lel's recent activity
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Comment on Russians assaulted, threatened and abused in UK as hate crimes linked to Ukraine war surge in ~news
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Comment on Russians assaulted, threatened and abused in UK as hate crimes linked to Ukraine war surge in ~news
lel (edited )Link ParentI just want to be another voice pushing back here. I guess it's just you saying how you're feeling, but what you're describing is deeply unhealthy and honestly pretty horrifying. Like I guess all...I just want to be another voice pushing back here. I guess it's just you saying how you're feeling, but what you're describing is deeply unhealthy and honestly pretty horrifying. Like I guess all I can say is to try to work on it. You've already acknowledged that none of the people here are involved in the stuff you're ranting about in the last paragraph. You note that this is just a question of what you can handle, but you do know the reality is that random people of ethnic Russian heritage on the other side of the continent are not responsible for what is happening and do not deserve to be targeted with ethnic violence, whether or not consciously grappling with that fact feels good to you personally. I think we can all understand that you're going through a lot, but you don't have to allow the fact that you're going through a lot to serve as a rationalization for justifying this.
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Comment on Weekly Israel-Hamas war megathread - week of July 29 in ~news
lel LinkWell, if you're looking for probably the craziest thing that's happened since 10/7, look no further: https://www.axios.com/2024/07/30/israel-far-right-protesters-storm-military-bases. After...Well, if you're looking for probably the craziest thing that's happened since 10/7, look no further: https://www.axios.com/2024/07/30/israel-far-right-protesters-storm-military-bases. After decades of reports about the systematic torture and rape of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli detention centers, it can only really be so surprising, but I still wouldn't have expected the IDF to need to redeploy military units to defend a base from their own citizens, soldiers, and MPs breaking through fences to storm a military base in support of that. That clip of Milwidsky (also referenced in NYT) explicitly saying yesterday in the Knesset that there is nothing wrong with raping Palestinians was pretty out there too, but again can only be so surprising after decades of Israeli MPs and government officials saying stuff along those lines on the floor of the Knesset and elsewhere. I'm not sure I have the capacity to be shocked anymore, just exhausted.
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Comment on US judge dismisses classified documents case against Donald Trump in ~news
lel (edited )Link ParentThey were, yeah, but many of the drafters of the thing wanted to give the Court judicial review, many of the drafters of the thing wanted to give Congress legislative authority exceeding taxation...I wouldn't say it was that so much as the US was one of the first nations to adopt a written Constitution.
They were, yeah, but many of the drafters of the thing wanted to give the Court judicial review, many of the drafters of the thing wanted to give Congress legislative authority exceeding taxation and regulating interstate commerce, etc. As a case study, it cannot be stressed enough that Congress can only pass most laws because the Court developed a body of law outlining a variety of mutually inconsistent and equally absurd definitions of what the Constitution means when it says "interstate commerce". They eventually settled in the 20th century on "literally fucking anything" (lightly paraphrasing), before subsequently rolling that back to "literally anything, unless it's 'non-economic'", where "non-economic" is wholly undefined, decided on a case-by-case basis according to vibes, and used in practice as an arbitrary judicial veto. Without this, the only lawmaking power Congress has is to collect money (and, implicitly, disburse it).
This wasn't a mistake! The problem wasn't that nobody knew the legislature might need to legislate! In middle school, you learn about the Articles of Confederation, and how they had an exceptionally weak federal government as a compromise to get the states and the antifederalists to sign them, and how they didn't work and were replaced with the Constitution, which provided for a stronger federal government. That's true, it was stronger, but the same legitimacy concerns existed when they drafted the Constitution. It still had to make compromises along the same faultlines, even if it moved the needle by adding the "collect money" power above. The Constitution still left a Congress that couldn't regulate much of anything, even though many of those drafting it knew that was important. Ditto for the other branches' powers.
Much of the early history of the Constitution is one of compromising on whether the federal government would be a real thing or a mere formality. Over the centuries, whenever this question was raised, it would tend to be answered with "yes, it's a real thing, not a mere formality", to address increasingly complex economic and social realities. But those answers came almost exclusively as informal historical developments and ambiguous, easily overturnable court rulings, because it's a question that deliberately went unanswered in the text of the Constitution itself. And now we're here.
