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Kanye West is buying Parler

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Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#741
post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mostly I just know of him because he's a very public asshole. Much like his wife. By "his wife" do you mean his ex-wife Kim Kardashian? If so, in what ways is she an asshole?

On the flip she has been doing a lot of advocacy for prison reform and is apprenticing to become a lawyer in California, seemingly to that end. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/arts/television/kim-karda...

> and is apprenticing to become a lawyer in California

She's been working on that for nearly four years. And only just passed the 'baby bar' exam this year (The baby bar exam is the exam California gives -first year- law students. It requires a score of 70% to pass. Kardashian has taken four years, and four attempts, to pass the equivalent of the first year of law school).

Much as I hate to say it, those whose lives would be bettered by meaningful prison reform would probably get more out of her doing publicity and fundraising and using her celebrity status to that end, rather than becoming an attorney.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#742
post #596
post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mostly I just know of him because he's a very public asshole. Much like his wife. By "his wife" do you mean his ex-wife Kim Kardashian? If so, in what ways is she an asshole?

She's a no-talent clown who bought her way into the public view with nepotistic wealth. She heavily uses photoshop on her pictures, and then sells beauty products to insecure young women to profit off the insecurities her digital media team helped manufacture. Her brand is basically just 'stupid and rich' - not someone I'd ever want any of the young women I care about to idolize. Her fame is a shame of American socie…

> She heavily uses photoshop on her pictures, and then sells beauty products to insecure young women to profit off the insecurities her digital media team helped manufacture.

This describes the whole "beauty" industry. I think this might be a case of "don't hate the player, hate the game". There are also plenty of other celebrities whose success amounts to appearing on some reality TV show and building an empire off of that. Kim Kardashian is not remarkable in this regard, but seems to get more hate than average.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#743

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 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…

This is a great point. People become calcified and stuck in their ways as a survival mechanism! Times change and circumstances do too thus the axioms floating around in our heads deviate from "reality" like a lifeboat floating away while we pretend everything is normal. This is not only a lesson for the extreme rich - but everyone.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#744
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, not every speech revolves around political dissent.

Some does though. So the fact that this applies to some people means that it is an issue for those people.

We can have special arrangements for special circumstances.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#745

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What of people that read hypothetical posts like mine and decide to shoot up a synagogue. https://www.wired.com/story/pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-ga...

I think you're trivializing the issue quite a bit. But yes, I dislike the paternalism of considering everyone else on the internet stupid and incapable to making informed decisions when facing questionable points of view. I'm not qualified to speak with any authority about this issue, but my opinion is that people that are willing to shoot other people most likely have other incentives than reading a singular's dude…

"This theoretically would ensure that this person is not exposed to only hate and negativity, and will hopefully make a better decision" ....

"and I doubt I'll change my mind on this fact any time soon"

You have high hopes of people changing their mind when presented with new information, except for yourself apparently

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you don't understand an entire art-form and the industry attached to it, that doesn't make it all "garbage". Might as well go on to say that all modern art or modern cuisine is garbage, and sound just as ridiculous while doing so. Spoiler alert: weird artsy high-fashion pieces you see on runways are not expected to be sold or worn in real life. Just like visual design of concept cars isn't what's expecte…

Doesn't make it good either though. A lot of "modern" art was artists claiming that traditional lenses and standards held too much authority and fuck off. We're going to do draw squares and they're going to be cool. Challenging "what does it mean to be good". Cool. A lot of "post modern" art is this idea that it doesn't matter what you think, fuck you, I made this thing and it may even feel purposefully bad, and if I…

Yup, whenever I hear that about fashion, for all the times I think that the GP's statement is accurate, there's also a Vetements story.

Their line, they want to champion a more "pragmatic" approach to fashion, and "down to earth nature", compared to the big fashion houses.

Demna Gvasalia and his friends all worked at LV, Balenciaga, Maison Margiela, etc.

Vetements in reality? "Down to earth" $1200 track pants, $800 t-shirts, $500 baseball caps, $1500 hoodies.

Given a choice between "trying to break down fashion to be more pragmatic, approachable and down to earth" and "we saw how much money the fashion houses made and we decided we wanted a bigger piece", I know which way I lean.

Edit: in a fit of irony, Balenciaga offered him the role of Creative Director and he went there.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is saying something is widely heckled similar to when someone says "we all know.." before making a controversial statement?

I wasn't aware "many prominent people don't like fact-checking" was a statement that needed a citation. In any case, you're free to disagree with that. I don't really care enough to try to prove it to you.

