What happened to the internet?

[Has lost its way]

This wouldn't fix anything.

It would be a good first step but only a first step. The system we currently have is fundamentally corrupted to its core. Controlling the means of production is a necessary concession for society to survive.

Controlling access to knowledge and the ability to express ones ideas? I can't fathom a worst kind of poison for a society.

[SirKickBan]

How did we get to where we are now? A world were there is a strong push towards real-id systems where it is getting harder and harder to just have fun.

You want to banter in a video game? The company will stalk you on twitter and facebook and ban you like overwatch.
You want to share a controversial opinion? In Germany they arrest you.
You want to jerk off? Need a license for that in the UK.
You commit "hate speech" a nebulous term no two people can agree on what exactly it means? Your bank cuts you off from your accounts...

Just what the hell happened? Is this just a case of thousand cuts over a long period of time that no one really noticed? Is there anyway to reverse this trend especially since it seems major finical institutions seem to pull services from sights that allow things they find offensive.

How did we get here and more importantly is there anyway to return the internet to its glory days?

It's almost like the internet is a real place, like any other, where your actions have consequences, and you can be held accountable for them.

The real question is, what made people think the internet was any different to begin with?

[Orange Joe]

Personal contributions are capped still, and if they go around that, they go to jail.

https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-...bution-limits/

From what I'm seeing the difference is negligible.

[Has lost its way]

It's almost like the internet is a real place, like any other, where your actions have consequences, and you can be held accountable for them.

The real question is, what made people think the internet was any different to begin with?

Well it wasn't a real place to start...

[Shadowferal]

This wouldn't fix anything.

It would be a big step to getting them out of DC.

Ever since the democratic systems permitted their various courts to give corporations the status of persons, the individual as citizen has been on the defensive. How could it be otherwise? If you are a person before the law and Exxon or Ford is also a person, it is clear that the concept of democratic legitimacy lying with the individual has been mortally wounded.
~John Ralston Saul

[Bodonius]

Have real friends, online friends sometimes sucks...

[Orange Joe]

"PAC” here refers to a committee that makes contributions to other federal political committees. Independent-expenditure-only political committees (sometimes called “Super PACs”) may accept unlimited contributions, including from corporations and labor organizations.

A single individual will have less money than an entire corporation. And funneling money (through a corporation) would be illegal.

What stops in individual from donating through a PAC? How many PAC's can a person donate too?


As shown in the link I gave, PAC's are capped on how much they can give.



Mind you. I have no issues with a campaign finance overhaul. I personally think each candidate should receive an equal amount of funding for their campaign.

[Shadowferal]

What stops in individual from donating through a PAC? How many PAC's can a person donate too?

As shown in the link I gave, PAC's are capped on how much they can give.

And PACS are typically organized by industry.

Who are writing laws?

Copy, paste, legislate
When legislators propose new laws, they don’t always write the bills themselves. Corporations, interest groups or their lobbyists often write fill-in-the-blank documents then shop them to state lawmakers.

[SirKickBan]

Well it wasn't a real place to start...

If you say something to someone on the internet, how is it any different from any other form of communication?

If someone threatens to kill you after a game of CoD, or someone threatens to kill you after a game of paintball, what difference is there asside from the distance between you two?

If someone decides to start shouting propaganda into a megaphone, or into a youtube video, is there really a difference?

The internet is as real as a telephone call, letter, speech, or conversation, and just because those things aren't tangible objects doesn't mean they aren't real.

[Has lost its way]

If you say something to someone on the internet, how is it any different from any other form of communication?

If someone threatens to kill you after a game of CoD, or someone threatens to kill you after a game of paintball, what difference is there asside from the distance between you two?

If someone decides to start shouting propaganda into a megaphone, or into a youtube video, is there really a difference?

The internet is as real as a telephone call, letter, speech, or conversation, and just because those things aren't tangible objects doesn't mean they aren't real.

I don't think even you believe your words.

[SirKickBan]

I don't think even you believe your words.

If an ad-hominem attack is the best defence you can muster, then I think that says more than enough.

