Dangerously Divided America

[Doc]

Twitter Public Policy on Internet Free Speech and Elections:

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[Enki]

Zack

Reading your posts with the nested replies really tells me a lot about the Divided America.

Funny bit though, the conversations are about the same as they were 10 years ago.


Something fundamentally shifted though. Authoritarian big tech has a free hand for now because Trump's army of morons overplayed their hand.

People see tyranny with the Parler thing rather than abject incompetence. Apparently Amazon was asking them to moderate the violent speech for a while. It was against the AWS TOS and ironically the Parler TOS as well. But just as Parler didn't keep their user data safe, they couldn't effectively moderate their forum.

We live in a new paradigm now. Trump is probably going to be impeached and will likely lose his trial in the Senate.

If the militias show up at state capitals and DC on the 17th armed, it could be a blood bath. I'm betting on America over the militias though.

Likely being a Trumper will be grounds for denying a security clearance going forward.

The divide in Congress is nuts. With some Congresspeople working with the insurgents and now everyone in the Chambers knowing who is who and what is what.

But the funniest thing is the Trumpers sending death threats to other Trumpers because they think they are secretly Antifa. They can't seem to decide if they are proud of January 6th or they were useful idiots for a Left Wing 5th Column.

The left has never been more united in my life though. Despite the fact that the Progressives didn't force the vote on M4A. The Squad is behind most of the impeachment legislation. If that gets past McConnell, and it actually might, they will have more juice in the party than ever in my lifetime, and 2 years of control of Congress. Of course this makes it existential for the Right. Because if Trumpism is crushed by the establishment, that means a stark turn for the USA.

When people taste Universal Healthcare and start getting those sweet paychecks from whatever Green Infrastructure post Pandemic stimulus, it will be very difficult to change course. Even aging Trumpers will want to keep their government Healthcare when it's saving them $ 5k per year.

It's a knife fight with the window closing on the right really fast. The Right is fractured, and Texas as a Red State has fewer than 10 years. I guess Texans shouldn't have lured Silicon Valley to Austin. If Georgia reinstates the 300,000 suppressed voters, Georgia will be Blue.

The Electoral college is probably toast. The National Popular Vote will likely get some Red State signatories after it locks them out of the White House because they'll start wanting those Republicans in Upstate New York and The Central Valley in California. No path to victory with a blue Texas.

That's assuming we can keep the Republic a little while longer. I'm pretty confident that America will defeat the insurgents though.

[Doc]

Hello Tinker How is the 3d printing biz going?

Zack

Reading your posts with the nested replies really tells me a lot about the Divided America.

Funny bit though, the conversations are about the same as they were 10 years ago.

Trump hasn't been president for10 years Tinker.

[/quote]
Something fundamentally shifted though. Authoritarian big tech has a free hand for now because Trump's army of morons overplayed their hand.

People see tyranny with the Parler thing rather than abject incompetence. Apparently Amazon was asking them to moderate the violent speech for a while. It was against the AWS TOS and ironically the Parler TOS as well. But just as Parler didn't keep their user data safe, they couldn't effectively moderate their forum.

We live in a new paradigm now. Trump is probably going to be impeached and will likely lose his trial in the Senate. [/quote]

It will take 67 votes and more days than are left in his presidency. As the constitution specifically says impeachment is the means to "Remove a *President* from office" I would think it would not be upheld in court. But you never know these days.

[/quote]

If the militias show up at state capitals and DC on the 17th armed, it could be a blood bath. I'm betting on America over the militias though. [/quote]
I could be wrong but I don't see what group or any group that is calling for the protests

Likely being a Trumper will be grounds for denying a security clearance going forward.

Likely such sentiment, like COVID-19 lockdowns, (OH I better ope social media companies don't delete my accounts for saying that) is part of the new fascism

The divide in Congress is nuts. With some Congresspeople working with the insurgents and now everyone in the Chambers knowing who is who and what is what.

The capital unlike the Reichstag didn't burn down in the middle of the night.

But the funniest thing is the Trumpers sending death threats to other Trumpers because they think they are secretly Antifa. They can't seem to decide if they are proud of January 6th or they were useful idiots for a Left Wing 5th Column.

The left has never been more united in my life though. Despite the fact that the Progressives

*viewtopic.php?p=150330#p150330

didn't force the vote on M4A. The Squad is behind most of the impeachment legislation. If that gets past McConnell, and it actually might, they will have more juice in the party than ever in my lifetime, and 2 years of control of Congress. Of course this makes it existential for the Right. Because if Trumpism is crushed by the establishment, that means a stark turn for the USA.

