So far the funniest comment I've been able to find, but the broken moderation isn't helping much. I remember wittier days of slashdot. Increasingly vaguely, but at least I still think I remember.
By the way, the nub of your joke was the kernel of my earlier comment. If slashdot was actually open to improvements, one of the improvements I would be most eager to help fund would have been dynamic search. As it would have applied in this case, I hope it might have motivated you to link your joke to my comment, or perhaps even make a pointier joke, even if it were at my expense.
Another aspect of the failure of slashdot is so-called conversations like that one. I'm convinced it's a Trumpist who is at least smart enough to duck the question, and there is no reason to pay further attention.
My problem is that I can't see problems except in terms of solutions. Now imagine that slashdot had an economic model that supported financial incentives for sincere and honest conversations? I think replies like that anonymous bit of garbage would be much less common. Not saying that such comments would go away completely, but at least they would contribute to the benefit of OTHER people.
If you want to understand, then ask a relevant question.
From your so-called reply I think you can't understand and have probably never heard of Heinlein.
Alternative explanation is that you were trying to reply to some other comment but clicked in the wrong place and the apparently relevant words were just serendipitous. Seems unlikely it was serendipitous analysis.
After a few hundred more comments had been added, I came back to look things over. This time I focused on the comments that had received positive moderations.
Personally, I used to like slashdot for the "funny" comments, but these days, not so much. There was one vaguely and slightly funny vague joke. So much for "funny".
The "interesting" and "informative" comments were slightly. There were quite a number of "insightful" comments, and most of them were relatively good, though I personally only regarded two or three of them as truly rising to the level of insight. There was at least one comment that noted the relationship between Brexit and the rise of Trump in the States.
Of course I have to add the sour-grapes disclaimer that my comment had not received any favorable moderation, but it wasn't a very visible comment. Lost in a long and wandering discussion, and losing a precious score point for being a bit too long for the tastes of whoever decided what a "long comment" is. Hey, I could have made it longer or shorter, but why care? This is slashdot, and in a few hours this entire discussion will vanish into the black hole.
If slashdot had a better economic model, one of the features I'd like to put a few bucks behind would be a dynamic search capability. As it would have applied in this case, it might have helped me position my comment in a more relevant place in the discussion, perhaps as a reply to the insightful comment I already mentioned...
There are a number of obvious contributing factors to Brexit. Nationalism and selfishness are two of the most obvious.
So let's consider the enlightened discussion here on slashdot, this bastion of intellectual turmoil and whatever.
There have been several hundred comments so far. No mention of "nationalism" yet appears. One marginally related but tangential mention of "selfish" and no mentions of "selfishness". Maybe there are some hidden references, but then their invisibility reflects the failure of the moderation system. However, I think Brexit reflects a larger failure of journalism in general and a more specific failure of slashdot in particular.
People who were capable of thinking about the future would not vote in favor of fracturing Europe. They would have been able to put the broader long-term interests of their own grandchildren ahead of their various minor terrors of foreigners stealing their jobs, especially considering that if 52% hated the EU I'd bet that a much higher percentage hate their own jobs and ought to be glad if some immigrants would steal them.
Same rise of ignorant short-sighted stupidity has made it possible for the Donald of Trump to become a serious contender for the presidency, squatting on his bizarre high chair that he imagines as a throne. Don't look too closely at the legs: One leg for the government haters, one for the Hillary haters, a leg of bigots, and a last leg of overt racists. Yeah, a few Trumpists are smart enough to try to talk nice, but scratch a Trump supporter and you find a hater.
My problem with all of this is that I'm a believer in enlightened self-interest (per Heinlein, even). If people see sufficiently large pictures, then they will see how their private and national selfishness has to be limited for the long-term survival of the human species.
Why don't they see the large pictures? I think it's mostly because the existing economic models, including slashdot's pitiful economic models, drive them to short-term BS journalism and reality TV. Brexit and Trumpism are just natural outcomes. Gawd save us all, but he won't. (Even if he existed, it would be a breach of his divinely insane plan.)
Hmm... Off topic, as you noted, but since you ask politely...
