SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the you-can-never-have-too-many-offsite-backups-eh dept.
The Internet Archive plans to create a backup of its data in Canada in response to the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States:
The Internet Archive, a nonprofit that saves copies of old web pages, is creating a backup of its database in Canada, in response to the election of Donald Trump. "On November 9th in America, we woke up to a new administration promising radical change," the organization wrote in a blogpost explaining the move. "It was a firm reminder that institutions like ours, built for the long-term, need to design for change."
[...] The move will cost millions, according to the Internet Archive, which is soliciting donations. In their post, the Internet Archive justified its decision to backup its data in Canada, claiming that Trump could threaten an open internet. "For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and perpetually accessible. It means preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday November 30 2016, @03:32PM
To help the foreigners figure this out, the left traditionally rallies around these vague concepts of a "free press" kind of like how the righties rally around the flag and oppose burning it. All very meaningless but highly symbolic.
We have no free press in the USA in that the legacy media is unified into left wing corporate "fake news" propaganda, and thanks to wikileaks we can see the emails where the "free press" directly acts as a subordinate of the PR department of the Democratic Party. Some of the attacks they made on Trump during the election are hilarious but of course some pissed him off. Therefore anyone that fights against the unified press is "against the free press" and so on, even though its really against specific fake news propaganda. It doesn't mean anything abstract, of course. It just means the legacy media is pissed off at him because he's pissed off at them because the legacy media is a wholly owned subsidiary of the other side's political party.
Continuing the fun for foreigners, for a few decades we've had unified single party globalist crony capitalist rule and one party or the other was just window dressing that changed nothing. For example Obama is just the 3rd and 4th Bush terms with respect to all policies that actually matter, and so on. So people opposed to change, which is basically the entire establishment, promote Trump as being insane or a lunatic. Which if he was in the one party and a believer in the one party would be correct, if Hillary thought she were a member of the one party and started spouting out stuff completely off the party agenda, maybe she'd be nuts as an explanation. If he were a member of the one party theoretically supporting the one agenda of the one party, then all his stuff about immigration or economics would literally be insane. The legacy press and .gov do not understand how to even talk about opposition to the one party. The USA in 2016 is very Soviet Union in the 80s, rotted out from the core but officially the one party is the best thing ever and nothing else exists and no opposing opinion is sane.
Adding the final bit of fun to for foreigners we haven't actually changed anything important in decades so negotiation doesn't exist. Or when we do change things its hyper polarized and there is no negotiation. And here comes this wheeler dealer businessman who's spent his whole life starting negotiations at a ridiculously good position for himself and then argue to something reasonable. The press and lifelong politicians literally can't process that kind of input, GIGO. Why would someone propose option "X" unless it either changed nothing so it has bipartisan support or he's got the votes in which case he proposes exactly what will be voted for. Compromise did not exist in the pre 2016-ish American political system, and the idea of negotiation or compromise literally mystifies the legacy components of the gov and press.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday November 30 2016, @03:46PM
And here comes the conspiracy crowd to tell us how the "luggenpresse" should really be destroyed to make way for his alternate-reality sources that tell him his conspiracy theories are right no matter how much they have to completely distort sources.
"A member of a political party talked to media about a story? Clearly this is a sign that that political party controls everything, it's not relevant that party leadership from both major parties are given unscripted airtime on major networks frequently, often without challenge. It was leaked therefor it automatically means the worst case about every institution because that's how conspiracies work!"
You are begging for an autocrat to destroy free press in this country because you've locked yourself into a series of "alternative" news outlets who live and die on telling you that everyone else is lying and they're the only ones you can trust. They've hijacked your due cynicism about institutions in our country in order to insinuate themselves as the sole purveyors of "real truth" by turning that cynicism into paranoia.
Let me repeat this most important point so you don't go replying to some random detail, outraged:
They've hijacked your due cynicism about institutions in our country in order to insinuate themselves as the sole purveyors of "real truth" by turning that cynicism into paranoia.
Trump promising to ignore our foundational principles and use the government to attack and destroy the press isn't a joke. A lot of the press still does good work, and by ignoring how unprecedented this is, you're putting our entire system of democracy at risk.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday November 30 2016, @03:53PM
A lot of the press still does good work
I guess we're going to have to disagree on that.
