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Kanye West is buying Parler

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Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#451

Post by triceratops »

mrtksn wrote: post #438
triceratops wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I refer to things like attaching counter opinions to opinions of people with high visibility for example That's what fact-checking is. It's widely heckled.

The problem with fact checking is the presumption of authority over the truth. I don't suggest fact checking, I suggest equal exposure to contesting ideas. I guess NASA tweets might receive pairs who claim that the Earth is not a globe :) That's OK, NASA can respond to these with equal visibility and if people are not convinced I guess NASA would need more convincing arguments.

All your "free thinkers" that are browsing these posts for 5 minutes while they take a dump won't be taken in by the mere stamp of authoritativeness on the fact-check posts, right? I mean, obviously all users are able to make good judgments and competently weigh all the facts on every topic. Why are you so worried? What makes a fact check post more authoritative than NASA?

Btw I'm not advocating for active suppression of ideas. I just understand if a particular company chooses to do it on their website. I'd do the same in their place. It's not their job to give everyone a voice.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#452

Post by filoleg »

c3534l wrote: post #425
AlwaysRock wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad because to become successful Kanye had to ignore hundreds/thousands of important people telling him he wasnt good enough and he would never make it as a rapper. Then he became, arguably, the most popular rapper/hip hop artist of all time. Now image you've done what seems impossible despite countless people telling you it wont work out. You are in the top 1% of fame. Now someone tells you your other ideas are…

I don't know much about Kanye, but are reports of people telling him he didn'h have talent to be a rapper genuine, or just something he tells people? Because it sounds like the sort of thing people make up for their own personal narrative. It reminds me of when people say things like "the doctor told me I only had a year to live" - which is something no doctor would actually say because its a massive legal liability,…

It was genuine. He worked hard to get good at making beats, to the point he got signed at Roc-a-Fella Records to make beats for big artists at the time (Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, etc). He was super known for that in the industry, but Kanye insisted on one specific term of the contract - they gotta let him release his own album. Which they hesitantly allowed, because they thought he was just gonna fail and go back to what they thought he was good at, making beats for other rappers.

They didnt want him to be a rapper, but not for some malicious reason. They loved his beats, but thought no one would care for his songs that were nothing like the mainstream rap at the time, especially since none of them were about bling/drugs/gang stuff. That's just what was selling. And Roc-a-Fella Records wanted their star beatmaker actually making beats for their star rappers, not "pursue dreams". So they allowed him to make that album, thinking the sooner he is done with it, the sooner he will get back to beatmaking.

All of this is confirmed by tons of other people affiliated with Roc-a-Fella Records (like Jay-Z and others) at the time.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#453

Post by seanw444 »

triceratops wrote: post #434
seanw444 wrote: post #377

Hey guys, I have an idea: why don't we try building free-speech protocols rather than free-speech platforms? Humans are fallible. We like to think we could build something where people can talk freely, but if the ability to censor something we don't like is presented, at some point nearly everybody will take that action because they personally deem it necessary for some greater good. Ultimately, protocols that cannot…

There's plenty of free-speech protocols, at various levels of the networking stack. TCP/IP. BitTorrent. HTTP. FTP. IRC. As long as you have an Internet connection, you have a voice.

I guess my point is about the adoption of said platforms. Yes, lots exist. They're too clunky or confusing for the layperson though.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#454

Post by evan_ »

OJFord wrote: post #234
tptacek wrote: post #117

This is really a story about a celebrity's mental illness and public breakdown. If you haven't been following the news, West has spent the week saying increasingly unhinged things, not just about politics but about Pete Davidson, his wife, and (if I'm remembering right) his kids and the fake actor children that have been installed in his former home to corrupt them. He was interviewed for a show on Fox and a big chun…

It's linked ('unaired segments of the interview') in the submitted article: https://www.vice.com/en/article/3ad77y/kanye-west-tucker-car... Bizarre. In a way, good on them for editing the weirdest stuff out... But really probably shouldn't have used any of it when someone's so clearly in such a bad state? I mean it really is just driving clicks/views/profit from someone's poor health, in a nasty sort of way (i.e. not…

They edited out all of the crazy stuff he said and then Tucker Carlson literally said "See, he's not crazy!"

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#455

Post by AlexandrB »

logicalmonster wrote: post #390

How could an average outside observer distinguish between another's mental illness and a guy who's just a real out of the box thinker who might be wrong about many ideas but might also add value to the world by perceiving reality in an atypical way? A lot of posters are claiming Kanye is mentally ill and unable to manage his own affairs. What is the direct evidence of this? And I don't simply mean "provide examples o…

> I think it's pretty dangerous to be labeling people involved in the national dialogue as mentally ill without a diagnosis, or at least some substantial and direct evidence.