When people taste Universal Healthcare and start getting those sweet paychecks from whatever Green Infrastructure post Pandemic stimulus, it will be very difficult to change course. Even aging Trumpers will want to keep their government Healthcare when it's saving them $ 5k per year.

I'll take my father pre-medicare insurance He showed me the Full medical bill for the Hospital It was $109. Today that bill would be $30,000 a savings of $29,894

It's a knife fight with the window closing on the right really fast. The Right is fractured, and Texas as a Red State has fewer than 10 years. I guess Texans shouldn't have lured Silicon Valley to Austin. If Georgia reinstates the 300,000 suppressed voters, Georgia will be Blue.

The Electoral college is probably toast. The National Popular Vote will likely get some Red State signatories after it locks them out of the White House because they'll start wanting those Republicans in Upstate New York and The Central Valley in California. No path to victory with a blue Texas.

Not going to happen even in your dreams at night. It takes 38 states

[/quote]

That's assuming we can keep the Republic a little while longer. I'm pretty confident that America will defeat the insurgents though.
[/quote]

I figure the current regime won't last 2 years before folks formerly known as the left are the insurgents. But they will be kind of busy trying to find food to eat they can afford.

[Enki]

Hi Doc

Been a while. That 3D printing idea didn't work out. We didn't get the investment capital. We worked on more analytics and web app stuff instead. Bought a house in the country, looking forward to growing some food here soon.

It will be interesting to see what happens soon with the fight against big tech. Hawley was leading that charge from the left and Sanders, Warren and AOC were beating the drum on the left. It might be tough to work across the aisle with Hawley on that now. Big Tech is clearly the winner of all of this. They might have sweeping powers to enforce civility in speech AND have stopped the anti trust movement building against them. Hopefully people will see how stupid it was to play brinksmanship in Congress.

As for the National Popular Vote, the deal is almost done. They are just under the line. A few more states and it is there. With red states looking down the barrel of never electing a President ever again, look for that to shift.

Right now for impeachment, I don't think the timeline is an impediment because the Republican establishment wants him gone, never to return so they might go all the way to barring him from public office. Not that I think there is any hope Trump would ever get elected again.

[Doc]

Hi Doc

Been a while. That 3D printing idea didn't work out. We didn't get the investment capital. We worked on more analytics and web app stuff instead. Bought a house in the country, looking forward to growing some food here soon.

Sorry to hear it didn't work out. I found out a long time ago for every such idea that is gone after about 1 in 10 make it and there are 999 that no one goes after.

Nolan Bushnell interacted on a project with a company I used to work for. He would start 10 projects then see which ones he thought would work out. Bushnell pulled the plug pretty earlier on Which is a disappointment to me as my boss wanted me to challenge Bushnell to a game of GO.

It will be interesting to see what happens soon with the fight against big tech. Hawley was leading that charge from the left and Sanders, Warren and AOC were beating the drum on the left. It might be tough to work across the aisle with Hawley on that now. Big Tech is clearly the winner of all of this. They might have sweeping powers to enforce civility in speech AND have stopped the anti trust movement building against them. Hopefully people will see how stupid it was to play brinksmanship in Congress.

As for the National Popular Vote, the deal is almost done. They are just under the line. A few more states and it is there. With red states looking down the barrel of never electing a President ever again, look for that to shift.

Right now for impeachment, I don't think the timeline is an impediment because the Republican establishment wants him gone, never to return so they might go all the way to barring him from public office. Not that I think there is any hope Trump would ever get elected again.

Trust me, no matter what happens from here on out, it is going to be a disaster. Don't bet the farm on anything outside a source for food and shelter.

[Parodite]

The mess is too big, the political and cultural divide too wide. And with big social tech now on the monopolistic seat of arbiter and censor-executioner it is all a recipe for things getting much worse.

Also, a 4 year gvt term is only functional when you have robust center-left and center-right parties that are also much less serving the money of their super pac donors. As long as legalised bribery runs the show.. count your chances at zero.

A solution, which won't happen either, could be when the 4 year term would be made 8 or even 12 years, with more protections built in to guard constitutional basics especially free speech, and prevent the opposition to burn tax payer money over every fart that is created by the media. No corporation, no society can run itself responsibly and democratically in the current configuration where ALL parameters are off.

I hope the dems will rule 12 years minimum unchallenged. It will force them to back to their senses. Or loose it all forever.

[Doc]

The mess is too big, the political and cultural divide too wide. And with big social tech now on the monopolistic seat of arbiter and censor-executioner it is all a recipe for things getting much worse.

