> I don't know man, there are about 5k pages of thing to object to.
What? Trump quite explicitly stated in his veto his refusal to approve the bill because it did not included "an unrelated repeal of a law granting liability protections to technology companies that Trump has accused, without significant evidence, of anti-conservative bias."
Not sure why your comment was dead since it's a good question. The answer is with charcoal, which is how it used to be done. It's less efficient (charcoal isn't as strong as coal so the furnaces have to be smaller) but it worked fine in the past. You obviously couldn't have the same steel output using charcoal. In the past places started running out of trees to turn into charcoal which is why they switched to coal in the first place.
In Sweden they are building a prototype of the Hybrit process, using hydrogen to reduce the ore. The plan is to convert the blast furnaces in Sweden and Finland within a couple of decades.
Now this isn't a particularly low tech way of going about it, and producing the hydrogen requires massive amounts of electricity. So probably not an option if you're bootstrapping civilization after a collapse.
People who are critical of critical thinking are a threat to our democracy. There is no liberal or conservative thinking to be blamed anymore, that's just a polarized husk of what used to be America frankly, mainly caused by technology oversharing coupled with ignorant people who say stupid shit like you just did without thinking about it more than seeing some stupid visual lie in your head and putting words to it.
Granted, liberal thinkers tend to embrace the tech and the corporations, but that doesn't make them critical thinkers unless they are willing to step back and consider the facts of the situation and how that applies to them. Non-critical thinkers don't realize or care the corporations are the ones to blame here for our current divisive hole - not the government or the faces of the government, and certainly not their fellow neighbors who also do things like buy toilet paper and throw the ball with the kids. I'm not your problem and Obama isn't your problem, but that's just the way you see it because you don't bother to think for yourself and instead latch onto the imagery the divisive right throws up on media (and not news media either).
Anecdotally, I was up in Oregon flying my drone at a lake a few months back. I wasn't wearing a mask and glad to be outside. I saw this guy in his truck and he asked "is that a drone?". I said yes, and asked if he wanted to see the screen on my phone. As I started to approach him I stopped and asked "is it OK, I don't have a mask?" He replied without a beat, "Sure, I don't care! I'm a Republican!"
And that is exactly what is wrong with non-critical thinking. Critical thinking is realizing we are outside and it doesn't matter, probably, between two people talking for a brief moment. But instead, he just believe some stuff someone else who is of a "type" he aligns himself with, and does so without consideration then announces it as if being a Republican gave him some great idea it didn't matter.
I’m voting for politics not his personality. The bottom line is that he does the things he says he’s gonna do. Look at his policy. He doesn’t sell out yo foreign governments like the Biden’s and Clinton’s.
I hear this personality excuse fairly often, but I think it is just deflection. These issues are not a matter of personality, they are a matter of character. Character traits like integrity, kindness, and honesty are incredibly important in a national leader, because they define the way that leader will act.
Contempt for women is not a personality trait. Pathological lying is not a personality trait. Willingness to amplify divisive and racist rhetoric is not a personality trait. Waffling for days before condemning white nationalism, weeks on accepting the results of the democratic process -- rooted in rotten character.
I think these issues extend to his policy positions. The US has not honored international commitments, abandoned allies, and failed to stand up to human rights injustices because of a lack of integrity in our highest elected official. This is not the only presidency where this has been an issue, but it's certainly the most shameless one.
Here's a list of various hoaxes/leaks/etc. that the big tech social media companies allowed and did not censor, even though they took action in this instance: https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/15/11-hacks-leaks-and-hoax...
This list seems like strong proof that the we cannot trust these social media companies to be neutral actors. They shouldn't be given controlling power to the digital public square.
While I agree that the liberal-run tech firms are biased against conservative news sources, I think it is only fair to point out that the list you link is compiled and presented by a conservative organisation that has apparently been under criticism for its own approach to covid reporting (see the wiki page; and yes, I think wikipedia seems often liberal-biased), and can not be considered a neutral voice in this particular discussion.
That doesn't mean the list isn't valid; but it can't be assumed it is balanced.
I would encourage folks to resist the urge to put up blinders based on the URL. Particularly where, as here, the source is just collecting publicly-available documents and links. You’re not being asked to trust the author’s synthesis of a bunch of facts. You can check the underlying links yourself. Obviously conservative organizations have more of an incentive to compile this sort of thing. That doesn’t make it in and of itself unreliable.
Also, “conservative” and “liberal” are relative terms. Journalists are vastly more liberal than the public as a whole, so any news outlet that covers things from a middle ground perspective is labeled “conservative.”
In an ASU study of financial journalists, people who labeled themselves “very liberal” or “liberal” outnumbered those who labeled themselves “conservative” or “very conservative” 13:1.
