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Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales Is Now Chairing Lessig's Presidential Bid
Funksaw sends a followup to Tuesday's news that Lawrence Lessig is pondering a presidential campaign: Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is now chairing the committee for Lessig's campaign. Wales said, "Larry's run for President is different. He's crowdfunding his campaign instead of seeking out rich donors. He's showing people that we can change the rigged political system. ... The Internet community came together to fight back against SOPA and we were successful. Now we’re behind Lessig to fight for citizen equality." Lessig's goal is to raise a million dollars by September 7, and they're already at roughly $300,000. Relatedly, Newsweek had a brief interview with Lessig over his potential campaign, and Eric Posner wrote an insightful piece about it at Slate.
Jeez, this is like reading Xinhua News. Just a collective ignoring of the fact that all these people are on the far left of politics, and instead pretending that "the internet community" is some sort of monolithic bloc that supports this. SOPA wasn't a divisive issue, it was something everyone could get behind. But come on, simply presenting statements like "Now we're behind Lessig to fight for citizen equality" with no context? Look at how it assumes the sale and doesn't give anyone the chance to raise objections. If you're not for these hard-leftists, you must be against citizen equality. Man, I feel really despicable being against citizen equality.
If you read a lot of Xinhua like I do, this is a common occurrence. They will simply ignore important context and call everyone to action. The obvious questions that everyone sitting at home is asking? Unanswered. In Xinhua's defense, they regularly receive instructions from the Communist Party instructing them to leave important information out of their stories. Western journalists are under no such oppressive restrictions and deliberately do such things of their own free will. Which system is worse?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Why is /. giving this guy so much news space? Isn't this place news for nerds? Something has to be going on in the STEM world.
I'm probably feeding the troll here ( in the classic sense). But Larry Lessig is an absolute giant in the STEM world.
Pretty much everything we do in the STEM world is shaped by "intellectual property" law. Not so long ago Larry Lessig threw his heart and soul into trying to get some sanity back into copyright law - ending perpetual extensions of copyright and returning copyright to it's original purpose of giving people the incentive to create things that would then enter the public domain within a reasonable time frame.
Unfortunately, Larry lost that fight - essentially the corporations like Disney won. Not so long ago, Kings owned all the land and were able to use that ownership to exploit pretty much everyone else (i.e. the ordinary people / peasants). But now it's not the land that's valuable, it's the ideas - the "intellectual property" that's valuable.
Back in the day there were plenty of peasants who believed in the divine right of kings - that the more powerful a king was and the more he used his power to enrich himself the better. These days there are plenty of people who believe that CEOs should have even more power (e.g. less government restrictions of their treatment of the ordinary people working in their corporations) and that CEOs should be paid even more.
So, you may agree with Larry Lessig or you may not, but if ever there was a presidential candidate who was focused on issues that are relevant to "nerds" - well, that would be Larry Lessig. There's a good chance you were trolling and I got all wound up and took the bait - but if you really don't know why a run by Larry Lessig would be news for nerds then you don't deserve to call yourself a nerd.
Trump is selling low taxes, greatness deserved by lethargic individuals for simply having been squeezed from a vagina in such a manor as to qualify for US citizenship, and of course hate and fear.
Lets be honest, wasting time and money to beat Trump is futile. You simply can't prevail over stupid.
Oh... I feel with absolute certainty that Trump is the optimal representative of the vast majority of the American people. I will actually register to vote for the first time and vote for him. I hate his guts, I believe he's dangerous, I dread everything about him... but I believe he is very likely the huge kick in the ass America needs to finally understand that America needs an overhaul.
Oh... I also like GWB quite a bit and think he deserves either Jeb or Trump to win so he won't be considered the worst president since LBJ