I think this is a lot less dangerous than you think. When people throw around terms like "groomer", "nazi", and "abuser" with reckless abandon, labelling someone as "bipolar" hardly compares. Ultimately anyone that agrees with what Kanye is saying will not be swayed by the label, neither will those who disagree with him by the lack thereof.

A lot of the commentary about his mental illness seems to be focused on trying to find an explanation for why his ideas and positions seem to have radically shifted in the last few years. Honestly, it kind of gives him an "out". If he was not afflicted by some kind of mental illness when he called for "Death con 5", his actions are even more morally suspect.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#456

Post by triceratops »

seanw444 wrote: post #453
triceratops wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of free-speech protocols, at various levels of the networking stack. TCP/IP. BitTorrent. HTTP. FTP. IRC. As long as you have an Internet connection, you have a voice.

I guess my point is about the adoption of said platforms. Yes, lots exist. They're too clunky or confusing for the layperson though.

Seeding a torrent isn't that clunky or confusing. Lots of laypeople do it. And it's practically uncensorable.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#457

Post by MockObject »

OJFord wrote: post #383
MockObject wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A celebrity says some things that make sense, and some things that don't, and it's nasty profiteering to report on the former? That really seems a bit extreme to me.

I didn't watch it or anything, so I'm definitely biased by only having read an article about 'even more unhinged bits leaked' as it were, but wasn't it all a bit sensational? Depends what you call 'makes sense' I suppose, I think one perhaps needs a higher bar when it's in the context of such a conversation, where other things are clearly paranoia; if he's clearly not 'himself', why should someone else get to judge w…

I watched it, and it was an engaging mix of lucidity, nonsense, insight, and delusion. Intended to be a 30 minute interview, Kanye had much on his mind, and they went for two hours. He wasn't clearly not himself; he's always like this during his public, manic phases. (He goes dark during his depressive phases.)

I think our society has gotten so used to pop stars who are safe, sanitized, vapid graduates of Disney kids, and "transgressive" high artists bravely fighting the against dead horses slain generations ago, that we've lost the capacity to handle artists who can be disturbing and awkward at times, and creatively redeeming at others, but can't easily be categorized as perfectly good or purely evil.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#458

Post by dragonwriter »

P0l83q4p1Hw3Ul wrote: post #320
taylodl wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and these Parler people are scamming him - that's an interesting point I hadn't thought of. My first thought on hearing this news was so what? I don't care about Parler or Kanye West, but if Parler is taking advantage of Kanye's mental decline then that's next-level awful. Like I said, I'm no fan of Kanye, but that's horrible to take advantage of people like that.

Is Elon Musk being scammed by Twitter? Same situation. Can't a rich dude buy a company without goofy rumors being spread (scammed into buying Parler)? Having a celebrity owner increases the value.

> Is Elon Musk being scammed by Twitter?

Twitter clearly took full advantage of his irrational hard on to get a signed deal. Not “being scammed” in that Twitter very nuch did not seek out the deal, but they certainly fully leveraged his willingness to toss out preconditions any sane purchaser would demand.

> Having a celebrity owner increases the value.

As a mascot, maybe, unless they are polarizing and their area of negative appeal overlaps with the product’s market and their positve appeal doesn’t; but owners are also decision makers, and celebrity’s are going to be all over the map in that role.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#459

Post by evan_ »

jimbob45 wrote: post #398
tptacek wrote: post #117

This is really a story about a celebrity's mental illness and public breakdown. If you haven't been following the news, West has spent the week saying increasingly unhinged things, not just about politics but about Pete Davidson, his wife, and (if I'm remembering right) his kids and the fake actor children that have been installed in his former home to corrupt them. He was interviewed for a show on Fox and a big chun…

To be clear, he's saying that it felt like everyone already had their message about Uvalde coordinated before the Uvalde event had fully come out in the news to the point where even The Gap, a store as removed as possible from being a news organization, had a message prepared. That feels different than "people at the Gap knew about Uvalde". Is that still an insane thing to say?

They knew there was going to be a mass-casualty school shooting ahead of time because there's a mass-casualty school shooting every few months in this country

It's a (sad) reality that if you're doing any kind of public relations you need to plan for the very real possibility that your giant brand launch is going to coincide with a national tragedy.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#460

Post by mrtksn »

UncleMeat wrote: post #260
mrtksn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't accept that content deletion is a way to go. When an offensive content is deleted we lose the ability to jude it for urselves. The content must remain but be strictly attached to a persona so the persona can be "judged" rightfully. In real life, when we deal with these people we want to know what they did. It gives fidelity, unlike "the person said something that violates rule 4 section 3". We should stop pre…

I don’t see any value in spending my time judging content saying that trans people are degenerates or that black people are an inferior race. I’ve already judged those ideas in my life and don’t need to see them anymore.

Well you can judge people that say those things as people who don't deserve your respect and attention. Then don't hang around places that interact with those people, that's how we do it in real life.
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