fuvkthisguy

Personally, the fears around privacy are about harm being done to myself or others with my data. Google would be fine, except that big tech companies like Google sell your data to advertisers, who then use that data to coerce you into buying products and services that you might never have purchased if left to your own devices. That crosses into 'harm' territory.

For a more clear demonstration of harm, think about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, and the very real and tangible effects that scandal had.

No, I'm pretty sure the cops are murdering black people.

Your analysis is sorely lacking in context for <i>why</i> black communities have higher rates of crime (hint: it's systemic racism, namely poverty and overpolicing).

By induction - repeated exposure to ideas increases their staying power in the mind - see advertising.

If one accepts the premise that fascist ideas spread by exposure, then one way to limit their spread is to limit said exposure.

Sidenote: I'm increasingly frustrated with this increase in veneration of scientific studies, as if studies are the only way or even the best way of attaining or approximating truth. I would like to see more acceptance of lived experience as admissible evidence in matters of debate.

Honestly I think this just doesn't work out this way in reality. First of all, we know that deplatforming racists/fascists does actually help to stop the spread of racist/fascist ideas.

Secondly, and I think this is the more salient point, encountering racist/sexist/transphobic/whatever speech as a person who is the target of such rhetoric is immediately harmful and othering, especially when these views aren't actively challenged or disavowed by society. This doesn't even include the possibility that hearing hate speech might trigger some prior trauma experienced because of one's identity.

By taking this stance, you're implicitly advocating the allowance of direct threats to other people's very existence, under the justitification that everyone will be better off that way because it's all out in the open. To me, that just sounds like you don't really understand the impact that hate speech can have on a person's ability to live with the same freedoms and opportunities that other members of society enjoy.

Example: You have a job interview downtown, but you're black and the Klan has a parade scheduled that day, and you're scared of the calls for violence. You don't make the interview, so you obviously don't get the job. You were denied the opportunity to because of the 'free speech' of others.

I for one would like to see more focus on Freedom of Association alongside Freedom of Speech in discussions like these - you can argue whatever you like, but nobody has to listen to you or give you a platform (and if you're a fascist, they shouldn't, and should be actively deplatforming you because your ideas are so awful/dangerous).

Okay, but just so we're clear, what is concerning here isn't the system, it's the morality of what happened and how/why it happened.

Wait, no - it is about the system. There is obviously a problem if this is one of the acceptable outcomes.

Come on now. You're being deliberately obtuse.

Do you have any sources for people who are interested in reading more on that?

> There is a big difference between "possible for a few months" and "possible indefinitely". A lot of what we did during the lockdowns was never going to be sustainable.

I would be interested to see an argument for this point, because I don't think it stands on its own.

Right, but how great are those packages gonna be when Amazon (renowned for their stunning committment to worker's rights and freedoms, /s) knows that anyone who doesn't take their offer will join the ranks of the 'totally screwed'?

The typical result of M&As is, by and large, that the workers lose.

Maybe this speaks to a need to tie taxes to income AND revenue. Not that I think the tax code should get any more complicated (quite the opposite), but if Amazon is selling at a loss to decrease the amount of tax they pay, while they starve out other companies in the market, there should be at least some benefit to society.