I’m not saying that this makes liberal reporters bad, or biased in the sense of willful prejudice. But liberals and conservatives have different assumptions, have different sets of facts they consider salient to different issues, etc. When a liberal reporter covers Sanders’ suggestion of $60,000 minimum teacher pay, the facts that come to mind might be things like how the income gap between teachers and other college-educated professionals is bigger in the US than in other countries. To a conservative, the first thing that might come to mind is that US teachers are already paid well above the OECD average. Both facts are true (American teachers are paid more than British teachers, but American programmers are paid a lot more). These differences inevitably come out in the reporting. Just because an outlet is writing from a conservative point of view doesn’t mean it’s trying to manipulate or deceive people.
You can look at the source for each link included in the list sure, but how to I find the content they haven't included in the list? The unreliable part is verifying whether the sample provided is an accurate representation of the population
>Twitter's technicality is a fig leaf to enable continued control of public discourse by an unelected private industry that is 9-to-1 in the tank for Democrats and can decide what Americans are allowed to know.
in the headline. Yes, thank you, I reject this authors "fact synthesis".
The Federalist is like a conservative version of Mother Jones or HuffPo. Not what I’d consider reliable but it can collect together facts that can be verified that other organizations won’t necessarily put together. For example, there’s an article right now observing that, while we’ve had a Supreme Court with a majority of Republican appointees for 50 years, for a lot of that time it’s been appointees confirmed by a Democratic Senate. (Democrats held the Senate almost without any gap from 1936-1982.) So candidates that ended up getting wobbly like Souter and Stevens were compromise candidates. The NYT just isn’t going to highlight facts like that.
Who thinks any corporation is a neutral actor? And did the government make Twitter popular? The people that use Twitter granted that power as is their right. The people are free to setup decentralized publication systems if that is better. Twitter doesn’t really owe you an explanation of the different standard they use at different times.
Politically neutral but not neutral on truth or virtue. Also why don’t more of the people not agreeing with Twitter’s use of power push for more decentralized networks?
For the 500 millionth time, section 230 says absolutely nothing about impartiality. And about moderation all it says is "Do as much as you like, even more than the government requires. You won't be liable."
Seriously, actually go read section 230 instead of relying on Internet commenters to tell you what it is.
To me, "It is the policy of the United States ... to encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control over what information is received by individuals, families, and schools who use the Internet and other interactive computer services" implies impartiality, as does the description of the internet as, among other things, "a forum for a true diversity of political discourse".
Companies that control what information users can receive in order to allow only one side of a political discourse are in opposition to the policies being implemented in section 230.
A provider of information services is not liable for "any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected"
You asked people to read section 230 and you claimed that section 230 says absolutely nothing about impartiality.
I read section 230 and mentioned parts of it that I think are relevant to impartiality. In particular, I don't see how you maximize user control over the information they receive if information providers are going to be partial to one political party. And I don't see how you have forums for a true diversity of political discourse if forums are going to be partial to one political party.
If you can tell me, I would love to know, how do Twitter's actions in this case maximize user control over the information they receive? I don't think they do, I think it is quite the opposite of that, but go ahead and make a case if you have one.
Now it is true that the implementation of section 230 lacks an enforcement mechanism to enforce the policies that it advocates. That's a problem with the law, and it is what some people are advocating that we fix. I agree with those proposals, I would like to see section 230 amended so that companies that don't maximize user control over the information they receive lost section 230 protections. And the same thing for companies that don't allow a true diversity of political discourse.
> I read section 230 and mentioned parts of it that I think are relevant to impartiality.
I don't think the part you highlighted is relevant to impartiality. It sets an aspirational goal of Section 230 and the safe harbor is the means to promote that goal. Without the safe harbor, providers would be forced to strictly police what users post. Smaller providers who aren't able to bear the burden of strict moderation would be forced to shut down entirely. This would have the consequence of reducing overall user access to information.
> I don't see how you maximize user control over the information they receive if information providers are going to be partial to one political party.
By using a different information provider.
> description of the internet as, among other things, "a forum for a true diversity of political discourse".
You said it yourself. The Internet is neutral, according to Section 230. Not individual information providers. If you don't like what one information provider does, go make your own. It's all based on free tools and open standards. No one's stopping you.
Believe me, no one of any political stripe should want to take away ability to moderate Internet forums. It will turn all forums, regardless of political, religious or other affiliation, into spam-filled, unusable messes. That also reduces "user control over the information they receive", since the garbage will drown out anything useful and platforms will have no power to remove it.
That doesn't work when network effects are involved. Just like there aren't going to be hundreds of cell phone networks, there aren't going to be hundreds of networks with the reach of Twitter or Facebook.
Any time Twitter or Facebook don't allow certain information to be sent, users have less control over the information they receive.
