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[Flying Dice]

Who knows? That's pretty bad. How is this an argument though? Thing A being bad isn't a good reason for thing B to be bad, even if they are similar.

Additionally, I'm not saying "tech companies are bad, therefore this additional bad thing is not bad." If anything, I take a bit of delight in the fact that this decision goes against big tech.

Isn't that literally exactly what you're saying though? If not, I think I've misunderstood what you were saying.

You are right; whataboutism is not a (valid logical) argument. That's not my point, though. My argument for the most part has been that this is inconsequential since most of the dystopian wet dreams that people came up with regarding this are antithetical to basic thought from a business standpoint, and that this changes things that have been in place for all of 2 years. People have lamented the death of "net neutrality" several times now, and I've yet to see any change.

This recent bit about big tech was just a one-off response that ended up becoming an actual conversation point. A better response would've been "there were presidents before Obama where this was relevant, so arguing that this would've been shut down under Obama so it's happening now makes no sense given that it would've then instead happened under Bush."

Can you, though? If I start a restaurant, and then not have it listed on Apple Maps, Google Maps, or Bing Maps, people would find it... how? No mention on Bing/Google, no Facebook page, et cetera.

Sounds more of a monopoly of a different type than a forced monopoly, more like the one that develops because everybody else and so many others are using it.

Amazon though, they're being like a blob that is trying to eat everything and BE everything all at once. The definition of monopoly needs a better legal definition in the digital age because they can be a monopoly and at the same time, not a monopoly.

Nah, they're monopolies of the forced type. Buying out competition, et cetera. I'll at least concede that Apple isn't too awful these days, but that's mostly Google's fault (and yes, Google is 100% a monopoly, as is Facebook and Amazon) due to taking a big hunk out of the cell phone market and Microsoft for taking a big hunk out of the PC market. Apple isn't really a strictly digital company, unlike the other ones, so it's harder to argue that they're a monopoly under the same way that Google, Facebook, and Amazon are.

And ISPs are (at least in the 'states) enforced monopolies with legal protections for their status. They get the same treatment as other utilities regarding their operational coverage, but now they want to double-dip and not be treated as utilities regarding service provision. Most Americans have access to the internet through a single monolithic provider. Some places, you get to "choose" which one you get fucked by. I'm relatively lucky, insofar as that I live in a place with both Google Fiber and a smaller local ISP as other options, but most people don't get that, so the "free market" as far as internet service goes is a total lie, and they get the choice between not having internet access (which is unthinkable if you want to function in society, even basic stuff like government services and job applications are often online-only now) or being reamed by whichever telecomms company has your area as one of their fiefdoms.

[Folly]

So we're back to it being something that was only true for 2 years. Again, I fail to see the need for all the melodrama and hysteria.

Let's say that someone was given absolute authority to decide whether you live or die, with no consequences for them either way. Is that okay, just because they've had the power for a while and chose not to use it? Is it okay because they say they won't abuse the power going forward? No, of course it's not okay, and you would want that absolute authority to be taken away from them.

Without Net Neutrality, ISP's could take away any or all of the websites we enjoy. They haven't so far, and they probably won't going forward, but that doesn't make it okay.

Biased entities should never be empowered to do bad things at their own discretion just because they probably won't.

[bloop_bleep]

Ah, here we go again.

Listen, you can make fun of Trump all you want, but he's most definitely not that stupid.

Are we talking about the same Trump here? Since he entered the political scene, we've rarely gotten through a day without him saying or doing something profoundly stupid.

He's saying/doing stupid stuff to pander to his base. He would never do anything that would stir up a shitstorm on the level of nuclear war.

Even if he was that stupid there are many people who would stop him.

Does anyone actually have the authority/ability to stop him if he decides to start launching nukes?

Authority, no, but ability, yes. He relies on his aides too much to actually do something of this magnitude without them signing off on it. As I said, he does understand exactly how big of an action this would be. People like to think that every politician with which they disagree must have a child's intelligence. This is utterly false. Trump might be incompetent at performing the functions of a President, but no one runs a business for any significant amount of time and gets elected President without at least understanding the ramifications of a war with North Korea.

[redwallzyl]

If anyone ever makes an argument with the sole support of "the free market" immediately dismiss everything they are saying. I absolutely hate when people use a vague concept to somehow justify bullshit.

[Folly]

Even if he was that stupid there are many people who would stop him.

Does anyone actually have the authority/ability to stop him if he decides to start launching nukes?