[Has lost its way]

If an ad-hominem attack is the best defence you can muster, then I think that says more than enough.

Lets try a different one...

IM GOING TO KILL YOU!

Have you ran scrambling into your kitchen in terror clutching at the phone as you frantically call the police yet?

[Tiwack]

It is what you want it to be and make of it. There's a place for everyone and some have more conniptions than others so respect that and keep looking further or chat up people irl to get closer to whatever it is you seek.

[Mormolyce]

Yep, I did. Since it's offtopic, I have no regrets, though. Courts don't usually deal with "right or wrong" from a moral point of view.

The question is whether or not it's right for a court decision to overrule the majority opinion of the country though.

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The answer remains the same, they protected existing laws in the Constitution and rejected state laws which were fully wrong, as they were based on broad, unscientific concepts such as "race".

That doesn't mean I trust the SC. After all, we've all seen how it can be played and used to promote a specific flavor of policy. It just means they did something good in this case, but I would still regard their decisions in the future with skepticism for sure, as it's the case with any decisions made by very powerful and influential people.

They do get props for doing the right thing here though, absolutely. Humans are humans, full stop, no state should have the right to create laws based on race, ever.

So we've established that there are times when the majority is wrong and it's the right call to override their will. Ie, you don't believe in unfettered democracy.

Now the only question is where is that line, and who gets to be the ultimate authority on when it is and isn't okay to tell the majority it can't get its way?

I'd say you're right not to trust the Supreme Court, basically we just got lucky with Loving v. Virginia.

[Beet]

The internet sucks now and I can tell you one major reason why and it’s going to offend some people for sure.

Smart phones. They are why we are where we are now. Consider the internet of the old days pre iPhone. It was vastly different. You had to have at least a small amount of technological skills to get online back then. We took for granted how easy it was to get on with a computer, but many people couldn’t get into them back then. With a slightly higher intellect of people came more nuance discussions. You obviously had trolls and assholes I’m not saying it was heaven and perfect back then. Far from it. But compared to today it was night and day. We used to all agree back then that being anonymous was great and worth fighting for. Remember the stinkcover real ID like OP said? If Blizz tried to do that today it would pass with people thanking them.

I’ve been online consistently since 1996. I have seen the ups and downs. It has only gotten shittier as years go by. Well not true. It improved in many ways in the 00s when Broadband became standard everywhere. But yeah social media is the other reason for things being shit. The days before MySpace were great. You used instant messengers, chat rooms, and niche forums. Every niche had a forum back then. Also the internet wasn’t owned by a handful of companies like it is today.

As for going back to the glory days? Can’t happen. Smart phones are not going anywhere. Eventually the entire internet will be catering to mobile users with desktop users being a thing of the past.

I’m sure I’ll get folks disagreeing, but I’ve done enough research and reading on this topic to know what I’m talking about. You can trace the increase in general toxic behavior to around 2010 where it starts to ramp up considerably and that coincides with smart phones being common. This is why I always tell people not to expect the same type of community in classic WoW as we had back then.

[Slant]

The question is whether or not it's right for a court decision to overrule the majority opinion of the country though.

You're describing a really fucked up country, mate.

The assumption and the way it's supposed to work is that the majority of the country would set the rules that the court follows. But the court follows the rules, not the whims of people directly.

[Mormolyce]

You're describing a really fucked up country, mate.

The assumption and the way it's supposed to work is that the majority of the country would set the rules that the court follows. But the court follows the rules, not the whims of people directly.

In theory the people set the constitution via their representatives and the Supreme Court merely interprets it.

In practice, the process to change the constitution is unwieldy, society is unduly reverent of it and thus reluctant to change it, and so the constitution does not actually represent their will. I mean really, it never did. The constitution is supposed to represent democratic power but in practice it represents oligarchic power.

So what happened in Loving is that the Supreme Court took a liberal interpretation of the Constitution to defeat a law that had broad popular support. If the constitution directly reflected the will of the people that situation wouldn't happen.

Technically, the remedy here would be an Amendment. So after Loving, the people could've gotten an Amendment ratified to make it legal to pass anti-miscegenation laws. We're basically just lucky that didn't happen.