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Comment on US judge dismisses classified documents case against Donald Trump in ~news
lel Link ParentFor sure, they didn't really know what they were doing from a modern perspective and it shows in a lot of places. History certainly hasn't been kind to very many of the Federalist Papers'...For sure, they didn't really know what they were doing from a modern perspective and it shows in a lot of places. History certainly hasn't been kind to very many of the Federalist Papers' assumptions about how people in government behave. How could they have known? But the idea of creating a functioning federal government was floating around at the time. Many important people did want that. They just couldn't get away with it, since this was being sold to many of the states as a very loose, voluntary union, an idea that wouldn't (and couldn't) be upset for the better part of a century. You're definitely right that every constitution does, at some point, need to just throw its hands up and hope for the best. You can only codify so much. Then again, while, yeah, nobody would have thought about creating a welfare state back then, it really isn't that hard to codify the idea that your federal legislature should be allowed to federally legislate. It really isn't that hard to say that the Court has judicial review. These were ideas that already existed in the world, the federalists were writing about them, and they nonetheless had to be retconned in later to make the government fucking work, without any formal process consecrating them.
A lot of Americans, even (maybe especially) those tuned into politics, have some sense of the federal government being a rigorously structured institution whose powers are systematically governed by some set of rules, whether they believe that's good or bad. But that's not exactly real most of the time, and to the extent it is, it's opt-in. That's naive in general, if you study government, of course, but it's particularly so in the US, where the powers we tend to associate with the three branches were mostly made up afterward in response to particular situations. Our shared cultural concept of the federal state as a governing body that regularly impacts citizens' lives is historically specific and exceedingly recent. Most Americans' shared assumptions about what the state fundamentally is are assumptions that have only even kinda held since the Civil War, and have only reaaaally held since the New Deal. And, crucially, none of those assumptions were ever codified anywhere. They were, usually, the product of the historically-specific, transient whims of the Supreme Court.
I dunno. Post-Dobbs, many woke up to some of the absurdities of the Supreme Court in particular, yet you still see a lot of unchecked assumptions about how things have to work. The thing is that the structure and nature of the American state are orders of magnitude less fixed than we like to imagine. I think a lot of the reaction to Loper Bright and Trump, for example, was rooted not just in the decisions themselves, but in the violent annihilation of the illusion that any of this shit existed outside our heads. Surely there's some reason this can't happen. A lot of articles suggest the Court made some logical error in one or both of these cases, or the rulings are otherwise invalid, somehow. That happened after Dobbs, too. On the one hand, it should be laughable, but it's also understandable why it's so tempting to give that kind of idea some weight. The idea that the courts can do anything isn't the takeaway, either. It's that to speak about what the state "can" or "cannot" do or be is arguably a category error. In most of the ways that matter, the federal government as we know it is four or five court cases in a trench coat, and, in all of the ways that matter, it's Vibes.
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Comment on "Privacy-Preserving" Attribution: Mozilla disappoints us yet again in ~tech
lel Link ParentOh, absolutely! And Firefox does operate within those constraints in a less overtly evil way than its (viable) alternatives. Even from a cynical point of view, a lot of their users are people...Oh, absolutely! And Firefox does operate within those constraints in a less overtly evil way than its (viable) alternatives. Even from a cynical point of view, a lot of their users are people scared about privacy stuff, so they don't have a coherent user base if they're not operating somewhat differently than their competitors in that regard. They're the only semi-mainstream browser on Android that even lets me install an ad blocker; they definitely do their best to give users a way out of this shit within the constraints imposed by the realities of the market. I'm specifically referring to situations like this, where it's a question of whether the product is going to be compatible with the advertising ecosystem or not. You can't do Firefox without money, you don't have money without playing ball on ads, and, as you point out, you can't really do ads without some tracking. Which means their -- I believe sincere -- commitment to privacy must always be at least somewhat counterbalanced by the existential drive to generate revenue and keep the project going.