I guess I can say that I go way back with Sony. The founder Akio Morita wrote a book called "Made in Japan" that helped persuade me to move here. He got sick not long after I arrived, but when I was digging through some of my old correspondence I actually found that we exchanged a bit of snail mail about the book. He was one of those cases of someone who was extremely easy to respect. Perhaps more importantly for Sony, he also had great taste in new and innovative products. I believe the gradual aging and retiring of his proteges is directly linked to the decline in truly breakthrough products from Sony. When I was diversifying my investments, of course I was going to include some Sony stock.
The Sony meetings were usually interesting and entertaining, even before the hard times came. Good gifts, too. Later on, someone I had worked pretty closely with was on the board of directors, so it was interesting to watch that. She left the board, but I just saw her on Facebook in a picture with another old coworker, so it's nice to see she's still doing well. (I still think the company we worked for should stop treating older people like 4-year-old computers with no residual value... People are different and Moore's Law should not apply.) These days, I think I'm going mostly for the circuses, however.
As you noted, most such meetings are pretty boring. Fujitsu and NEC have been reliably boring at every meeting I can recall, though Fujitsu gave better gifts. Toshiba was boring with a so-so gift, but I was annoyed that I couldn't attend their meeting this year. Given their little problems, it could have been another entertaining one...
Long ago Sony very much wanted to be a more international company, but I think they are going backwards... Maybe that's natural as China rises and Japan sinks?
No, I do NOT speak Japanese, but was there any point to your so-called reply other than showing off you don't read very well?
(Actually, I was quite annoyed that I couldn't even figure out what the heckler and the CEO were shouting at each other. There was a key word that I didn't recognize. However, their argument seemed much more focused that the similar event of two years ago, which basically seemed to be an argument that Stringer should retire immediately to take responsibility for the problems of that time. Stringer was NOT Japanese and he was NOT going to do the proper Japanese thing.)
Anyway, let's pretend your inquiry was sincere. In that case, the subject of pending lawsuits and possible substantial negative judgements against the company is a highly germane topic. The tone of the article was to argue that this "Debacle" was resulting in a substantial negative judgement against Sony, but I saw and heard no evidence to that effect at the meeting. Obviously, the negative judgement was also quite imminent.
Actually, I was hoping someone would have some useful information about something, but that isn't likely in today's slashdot, is it? Someone who actually reads Japanese well and who kept their information from the shareholders meeting could quickly determine whether or not this so-called "Debacle" got any mention at all.
Pretty sure this mid-sized fiasco wasn't mentioned at the Sony shareholders meeting on the 17th. Unfortunately, my Japanese isn't that good, so I could have missed it, and I've already discarded the documents.
Only memorable thing at this year's meeting was the late start. Some old fellow charged the stage and got in a shouting match with the CEO for several minutes before they could persuade him to leave. Not sure, but he might have been the same crackpot who was blocked about 5 rows back two or three years ago. I was seated on that side, but around the 12th row that year. In between, there were two minor ruckuses (ruckii?) at the meeting last year, but this year the overall tone of the shareholders seemed to be much more placid, if not downright bucolic.
Actually, one more thing comes to mind. Seemed rather more intensely Japanese this year than in some past years. Still no gift for attending, but they did bring back the exhibition of new products.
(I attended the NEC shareholders' meeting yesterday, and that one was seriously forgettable. Used to be that all of them were on the same day...)
Natural result of pandering to the users in search of more money. The original idea (back in the ancient days of "Don't be evil") was that the google would help solve the problems of the world.
Mission creep. The new problem became how to make more money, and the answer is "NEVER enough money." Not a solvable problem, but censorship for profit is just one part of the result. Along with the support for spammers and scammers and various other business partners of the new google.
The part that bothers me is the new corporate motto: "All your attention are belong to us google."
My time was precious, but now it's just part of the market cap of such monstrosities as the google, Facebook, and Amazon.
Perhaps more amazing or a testimonial to the current state of slashdot is a lack of "dupe" among the visible comments.
So I scanned the insightful comments. Is it the broken moderation system, lousy moderators, or just a general lack of moderation points? Didn't find much in the way of insight with that tag.
Closest bit was a reference to the need for security. Sorry, NOT insightful.
Insightful would have been an analysis of the drive for flash over substance, as driven by advertiser eyeballs.
Even deeper insight might have considered how the lack of liability for security failures and bugs drove the Internet (in particular and most software in general) down the rathole of phucking the users.
