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That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

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Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#631

Post by nixosbestos »

tomhow wrote: post #627
nixosbestos wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Please don't comment like this on HN. These guidelines in particular, ask us to avoid commenting like this: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer... Please don't post shallow dismissals... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Cute that another (days+ old) comment of mine was down-modded and flagged at the exact same time you wrote this. You know, the one that stated literal facts and nothing else.

I legitimately read the comment twice and couldn't parse it when I wrote this. I wasn't trying to be rude, I genuinely didn't understand. But pretty sure you don't care. But sure, point taken.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#633

Post by brookst »

zmgsabst wrote: post #270
brookst wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible to accept that one can’t know the absolute, complete, detailed truth without giving up on identifying and rejecting lies. That’s the whole authoritarian / fascist shtick: if you can’t be 100% certain that no formulation of any vaccine has ever increased illness, then “vaccines kill people” is just as true as “vaccines save lives”. I don’t need to have personally reviewed all records of every single ver…

Both statements as written are true: vaccines do kill people and vaccines do save lives. If you insert the implicit “all”, then both are false: not all vaccines save lives and not all vaccines kill people. But your knowledge of medicine is quite deep if you know the relative rates of vaccines with zero deaths ever versus the rate at which defective vaccines are produced. Do you have a good source you can share?

So many fallacies. To be charitable, I will assume you are just trying to wind people up with nonsensical rhetoric.

There are no zero-death vaccines, as you know. There are also no zero-death diseases, as you probably know. The relative rates of death between the two are not even close, as you know.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#634

Post by adamtaylor_13 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #551
adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I'm glad so-and-so is dead" largely can't be a reason to, say, lose your drivers' license, social security benefits, or government employment, because the First Amendment applies to government specifically. Unless I'm mistaken, that's not happening. If it is, it's wrong and should be corrected.

In Jimmy Kimmel's case, the FCC chair threatened ABC's broadcasting licensure to pressure them to punish his (very, very mild, incidentally) protected speech.

I don't believe that the FCC threatening ABC's broadcasting license has anything to do with free speech. There were murmurs about lawsuits for defamation of character all over Twitter. I'm no lawyer, I don't claim to know if that's even possible.

But it's clear that with the emotional tension of the situation, ABC wasn't about to get itself in legal trouble over a second-rate, late-night show host.

So, while the FCC may have been threatening, we have a legal system designed to prevent such over-steps of power, should they occur. It seems pretty clear ABC wanted no part of the storm that was brewing.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#635

Post by adamtaylor_13 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #566
adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting. I stand corrected. I will note, however, that this is literally the only example I've seen of someone getting fired for a legitimately non-celebratory remark. We've got a legal system for stuff like that. For every single example you could give me, I can give you at least a thousand counterexamples. 99.9% of all the folks being fired are getting fired for being reprehensible.

The fact that finding a responsive example was so easy doesn’t give you a moments pause? Here’s another. https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2025/09/22/bal...

Eh, that one is worse than the first, and while not "celebratory", certainly shows a lack of judgement and character. I'd fire someone for this, too. This has less to do with free speech and more to do with revealing yourself to be an insensitive asshole.

The man was murdered in front of his children, and this woman's instinct is defamation of character. She's continuing to repeat the lie that Charlie Kirk "excused the deaths of children in the name of the Second Amendment".

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#636

Post by pkphilip »

nostrademons wrote: post #521
pkphilip wrote: post #260

Reminds me of the time when I consulted with a very large newspaper chain in the US which owned a lot of papers - both left leaning and right leaning. we used to get feeds from all of the usual sources. But the news articles themselves were "massaged" in various ways by some of the same editorial teams to suit the left-leaning or the right-leaning newspapers. The idea that completely different spin can be put to the…

You might have the causality reversed. Another model might be that the electorate naturally divides into tribes, for a similar reason that competitive sports exist: people want to have a team to root for. And then media needs to adapt their message to make it seems like they're on the same "team" as the viewers/readers, because that's the only way they get clicks. So you may have the same parent media company running…

You assume that the left and the right already existed - and the media is just pandering to these divisions. But I think it goes beyond that. The same media houses own the left and the right wing media and I think it is part of their agenda to polarise the public towards these two extremes.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#637

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 »

southernplaces7 wrote: post #594
ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cancel culture won. Conservatives are not being hypocritical for having been against it and now for it. If your opponent is using an effective weapon and you don't also pick up that weapon, you will lose.

well so much for a principled stand against or for something by this dogshit logic. I guess the only important thing is to cheer on whatever gets the votes, never mind how badly all things deteriorate as a result? I'm no fan of democrat progressive culture, but if the crap you describe is what passes for a bottom line in the conservative camp, then it's garbage either way.

I’m not a libertarian

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#638

Post by tomhow »

nixosbestos wrote: post #631
tomhow wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't comment like this on HN. These guidelines in particular, ask us to avoid commenting like this: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer... Please don't post shallow dismissals... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Cute that another (days+ old) comment of mine was down-modded and flagged at the exact same time you wrote this. You know, the one that stated literal facts and nothing else. I legitimately read the comment twice and couldn't parse it when I wrote this. I wasn't trying to be rude, I genuinely didn't understand. But pretty sure you don't care. But sure, point taken.

I didn't touch any "days+ old" comments. I did flag another comment of yours from about the same time as the one I replied to, but several other community members had already downvoted and flagged it, so I'm not taking any unilateral action here. I'm only seeing your comments because so many community members are flagging them.

> You know, the one that stated literal facts and nothing else

I don't know what comment you're referring to, but it's common for people to claim that they were "just stating facts", whilst sidestepping the fact that the choice of "facts", the context in which they are invoked and the words used to state them can very easily be inflammatory.

> I wasn't trying to be rude, I genuinely didn't understand

It's common for people to underestimate how harshly their words come across by the time they hit the page for others to read. We've had to warn you before, and you're still frequently making comments that are breaking the guidelines and being flagged by many fellow community members. You need to try harder to keep within the guidelines if you want to participate here. This is only a place where people want to participate because others make the effort to keep the standards up. We need to see you making an effort to be one of the ones to raise the standards, rather than repeatedly dragging them down.

> But pretty sure you don't care

My job is to uphold the guidelines and do what I can to keep this place from burning to the ground. That's all I care about when I'm posting comments like these.

> But sure, point taken

I hope so!

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#639

Post by southernplaces7 »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #637
southernplaces7 wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well so much for a principled stand against or for something by this dogshit logic. I guess the only important thing is to cheer on whatever gets the votes, never mind how badly all things deteriorate as a result? I'm no fan of democrat progressive culture, but if the crap you describe is what passes for a bottom line in the conservative camp, then it's garbage either way.

I’m not a libertarian

What does being a libertarian have to do with it? Do you take as for granted that unless you're a libertarian, you shouldn't bother with at least a few firm moral principles in your politics? That anything goes so long as it garners votes and social media "engagement"?

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#640

Post by southernplaces7 »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #598
southernplaces7 wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said in another reply above, where's the room for a firm set of beliefs and moral framework, or perhaps a principled stand against or for something by this dogshit logic of yours? The only important thing is to get them votes and followers then? The conservatives can fuck off just as hard as the radical left if that's all that matters.

>moral framework Tit-for-tat is a moral framework.

So is Nazism, that doesn't mean all moral frameworks are created equal. Also, tit for tat is a type of cynical pragmatism, not a thing based on some principle (misguided or not) which is a basic requirement of a moral framework; the notion of doing something or not doing it because you feel it to be right, regardless of benefit.
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