If it had - would that have been right?

[Has lost its way]

You're describing a really fucked up country, mate.

The assumption and the way it's supposed to work is that the majority of the country would set the rules that the court follows. But the court follows the rules, not the whims of people directly.

Given what I have seen the concept of the majority getting what ti wanted would terrify you...

[Slant]

In theory the people set the constitution via their representatives and the Supreme Court merely interprets it.

In practice, the process to change the constitution is unwieldy, society is unduly reverent of it and thus reluctant to change it, and so the constitution does not actually represent their will. I mean really, it never did. The constitution is supposed to represent democratic power but in practice it represents oligarchic power.

So what happened in Loving is that the Supreme Court took a liberal interpretation of the Constitution to defeat a law that had broad popular support. If the constitution directly reflected the will of the people that situation wouldn't happen.

Technically, the remedy here would be an Amendment. So after Loving, the people could've gotten an Amendment ratified to make it legal to pass anti-miscegenation laws. We're basically just lucky that didn't happen.

If it had - would that have been right?

I'm not sure what your example case is about, but you're blurring the lines between judiciary and legislative here. The separation of power exists for a reason. It's not the purpose of the Supreme Court, or any court, to follow the will of the people. Their job is to follow the law. It is the job of the legislative to transpose the will of the people into code for the judiciary to rule with and for the executive to action.

A constitution is not meant to deal with day-to-day business. It can't. It's meant to set up the framework for a nation to be a nation. It limits what the Supreme Court (unelected!) can do by forcing them to strictly stay within the confines of the Constitution that was set up by the legislative (elected!) representatives.

Now, a court has wriggle room to interpret, as you said. But that wriggle room usually is rather well defined and doesn't give courts as much space as you might like, in this case anyway.

If you want them to rule differently, you have to force them by implementing an amendment to the constitution telling them to rule differently (albeit in a more abstract and general manner, because again, the constitution is not meant to deal with day-to-day stuff).

It would have been right if the constitution of the US had allowed it. The US constitution has not aged very well, so that is a problem. But it needs to be fixed by the legislative instead of patchworking it by telling judges to ignore the rules and make up their own laws. If you start that, you're getting yourself onto a very, very dangerous slippery slope.

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Given what I have seen the concept of the majority getting what ti wanted would terrify you...

Clearly you've not seen a lot, then.

[Endus]

If it had - would that have been right?

I'll let @Slant correct me if I'm wrong, but it isn't about whether it's "right". In a democratic system, the majority vote rules. You can argue that Loving v. Virginia was a move against that majority rule, and you'd be correct, but the point isn't that Loving v. Virginia was "wrong" to do so, or that the bigoted majority was "right", it's that if your country's population is that deeply bigoted on average to begin with, your country has serious freaking issues.

Democracy's value is less in producing the "right" policy outcomes, and more in making it too frakking difficult to achieve any policy outcomes because everyone's fighting everything all the time. A fractious system defined by in-fighting has much less change to achieve bad things, but the same applies to any move towards good things.

Politics is like being stuck in quicksand with a tiger circling around. A dictatorship or small oligarchy (benevolent or not; we're talking solely about speed of decision-making here) can come to a quick decision about to wiggle out of the quicksand and which direction to run; if they get it wrong, the tiger eats them. Democracy can't figure out how to get out of the quicksand; it struggles and often gets nowhere, but the tiger's not willing to risk the quicksand. You're safe(r) from tigers, but you're still stuck in the quicksand and going nowhere fast. In a democratic system, progress often happens despite the democratic process, not because of it; Loving v. Virginia is an example of this.

That can happen in the other direction, too, though. And moves to suppress the democratic action of the system is, fundamentally, an attempt to get out of the quicksand and do something. Which means reducing the influence of those who disagree, moving away from democracy, towards oligarchy. And they'll crow about getting out of the quicksand, while doing so. And every time, they forget about the tiger.

Don't take any of this as a suggestion that any particular outcome is "good". They're differently bad. Democratic stalemate is "safer", but stagnation is death, in the long term.