In the end, we wind up with a world dominated by the google's operative motto: "All your attention are belong to us." However, Amazon is probably worse. Did that make you feel better? Also, welcome to Trump's world.
My conspiracy theory is that if he sincerely wants to destroy America, he was praying for Trump to win. He was afraid that Trump's big speech was finally going to destroy the bizarre candidacy, so he decided he needed to attack now and change the channel.
As far as Trump's crazy call to close the borders against Muslims, repeated after the latest mass shooting by a lunatic, it was absolutely off topic. The guy was BORN in America.
The interesting question is why are immigrants failing to become Americans these days. I'd like to ask George Takei why he is so patriotic towards a nation that treated him and his family so badly.
My theory is that some of the trolls have squads of automated sock puppet accounts that are just active enough to earn some mod points. When they see a post they don't like, they use the puppets that have today's mod points to target it.
However, the entire mod system is so badly broken that it scarcely matters. And the new ownership has been in place long enough to say that no significant changes are likely to happen before you have to stop holding your breath.
In addition, I think Godwin's Law is overdue for repeal.
How would you know? The low user ID suggests he should know how slashdot works, though I have no idea of any way to see the source of mods.
Oh wait, you're one of the new owners.
Anyway, the mod system remains one of the largest rooms for improvement on slashdot. Wasting the keystrokes, but the user mods and comment mods should be more clearly related and the dimensions of evaluation should be more clearly orthogonal. I also think the visible scoring should be logarithmic and the power of moderation should be related to a user's own reputation. Etc.
I forgot to mention that much of the Facebook-driven spam must have involved a breach of the email address used in my original Facebook registration. I actually joined on a school basis before the open registration period began. From checking my Facebook user ID, I see it was school #31 (since Harvard was #1 but given the 0 number).
Some of the recent Facebook-driven spam is coming the same routing, but the evidence is mixed as to whether they are ongoing breaches or just address sharing among spammers and scammers of similar mindsets. The main linking characteristics are the origins of the spam and the use of Facebook pages for harvesting.
While I am politically somewhat active, I absolutely would NOT trust Facebook for such purposes. Not even if I was certain that my politics were in personal alignment with the Facebook honchos, and I know they are not.
Do you have any constructive contribution to the topic? Let's start by asking if you've ever heard of Dunbar's number? If so (and I think it quite unlikely), then do you have anything to say about how it applies to Facebook and the travesty known as "friendship" a la Facebook?
I wasn't joking about feeling like I am betraying a friend's privacy if I "friend" that person on Facebook. I only do it if (a) it's a real friend (which actually makes it worse) and (b) the friend insists.
I think I have issued a few "friend" requests on Facebook, but always with regret and only if I think there are good and sufficient reasons to initiate contact via that channel. Of course I also reject most friend requests directed at me, but most of them are from hookers anyway. Another easy solution exists, but again Facebook doesn't care.
Facebook = SPAM and I'm not interested in reading any farther. The ONLY Facebook news I'm interested in is anti-spam news.
You can make a legitimate argument that the onsite ads are not spam, no matter how unsolicited or offensive they are. When you visit the SpamBook website... Oh, I mean Facebook, you know that the ads are there to pay for your "free" fun. If you think a bit more, you should realize that the relatively high value of those ads is mostly based on abusing your personal information, which should make you think more.
It's not just the information about your tastes, interests, past clicks, strengths, and whatever else they can milk out of your usage of the Facebook website, but more seriously the information they can harvest from your friends. Don't you feel like you are betraying your friends every time you link to someone on Facebook? You should.
The spam that offends me more is actually off the Spam-site. Er... I meant Facebook website again. Easiest example is emailed ads that harvest the money via Facebook pages the scammy businesses are pimping with their spam. This is actually an easy one for Facebook to cure, if only they cared that much. If Facebook receives a copy of such spam, they should notify the spammer to cease and desist or the Facebook page will be removed. If Facebook receives a second complaint of fresh spam sent to that person or a blizzard of spam from other people, then the Facebook page will be nuked. Problem solved.
Lots of other examples, but mostly I regard Facebook as a classic example of bad economic models run amok.
It is a real concern if the overt authoritarians are numerous enough, but usually they are a relatively small minority. To win an actual election they must discourage their opponents from voting or somehow obtain a lot of less overtly fascist support. The discouragement approach might involve threats, disenfranchisement, or even propaganda to create an atmosphere of desperation or hopelessness among their opponents. The other approach may use coalitions or secretive supporters (who can often be shamed, which was the focus of my comment).