Clickbait, human interest stories, outright fake news, propaganda exclusively from only one political party, if it bleeds it leads, sportsball scores and commentary, weather reports for people without the agency to type in www.weather.gov... What great grand thing are we losing here? Flush em.
paranoia
Pre-wikileaks that might have worked. Post wikileaks, LOL no.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @04:14PM
You really are lock-step with the new order. Ikanreed is right, you've been shifted into an alternate reality by all the conspiracy stuff you read. I still am unsure whether Clinton would be better or worse, but you VLM are so tilted into the lies and promises of Trump that he just might be able to lead us over a cliff with you cheering him on. Your desire to punish liberals overrides your common sense and makes you downplay the most fascist authoritarian stuff Trump says!! At least the more honest Trump supporters say he is a huge tool, but they hope he'll shake things up without destroying the country.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 30 2016, @06:34PM
without destroying the country.
Its worth as a thought experiment to test things out by imagining the opposite. So ... lets say as a thought experiment everything he actually said (not propaganda reactions and clickbait headlines, but stuff he actually said) was simply rubberstamped by ... everyone. Press, congress, everyone.
How destroyed would the country be? Oh, not at all? Yeah I'm not so worried there.
Remember we're in a shared culture where for half a century every R candidate has been literally Hitler yet they always fail to light up the ovens. So there's no small amount of "boy who cried wolf" going on.
The maximal peak of "country destruction" is likely to be something like CNNs shareholders feel a little bad for a little while.
I'm pretty good with that.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @10:05PM
> How destroyed would the country be? Oh, not at all? Yeah I'm not so worried there.
If we spend the tens of billions of dollars to build that wall and the tens of billions to maintain it?
If we deport every single undocumented immigrant?
If we criminally prosecute women for having abortions?
If we create a registry of muslims?
If we murder the relatives of terrorists?
If we bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding?
Encourage Korea and Japan to acquire nuclear weapons?
Seize the oil in Iraq?
Bring back stop and frisk?
The list of actual things he said just goes on and on.
No other major party candidate has suggested any of the things that Trump has said.
If you think he's the same as all the other republicans, then you are choosing to ignore reality.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @07:54PM
Your desire to punish liberals overrides your common sense
Actually, it is after seeing liberals in operation, and wanting to COMPLETELY disassociate with them.
Liberals have become pariahs by their own hand, and absolutely no one wants to be within 100 yards of them lest your flesh rot off.
If the left supports a free press, it's strictly for your HuffPo and fuck everyone else.
If the left supports freedom to protest, it's only for BLM and fuck everyone else
If the left supports journalistic integrity, it is to call everyone else brainwashed liars and the need to clamp down on "fake" news.
Sorry, these perceptions don't come from some alt-right orbital mind control laser, more the alt-right is a response to seeing the unabated hypocrisy of liberals in action. Any support from them is little more than (((I'm alright, Jack))).
While your concern about the nature of what could happen with the press is mildly amusing, the timing is a little suspicious to suddenly have a revelation about how important the press is, so kindly fuck right off; I can make my own determination about your sincerity level.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday November 30 2016, @04:16PM
And before your attitude led to the election of fascist, this would probably have been where I'd have been like "Enjoy your delusions" and bailed out of the conversation.
But now, now I've got to fight. Fight to fix what's been broken so badly. There's got to be a weakness in this shell of anti-reality you've built yourself.
Maybe some hint that I'm on your side that our press sucks? That I've never ever ever been a fan of TV news, and I'm totally aware that the 24 hour news cycle is broken?
Maybe try again at pointing out that parties communicating with the media as "watchdogs" for their opposition isn't new or surprising?
Point out that Assange went off the deep end this year with buying into an actual satanic cult on completely specious evidence?
I don't know man. There's got to be a way to get through to you.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @04:50PM
Yeah, I've been through several decades of the leftist being on "my" side.
Until they stab you in back.
The more perceptive have realized that dealing with the left is a deal with the devil.
No one wants that kind of help.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday November 30 2016, @05:04PM
Man, that sounds like you're projecting something personal onto this.
Also, by leftists do you mean actual leftists, or the moderate progressives? Because there's almost none of the former in the US with any political sway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @05:05PM
Maybe some hint that I'm on your side that our press sucks?
Interesting way you have about building coalitions.
Jesus, Christ, pseudolibertarians, your bullshit oversimplifications remains bullshit oversimplifications in spite of a good half of you contributing to electing an actual fascist.
Fuck you and false your false equivalences. Fuck every single idiot who ignored the incredibly fascist things this guy said and just rolled their eyes and went "He's not a Nazi, what about emails?"
Do I think the people advocating "shrinking government" have ever even briefly considered doing that? No. So fuck off.
Fuck your false equivalences a second time.
And here comes the conspiracy crowd to tell us how the "luggenpresse" should really be destroyed to make way for his alternate-reality sources that tell him his conspiracy theories are right no matter how much they have to completely distort sources.