Also, a 4 year gvt term is only functional when you have robust center-left and center-right parties that are also much less serving the money of their super pac donors. As long as legalised bribery runs the show.. count your chances at zero.

A solution, which won't happen either, could be when the 4 year term would be made 8 or even 12 years, with more protections built in to guard constitutional basics especially free speech, and prevent the opposition to burn tax payer money over every fart that is created by the media. No corporation, no society can run itself responsibly and democratically in the current configuration where ALL parameters are off.

I hope the dems will rule 12 years minimum unchallenged. It will force them to back to their senses. Or loose it all forever.

Let me tell you a true story.

In 1927 the Pittsburgh Pirates played the NY Yankees in the world series That was when the Yankees had "Murderers Row" in their batting round up.
A reporter from Pittsburgh got into a conversation with Lou Gehrig. The report told Gehrig that the Pirates had the best set of 7 starting pitchers in the major league.s Gehrig looked at him then turn around and picked up his bat waved in in the direction of the reporter and responded. "What good are your seven starting pitchers going to do in a four game series?" The Yankees won 4-0

That seems to be the situation we are currently in.

[noddy]

nice to see of you again Enki, glad you appear to be doing ok.

i too have recently switched from urban to rural again, probably wont grow food, might setup a distillery however.

im not touching any of these current events with a ten foot pole, but one thing I will note is that both my government and germany have stated they didnt like the big tech takedown of Trump, not because he didnt deserve it, but because silicon valley is wielding the big stick and governments are powerless.

that particular aspect will probably be the biggest takeaway from all this, it will be corrected.

[Simple Minded]

Welcome back Tinker/Enki.

Good to know you are doing well.

Are you still in NY state? If so, what county?

[Simple Minded]

I hope the dems will rule 12 years minimum unchallenged. It will force them to back to their senses. Or loose it all forever.

Yep. Single party control means infighting.

Few organizations once gaining control can avoid the transition from "me and my brother against my cousin" to "me against my brother" after the cousin has been removed from the contest.

America will continues as a hugely diverse country with "millions of cultures." Some areas rising while others decline.

Virtual reality can be uglier than reality, depending upon where one lives.

The clarion calls for "permanent Democrat supermajority" should begin soon. Now that Mr. Perfect has raptured.......

The time lapse maps of red vs. blue America are very interesting.

Politics morphs to reflect the times same as religion. Political parties even more so.

[Simple Minded]

nice to see of you again Enki, glad you appear to be doing ok.

i too have recently switched from urban to rural again, probably wont grow food, might setup a distillery however.

im not touching any of these current events with a ten foot pole, but one thing I will note is that both my government and germany have stated they didnt like the big tech takedown of Trump, not because he didnt deserve it, but because silicon valley is wielding the big stick and governments are powerless.

that particular aspect will probably be the biggest takeaway from all this, it will be corrected.

Cmon buddy jump in, the waters fine. I love your opinions.

Silicon Valley is the new 800 lb gorilla. Interesting to see that other govt leaders fear they may suffer the same fate as Trump and the long time politicos.

Everybody loves training their proxies, but when the proxies get more powerful than the aging former master, few will step down gracefully.

The Generation Gap is eternal. Human nature seems consistent. Always good to look the other guy in the eye when communicating.

Would be a kicker if the unifying effect of the internet was the creation of mini-states. Kinda already exists, except those in the power centers deny it.

[Enki]

noddy I'll probably try my hand at some brewing. I got a Kombucha kit for Christmas from the missus. Mostly looking forward to having all kinds of fresh herbs and vegetables.

simple minded I am in New Mexico now.

I was a little sad to see that Mr. Perfect vanished.

[Enki]

Doc I actually believe the sound will be greater than the fury.

As for Big Tech, sure it's powerful, but Parler being run by clowns is more of the story. They were violating the AWS TOS by not moderating the violent threats. If they wanted to allow people the freedom to make threats, they should have built their own infrastructure and not relied on AWS. But the engineering of Parler was bad at every level as revealed by donk_enby.

The real story we should watch is Signal. There have been efforts to ban commercial encryption for a while. Signal is now being used to organize the upcoming riots. Their ferocity will determine the legal fate of encryption. Ending encryption is a stupid idea, but political leaders may want it if Y'all Qaeda does any real damage.