Authority, no, but ability, yes. He relies on his aides too much to actually do something of this magnitude without them signing off on it.

So, how exactly are you imagining this scenario playing out? Trump wakes up at 3am, hears that NK has launched another ICBM and tweeted insults at him. Trump get's mad and orders his aide to bring him the football, and the aide refuses. Trump says fine, you're fired, send in the next aide and tell him to bring me the football. And then all of the whitehouse staff unify and mutiny against the president, physically preventing him from taking action until the other branches of government have convened and made a decision on what to do with him?
No. That's not going to happen. The fact is that America's future nuclear stability hinges entirely upon the whims of a man who tweets about covfefe and childish insults directed at foreign leaders.

[WealthyRadish]

I think the military would actually put Trump under house arrest before letting an order to first-strike the DPRK get out. Remember that the pentagon was putting out memos to ignore potential military orders from Nixon during his final days, and that during the cold war, both the US and USSR would run drills to test if the grunts who need to physically work the systems to launch the weapons would actually go through with it, with like a 50/50 success rate (and that was when those soldiers probably had faith in their government, imagine how a person in that position would act knowing the order was from Donald Trump).

[bloop_bleep]

Even if he was that stupid there are many people who would stop him.

Does anyone actually have the authority/ability to stop him if he decides to start launching nukes?

Authority, no, but ability, yes. He relies on his aides too much to actually do something of this magnitude without them signing off on it.

So, how exactly are you imagining this scenario playing out? Trump wakes up at 3am, hears that NK has launched another ICBM and tweeted insults at him. Trump get's mad and orders his aide to bring him the football, and the aide refuses. Trump says fine, you're fired, send in the next aide and tell him to bring me the football. And then all of the whitehouse staff unify and mutiny against the president, physically preventing him from taking action until the other branches of government have convened and made a decision on what to do with him?
No. That's not going to happen. The fact is that America's future nuclear stability hinges entirely upon the whims of a man who tweets about covfefe and childish insults directed at foreign leaders.

Again, you're doing what I pointed out in my last post.

People like to think that every politician with which they disagree must have a child's intelligence. This is utterly false. Trump might be incompetent at performing the functions of a President, but no one runs a business for any significant amount of time and gets elected President without at least understanding the ramifications of a war with North Korea.

Trump is NOT an idiot (at least not as much of one as you think he is.) He's not some 8-year old who just happened to get elected President and decides to start nuclear war because that meanie made him MAD. Everything stupid that he tweets or says is because the far-right *want* to hear him say it. It's important to know your enemy before you take any definitive action against him.

[smjjames]

I think the military would actually put Trump under house arrest before letting an order to first-strike the DPRK get out. Remember that the pentagon was putting out memos to ignore potential military orders from Nixon during his final days, and that during the cold war, both the US and USSR would run drills to test if the grunts who need to physically work the systems to launch the weapons would actually go through with it, with like a 50/50 success rate (and that was when those soldiers probably had faith in their government, imagine how a person in that position would act knowing the order was from Donald Trump).

That's not how it works. That one colonel or whatever said that he'd try to convince Trump of other alternatives, if that fails, he'd probably resign or something.

Also, Trump lived the Cold War like the rest of his generation. As much bluster he is, I think he probably does understand how much of an issue using a nuke would be. He's even said many times that he'd rather reduce nukes.

Besides, he's blocked by international law and can't use nukes, not even the smaller tactical ones. If NK fired a nuke at us, that'd be a completely different story.

[Maximum Spin]

So, how exactly are you imagining this scenario playing out? Trump wakes up at 3am, hears that NK has launched another ICBM and tweeted insults at him. Trump get's mad and orders his aide to bring him the football, and the aide refuses. Trump says fine, you're fired, send in the next aide and tell him to bring me the football. And then all of the whitehouse staff unify and mutiny against the president, physically preventing him from taking action until the other branches of government have convened and made a decision on what to do with him?
No. That's not going to happen. The fact is that America's future nuclear stability hinges entirely upon the whims of a man who tweets about covfefe and childish insults directed at foreign leaders.

You know that US nuclear launches aren't automated, right? Even if Trump sends the command, people have to decide whether to follow it.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

No, Trump is definitely an idiot. There's only so many bad decisions that you can throw under the bus of "look at his record" and "he just wants you to think" before looking past the 4d chess memes and seeing an old bigot who inherited all his money and got by through delegation, self-hype, and pure intimidation tactics.

An actually smart person does not have to engage in this sort of idiocy.