Plausible, but I'm not sure he could have been so naive about the snake oil he was selling. It kind of depends if he's more of a salesman or a con artist.
As a salesman, Trump would focus more on listening to what the customers want, and the so-called Republican primary voters have been quite clear on what they want, even if their clarity is often incoherent and contradictory. Some salesmen don't mind selling on both sides to different customers.
As a con man, the Donald would be more focused on actively persuading the suckers to trust him, to feel the confidence in him that they needed to give him their money or votes. Trump University is just one impressive example of a big con, but he's been involved in plenty of other scams.
Kind of hard to see clearly in the clouds of data and obfuscation, but I think Trump's overall track record is pretty clearly on side of con man.
Of course, people also hate lawyers, so it isn't helping Hillary that she's a lawyer at heart.
I basically agree with you on the dynasty thing, but I don't really blame Hillary for the failure of the Democratic Party to produce more and better candidates. I think they had a number of good ones, but the big-money political machine basically shut them down before they could even give it a shot. Not that it was better on the so-called Republican side, where they suffered from an embarrassment of anti-riches (including some with lots of money behind them), with most of the initial candidates highly unqualified for the office, even by the low-bar standards of Dubya and Dan Quayle.
By the way, I'm bringing Quayle back from the dead because that was the presidential decision that convinced me the modern so-called Republican Party had gone beyond caring about the good of the nation and was focused on partisan politics above all else. As silly as the office of the VP is supposed to be (and regarding the big dick Cheney as an aberration in that way, too), the VP is generally supposed to get SOME consideration as a future presidential candidate.
Slashdot Mirror
So far the funniest comment I've been able to find, but the broken moderation isn't helping much. I remember wittier days of slashdot. Increasingly vaguely, but at least I still think I remember.
By the way, the nub of your joke was the kernel of my earlier comment. If slashdot was actually open to improvements, one of the improvements I would be most eager to help fund would have been dynamic search. As it would have applied in this case, I hope it might have motivated you to link your joke to my comment, or perhaps even make a pointier joke, even if it were at my expense.
Another oh-so-thoughtful response. On that evidence, I have to conclude you're a Trump supporter, and my only question is "Who do you hate most?"
Very thoughtful response. Based on that evidence, must be a Trump supporter, so I have a question for you: Who do you hate most?
Since you're obviously a Trump voter, I'm only interested in your answer to one question: Who do you hate most?
Another aspect of the failure of slashdot is so-called conversations like that one. I'm convinced it's a Trumpist who is at least smart enough to duck the question, and there is no reason to pay further attention.
My problem is that I can't see problems except in terms of solutions. Now imagine that slashdot had an economic model that supported financial incentives for sincere and honest conversations? I think replies like that anonymous bit of garbage would be much less common. Not saying that such comments would go away completely, but at least they would contribute to the benefit of OTHER people.
What are you trying to say? Your reply seems rather surreal or incoherent.
Seeking clarity, I think there are two questions that might clarify your position.
(1) What are your primary sources of information?
(2) Are you leading into supporting Trump?
If you want to understand, then ask a relevant question.
From your so-called reply I think you can't understand and have probably never heard of Heinlein.
Alternative explanation is that you were trying to reply to some other comment but clicked in the wrong place and the apparently relevant words were just serendipitous. Seems unlikely it was serendipitous analysis.
After a few hundred more comments had been added, I came back to look things over. This time I focused on the comments that had received positive moderations.
Personally, I used to like slashdot for the "funny" comments, but these days, not so much. There was one vaguely and slightly funny vague joke. So much for "funny".
The "interesting" and "informative" comments were slightly. There were quite a number of "insightful" comments, and most of them were relatively good, though I personally only regarded two or three of them as truly rising to the level of insight. There was at least one comment that noted the relationship between Brexit and the rise of Trump in the States.
Of course I have to add the sour-grapes disclaimer that my comment had not received any favorable moderation, but it wasn't a very visible comment. Lost in a long and wandering discussion, and losing a precious score point for being a bit too long for the tastes of whoever decided what a "long comment" is. Hey, I could have made it longer or shorter, but why care? This is slashdot, and in a few hours this entire discussion will vanish into the black hole.