>> Believe me, no one of any political stripe should want to take away ability to moderate Internet forums. It will turn all forums, regardless of political, religious or other affiliation, into spam-filled, unusable messes
The question is where the moderation happens, at the corporate level or at the user level. If a user who creates a space on a discussion board gets to moderate it, and anyone can create a space on that discussion board, that's perfectly usable and it puts the control in the user's hands.
So now you're demanding companies build specific features (user moderated boards) to accommodate what you think the law should be, regardless of how those companies' products already work?
If the companies actions aren't advancing the stated policies for which the law was enacted, then the law should be strengthened so that it promotes those policies.
Companies currently are acting in ways that are in direct opposition of those policies, so if you believe in those policies, you should want their actions to change.
you can be neutral about this political party or that party and still seeks to encourage truth and goodness and discourage lies and badness, as you see it.
I don't know if you know this or not, but the technology exists for anyone to participate in a "digital public square" without use of the incumbent services (Facebook, Twitter, et cetera).
These services are not the digital public square. They are private spaces (like a shopping mall.) it would be wholly incorrect to make that assumption.
The technology may well exist, but is it being used by a sufficient amount of people?
Just like if all people happen to congregate in a private mall for one reason or another, if someone's excluded from that mall it doesn't matter all that much that there are public parks where anyone can go if no one actually goes there.
> but is it being used by a sufficient amount of people?
yes, it is. It's a pretty healthy and vibrant ecosystem (I'm referring to the W3C ActivityPub ecosystem here because I didn't mention it in the grandparent comment)
While I think that it would be great for people to use decentralized alternatives to FB and Twitter, I think that at least as of today they are very, very far from having the same kind of reach, despite the ecosystem being healthy and vibrant.
So again, even though I think that we as a society would gain a lot from using these technologies, in the year 2020 they really don't have the same "public square" effect that FB and Twitter have, simply because most "regular" people (as in "not in tech") have probably never even heard of them, whereas everybody and their grandma is on Facebook.
Also, the fact that FB and Twitter aggressively attempt to bring people to their platforms likely blurs the line between them being a private venue or a public square.
At the shopping mall they dont hand out as much Dopamine, as FB and Twitter have.
People don't even realize what is going on. The addicts are getting cut of from their favorite drug. A drug that has conditioned their behavior for 10-15 years.
FB and Twitter, every time they make these moves all over the world, need to check out how good ol Alex Jones is doing. Cause thats where a lot of ppl who get cut off will be in a year or two.
I don't understand why this is so controversial.
You cannot reveal personal details of someone on Twitter (email, phone number etc.) The article contained unreacted personal info so should be blocked.
You also cannot link directly to hacked/obtained without consent material on twitter. The article contained screenshot of the material so should be blocked.
You CAN link to material that discusses hacked/obtained without consent material on Twitter as long as it does not contain the material. eg. Trump Tax Return story by NYT.
To preface my comment, I think using Hunter's drug problem for political gain is tasteless. Despite that I find it abhorrent that Twitter is not allowing users to post the photo instead it is instantly causing accounts to get locked. https://twitter.com/search?q=hunter%20locked%20pipe&src=type...
A core assertion in the article is demonstrably fake. Biden did not pressure Ukraine to fire a prosecutor that was investigating Burisma. It's something Trump has repeated countless times and something that's been proven false countless times, but the Post still stated it as fact in the article.
Besides, the burden of proof applies here. "You can't prove it's not fake" is not a sensible approach. The burden is on the accuser to prove that the story is true, and the Post story does not do that.
> A core assertion in the article is demonstrably fake. Biden did not pressure Ukraine to fire a prosecutor that was investigating Burisma.
Biden did pressure Ukraine to fire that prosecutor, that's not in dispute, he's on video saying he did it. What is in dispute is whether he did it out of a corrupt motivation to benefit his son and the business he was working for. That's not asserted in the article. It merely lays out the timeline of events -- granted, in an order which is meant to point the reader in a given direction. They even include a section with the Biden campaign's take on the prosecutor's firing.
No. Biden did push for a prosecutor to be fired, something that the administration and other governments agreed on (the prosecutor was corrupt). But the prosecutor was not investigating Burisma.
Well, he was definitely investigating Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky. The prosecutor's office seized several of his houses and other property in February 2016 [1]. Ten days later, Biden urged Poroshenko to fire the prosecutor. Another four days later, the prosecutor was asked to resign.
People claim Biden didn’t pressure to fire the prosecutor (even Twitter lied about this yesterday).
When presented with the video of Biden admitting to it in his own words; he pressured to fire the prosecutor, but the prosecutor wasn’t investigating Burisma.
When shown that the prosecutor was actively investigating Burisma; well he pressured to get the prosecutor fired who was investigating Burisma, but it was in the national interest!
I’m not sure if there’s another round in the typical exchange. Best to just skip to the last phase to move the conversation forward.
