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Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

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Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#131

Post by PeterisP »

mavhc wrote: post #129
PeterisP wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing to fight in court, in USA it's completely legal to fire someone for their political beliefs in the "at will employment" states. The argument against similar actions during Red Scare and Moral Majority is not that they were illegal but that now in hindsight we see that they were wrong , despite fitting the governing moral/political desires of the time, so similar acts should be avoided in future and pe…

How many years before we realise that denying the holocaust wasn't wrong? The problem with being fired isn't because of views then, you'd think people with views that would get them fired would be working to get those laws changed.

My position is that the society should decide if something (e.g. denying the holocaust) is punishable. If it is, then we should implement laws against it (as e.g. Germany has done) and punish people for it after establishing their guilt with due process and with the level of the punishment we collectively have decided. And if it is not, well, then people shouldn't be punished until the laws do get changed.

I.e. I'm think that making someone unemployable or outcast as a harsh (and perhaps even "cruel and unusual") punishment which should happen only for things the society has explicitly forbidden, and after we have properly established that the accused is actually guilty. Obviously, it's not the situation right now in USA (at least not in the at-will states), where employers have a wide (IMHO too wide) discretion of what they will tolerate for non-job-related acts of employees after work; some will fire antivaxxers, some will fire pro-vaxxers; some will fire holocaust deniers; some will fire people for having an OnlyFans account; etc. (and, crucially, they'll fire them for assuming they are like this, which won't always be true).

IMHO this discretion needs to stop, as it the case in some countries with different employment laws. And if we do want to have a harsher treatment for some of those things (e.g. holocaust denial is a good example) than for others, then that distinction should be decided in laws by the whole society, not unilaterally by company owners.

Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#132

Post by dariusj18 »

user-the-name wrote: post #114
dariusj18 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was that if a solution was battle tested to withstand the scrutiny that the ne'er-do-wells encourage, then random person who knows nothing can feel comfortable that their use of the technology is also secure. It's kind of like calling something "military-grade". In addition I also qualified the statement to ensure that your second point was covered, that overhead could restrict it's use.

You actually hit the nail on the head there: It is a lot like calling something "military grade". Military grade is not something regular people want! Military grade is clunky, cumbersome and problematic for reasons that are a tradeoff for things that matter a lot to the military, but which are not an issue at all for regular people. You don't want your car to be covered in heavy armour. That gains you nothing and co…

But let's do apples to apples here, because you are comparing "military grade" hardware and I'm talking about software, something where component costs are 0 and have 0 cost to duplicate.

But that's really secondary to the point, if something has proven itself in the most strenuous conditions you can feel confident that it will meet your needs. Assuming your needs are in line with the aforementioned conditions, ex. yes, a "military grade" laptop will be bulky, and grandma will not care about that feature, but someone in an auto-shop who needs a laptop to withstand all sorts of punishment might feel the extra bucks are worth the confidence.

My assumption here is you and those with similar views do not view privacy as a requirement for grandma, and I think that is the crux of the argument. Privacy can be its own reward and everyone will determine their own value for it. If grandma's circumstances are that she needs/wants that privacy, then having a battle tested solution that can be counted on is an easy decision to make.

Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#133

Post by dariusj18 »

naasking wrote: post #109
dariusj18 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's part of the issue though. Difficult to keep in check means militarizing our Capitol. That's not a good thing and is bad on many levels.

Why? There are over 1,500 capitol police officers. That's more than enough. Militarizing the capitol the way they did was total overkill; security theatre that they used to get a bigger budget.

Because security is an illusion, and theater is a part of that. January 6th shattered part of that illusion and, having happened, it is now a part of the consciousness. Every protest will now be a possible threat, a chance for fear to win. Until there is enough time passed for it to fade it must not be reproduced. Also, I don't want a situation where 1500 capitol police even have to defend our institutions. Getting to that point is already a major lose.

Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#134

Post by user-the-name »

dariusj18 wrote: post #132
user-the-name wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You actually hit the nail on the head there: It is a lot like calling something "military grade". Military grade is not something regular people want! Military grade is clunky, cumbersome and problematic for reasons that are a tradeoff for things that matter a lot to the military, but which are not an issue at all for regular people. You don't want your car to be covered in heavy armour. That gains you nothing and co…

But let's do apples to apples here, because you are comparing "military grade" hardware and I'm talking about software, something where component costs are 0 and have 0 cost to duplicate. But that's really secondary to the point, if something has proven itself in the most strenuous conditions you can feel confident that it will meet your needs. Assuming your needs are in line with the aforementioned conditions, ex. y…

Do you honestly think cryptocurrencies have no costs compared to other solutions?

Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#135

Post by dang »

notanzaiiswear wrote: post #128
dang wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I picked the username because it was only a matter of time until somebody would accuse me of being a nazi - as is the norm these days for anybody who doesn't adhere to the mainstream leftist ideology. That confirms both that the username is trollish and that your purpose is to use HN for ideological battle, which is against the site guidelines. We ban accounts that break the site guidelines. If an account uses HN p…

I want to comment on one more thing: calling somebody a "troll" is an insult. Over several years, I have been called troll many times, just because I called out leftist conspiracy theories or misguided conceptions about economics. I think I have only called somebody an "idiot" once, and even that was quantified with "if you believe x, you are an idiot". I always try to explain patiently what is going on. I don't reca…

Actually I was careful not to call you a troll. I said your username was trollish (meaning that it adds a provocation to every thread it posts to), and I said your repetitively bringing up the Holocaust was at minimum concern trolling (I could also have said sealioning)—the point being that going on and on about how you're not questioning the Holocaust is weird, like insisting you're not a cop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBE9TZP26FI. It's guaranteed to provoke (hence concern trolling), and it inevitably brings up darker associations, because extremists are known to play games with this sort of thing—non-denial denials, etc. We don't want any of that here.

> You have banned me several times for criticising socialism > You just don't like criticism of leftist ideology

People make up this narrative about why we ban them all the time; ideologues on the opposite side say the same thing. None of it is true. You can tell that in two ways: first, the claims are completely contradictory (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26148870), but they rely on the same logic, so the logic must be wrong; second, all you have to do is scroll through past moderation comments to see that we moderate people on all ideological sides—and get flamed for it from all sides, too.

Since we've had to ban you several times, it's probably time for you to realize that you're simply not using this site as intended.

Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#136

Post by notanzaiiswear »

dang wrote: post #135
notanzaiiswear wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to comment on one more thing: calling somebody a "troll" is an insult. Over several years, I have been called troll many times, just because I called out leftist conspiracy theories or misguided conceptions about economics. I think I have only called somebody an "idiot" once, and even that was quantified with "if you believe x, you are an idiot". I always try to explain patiently what is going on. I don't reca…

Actually I was careful not to call you a troll. I said your username was trollish (meaning that it adds a provocation to every thread it posts to), and I said your repetitively bringing up the Holocaust was at minimum concern trolling (I could also have said sealioning)—the point being that going on and on about how you're not questioning the Holocaust is weird, like insisting you're not a cop: https://www.youtube.co…

[dead]

Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#137

Post by dariusj18 »

user-the-name wrote: post #134
dariusj18 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But let's do apples to apples here, because you are comparing "military grade" hardware and I'm talking about software, something where component costs are 0 and have 0 cost to duplicate. But that's really secondary to the point, if something has proven itself in the most strenuous conditions you can feel confident that it will meet your needs. Assuming your needs are in line with the aforementioned conditions, ex. y…

Do you honestly think cryptocurrencies have no costs compared to other solutions?

That's not really what I was saying either. The technology behind it costs nothing to reproduce. Sure there are costs, ex. there were costs to develop the technology, there are costs to maintain infrastructure and costs for continuing development. However those costs also exist in our current system and they could easily be seen as lower with cryptos.

Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#138

Post by wayoutthere »

Chris2048 wrote: post #98
wayoutthere wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans have no context for left and right. They literally are both far right because that’s a political alignment, and one that Donald Trump absolutely fits. The ones advocating genocide are violent extremists on top of that. The democrats are a center-right party while the actual left is effectively frozen out of the political system and is currently focused on building alternate power structures for when the US…

If the "actual left" is "currently focused on building alternate power structures for when the US government inevitably collapses" - how would you define far-left? What are they doing?

I would define “far left” as revolutionary communists, of which there are very few and they’re mostly very young people on Twitter. But the few actual revolutionaries I know are doing the same crap as the right wing militias, there are just a lot fewer of them.

Your average leftist is simply disillusioned with electoral politics writ large; they’re tired of voting for guys like Obama who promise change but then still spend a trillion dollars turning brown children into skeletons. But there’s absolutely a feeling that we’re running out of time and more drastic solutions are on the horizon.

Some join something like DSA which still nominally participates in the electoral system and others build mutual aid networks to circumvent capitalist control.

Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#139

Post by mavhc »

PeterisP wrote: post #131
mavhc wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many years before we realise that denying the holocaust wasn't wrong? The problem with being fired isn't because of views then, you'd think people with views that would get them fired would be working to get those laws changed.

My position is that the society should decide if something (e.g. denying the holocaust) is punishable. If it is, then we should implement laws against it (as e.g. Germany has done) and punish people for it after establishing their guilt with due process and with the level of the punishment we collectively have decided. And if it is not, well, then people shouldn't be punished until the laws do get changed. I.e. I'm t…

Laws follow public opinion though.

The flaw is not the lack of laws about what's punishable, it's the lack of a law to require a standard before firing someone.

What if we ask all the other people who work with that people, if they're fine working with a racist, or a plague spreader?

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