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Comment on "Privacy-Preserving" Attribution: Mozilla disappoints us yet again in ~tech
lel (edited )Link ParentI do want to push back a little bit here. Are you aware of something Mozilla could do to maintain profitability without doing what is necessary to enable web advertising (including the necessary...I do want to push back a little bit here. Are you aware of something Mozilla could do to maintain profitability without doing what is necessary to enable web advertising (including the necessary amount of tracking)? I'm not saying they couldn't make another choice, but they can't make another choice if they want to be profitable, and you can't become Mozilla if you're not trying to be profitable. Indeed, you start dying if you're not continuing to be profitable. You don't, of course, need to pick the highest number on the spreadsheet, but you do need to pick a positive one. You can, of course, choose among any of the options that are profitable on the spreadsheet, but all profitable options in the current ecosystem (which Mozilla isn't in a position to unilaterally change) demand that Mozilla heavily support the continued profitability of web advertising.
It's not clear to me what, conceptually, it would look like for Mozilla to do anything else. "We're making it impossible for ads to track you by default" makes the Mozilla Corporation insolvent relatively quickly. What would replace their existing revenue streams, which all rely on maintaining profitability for other parties, particularly advertising companies? Most of their revenue comes from Google paying them to make Google the default search engine, which Google does because it makes them money with tracking, ads, etc.
Mozilla only exists to the extent that it is advertiser-friendly. Advertising and subscription models are the only two ways anyone has ever found to make continuous revenue with a single product online, and nobody is paying for a Firefox subscription. So advertising is where the money has to come from, and you can't keep making Firefox without money. In any case, you certainly can't keep making it without some amount of consent from big players like Google, who will start to kick if the half a billion dollars per year they invest into keeping Firefox users in their orbit stops making them any profit.
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Comment on "Privacy-Preserving" Attribution: Mozilla disappoints us yet again in ~tech
lel Link ParentYup, something like this is necessary for web advertising to work, and web advertising is the financial vascular system of the web as it currently exists. We can all wish that advertising would go...Yup, something like this is necessary for web advertising to work, and web advertising is the financial vascular system of the web as it currently exists. We can all wish that advertising would go away, but we can’t reasonably expect a successful modern web browser to act differently. Acting this way is what makes them a successful modern web browser. Everyone in the entire ecosystem is directly incentivized, in most cases in an existential way, to make paid advertising as profitable as possible. You can be mad about that (I am), and you can adapt by using ad blockers (I do), but you can’t really be surprised or betrayed by something like this.
As so often happens in a market system, we’re in a scorpion/frog scenario. Mozilla is behaving how it behaves. Technologically, there’s nothing stopping Mozilla or Google from making a good web browser that isn’t doing something most people would consider nefarious, but an entity that is truly oriented toward that goal is incapable of becoming Mozilla or Google. Those guys get stuck with zero percent market share, making qutebrowser or whatever. I don't really want to make this too much of a commie screed, but the profit motive applied to the current economic reality of the internet can only produce this one outcome, and the profit motive is the only heuristic that any entity with the capital to make something like Firefox (no matter how good-intentioned) could possibly apply under capitalism, for both better and worse.
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Comment on US judge dismisses classified documents case against Donald Trump in ~news
lel Link ParentThe last few months/weeks have been making it a lot clearer for a lot of people just how little of our federal government actually exists as a coherent body governed by identifiable rules. I can...The last few months/weeks have been making it a lot clearer for a lot of people just how little of our federal government actually exists as a coherent body governed by identifiable rules. I can make fun of liberals for talking about Trump upending "norms" or whatever, but it really is norms all the way down. The only reason we didn't have a presidential criminal immunity ruling before last month was because nobody wanted to charge a president with a crime. The only reason Congress is able to pass most laws is because the Court doesn't stop them with one of their many, many, many completely discretionary vetoes ("erm, that's not interstate commerce, how dare you!"). The only reason we have an administrative state is because, until a few weeks ago, the other branches were happy to let the administrative state deal with all the headache of defining and enforcing rules. The only reason the Court has judicial review as a power is because the other branches have (completely informally) let it happen and gone along with what it says for 200 years.