[Enki]

This is interesting. A lot of Democrats in the House believe that House Republicans were coordinating with the attack on the Capitol. Now Congress has to be screened before entry.

https://www.npr.org/sections/congress-e ... he-capitol

[Enki]

The preparations for the coup and clear collusion by Republican reps are coming to light. Dismantled panic buttons in Democratic House members offices. People who are currently in custody being given reconnaissance tours on the 5th by Republican Congressmen. Republican Congress people directing people during the fight inside the Capitol.

Now they are whining that even Members of Congress are being searched at the door, and that legal firearms are to be kept locked in their offices and not carried on their person.

[Simple Minded]

simple minded I am in New Mexico now.

I was a little sad to see that Mr. Perfect vanished.

Tinker,

I'm glad to hear you got your family out of NYC. Some of my relatives that used to visit NYC all the time now say "I wouldn't dare go there!" IIRC, NM was your home turf.

Regarding Mr. Perfect, God's will. God said the best among us would be raptured.... eventually, and I'll be damned. It happened!

[Simple Minded]

Since Trump is our first Tr-POTUS, I want him to go for broke and get impeached three, count em, three times!

"Go bigly or go home!"

[Enki]

simple minded I am in New Mexico now.

I was a little sad to see that Mr. Perfect vanished.

Tinker,

I'm glad to hear you got your family out of NYC. Some of my relatives that used to visit NYC all the time now say "I wouldn't dare go there!" IIRC, NM was your home turf.

Sorry, your relatives are weak cowards. It's not great to be there because rents are too high and all the benefits are gone. So, "I don't want to go during a Pandemic.", is reasonable. But if they fear to go, that's just silly. It's still less dangerous than it was under Mayor Bloomberg, whom everyone agrees made New York very safe. Violent crime stats for 2020 are like a 50% jump from 2019, but only about 75% as bad as 2010. So the city is safer (other than the plague that's everywhere) than it was at any time they ever visited. Just a bit of right wing superstition on that one. I was in NYC for the entire first wave of the Pandemic. I arrived in NM on October 31st after driving my family across country. But many of the benefits of NYC are gone, while many of the downsides remain. Though it's a lot easier to get around if you have a car. Ironically I bought a car in August of 2019 just in time to use it for a few months and then put it in a lot and never leave the apartment. Nice to have it now though.

And yes, I grew up in New Mexico, my house is about a ten minute drive from my parents house. They still live in the house I grew up in.

Regarding Mr. Perfect, God's will. God said the best among us would be raptured.... eventually, and I'll be damned. It happened!

Does anyone have confirmation that he was called home?

[Doc]

Doc I actually believe the sound will be greater than the fury.

As for Big Tech, sure it's powerful, but Parler being run by clowns is more of the story. They were violating the AWS TOS by not moderating the violent threats. If they wanted to allow people the freedom to make threats, they should have built their own infrastructure and not relied on AWS. But the engineering of Parler was bad at every level as revealed by donk_enby.

The real story we should watch is Signal. There have been efforts to ban commercial encryption for a while. Signal is now being used to organize the upcoming riots. Their ferocity will determine the legal fate of encryption. Ending encryption is a stupid idea, but political leaders may want it if Y'all Qaeda does any real damage.

Actually Parler did have a moderation system and were ramping their moderation system. The real story is that Twitter just signed a huge deal to use AWS as their cloud provider and Amazon is looking at some hot water in court over that. It is called collusion. If it is proven in court that will be more of a disaster for Amazon then they are already encountering due to the loss of trust of their customers including governments of other countries .

Amazon also has a $600 million no bid contract to provide cloud services to the Federal government. That is being expanded to billions this year. Imagine if Amazon suddenly pulled their contract with the federal government because the CCP made them a better offer?

[Enki]

Actually Parler did have a moderation system and were ramping their moderation system. The real story is that Twitter just signed a huge deal to use AWS as their cloud provider and Amazon is looking at some hot water in court over that. It is called collusion. If it is proven in court that will be more of a disaster for Amazon then they are already encountering due to the loss of trust of their customers including governments of other countries .

I don't buy that the Twitter deal had anything to do with it. That's just some convenient circumstantial nonsense.

Bottom line, Parler ran everything poorly. They didn't get their moderation in place in time to avoid a catastrophe, despite being warned for months by their provider that it was essential. They didn't make continuity of service contingencies with the knowledge that AWS might stop working with them.

Amazon isn't in hot water at all. Parler is a rounding error for Amazon.

I hope that this leads to a diversification of back-end web hosting providers. That would be great. But I seriously doubt that banning services that cater to terrorist cells will be looked at that poorly globally. If anything many governments will be happy knowing that Amazon won't be aiding and abetting separatists trying to overthrow the government. For better or worse.

