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At long last, InfoWars is ours

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Re: At long last, InfoWars is ours

#321

Post by sleepybrett »

themafia wrote: post #271
sleepybrett wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... after he services his debt, then he can have toys.

That's not at all how corporate or personal bankruptcies work. You exactly prove my point.

.. but in this case: https://www.npr.org/2025/08/13/nx-s1-5501648/alex-jones-info...

"If Infowars' brand and property are sold, Jones could still start a new company or work for someone else. But because the bankruptcy judge ruled Jones' behavior "willful and malicious," the bankruptcy will not erase Jones' debt, meaning families can keep claiming any money he makes in the future until he pays the $1.3 billion he owes them."

Re: At long last, InfoWars is ours

#322

Post by themafia »

sleepybrett wrote: post #321
themafia wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not at all how corporate or personal bankruptcies work. You exactly prove my point.

.. but in this case: https://www.npr.org/2025/08/13/nx-s1-5501648/alex-jones-info... "If Infowars' brand and property are sold, Jones could still start a new company or work for someone else. But because the bankruptcy judge ruled Jones' behavior "willful and malicious," the bankruptcy will not erase Jones' debt, meaning families can keep claiming any money he makes in the future until he pays the $1.3 billion he owe…

Take some time to see how bankruptcy works. You cannot take all of someones property, nor can you take all of their paycheck. There are specific limits. You can also still come to an alternate settlement with your creditors.

This idea that he "can't have toys" or the court is "going to take is cat" because he has debts is insanity.

Let's say it's your family member. And they go bankrupt due to medical bills. Is this how you want the system to treat them? Justice isn't an opportunity to demean people you don't like.

People will tolerate all kinds of bad precedent and injustice simply because of their emotions. Which might be fine, but to see it drizzle onto the front page of Hacker News, I have to agree with the OP, is annoying.

Re: At long last, InfoWars is ours

#323

Post by kypro »

BryantD wrote: post #277
kypro wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That isn’t even phrased as a “what if” — it’s asserting that Sandy Hook was staged. It’s framed as a truth, not a possibility, and the jury found that Alex Jones knew it wasn’t true when he was saying it. I think the deliberate maliciousness of it should bare more punishment, but I still think $1B is extremely unreasonable. It's also absurd to me that a judge should have the right to make up an arbitrarily big numb…

Judges don't have that ability. They have the ability to determine punitive damages within guidelines (many states have caps, for example), and if the defendant feels the damages are unreasonable they have every right to appeal to a higher court. Eventually the Supreme Court may make an unappealable decision, but the appeals process has to stop somewhere. And at some point society needs a way to tell people who ignor…

Thank you for engaging with me in good faith and helping me understand your perspective.

> And at some point society needs a way to tell people who ignore lesser consequences that they don't get to participate in that society any more. In this case I think Alex Jones crossed enough malicious lines to deserve it; he's in bad shape because he's the kind of person who accuses school shooting survivors of fraud even though he knew he wasn't true! He had every chance in the world to back off and apologize, but he didn't. He tried to avoid facing judgement by hiding behind bankruptcy. He is a very bad human being.

I do agree that he deserved to be punished, and it's interesting because I also agree he deserved it.

I suspect it's because I'm wired extremely libertarian that I don't agree with the $1b damages judgement.

Fundamentally I don't like a system which has the power to make you pay $1b because you lied and hurt people. Even though I acknowledge these things are bad I think are deserving of punishment.

Maybe a good analogy is kids on motorbikes – motorbikes are deathtraps and anyone who allows their kid to ride on a motorbike without deserves to have their head kicked in. But no more what stats I cite for whatever reason it's one of those things where people just say, "don't care, I should be allowed to do that even if I'm risking killing my kid". I'm kinda like that with everything. I don't know why. I don't choose it, I just seem to prefer liberty at the cost of harm in almost all cases.

A just society would be free to take care of individuals like Alex Jones in whatever why they see fit.

Re: At long last, InfoWars is ours

#325

Post by red-iron-pine »

underlipton wrote: post #243
djmips wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would describe it as absurdism.

The two aren't mutually exclusive. Neutral third party Gemini T. Google, what say you? Tim and Eric's Title Explained By calling the show "Awesome" and "Great" before the viewer has even seen it, Tim and Eric lean into a persona of unearned confidence. Neat. For contrast, this is what I'd call absurdism without being smug: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fs...