Some countries solve these problems by writing these things called constitutions, so that it is clear how the government is supposed to behave. The US never bothered with that, in large part because we couldn't have gotten the states to sign on to the Constitution if it had created a functioning federal government. Instead, all that was ever actually holding it together was a shared implicit understanding between/among the branches about how they would behave. This allowed it to very fluidly adapt whenever there was political will for that to happen, because no formal rules ever needed to be rewritten, since they didn't exist to begin with. But it also allowed it to stagnate without recourse for decades at a time as soon as that political will disappeared. And more importantly right now, it also means that, as soon as enough people in government stopped believing those rules existed, or should exist, they literally did stop existing -- immediately -- and all that was left was the very easy task of formalizing that already-completed process.
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Comment on Donald Trump whisked off stage in Pennsylvania after apparent gunshots rang through the crowd in ~news
lel (edited )Link ParentYeah, both parties talk as though they’re convinced the other party is an apocalyptic death cult that will destroy the country the next time they're given the opportunity, but it's becoming pretty...- Exemplary
Yeah, both parties talk as though they’re convinced the other party is an apocalyptic death cult that will destroy the country the next time they're given the opportunity, but it's becoming pretty clear that neither side is sincere, and in any case neither side displays any urgency to do anything about it besides vote. The parties themselves (in which I am including not only the party leadership and politicians but their associated media encampments) obviously don’t believe it; they’re just cynically using it for votes. Meanwhile, the majority of voters don’t really seem to believe it, either; polls-wise, they're acting like this is a normal election.
I don’t think we can disregard the potential impact of exposure to these types of deranged media narratives on individuals who are already mentally unstable, and deranged media narratives are ubiquitous now on both sides of mainstream American politics. But at the same time, we don’t currently have any facts to suggest that stuff was relevant. Maybe it’ll come out one day that he shot Trump because he got really into Rachel Maddow or John Oliver in 2022. But, even then, maybe it could drive a discussion about responsibility in the media, but it's hard to ascribe blame. Like, we know shooting people isn't the typical audience reaction to those guys, right? Even if it’s the reaction of one disturbed mind, that one disturbed mind could just as easily have decided to shoot the president over a parasocial relationship with Jodie Foster. That’s how that works! It's not a reasonable thought process! There's nothing that you can legally air on American television that could cause someone to reasonably, foreseeably respond by shooting a president.
I would love nothing more than to be able to blame a presidential assassination attempt on Mueller She Wrote or whoever. That would be the funniest shit ever to me. But we don’t have any reason to even draw a connection to any coherent political project right now, much less trace causation, muuuuch less ascribe blame. It's very possible we never will. I think it's this last point that pisses people off and drives a lot of this, because it really does feel like this is a monumental event that should either confirm or upend all of your priors, wherever you are politically, but instead it's just incoherent and bizarre and confusing. That's no fun! Where's the manifesto?
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Comment on Donald Trump whisked off stage in Pennsylvania after apparent gunshots rang through the crowd in ~news
lel Link ParentYeah, the claims that they were two different people had already been widely debunked before this tweet was even posted. Even had they not been, the pictures posted in this tweet pretty...Yeah, the claims that they were two different people had already been widely debunked before this tweet was even posted. Even had they not been, the pictures posted in this tweet pretty conclusively prove they're the same guy, anyway -- it's just that the person making the tweet was very clearly motivated to not look into it.
The left pic says the person who made the donation lives in "Pittsburgh, PA 15102", and the tweet suggests this means it's the old guy on the right located in Pittsburgh, rather than the shooter, who lived in Bethel Park. The only problem is that Pittsburgh, PA 15102... is Bethel Park. That's the Bethel Park zip code. Yet another reminder to everyone to please stop believing (and certainly stop repeating) weird social media conspiracy shit.
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Comment on Donald Trump whisked off stage in Pennsylvania after apparent gunshots rang through the crowd in ~news
lel Link ParentThis wasn't true. You seem to have overreacted without having the information.This wasn't true. You seem to have overreacted without having the information.
