Comment by IfOnlyYouKnew | Hacker News Reader

Comment by IfOnlyYouKnew | Hacker News Reader

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> are so, in lack of more polite words, mindless

The linked article as well as the criticism here aren't exactly mindful, either.

For a start, the article only ever says "Congress" did this or that. Such unspecific language only furthers cynicism and is damaging for democracy. There certainly are lots of members of congress that are against this, from both parties. But they'll get accused of this as well as any other real or imaginary ill.

As such, cynicism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: When people literally no longer care about the actual work you do, why bother trying? When they assume you are "corrupt" or "deep-state" or whatever, why shouldn't you start selling your vote to the highest bidder?

At least the "CARES Act" also does no such thing as "criminalising meme-sharing", as far as I can tell. It is a civil law establishing a small claims courts pathway for copyright infringement. Both sides need to opt-in to this process. If one side doesn't, exactly nothing changes.

Because this is about reducing overhead costs of litigation, it doesn't do much to help Disney. Its stated intend is to help smaller or one-off creators who see their works reused without their permission and do not have the means to pursue claims in federal courts. The merits here are debatable, and I believe some sort of collective rights managements system would be better. But imagine taking the single greatest photo of your life and seeing it used everywhere with people not even bothering to give you credit?

The criminalisation targets sites that knowingly and repeatedly stream copyrighted content. Unless you reject copyright altogether, I can't really find fault with that.

> fascism 2.0

Congress gets a lot wrong, but at at least they tend to stay clear of Godwin's law. Diminishing the industrial slaughter of millions of people by comparing it with some minor adjustments to copyright law is certainly not raising the level of debate.

Congress was caught adding non related items to a "supply bill" (I am using uk nomenclature)

This is highly undemocratic and should have be ruled out of order and never even gone onto the order paper.

There's no requirement in Congress that amendments are germane to the purpose of the bill, unlike in the UK. This kind of 'Christmas tree' bill, where all kinds of personal favourite measures are added to some kind of must-pass legislation, is common.

Having briefly interned in both Parliament and Congress, I'm not entirely sure which is the better/worse system. Parliament certainly wouldn't allow this - but then, if the government wants giveaway bills its basically got the power to put them through Parliament with little-to-no oversight. Where Congress has independence, it also has this kind of legislative log-rolling and low-level corruption. I prefer the UK system, but it's not clear-cut.

If the representatives were better, the pork mechanism could be used to escrow deals between parties with different interests. "I will pass this if you pass that" becomes a lot easier to organize when you can combine them together in a way that makes defection impossible. Unfortunately, this nice theoretical property is damaged in practice by the not-so-great behavior of the participants.

> Both sides need to opt-in to this process.

Meaning it'll be added as one of the hundred other things that you agree to in the TOS that is too long to read in less than an hour every time you register for a service that you "agree" to by clicking a button but if you want to opt-out requires postal mailing a written request.

I agree. Reading the article, as well as the comments, it is clear to me that people are predisposed to despise "government overreach" even if it isn't really happening.

But this is absolutely overreach

> Diminishing the industrial slaughter of millions of people by comparing it with some minor adjustments to copyright law is certainly not raising the level of debate.

Without defending the poster’s point about fascism 2.0 too much, I’d like to point out that Fascism isn’t equivalent to genocide or nazis. It’s a political ideology against a liberal democracy, characterized by ultra-nationalism, corporatism, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy. Some would argue that a government governing in close ties with corporations against the wishes and interests of the population at large is a form of fascism. Sort of like the society shown in the move Robocop.

I’m pretty sure Zappa would have hauled out the fascist label but more about a society that allows this not the government.

To me a defining characteristic of 1930s Nazism was a perceived mortal struggle against Communists that excused or justified egregiously unethical and immoral means.

In the modern U.S. that has some similarity to the highly polarized debate the last decade along party lines.

This however? It's mortal political enemies coming together to elbow-bump over ... pork-barrel end-of-term politics. That, from a realist perspective, is America. It's not great, but it's not 1930s Nazism either.

>It's mortal political enemies coming together to elbow-bump over ... pork-barrel end-of-term politics.

"Let's fix this rotten system by replacing it with our new system (which just so happens to be a dictatorship, but don't mind that...)," is a pretty common way for democratic governments to fail. It even happened to Rome.

Huh, I haven't heard anybody say anything remotely like this, and I have friends from not only the two big parties, but also a few of the smaller ones, too...

The general perception of the incompetence or disingenuousness in the present system lays the groundwork for people to start saying that, at some point in the future, unless things improve.

I'm not justifying unethical or immoral means, but was the perception of being in a mortal struggle against Communists incorrect?

I think given Trump's actions so far he would clearly overthrow the democratically held election to keep him in power if the rest of government wasn't keeping him in check. Just because he's not had a night of the long knives yet doesn't mean it's not a serious, dangerous, and horrid usage of his position and power as President. He isn't Hitler but he is the worst President in the history of our country as far as sheer malfeasance.

> Congress gets a lot wrong, but at at least they tend to stay clear of Godwin's law. Diminishing the industrial slaughter of millions of people by comparing it with some minor adjustments to copyright law is certainly not raising the level of debate.

Fascism is about an alliance between industry and government against the people. Genocide is neither necessary nor sufficient to label a system "fascist."

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