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I fought the PayPal and I won

jessesingal.substack.com

131–140 of 349 posts

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#131

PayPal is such a weird company. I was a loyal customer for 20 years until I wanted to convert my account from business to personal (I closed the business) and the site refused to do so. after months of calls with support, it became clear that no one was able to do this (something locked the flow and no one was able to see what; I guess my account was so ancient, it has some db flags no longer used but still checked b…

They are not a "weird" company -- they are a piece-of-shit company

Exactly, they have a monopoly and abuse it in the worst possible way. I'm glad someone sued them and won, his politics don't matter to me.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#133
post #31
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh not this old canard again. The US constitutional guarantee of freedom from government interference in speech is just one aspect of the matter . If private companies own every method of articulating your views, and are preventing you from doing so, then you aren't free to speak.

> If private companies own every method of articulating your views, They aren't. We're nowhere even close. To the point where I can't even envision how that could happen. Perhaps in some sort of fantasy libertarian future where everything has been privatized, including the streets and sidewalks. But that's certainly not anything like now.

If you want to envisage such a future for a dystopian novel or something like that, just imagine this wild fantasy:

1. Imagine a world where all the major online spaces - twitter, reddit, facebook, tumblr, HN, tiktok, instagram, youtube, twitch, slack, and discord and so on are privately owned. As are skype, zoom and google meet. Imagine a world where you can't even send e-mails if private companies don't like your 'sender reputation'.

2. Then imagine a world where all Radio and TV channels, newspapers and billboards are owned by private corporations. Maybe they're even owned by a tiny number of corporations, with specific political leanings.

3. Then fantasise that universities and similar venues for public speaking are a law unto themselves, and are within their rights to choose who they invite to speak.

4. Imagine a world of rising land values and increasing urbanisation, where only the absolute richest people could hold an event of any scale on land they own themselves.

5. Then imagine a world where public squares and parks in cities increasingly in private ownership. Perhaps city hall is sold to an investment firm who lease it back to the city. As it's private land, private security can move anyone on for 'unacceptable behaviour'.

6. There's still a risk some free speech would happen on public roads - we probably can't transfer those to private companies. We'll have to use the state's power here and arrest them - but don't worry, it's not a free speech issue. They were, uh, obstructing ambulance traffic. Or we could just make it legal for motorists to drive into people and let nature take it's course.

Thank goodness such an absurd fiction could never happen in real life :)

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#134
post #35

Quoted post unavailable.

In the interest of fairness, here is Singal's response to that page: https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/glaad-took-false-previous... For what it's worth, I'm 100% with Singal here.

Further in the interest of fairness, here's a response to Singal in general, including his "When Children Say They’re Trans" story for the Atlantic that he defends there:

https://proteanmag.com/2022/04/22/singal-and-the-noise/

Singal defends conversion therapy and uses poor science to defend his claims. I'm not sympathetic.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#135

Quoted post unavailable.

> recent hard turn to the far right

!!!

This is not something i've noticed. If anything, over the last couple of years, i've noticed a drift from libertarian optimism to an awareness of economic injustice.

Can you give me three example of actual far right positions being accepted here in the last few months?

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#136
post #110
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably a lot of political stuff I am unaware of here, but a "sex realist" immediately made me understand what Colin's views probably area. I don't get the "legitimatize" bit. If I acknowledge that some people believe the Earth is flat, and call them flat Earthers, how does this make their position legitimate? Is the thought process here to pretend such people do not exist? I don't grok.

"Flat earther" is an accurate representation of their beliefs; it doesn't say whether those beliefs reflect reality or not. "Sex realist", however, implies that this Colin person's beliefs correspond to reality, while his opponent's beliefs do not. Imagine if flat earthers started going around calling themselves "geological realists" -- anyone who then used that term would pretty clearly identify themselves as aligne…

I guess I get you, but, it don't see the point of even bringing it up. Or caring.

Why?

Because worrying, caring about this is the ultimate red herring.

Imagine there are two sides. One which believes all blue people should be exiled, another which is opposed... including the blue people.

Now, to add to this frey, people start shouting at the name the other group calls themselves?!

I mean really, it's like caring that someone is putting too much salt on a sick of salted butter.

How about we argue about the salted butter itself?!

Worse, every erg of energy complaining about the name, is a wasted breath to fight the real issue. And even worse, the other side chose the name, likes it, so what's the point.

People will always think of them by this name. Always.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#137
Yes, I also won my case against Paypal after a topic from a person on this site. I was able to get my money back from Paypal that they froze before the start of the pandemic and it appears they might be forced to pay me interest over it too

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#138
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the interest of fairness, here is Singal's response to that page: https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/glaad-took-false-previous... For what it's worth, I'm 100% with Singal here.

Further in the interest of fairness, here's a response to Singal in general, including his "When Children Say They’re Trans" story for the Atlantic that he defends there: https://proteanmag.com/2022/04/22/singal-and-the-noise/ Singal defends conversion therapy and uses poor science to defend his claims. I'm not sympathetic.

Obviously people need to make up their own mind, but I do hope that they'd read what Singal actually writes and not base their opinion on a mean-spirited, vengeful hit-piece like this.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#140
post #66

how would one do that from within the EU? Is it still sending a certified letter to Omaha?

PayPal probably have a legal entity in the EU, and different terms of service/privacy policy (to reflect EU regulations like GDPR), so probably not. You're free to read the double digits terms of service you agreed to to check the exact process :p

There was an article posed on HN not long ago (I am unable to find the link), where some business tried to sue Paypal for stealing them money (yes literally) and Paypal were giving them the run around claiming that this or that jurisdiction had no authority to sue them, maybe somebody can find the link, basically paypal claimed they couldn't be sued in any country.

In the EU paypal is deemed a bank I believe thus must abide by the same rules as regular ones. That's not the case in US.

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