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~misc
lel (edited )Link ParentOh, yeah, of course. I think that's missing in these discussions because a lot of partisan liberals, particularly young ones, or ones that are online a lot, or otherwise engage with this stuff...Oh, yeah, of course. I think that's missing in these discussions because a lot of partisan liberals, particularly young ones, or ones that are online a lot, or otherwise engage with this stuff super actively, assume that everyone who supports Biden in the polling supports him because they buy the "we need to stop Trump or we are instantly in real life 1984" narrative. If you assume everyone is in that mode, then, yeah, it doesn't make sense that any of them might stop supporting Biden in this situation. But the issue polling seems to suggest most people are still in normal election mode. They just handwave in the direction of the same "The Economy" stuff they say every election. Clearly voters don't really buy the Most Important Election Of Our Lifetime story. And if they're treating this as a normal election, then you can't assume Biden turnout is a guarantee.
And on that point, to return to the original question, I haven't had a liberal tell me they're not showing up for Biden in November now, but I wouldn't really expect them to. Like, okay, we all know people who just don't vote, and they can tell you that any time of any year. But the people who don't vote don't vote anyway -- they didn't have their mind changed, and if they weren't up for grabs to begin with, then they aren't really part of the analysis of good vs poor turnout.
If we're looking for the people who would vote for Joe but won't now, I think those people would tell you right now that they prefer Joe. Then, when election day comes, they maybe think about it, or maybe not, but they don't get off the couch, or don't bother getting off work, or whatever, because they don't give a fuck. Disengagement is inactive by its very nature. I don't think we can expect it to be expressed actively! Do they still kinda prefer Biden to the point where they would rather he win? Probably! Will they show up? Not necessarily! "Hey, my vote isn't gonna make the difference anyway, why would I take time out of my day to go help out Joe fucking Biden?"
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~misc
lel Link ParentThis is absolutely the real takeaway. There are a lot of swing staters who take their "I always make my decision based on who is the best candidate!" nonsense pretty seriously, and anyone who even...This is absolutely the real takeaway. There are a lot of swing staters who take their "I always make my decision based on who is the best candidate!" nonsense pretty seriously, and anyone who even suspected that was Trump before is certain now, which both locks in any shaky Trump voters and likely turns shaky Joe voters into (at least) shaky Trump voters. I don't even know if replacing him fixes the problem, but what's inarguable is that it's worse now.
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~misc
lel (edited )Link ParentI'm generally skeptical that most voters pay attention to media narratives about the election, and even more skeptical that they really care. So I've been kinda asking around too. I know a handful...I'm generally skeptical that most voters pay attention to media narratives about the election, and even more skeptical that they really care. So I've been kinda asking around too. I know a handful (5) in real life, who claimed it changed their mind, all Trump-Biden voters. This is out of 12 people I have bothered asking (I only asked them because I knew they were fence-sitter types so obviously that skews this pretty significantly). All of the 5 said they're probably voting Trump now, not just staying home. Most of the rest of those 12 said it was really bad and did some obnoxious "I don't know, I guess we'll just have to see... I don't like to make up my mind ahead of time" nonsense. There's that type of person you might know who makes their thing "I just want a president who can effectively manage the country!", and the people who explicitly told me they had their minds changed by this are also almost all that type (one is a retail manager who literally expressed it in manager terms lol). I don't think anyone is switching to Trump who couldn't have at least imagined themselves doing it beforehand -- this election isn't really about Joe, whom most people in the country already thought sucked. Like I said, the ones I know are 2016 Trump voters. (EDIT: a caveat here is that I live in a red area of a blue state, which is both why I know so many of these bullshit "I just vote for the best candidate!!!" types and why none of these people's votes will ever matter lmao)
I've also asked my friends from law school to survey their circles, but most of these people are very liberal, so they couldn't find examples in their friend groups, but SOME did have family members saying they wouldn't vote for Joe now. Again, though, allegedly these are people who swapped from Trump to Biden in 2020 because Trump wasn't presidential or whatever, who are now switching back because Biden is even less so. I don't think it's possible for literally anyone who voted Biden in 2020 because of the Trump apocalypse foretold by the media to switch because of this, given that those hysterics have only intensified since due to 1/6 and Project 2025.