I don't know man. There's got to be a way to get through to you.
Yes, you've made it abundantly clear the only side you are on is your side.
Thanks, but no thanks.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday November 30 2016, @05:13PM
"You said I was wrong about something! That's it! I'm siding with a fascist who stands in staunch opposition to the thing I claim to value most."
You are everything wrong with politics.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 30 2016, @06:47PM
I kinda like this conversation because it demonstrates how the cultural escape velocity has been reached such that communication is quite challenging. The minority of the country that lost seem very confused about Trump.
Sure... um, I'll oppose Trump if you dump on Assange some more. What does that even...? I mean across political boundaries that strategy doesn't even make sense. Oh perhaps you think I dislike Assange, like Hillary who wanted to call in a drone strike on him. Naw I'm all good.
Or call the guy running on the anti-globalist anti-war platform a fascist some more. I heard that worked wonders for the D party in the heartland, every time Hillary called white people deplorable racists they were supposed to vote 1% more for her but to her complete surprise it seemed to go the other way. I mean, words don't even make sense across political boundaries anymore. She thought those were seductive words of endearment but the electorate said F you in response, huh.
fix what's been broken so badly.
Like, um... well, famously he was verbally disrespectful to the female groupies who sluttily threw themselves at him when he was a young single guy. Of course its hard to respect women who don't respect themselves, but that's not a total excuse for his behavior, takes two to tango and all that. Oh well I'd rather elect a leader than a saint. And, um... Yeah I guess that's all that's broken so far. You see anything broken out there?
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday November 30 2016, @07:49PM
The minority of the country that lost seem very confused about Trump.
So far, Trump's 2.3 million votes behind Clinton. He's only President Elect because of the electoral college. The same thing happened in 2000, and had the popular vote mattered, why might not have been attacked the next year, and we certainly wouldn't have invaded Iraq, and certainly wouldn't have ended up with such a huge deficit; war is damned expensive.
OTOH, maybe it was the best that Clinton lost, even though I voted for her. I did a little history digging, looking up the President who historians say was our worst, James Buchanan, and his pre-President public service life was amazingly like Hillary's.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday November 30 2016, @08:41PM
I did a little history digging, looking up the President who historians say was our worst, James Buchanan, and his pre-President public service life was amazingly like Hillary's.
How dare you impute the good name of James Buchanan! I demand citations!
Actually, I was just curious of the resources you consulted when researching a semi-subjective topic like this.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ikanreed on Wednesday November 30 2016, @09:00PM
It's usually something covered in any sort of college level American history class, so specific citations aren't really part of how I came to understand this, but Buchanan was infamous for taking an (apparently) very pro-slavery position and nixing the reneging on the compromises between the North and the South in a way that sharpened divides and amplified animosity, then flatly ignored the backlash(like bleeding Kansas) hyperpolarizing the nation. In many ways historians think he was responsible for making the civil war inevitable, by making moderate abolitionists like Lincoln(who advocated for a buy-out of slaves until the war) the enemy of The South.
He then proceeded to ignore secession, when states pulled out due to not liking the results of an election(man, sound familiar?) making his refusal to address the reality of the country complete. He just ignored everything. In short, he was a legalist, obsessed with following the law, in a time when a pragmatist or a moralist would have served better.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday December 01 2016, @03:47PM
It started with something I read in The Atlantic, so I looked him up in Wikipedia and Britannica. I realize you can't use an encyclopedia for real research, I was simply curious.
Of course, Buchanan had no private email server...
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday November 30 2016, @07:41PM
"I don't know man. There's got to be a way to get through to you," says the atheist trying to convince the fundie that God doesn't exist, or vice versa.
It's hopeless. It's like trying to convince a schizophrenic that he wasn't a fighter pilot in the Vietnam war, despite the fact that the war ended when he was twelve and he is clueless about the operation of an aircraft (this was a real person I knew!).
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by VLM on Wednesday November 30 2016, @03:49PM
A fourth bit of fun for foreigners trying to figure this crazy stuff out is social media and social signalling has taken over the lefties and to some extent discussion in general in American politics. Trump could be censored and ignored, but they won't because they get viewers. So he can control the news cycle and get press precisely because he knows saying the prez should get to throw libelous journalists into the tower of london at his whim will create a national coverage of conversation about the topic in general. If he went really beta and asked them pretty please to not be so naughty and how far left would be have to compromise his values to get them to not call him a racist for a week or two, then they'd ignore him and nobody would ever hear about him nor would there be any national discussion of the topic.