Trump as a 4D chessmaster remains silly whether you think he's a good genius or an evil genius. Trump's actions verifiably stand in the way of his goals on pretty much all levels, and tends to enter infinite regression arguments when one has already accepted the idea that Trump is some kind of genius strategist.

Is this a world where Trump cares about his policy agenda? Trump has utterly squandered the first quarter grace period of policy enactment, essentially only achieving in the unilateral field of executive orders and even then falling afoul of judicial review and public controversy.

Is this a world where Trump just wants to ascend his personal fame as a "ceremonial President"? Trump's approval amongst the public is in the garbage compared to other Presidents, he's verifiably more polarizing in a way that every other modern President was not and has even experienced erosion amongst his base before the end of the first year. He also has not truly delegated tasks, but more seems to expect that anybody who works in his administration will autonomously carry out his personal will and comes down on those who do not.

Is this a world where Trump is just a flaming troll? Then whence come the myriad of personal reports that he's infuriated that people won't enact his policies or respect his figure?

There exists no standard of evidence that prevents one from saying there's an additional Secret Level of Trump that's just laughing at what fools we all were as the masterstroke comes down upon our necks. But by all standards of what can actually be observed, the things that take place in our actual physical reality...this world looks a lot like the one where an inexperienced sliver spoon rageaholic and dirty old man sidelined his way into the Presidency through an unconventional strategy keying into the zeitgeist.

[smjjames]

So we're back to it being something that was only true for 2 years. Again, I fail to see the need for all the melodrama and hysteria.

Let's say that someone was given absolute authority to decide whether you live or die, with no consequences for them either way. Is that okay, just because they've had the power for a while and chose not to use it? Is it okay because they say they won't abuse the power going forward? No, of course it's not okay, and you would want that absolute authority to be taken away from them.

Without Net Neutrality, ISP's could take away any or all of the websites we enjoy. They haven't so far, and they probably won't going forward, but that doesn't make it okay.

Biased entities should never be empowered to do bad things at their own discretion just because they probably won't.

And as we've seen already, such things can already happen with internet hosting services. What was it, Stormfront? Storm-something, one of those awful white supremacist sites. Got effectively purged because no internet hosting service wanted to host their content.

That's a particularily extreme example because it would have been very radioactive PR wise to be associated with it and no surprise that none of them wanted to be associated with that sort of thing.

Theres always that hive of scum and villany that's the Dark Web.

@MSH: He's not a complete drooling idiot though, there are some things that don't take a high school degree to recognize is a bad idea. Then again, there are some of THOSE things he doesn't care about.

He's obsessed with his ego and wanting to be liked, explaining that using a nuke illegally will ostracize him from even Russia will probably be enough.

No idea how his base would feel if a nuke were used illegally or something.

[MrRoboto75]

He's even said many times that he'd rather reduce nukes.

I'm willing to be he's also said the exact opposite.  Many times.

[Rolan7]

Thank you again for your insight about Google sneaking location-data.  Honestly.

With respect, I cannot disagree more with your stance on net neutrality.
They didn't take advantage of it for so long - granted.
And now, nothing is stopping them, and they have legal encouragement.  Not even just lack of law!
Not to mention the corporation-beholden Executive.

[RedKing]

He's obsessed with his ego and wanting to be liked, explaining that using a nuke illegally will ostracize him from even Russia will probably be enough.

No idea how his base would feel if a nuke were used illegally or something.

Depends on the target. If it were NK or a "Mud-slime" country, they'd fucking lap that shit up and ask for seconds. Fair rule of law doesn't exactly matter to that group, they see Trump as a Judge Dredd figure. They only like laws when it's the other side running afoul of it. (Which is increasingly true on the Left as well).



EDIT: Marco Rubio has come out against the tax bill, unless the child tax credit is increased from its current level of $1100 per child in the bill. Coupled with Susan Collins' looming defection over the Obamacare repeal language, and they're on a razor's edge. If McCain croaks or is otherwise unable to vote, they might not have enough votes to pass. Plus Bob Corker is still likely to vote against it. Mike Lee (R-UT) is undecided, and Thad Cochran (R-MS) is also in poor health.

It's gonna be incredibly amusing if the GOP unravels in the Senate precisely because they're a party largely composed of geriatric white men, and that starts catching up with them.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm wondering how much of these defections are coming from a place of "fuck it, we'll never get anything useful done with Trump anyway, might as well crash him cleanly". It being Rubio in particular is...suggestive of ulterior motives.