If slashdot had a better economic model, one of the features I'd like to put a few bucks behind would be a dynamic search capability. As it would have applied in this case, it might have helped me position my comment in a more relevant place in the discussion, perhaps as a reply to the insightful comment I already mentioned...
There are a number of obvious contributing factors to Brexit. Nationalism and selfishness are two of the most obvious.
So let's consider the enlightened discussion here on slashdot, this bastion of intellectual turmoil and whatever.
There have been several hundred comments so far. No mention of "nationalism" yet appears. One marginally related but tangential mention of "selfish" and no mentions of "selfishness". Maybe there are some hidden references, but then their invisibility reflects the failure of the moderation system. However, I think Brexit reflects a larger failure of journalism in general and a more specific failure of slashdot in particular.
People who were capable of thinking about the future would not vote in favor of fracturing Europe. They would have been able to put the broader long-term interests of their own grandchildren ahead of their various minor terrors of foreigners stealing their jobs, especially considering that if 52% hated the EU I'd bet that a much higher percentage hate their own jobs and ought to be glad if some immigrants would steal them.
Same rise of ignorant short-sighted stupidity has made it possible for the Donald of Trump to become a serious contender for the presidency, squatting on his bizarre high chair that he imagines as a throne. Don't look too closely at the legs: One leg for the government haters, one for the Hillary haters, a leg of bigots, and a last leg of overt racists. Yeah, a few Trumpists are smart enough to try to talk nice, but scratch a Trump supporter and you find a hater.
My problem with all of this is that I'm a believer in enlightened self-interest (per Heinlein, even). If people see sufficiently large pictures, then they will see how their private and national selfishness has to be limited for the long-term survival of the human species.
Why don't they see the large pictures? I think it's mostly because the existing economic models, including slashdot's pitiful economic models, drive them to short-term BS journalism and reality TV. Brexit and Trumpism are just natural outcomes. Gawd save us all, but he won't. (Even if he existed, it would be a breach of his divinely insane plan.)
Hmm... Off topic, as you noted, but since you ask politely...
I guess I can say that I go way back with Sony. The founder Akio Morita wrote a book called "Made in Japan" that helped persuade me to move here. He got sick not long after I arrived, but when I was digging through some of my old correspondence I actually found that we exchanged a bit of snail mail about the book. He was one of those cases of someone who was extremely easy to respect. Perhaps more importantly for Sony, he also had great taste in new and innovative products. I believe the gradual aging and retiring of his proteges is directly linked to the decline in truly breakthrough products from Sony. When I was diversifying my investments, of course I was going to include some Sony stock.
The Sony meetings were usually interesting and entertaining, even before the hard times came. Good gifts, too. Later on, someone I had worked pretty closely with was on the board of directors, so it was interesting to watch that. She left the board, but I just saw her on Facebook in a picture with another old coworker, so it's nice to see she's still doing well. (I still think the company we worked for should stop treating older people like 4-year-old computers with no residual value... People are different and Moore's Law should not apply.) These days, I think I'm going mostly for the circuses, however.
As you noted, most such meetings are pretty boring. Fujitsu and NEC have been reliably boring at every meeting I can recall, though Fujitsu gave better gifts. Toshiba was boring with a so-so gift, but I was annoyed that I couldn't attend their meeting this year. Given their little problems, it could have been another entertaining one...
Long ago Sony very much wanted to be a more international company, but I think they are going backwards... Maybe that's natural as China rises and Japan sinks?
No, I do NOT speak Japanese, but was there any point to your so-called reply other than showing off you don't read very well?
(Actually, I was quite annoyed that I couldn't even figure out what the heckler and the CEO were shouting at each other. There was a key word that I didn't recognize. However, their argument seemed much more focused that the similar event of two years ago, which basically seemed to be an argument that Stringer should retire immediately to take responsibility for the problems of that time. Stringer was NOT Japanese and he was NOT going to do the proper Japanese thing.)
Anyway, let's pretend your inquiry was sincere. In that case, the subject of pending lawsuits and possible substantial negative judgements against the company is a highly germane topic. The tone of the article was to argue that this "Debacle" was resulting in a substantial negative judgement against Sony, but I saw and heard no evidence to that effect at the meeting. Obviously, the negative judgement was also quite imminent.