If Trump hadn't said "toss them in the dungeon" then we'd be getting a megadose of the usual narrative, the headlong acceleration into normalizing pedo that the left seems to be aiming for as the next social change to ram down our throats. In that way he might actually be doing them some good in giving them something less unappealing to talk about. I'd certainly rather have propaganda writers in dungeons than pedos normalized and working as schoolteachers for my kids, for example, and that being the next big thing, Trump is delaying or eliminating social change which is good and admirable.
Trump knows how to manipulate the media into discussing whatever topic he wants, and because nationwide trust in the media has dropped to end stage Soviet Union trust in propaganda, nobody cares if some propaganda reader on CNN cries her eyes out about it on TV, in fact many people tired of being lied to really enjoy that kind of thing. F those liars, Trump makes them cry, guess I like Trump!
(Score: 2, Funny) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday November 30 2016, @04:12PM
Wait, the left is trying to legalize pedophilia? Does this mean that MikeeUSA is a lizard person too?!?
I found this interesting in particular. Feminists like to destroy men who are elementary school teachers with insinuations about pedophilia. However, research shows that we actually do need more men teaching elementary school. Now you're saying that the left is trying to get actual pedophiles to teach elementary school. This is suspiciously similar to how the right adopted feminism's position on gender transition while simultaneously under the delusion that feminism sees woman suited bathroom rapists like me as legitimate women. Very strange things happening!
Cutting through the hyperbole, I think I see what you're saying, and the larger point is a fairly good observation about the zeitgeist.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 30 2016, @06:53PM
There you go I was channeling a little Trump there, trying to control the social media story cycle and get engagement by going off on a mostly true yet somewhat ridiculous tangent that would be super exciting out of context while bringing attention to my main longer format point. Meanwhile my competitor trying to push the meme story about 3d generative art for sale isn't getting the social media love (nothing personal, was actually a pretty cool story, but for the sake of example it gets stepped on, pity because its a good story). So its win win for me. It was a self referential comment in attempting however poorly to implement the activity itself not just talk about it in an abstract sense.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday November 30 2016, @07:27PM
the headlong acceleration into normalizing pedo that the left seems to be aiming for
Is there some corollary to Goodwin's law where we can just stop the thread when someone accuses someone else of being a pedophile because they disagree about politics?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 30 2016, @09:52PM
Exactly. Hey, ikanreed and VLM, can you stop trying to out-clever each other, Stephen Colbert style, and argue points you actually believe? This exchange between you descended quickly into a muddle.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 30 2016, @10:15PM
Sorry I wasn't intentionally implying that about anyone here but that was a minor fad in the clickbait arena not long ago. Still going on to some extent. I do unfortunately believe that's the next stop for the normalization train based on some minimal evidence. If it isn't, then what is? Poly I guess. Beastiality? There's a whole industry of people needing something to push to keep the money flowing...
As far as personal comments about one another, ikanreed is a strong debating partner, good I like that. Wrong about things, but strong in spirit, good good. Challenging, almost. That is invigorating. Good. However I can now see that turning SN into an time western saloon brawl, however fun it might be, is rightly disconcerting for folks who just came here to talk about reprograming the player piano and the new arduino count carding shield so sry bout the disruption, you all.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 01 2016, @11:30AM
I personally don't mind vigorous debate about anything between intelligent people. It's a live-action enactment of "Truth on Trial: Ethics in America [wikipedia.org]." (I reviled Scalia, but watching him match wits with the others in the room was like watching a cobra fight a mongoose.) The Stephen Colbert-style of inversion inside inversion, though, becomes too damn hard to follow (as in, "Wait, so now you're parodying his parody of your parody...?"). Just go toe-to-toe, straight up, and say what you mean. Then it can be more of a conversation for the community than an exchange between two people that feels, well, self-indulgent.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @10:28PM
You do know that most child molesters aren't pedophiles but opportunistic molesters, right? Pedophiles need help and therapy and hell maybe even libido-killing medications, child molesters need prison. Pedophilia is thoughtcrime, child molestation is actual crime. See the difference? One is thought, one is action. Stop conflating the two, and stop advocating for the punishment of thoughtcrime, you won't like where that goes.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday December 01 2016, @09:32AM
Pedophiles need help and therapy and hell maybe even libido-killing medications
Someone doesn't need help merely because of their sexual attractions. If they're thinking about actually raping anyone or they themselves want help, then sure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @05:19PM
While there were many red flags in the earlier sentences, "wholly owned subsidiary" let me know I can safely ignore all of your political opinions from now on.
Thanks for the hyperbole.