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Stripe bans Trump campaign

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Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that a large percentage of people across the political spectrum lack basic civics knowledge.

We make people take a test to drive. People should have to take a Civics based test to vote. If someone wants to vote but fails the civics test, they should then immediately qualify for a minimum living wage job to go back to public education and get paid for getting at least an 80% grade at whatever grade level they're working at (obviously with either enrollment at lower grade levels, classification as disability i…

Wouldn't that first requiring proof of voter identification? I'm sure plenty of Trump supporters would be down with this plan.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#652
post #454

I was on the fence about this, but reading the comments convinced me it was the absolute right decision. The fact that all these institutions just allowed this horrible hateful speech for four years, in the name of free speech etc, despite all the harassment, harm (mental and otherwise) it caused to so many people in America actually emboldened so many to the extent that now that they crossed this invisible line, the…

Your point about the 'invisible line' is astute. We're in a crisis of perception and reality right now, and this has caused many to lose sight of the very real lines that we have agreed upon to preserve society and democracy. I think the other important factor here is we are in a very vulnerable moment right now because we are in the midst of a transition of power. It takes time to transfer the apparatus and operatio…

> no small part due to how the President has run the state in the waning months of his term.

From an outside-the-US perspective, the waning 47 and a half months of his term...

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#653
post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet they believe outright lies, lies repeated by GOP leaders, journalists etc, who at the same time denigrated the main stream media and scientists, eroding trust in neutral institutions. Evaluations are hard to make when all the sources you trust are lying to you.

In 1861 the Senate expelled 10 senators for being involved in a conspiracy against the United States. And 7 years later, the 14th amendment was passed. The lies for profit charlatans basically get away with it. But I do not think members of Congress should. Every single one of those who voted on false pretenses to overturn an election last week, should be expelled. That is the fraud that has happened in this election…

Democrats have challenged electors for dumb reasons before. It's their right. Get a grip.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#654
post #389

Maybe I'm being naive but it seems like a larger problem is being ignored here that I feel I should call attention to. This is going to piss people off and some of those people are going to be real, nothing-to-lose extremists. Actions like these though seemingly harmless in the short-term are going to radicalize the exact person/type of people that you do not want to radicalize. Because a lot of high-ranking SV folks…

I don't agree with this at all and I am tired of seeing "sensible" people here explain how it's important to reach out to fascists and make them feel loved. You're only advocating further normalisation of fascism, and depriving them of the consequences of their actions—consequences that have always been a part of civil society. What's more, that you seem to be more preoccupied with not upsetting these fascists rather…

[flagged]

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#655

The debate here seems like fuel for antitrust issues. A single company deciding not to do business with someone (over actions, not innate stuff like protected classes) should be fine, but when you let them get to be a backbone service, then issues surface like those discussed by everyone here. If google, for example decided to stop surfacing trump stuff in results, that could be a real issue. Not because it’s google…

Exactly. I'm even sort of glad all of this is happening, because it shows more clear than ever to everyone who can think calmly because he isn't into all this political bullshit (which are few, sadly), how broken all this stuff really currently is. And it's broken on so many levels.

First off, I don't see why, philosophically, the owner of a service shouldn't be allowed to decide, who he wants to do business with. And despite I do remember some stories when the same people who are cheering for Trump to get banned everywhere were defending, quite hypocritically, the opposite point of view, it really wasn't something new and outrageous, even back then, especially when dealing with all these internet-machines. We are long used to the fact, that getting banned on some internet forum is ok and you generally don't have the real option to appeal. The host is the host, and he bans whoever he wants. And while sometimes it may be much much more than a little inconvenience for the person getting banned, people never really cared, because it's rare enough for the consequences of it to be really tragic for people to feel empathetic: society doesn't give a fuck about the problems of an individual unless enough people fear the same might happen to them.

Second, it's never been a secret, where Silicon Valley (HN folks included) is leaning politically. So let's not pretend there are some justifications why they had to do all this shit to Trump for some greater good. The truth is, the entities involved just hate the guy, pretty much everyone in big tech except for Thiel was donating generously to his opponents. So no big surprise here either.

But the first thing that was really special about Trump being bullied by Twitter (quite a while ago) is that this was not some random guy, it was the acting president of a country that hosts Twitter, elected by (more or less) half of the country (on both occasions). So, while (arguably) playing by the rules, Twitter was basically showing that their opinion was more important, than the opinion of the guy half of their the country voted for. And there wasn't some other platform which he could move to, Twitter is Twitter and the rest is, well, the rest. So this was the first point.

