can see it because The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. (John Gilmore)

Comment Re:Open to abuse (Score 1) 478

I don't see that the number matters, really. Articles I read indicate most are people who voted to stay the first time. One article stated a large group came down from Scotland, which voted to stay. As I recall most of England outside of London voted to leave. London, Ireland and Scotland voted to stay. Total vote was 55 to 45 to leave.

I've seem both sides claim that a revote would produce a win for their side. I've seen the reasons both sides make that claim and am not convinced by either side's argument.

Whatever happens almost 50% of the populous is going to be convinced they were ignored. Culturally that is going to be a problem no matter what happens.

Comment Re:More advantages (Score 1) 444

Most people won't admit it's a mixed bag. If you have good insurance in the U.S. you get better service for many types of treatment, but it might cost you more. I had no wait for my cataract surgery, but it cost me an extra $7000 to get the high tech multifocal lense that my insurance wouldn't cover. Are those lenses even available in Canada, and are they covered by health care?

I have a great drug plan. I get my meds for free because I'm a retired veteran. If I had to pay for them I know I would be paying less for most of them if I was in Canada.

Conversely I can see a specialist just about instantly, sometimes in just a day. I know that's not the case in most of the provinces.

I also wonder how much of a problem Canada has getting doctors to work in the system. I have no idea what a Canadian doctor makes, but I know that UK doctors make between $60,000- $120,000 (equivalent). While a U.S. doctor might make that while they are in training. A fully trained family practitioner in the U.S starts at $189,000. Most specialist make $330,000. A doctor with their own practice is probably a millionaire.

I know one of the Brexit problems is that the UK get a lot of doctors from outside because the pay sucks for a profession that requires +16 years of school and 3-7 more years of OJT.

Comment Re:cut full time down to 30-32 hours and Medicare (Score 1) 470

$32.6 trillion over 10 years for Medicare For All. And that's based on Medicare spending rates, which are 60% of what hospitals and doctors charge private insurance. How do we pay for that? Do you think doctors and hospitals will all accept a 40% cut in revenue (and a much higher cut in actual profit) simply because?

Which is what they do in countries which have 100% coverage. That is why in the UK they are sweating bullets over not having enough doctors and nurses come in from poorer EU countries, because their best doctors leave for higher paying jobs in countries that don't have 100% coverage and they are having problems finding medical students who will go through 12 years of training for what is basically a tenth of what a U.S. doctor makes.

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