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Federal data is disappearing. On Thursday, meet the teams working to rescue it

muckrock.com

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Re: Federal data is disappearing. On Thursday, meet the teams working to rescue it

#51

Post by anon7000 »

zo1 wrote: post #35
actionfromafar wrote: post #2

So, are the feds saving money on hosting costs?! What's the point of this.

[flagged]

It’s because you frankly have a pretty petty, small-sized idea about what the left’s goals were.

To you, the goal is to fucking burn out everyone you disagree with, and to change the government to actively persecute those who aren’t in the in group. It’s super aggressive, and by your own admission, not really what the leftists were doing.

The liberal ideas are pretty goddamn simple. There’s a place for everyone, as long as you’re not hurting someone or making them uncomfortable. That really sums up a large part of cancel culture. Yeah, it means you’ll get a lot more flack for being a dick.

But we don’t try to get rid of consumer protections, weather forecasts, social safety nets (and those safety nets provide benefits to anyone, even if they got cancelled, by the way), and the like just because our feelings got hurt.

But I know for a god damn fact that my children would be safer in a liberal future.

Some of the info taken down includes stuff about protecting women from harassment and abuse. Would my daughter be safer in your world. I mean a solid 90% of cancel culture is people who were absolutely horrid towards the women in their lives. You want to make crass jokes again? Or not get called out for wandering eyes and hands? Yeah, I’m sure ignoring that widespread problem will protect our daughters.

Re: Federal data is disappearing. On Thursday, meet the teams working to rescue it

#54

Post by washadjeffmad »

actionfromafar wrote: post #2

So, are the feds saving money on hosting costs?! What's the point of this.

It looks like you're getting some knee-jerk downvotes because some people are likely misreading your exasperation with what practical utility removing the data could possibly serve as "So [what], the feds are saving money on hosting costs?! What's the point of this [thread]."

That's not your fault, and I'm sorry.

Re: Federal data is disappearing. On Thursday, meet the teams working to rescue it

#56

Post by computerthings »

guff_se wrote: post #6
guff_se wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not an objection against saving hosting costs, it is the fact that the original data is not saved or backed up. To understand our future we need to know our past. Saving shelf space in the library is not a good justification to burn our history books. If you don’t like having them up, you can put them in the basement. Storage costs hardly anything.

This is of course a deliberate move. By actively destroying ideas and work you don’t agree with, rather than archiving it, you make it harder for the other side to realize their vision. It’s a kind of scorched earth strategy.

As Hannah Arendt said, the difference between traditional and modern lies is like the difference between hiding it, and destroying it.

> Moreover, the traditional lie concerned only particulars and was never meant to deceive literally everybody; it was directed at the enemy and was meant to deceive only him. These two limitations restricted the injury inflicted upon truth to such an extent that to us, in retrospect, it may appear almost harmless. Since facts always occur in a context, a particular lie – that is, a falsehood that makes no attempt to change the whole context – tears, as it were, a hole in the fabric of factuality. As every historian knows, one can spot a lie by noticing incongruities, holes, or the junctures of patched-up places. As long as the texture as a whole is kept intact, the lie will eventually show up as if of its own accord. The second limitation concerns those who are engaged in the business of deception. They used to belong to the restricted circle of statesmen and diplomats, who among themselves still knew and could preserve the truth.They were not likely to fall victims to their own falsehoods; they could deceive others without deceiving themselves. Both of these mitigating circumstances of the old art of lying are noticeably absent from the manipulation of facts that confronts us today.

-- Hannah Arendt, "Truth and Politics"

Re: Federal data is disappearing. On Thursday, meet the teams working to rescue it

#57

Post by matwood »

0xEF wrote: post #12
lazide wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really it’s just an attack against any truth/data found inconvenient. Why argue when you can just make it not exist?

[flagged]

I think we're about the learn how effective the internet really is at remembering. Here is Rubio talking about how great USAID is not that long ago...

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/05/politics/video/kfile-marc...

Not he says it's a criminal organization they've been trying to get rid of over multiple administrations.

Obviously they want to scrub all the past.

Re: Federal data is disappearing. On Thursday, meet the teams working to rescue it

#59

Post by fzeroracer »

zmgsabst wrote: post #45
skulk wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing the victim is also another page right out of the Nazi playbook, thanks for bringing that one up too!

Yes — the people the US Supreme Court ruled were illegally discriminated against are just “playing victim”.

I'm curious, what would you call banning transgender individuals from the military then?
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