Amazon also has a $600 million no bid contract to provide cloud services to the Federal government. That is being expanded to billions this year. Imagine if Amazon suddenly pulled their contract with the federal government because the CCP made them a better offer?

I don't think that's really on the table.

[Doc]

Actually Parler did have a moderation system and were ramping their moderation system. The real story is that Twitter just signed a huge deal to use AWS as their cloud provider and Amazon is looking at some hot water in court over that. It is called collusion. If it is proven in court that will be more of a disaster for Amazon then they are already encountering due to the loss of trust of their customers including governments of other countries .

I don't buy that the Twitter deal had anything to do with it. That's just some convenient circumstantial nonsense.

Bottom line, Parler ran everything poorly. They didn't get their moderation in place in time to avoid a catastrophe, despite being warned for months by their provider that it was essential. They didn't make continuity of service contingencies with the knowledge that AWS might stop working with them.

Amazon isn't in hot water at all. Parler is a rounding error for Amazon.

I hope that this leads to a diversification of back-end web hosting providers. That would be great. But I seriously doubt that banning services that cater to terrorist cells will be looked at that poorly globally. If anything many governments will be happy knowing that Amazon won't be aiding and abetting separatists trying to overthrow the government. For better or worse.

Amazon also has a $600 million no bid contract to provide cloud services to the Federal government. That is being expanded to billions this year. Imagine if Amazon suddenly pulled their contract with the federal government because the CCP made them a better offer?

I don't think that's really on the table.

It is in the law suit. Amazon has been previously accused of presenting it in house products over the products their client vendors are selling. Whose customers Amazon has the information of who they are.

In other words Amazon is charging companies to sell those companies products and using the information of those businesses to destroy their businesses Not sure if that is illegal but it is certainly unethical as hell. Probably violates anti trust law as well.

What has really been on the table is our tech tyrants and wall street investment banks have made an extra $650 billion dollars in profit year over year during the covid shut downs. Meanwhile the lower working class has made 40% less in income.

Between Walmart and Amazon being the only places to buy a lot of things for most of the past year sooner or later something is really seriously going to break.

Think about it which is better with respect to transmitting Covid? Walmart being open with 100's in its stores(and reducing store hours to create larger numbers in the same limited hours because it sells groceries and home goods? Or smaller stores not selling groceries with far less people in them at any given time.?

This doesn't even cover the ridiculous amounts of money the big banks are making from the stimulus bills.

[noddy]

going with Amazon was silly.

the only reason AWS and Azure and all that exist is because those companies realised the distributed architecture they needed for their own websites was a useful product in its own right.

its actually not that hard, with the budget that Parler allegedly had, to build your own if you have the quality techies to handle it.

all the replication and load balancing is builtin to the servers now.

mr p got bored with the lack of righteousness in this place - he popped in from time to time to have a shitfight over evolution for the amusement of it and that was about it.

[noddy]

nice to see of you again Enki, glad you appear to be doing ok.

i too have recently switched from urban to rural again, probably wont grow food, might setup a distillery however.

im not touching any of these current events with a ten foot pole, but one thing I will note is that both my government and germany have stated they didnt like the big tech takedown of Trump, not because he didnt deserve it, but because silicon valley is wielding the big stick and governments are powerless.

that particular aspect will probably be the biggest takeaway from all this, it will be corrected.

Cmon buddy jump in, the waters fine. I love your opinions.

Silicon Valley is the new 800 lb gorilla. Interesting to see that other govt leaders fear they may suffer the same fate as Trump and the long time politicos.

Everybody loves training their proxies, but when the proxies get more powerful than the aging former master, few will step down gracefully.

The Generation Gap is eternal. Human nature seems consistent. Always good to look the other guy in the eye when communicating.

Would be a kicker if the unifying effect of the internet was the creation of mini-states. Kinda already exists, except those in the power centers deny it.

in the grand scheme of things, the only bit im interested in is the relationship between globalist big tech and local governments.

the rest is all paranoia and noise - its not like the 70 million trump voters are going anywhere just because they got rid of trump.

ive argued with plenty of american right about the need for net neutrality and non corporate controlled infrastructure - their religion does not allow for that conversation to happen, this is what it is.

[Enki]

Doc

I am totally with you on the idiocy of constraining hours.

I haven't been anywhere that stops small stores from being open though. I don't know where that's a thing.

It wasn't in Manhattan and it's not in New Mexico.

[Enki]

noddy

Parler would be smart to build a big data center in a depressed redder than red county.

Facebook just built one in my hometown. Increased the price of my house by like 10%.