Actually, I was hoping someone would have some useful information about something, but that isn't likely in today's slashdot, is it? Someone who actually reads Japanese well and who kept their information from the shareholders meeting could quickly determine whether or not this so-called "Debacle" got any mention at all.
Pretty sure this mid-sized fiasco wasn't mentioned at the Sony shareholders meeting on the 17th. Unfortunately, my Japanese isn't that good, so I could have missed it, and I've already discarded the documents.
Only memorable thing at this year's meeting was the late start. Some old fellow charged the stage and got in a shouting match with the CEO for several minutes before they could persuade him to leave. Not sure, but he might have been the same crackpot who was blocked about 5 rows back two or three years ago. I was seated on that side, but around the 12th row that year. In between, there were two minor ruckuses (ruckii?) at the meeting last year, but this year the overall tone of the shareholders seemed to be much more placid, if not downright bucolic.
Actually, one more thing comes to mind. Seemed rather more intensely Japanese this year than in some past years. Still no gift for attending, but they did bring back the exhibition of new products.
(I attended the NEC shareholders' meeting yesterday, and that one was seriously forgettable. Used to be that all of them were on the same day...)
Natural result of pandering to the users in search of more money. The original idea (back in the ancient days of "Don't be evil") was that the google would help solve the problems of the world.
Mission creep. The new problem became how to make more money, and the answer is "NEVER enough money." Not a solvable problem, but censorship for profit is just one part of the result. Along with the support for spammers and scammers and various other business partners of the new google.
The part that bothers me is the new corporate motto: "All your attention are belong to us google."
My time was precious, but now it's just part of the market cap of such monstrosities as the google, Facebook, and Amazon.
This is news exactly how?
Perhaps more amazing or a testimonial to the current state of slashdot is a lack of "dupe" among the visible comments.
So I scanned the insightful comments. Is it the broken moderation system, lousy moderators, or just a general lack of moderation points? Didn't find much in the way of insight with that tag.
Closest bit was a reference to the need for security. Sorry, NOT insightful.
Insightful would have been an analysis of the drive for flash over substance, as driven by advertiser eyeballs.
Even deeper insight might have considered how the lack of liability for security failures and bugs drove the Internet (in particular and most software in general) down the rathole of phucking the users.
In the end, we wind up with a world dominated by the google's operative motto: "All your attention are belong to us." However, Amazon is probably worse. Did that make you feel better? Also, welcome to Trump's world.
Why isn't this comment modded up?
Broken moderation again.
My conspiracy theory is that if he sincerely wants to destroy America, he was praying for Trump to win. He was afraid that Trump's big speech was finally going to destroy the bizarre candidacy, so he decided he needed to attack now and change the channel.
As far as Trump's crazy call to close the borders against Muslims, repeated after the latest mass shooting by a lunatic, it was absolutely off topic. The guy was BORN in America.
The interesting question is why are immigrants failing to become Americans these days. I'd like to ask George Takei why he is so patriotic towards a nation that treated him and his family so badly.
My theory is that some of the trolls have squads of automated sock puppet accounts that are just active enough to earn some mod points. When they see a post they don't like, they use the puppets that have today's mod points to target it.
However, the entire mod system is so badly broken that it scarcely matters. And the new ownership has been in place long enough to say that no significant changes are likely to happen before you have to stop holding your breath.
In addition, I think Godwin's Law is overdue for repeal.
How would you know? The low user ID suggests he should know how slashdot works, though I have no idea of any way to see the source of mods.
Oh wait, you're one of the new owners.
Anyway, the mod system remains one of the largest rooms for improvement on slashdot. Wasting the keystrokes, but the user mods and comment mods should be more clearly related and the dimensions of evaluation should be more clearly orthogonal. I also think the visible scoring should be logarithmic and the power of moderation should be related to a user's own reputation. Etc.
I forgot to mention that much of the Facebook-driven spam must have involved a breach of the email address used in my original Facebook registration. I actually joined on a school basis before the open registration period began. From checking my Facebook user ID, I see it was school #31 (since Harvard was #1 but given the 0 number).
Some of the recent Facebook-driven spam is coming the same routing, but the evidence is mixed as to whether they are ongoing breaches or just address sharing among spammers and scammers of similar mindsets. The main linking characteristics are the origins of the spam and the use of Facebook pages for harvesting.