Fast forward to now, Trump being banned from everywhere and apps that refuse to ban Trump being banned from Amazon/Apple Store/Google Play themselves, we arrive to the second point: things look a little differently, when there are like 3 major service providers that are supposedly competing with each other, and if they all agree that you're a person non-grata, you are fucked. Even if the half of the country supports you, it's nothing. What really matters that 10 guys on top of these big companies don't like you.

I don't really care about USA elections bullshit, so here is the real point: we don't usually see this, because, first off, there's supposedly not that many reasons for all of FAANG and such to dislike some random person, and second, if it happens, we'll never hear about it anyway. But if the guy half of the country supports (nevermind he is even so called POTUS) struggles to deal with this, everyone else is completely at their mercy.

So either there is decentralization, or there is this.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you honestly believe Trump was trying to overthrow the government? Yes, just like I think that was the US’s goal in Cuba with the Bay of Pigs. And just as with the Bay of Pigs, the active agents that were sent off were expendable and abandoned once it didn't work. > Had that been his real intent I'm fairly certain it would have had a more significant outcome beyond people stealing random envelops and podiums. Mu…

The Bay of Pigs is a good example of an actual coup attempt with military training and small arms. Can you see the difference between that and what happened at the Capitol Building?

> The Bay of Pigs is a good example of an actual coup attempt with military training and small arms.

The Bay of Pigs wasn’t a coup attempt, though it was an attempt to replace the government. It was an invasion, support for which was cancelled when the expendable, superficially deniable spearhead force did less well than planned.

And, yes, there are lots of differences between it and coup attempt at the Capitol, which is why I didn’t say they were similar generally, only specific, identified points.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#657
post #641

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” — George Orwell, Animal Farm I understand the moves by Stripe, Twitter, and co. However, I would argue that the long term implications set by this precedent are much worse. When the Snowden story first broke back in 2013, many on HN argued that, hey it's all good, I have nothing to hide, and I trust our President. Three short years later, who took…

Americans didn’t Weimar-Republic into a fascist regime this time, thankfully.

The prevailing idea on HN is however “let’s have no regulation than bad regulation”... Guys, there’s such thing as good regulation.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#658
post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that same definition the antifa riots are terrorism too then? Politically motivated violence - throwing explosives, setting buildings on fire, etc. Yet I haven't heard that word used at all.

The "ANTIFA" riots? Can you cite a source for this claim that the black lives matters protests were propagated in any sort of widespread, organized concerted effort by "ANTIFA"? I hear this claim often from Trump supporters but as far as I can tell, they either heard it on talk radio or Fox News. Considering Fox News' coverage of Trump prior to the election, I don't exactly consider them a reliable source. If you cou…

Yea, 6 months of coordinated riots and the "right" is the problem https://fukkot.com/riots/all/

Oh and Biden won less counties than Hillary, which was already low for her (hence her loss). Biden under performed in every state except for 5 key swing states and even then it was only a "win" because a never before seen amount of mail in ballots were used. Perhaps they were fake, or perhaps people that would never set foot in a voting place were fine with circling "biden" on a mail in ballot and dropping it back in the mail box. Still against state law either way.

Oh and very few ballots were contested due to signature mismatches. Funny because Obama won his senate seat in the 90's by having a team canvas all of his competitors primary ballots and had them whittled down until he was the only one running for the office that year.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#659
post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These people think the election was rigged, and they don't trust institutions. The don't come up with these conclusions themselves. Only one very influential "leader", with a Twitter following of 88M, has been claiming elections are a fraud in America: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-longstanding-history-c... https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37673797 Appeasing his followers has been tried for the pas…

I disagree and feel that's a very simplistic explanation. If anything the past four years of democrat reaction to Trump has directly contributed to the situation we're in. The failure to acknowledge this simple fact is startling. If you were a Trump supporter who was just called a fascist, racist, bigot, white supremacist, uncle tom, unintelligent rube during the past four years, and you watched as the media, hollywo…

There is clearly a large disenfranchised segment of the population. They have all kinds of reasons with varying degrees of veracity. Lots of people are trying to ignore it, sweep it under the rug, etc. But the real problem here is that a lot of corps+people are trying to "fix" it by stamping it out. Nearly half of the U.S. voted for trump - so I don't think stamping it out is going to work - but it might lead to worse things.

Re: Stripe bans Trump campaign

#660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that a large percentage of people across the political spectrum lack basic civics knowledge.

We make people take a test to drive. People should have to take a Civics based test to vote. If someone wants to vote but fails the civics test, they should then immediately qualify for a minimum living wage job to go back to public education and get paid for getting at least an 80% grade at whatever grade level they're working at (obviously with either enrollment at lower grade levels, classification as disability i…

The Honda Civics test.
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