"Neutral third party Gemini T. Google"

yeah public traded companies that donate heavily to the GOP are neutral

Re: At long last, InfoWars is ours

#326

Post by sleepybrett »

themafia wrote: post #322
sleepybrett wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.. but in this case: https://www.npr.org/2025/08/13/nx-s1-5501648/alex-jones-info... "If Infowars' brand and property are sold, Jones could still start a new company or work for someone else. But because the bankruptcy judge ruled Jones' behavior "willful and malicious," the bankruptcy will not erase Jones' debt, meaning families can keep claiming any money he makes in the future until he pays the $1.3 billion he owe…

Take some time to see how bankruptcy works. You cannot take all of someones property, nor can you take all of their paycheck. There are specific limits. You can also still come to an alternate settlement with your creditors. This idea that he "can't have toys" or the court is "going to take is cat" because he has debts is insanity. Let's say it's your family member. And they go bankrupt due to medical bills. Is this…

I know how bankruptcy works, i've seen it up close. The problem, for him, here is that bankruptcy does not absolve him from his debts on this particular judgement because of his own behavior and choices. That's on him, if it is 'demeaning' so be it.

He could have cooperated with the original trial instead of stonewalling discovery until he was dealt a default judgement, he could have cooperated with the other trial but he didn't, he could have not tried to hide his assets in the bankruptcy process but he didn't... he could have done SO MANY THINGS. But he chose not to. fuck him.

Re: At long last, InfoWars is ours

#327

Post by BryantD »

kypro wrote: post #323
BryantD wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judges don't have that ability. They have the ability to determine punitive damages within guidelines (many states have caps, for example), and if the defendant feels the damages are unreasonable they have every right to appeal to a higher court. Eventually the Supreme Court may make an unappealable decision, but the appeals process has to stop somewhere. And at some point society needs a way to tell people who ignor…

Thank you for engaging with me in good faith and helping me understand your perspective. > And at some point society needs a way to tell people who ignore lesser consequences that they don't get to participate in that society any more. In this case I think Alex Jones crossed enough malicious lines to deserve it; he's in bad shape because he's the kind of person who accuses school shooting survivors of fraud even thou…

Thanks right back at you.

FWIW, I don't think "don't get to participate in that society" is exactly the same as punishment, but it certainly can have that aspect for the theoretical abuser so I'm probably quibbling over a semantic discussion. I just care much more about deterrence than punishment.

Kids on motorbikes is a good analogy. The line I'd draw is between dumb actions that cause harm only to the actor and dumb actions that cause harm to others. Another, more charged analogy is smoking in public -- I have no doubt that the world is better when fewer people do this. It both reduces harm to others by a measurable amount and, since it reduces the overall number of smokers, reduces the cost to society created by people with poorer health.

But wow there are a ton of implications to just blindly saying that's a good idea. The implication that it's OK to mandate behaviors in order to improve an individual's health is not one I'd accept universally, to choose just one example.

Ideally you want people to recognize that Alex Jones is a bad actor and ignore him by themselves, which mitigates the harm he's doing to others by lying. I have no idea how to get there, though.

Re: At long last, InfoWars is ours

#328

Post by [deleted] »

nxobject wrote: post #112

Oh joy, the old Onion News Network is back! Welcome back, Jim Haggerty! Some beautiful examples below… —- Today Now!: Save Money By Taking A Vacation Entirely In Your Mind https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7qYL_KT06-U Today Now! Host Undergoes Horrifically Painful Surgery Live On Air https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_5yR--35uqA How To Channel Your Road Rage Into Cold, Calculating Road Revenge https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v…

[deleted]

Re: At long last, InfoWars is ours

#329

Post by weberer »

nemomarx wrote: post #119
weberer wrote: post #104

[flagged]

Does it seem like he has a plan to fight the acquisition again this time?

They somehow cut off the ability for him to pay rent for his current studio, so he's moving to another one at the end of this month. He's also switching his domain from infowars.com to alexjones.network. Apparently that site and thealexjonesstore.com are owned by a third party so it can't be taken as part of the bankruptcy case. The people suing him also want to claim his likeness entirely but that's unlikely to make it past the 13th amendment. He also claims that Michael Bloomberg is bankrolling the entire case against him.

Re: At long last, InfoWars is ours

#330

Post by [deleted] »

cosmicgadget wrote: post #296
booleandilemma wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think with Alex Jones in particular it's that people knew he had money, and so they wanted a piece of it. If you're a nobody and you say false things no one cares really. Look at all the randos on X spouting nonsense without repercussions. It didn't help that these people in power don't like him. It's dangerous to say false things and have a lot of money. People in power will use it as an excuse to take your money…

Sorry, you're saying the parents of kids killed at Sandy Hook were just using Jones as a payday?

[deleted]
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