While I am politically somewhat active, I absolutely would NOT trust Facebook for such purposes. Not even if I was certain that my politics were in personal alignment with the Facebook honchos, and I know they are not.
And you forgot to say "whippersnappers".
Do you have any constructive contribution to the topic? Let's start by asking if you've ever heard of Dunbar's number? If so (and I think it quite unlikely), then do you have anything to say about how it applies to Facebook and the travesty known as "friendship" a la Facebook?
I wasn't joking about feeling like I am betraying a friend's privacy if I "friend" that person on Facebook. I only do it if (a) it's a real friend (which actually makes it worse) and (b) the friend insists.
I think I have issued a few "friend" requests on Facebook, but always with regret and only if I think there are good and sufficient reasons to initiate contact via that channel. Of course I also reject most friend requests directed at me, but most of them are from hookers anyway. Another easy solution exists, but again Facebook doesn't care.
Facebook = SPAM and I'm not interested in reading any farther. The ONLY Facebook news I'm interested in is anti-spam news.
You can make a legitimate argument that the onsite ads are not spam, no matter how unsolicited or offensive they are. When you visit the SpamBook website... Oh, I mean Facebook, you know that the ads are there to pay for your "free" fun. If you think a bit more, you should realize that the relatively high value of those ads is mostly based on abusing your personal information, which should make you think more.
It's not just the information about your tastes, interests, past clicks, strengths, and whatever else they can milk out of your usage of the Facebook website, but more seriously the information they can harvest from your friends. Don't you feel like you are betraying your friends every time you link to someone on Facebook? You should.
The spam that offends me more is actually off the Spam-site. Er... I meant Facebook website again. Easiest example is emailed ads that harvest the money via Facebook pages the scammy businesses are pimping with their spam. This is actually an easy one for Facebook to cure, if only they cared that much. If Facebook receives a copy of such spam, they should notify the spammer to cease and desist or the Facebook page will be removed. If Facebook receives a second complaint of fresh spam sent to that person or a blizzard of spam from other people, then the Facebook page will be nuked. Problem solved.
Lots of other examples, but mostly I regard Facebook as a classic example of bad economic models run amok.
It is a real concern if the overt authoritarians are numerous enough, but usually they are a relatively small minority. To win an actual election they must discourage their opponents from voting or somehow obtain a lot of less overtly fascist support. The discouragement approach might involve threats, disenfranchisement, or even propaganda to create an atmosphere of desperation or hopelessness among their opponents. The other approach may use coalitions or secretive supporters (who can often be shamed, which was the focus of my comment).
Plausible, but I'm not sure he could have been so naive about the snake oil he was selling. It kind of depends if he's more of a salesman or a con artist.
As a salesman, Trump would focus more on listening to what the customers want, and the so-called Republican primary voters have been quite clear on what they want, even if their clarity is often incoherent and contradictory. Some salesmen don't mind selling on both sides to different customers.
As a con man, the Donald would be more focused on actively persuading the suckers to trust him, to feel the confidence in him that they needed to give him their money or votes. Trump University is just one impressive example of a big con, but he's been involved in plenty of other scams.
Kind of hard to see clearly in the clouds of data and obfuscation, but I think Trump's overall track record is pretty clearly on side of con man.
Of course, people also hate lawyers, so it isn't helping Hillary that she's a lawyer at heart.
Well you've obviously been drinking and snorting your kool-aid, but do you also inject it?
Would you vote for Stalin if he were the Republican nominee?
Just a rhetorical question. I'm already certain you would.
I basically agree with you on the dynasty thing, but I don't really blame Hillary for the failure of the Democratic Party to produce more and better candidates. I think they had a number of good ones, but the big-money political machine basically shut them down before they could even give it a shot. Not that it was better on the so-called Republican side, where they suffered from an embarrassment of anti-riches (including some with lots of money behind them), with most of the initial candidates highly unqualified for the office, even by the low-bar standards of Dubya and Dan Quayle.
By the way, I'm bringing Quayle back from the dead because that was the presidential decision that convinced me the modern so-called Republican Party had gone beyond caring about the good of the nation and was focused on partisan politics above all else. As silly as the office of the VP is supposed to be (and regarding the big dick Cheney as an aberration in that way, too), the VP is generally supposed to get SOME consideration as a future presidential candidate.