I suspect but obviously can't prove that some of the polling shift to Trump is liberals deliberately trying to contribute to a polling shift to pressure Joe out because they're afraid of what is going to happen. But I do also think that anyone who was a Trump-Biden voter due to some antiquated "leadership" ideal (rather than fear of the end of days) is up for grabs at this point unless he drops out. And I do think there might -- MIGHT -- be enough of those guys to change something on the margins. I dunno. I think most people vote party, not candidate. Trump changes that, but Trump only changes that in the sense that he individually sucks and drives people away from him. Nobody in the entire country was voting for Joe because they thought he rocked, so nobody is going to have their preconceptions overturned here. On the other hand, if Joe now individually sucks too, then perhaps that negates the advantage literally any other Democrat would have. But again, I dunno. If your mental model of 2020 involved Trump-Biden voters mattering, then I guess I would be a little worried.
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Comment on Weekly Israel-Hamas war megathread - week of July 8 in ~news
lel Link ParentI genuinely don't know how to get past whatever is going on here. It has become very difficult to even imagine much less assume good faith, and at that point on Tildes I would usually stop...I genuinely don't know how to get past whatever is going on here. It has become very difficult to even imagine much less assume good faith, and at that point on Tildes I would usually stop responding. Instead I'll just suggest that you see the above linked articles that you pointed us to if you would like to see proof of the exact opposite of your claim being true. I'm choosing to believe what the news articles say instead of what you are saying. I'm sorry. I still don't know what you were originally trying to suggest I was being dishonest about. If this really is purely some kind of semantic argument on your part, then I'm also sorry but I do not see too many shades of difference between a proposed deal accepted by all parties and a deal.
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Comment on Weekly Israel-Hamas war megathread - week of July 8 in ~news
lel Link Parent"Senior U.S. officials" said both claimed to, yes."Senior U.S. officials" said both claimed to, yes.
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Comment on Weekly Israel-Hamas war megathread - week of July 8 in ~news
lel (edited )Link ParentYeah, like I said, it was marketed as a proposal that Hamas and Israel had accepted. It's not clear to me what if any distinction you're trying to draw here. Also: This is simply untrue, as US...Yeah, like I said, it was marketed as a proposal that Hamas and Israel had accepted. It's not clear to me what if any distinction you're trying to draw here. Also:
it's not impossible that Netanyahu backed out last second and denied ever backing it
This is simply untrue, as US officials -- again, in the link you posted -- say that Israel was never even asked about the deal. In the nicest way possible I don't think you're very familiar with what happened.
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Comment on Weekly Israel-Hamas war megathread - week of July 8 in ~news
lel Link ParentOh, just read any of the articles announcing it, e.g. the one linked in the article you just posted. This was the narrative out of the White House up until Israel announced that actually they...Oh, just read any of the articles announcing it, e.g. the one linked in the article you just posted.
A senior U.S. official said the four-and-a-half page plan had been sent to Hamas for review on Thursday, and that it was "almost identical" to a proposal the militant group had already accepted. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Friday that it backed the plan.
This was the narrative out of the White House up until Israel announced that actually they didn't agree. I have no idea how I would find clips from cable news shows, but the narrative on CNN and MSNBC in that period was that Joe had diplomatically ended the war lol
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Comment on Weekly Israel-Hamas war megathread - week of July 8 in ~news
lel Link ParentOh, no, I wasn't referring to an actual successful ceasefire deal, I was referring to how Biden pitched it that way. It wasn't a successful ceasefire deal. When I said he "jumped the gun", I was...Oh, no, I wasn't referring to an actual successful ceasefire deal, I was referring to how Biden pitched it that way. It wasn't a successful ceasefire deal. When I said he "jumped the gun", I was referring to him declaring mission accomplished when it wasn't and he hadn't asked Israel if they signed on first. It wasn't ever going to be a successful ceasefire deal because the only thing Israel wants out of this war is taken off the table if there is a ceasefire.
Yeah, I think it's almost unreasonable to expect people facing an invasion not to ever feel this impulse on some level. But I also think that it's very reasonable to expect that you try to fight it back, and certainly that you don't consciously incorporate it into your belief system after you've recognized it as irrational and dangerous. Like, to me it's kinda hard to pass judgment on the feelings that bubble up in someone in these circumstances, but once you've put those feelings into words, and you've looked at those words, if it's not a wake-up call, something has gone deeply wrong. It is -- in a way -- a natural, gut reaction, and it's hard to control those, but that doesn't mean they can serve as a justification.