According to a Pew Research poll "do fact checkers favor tend to favor one political side"

It's split down the middle

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/27/republicans...

As to prominent people- What do you consider prominent, would most people agree with that, and do you have a poll of these people.

Saying most prominent people blah blah blah is debatable on two levels

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#748
post #720
post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have this completely backwards. The first amendment is the US' constitutional protection of free speech. Free speech itself is an inalienable right. You would have the right to free speech regardless of whether or not your government protects it (which many don't). Governments do not grant rights. Free speech on Twitter is a matter of values. It is not a matter of whether or not Twitter is legally liable to prote…

If you have a right and the government isn't protecting it, do you really have a right? Sure you can get all philosophical and say things like every soul has a right to X Y and Z, but that doesn't mean anything in practice outside of the ivory tower if the government you are beholden to has a stance to the contrary. OTOH if its only about values and not about the actual legal idea of freedom of speech, then you can a…

> If you have a right and the government isn't protecting it, do you really have a right?

Yes, but only to the extent that you're capable of protecting it yourself. This is why the second amendment exists in the United States. I don't really care to get into whether or not this a valid point of view since that could be its entire own discussion, but that is at least partially the rationale behind protecting people's rights to procure weaponry.

> Sure you can get all philosophical and say things like every soul has a right to X Y and Z, but that doesn't mean anything in practice outside of the ivory tower if the government you are beholden to has a stance to the contrary.

I get what you're saying but unless the government does some minority report type thing where they arrest you before you exercise your rights, most people will still get to in the real world exercise it at least once. A person doesn't lose their right to free speech just because they are dumb or otherwise incapable of communicating their speech, either.

> OTOH if its only about values and not about the actual legal idea of freedom of speech, then you can argue with that logic that there is also a moral value in protecting groups of individuals from being the subject of vitriol and hate speech on a forum you own. That's the position Twitter et al. have taken in this regard.

This is in fact where I think the most interesting discussion can occur. What values should social media platforms be enforcing? I personally think that censoring speech broadly on the platform is in most cases inappropriate — Twitter and the like can make tools to help people insulate themselves from people they don't wish to see or interact with. Some of these already exist, but they could expand them. They could even create features that allow users to preemptively take action on types of speech they find objectionable (advanced filtering techniques).

I find this preferable because it allows the broader community to maintain discourse (even if some people find it abhorrent) and importantly grants individuals agency over the type of speech they engage with.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#749
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be free speech absolutist, but I am not any longer, especially when it comes to social media. The argument in favor of absolute free speech for me was basically “let everyone hear everything and make up their own mind”. This presumes that people are swayed by the content of an argument. This is a false assumption, people are mostly swayed by the volume of the argument. This is well documented in psychologic…

To those who espouse the idea that comments should be filtered for the greater good, I say 'You first.' There was a time period when the left was for free speech and the right was wanting to constrain it. Maybe its just a giant pendulum - there is no right/left difference when it comes to free speech - everyone wants to censor / filter the speech of the opposite side. If things come in cycles, then I expect the right…

> To those who espouse the idea that comments should be filtered for the greater good, I say 'You first.'

that's part of the reason why I come to HN, for well-moderated (or "censored" if you prefer) discussions on tech

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#750

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…

> This is really a story about a celebrity's mental illness and public breakdown. Devil's advocate: there's no way this isn't the case for Kanye, right? Why is this mental illness sparking up later in his life? Why was he able to achieve everything he's achieved 1996 -> 2012 (Roc-A-Fella -> The College Dropout -> My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy era) without these "mental illness" bouts?

You're acting like he hasn't had public outbursts before...

Ya know.

"George Bush doesn't care about Black People".

"Taylor, I'ma let you finish..."

MBDTF came out in 2010. That was around the beginning of social media entering the mainstream (Kanye joined Twitter in July 2010).

So up until MBDTF, he didn't have a device in his pocket that allowed him to broadcast his unfiltered thoughts to millions of people. Up until that point, his public image was likely carefully managed by his label and management. All of his interviews were probably overseen by them. They likely only allowed interviews where he was asked pre-approved questions and gave canned answers. If he went too far off script, his label likely stepped in.

It's clear now that he has a lot more freedom with handling his own image. He's been signed to his own label since 2016 which probably afforded him a lot more power over his career. He had a few moments prior to 2016 but he didn't really go off the deep until 2017.

TLDR: what you saw as stable behavior prior to 2017 or so was probably the result of a curated image created by his label and management.

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