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[...] tech companies are under fire for creating problems instead of solving them. At the top of the list is Russian interference in last year's presidential election. Social media might have originally promised liberation, but it proved an even more useful tool for stoking anger. The manipulation was so efficient and so lacking in transparency that the companies themselves barely noticed it was happening.
The election is far from the only area of concern. Tech companies have accrued a tremendous amount of power and influence. Amazon determines how people shop, Google how they acquire knowledge, Facebook how they communicate. All of them are making decisions about who gets a digital megaphone and who should be unplugged from the web.
Their amount of concentrated authority resembles the divine right of kings, and is sparking a backlash that is still gathering force.
Is it that the tech companies are creating problems for society as a whole, or merely disrupting the status quo for the old Powers-That-Be?
(Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Sunday October 15 2017, @09:07PM (3 children)
You moved from claiming I'm wrong to complaining that I'm using the wrong yardsticks.
All without ever producing any evidence to support your wildly inaccurate claims that the right has no voice in the media and that the somewhat less reactionary center-right Ds are somehow heirs to Lenin and Marx. Please.
As for the US being less right-wing than most other countries, which ones are you referring to? No, really. I'm pretty confused. Just about *every* developed democracy except the US has socialized (or at least non-profit insurance companies required by law) healthcare (and generally better health outcomes too), much stronger safety nets, higher taxes, less income inequality, etc., etc., etc.
So what places are you referring to? Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Pakistan, China and Russia? Do you think we should be further right than those places?
Or are you referring to other places? Do tell.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 15 2017, @10:26PM (2 children)
I've said you're twisting words to make them fit your statement instead of speaking a true statement to begin with. What the rest of the world thinks has zero bearing on US internal political alignments.
Like this:
So, you've gone from comparing the US to the world and when called on the inaccuracy you've switched to a cherry picked group of western European nations. I flatly reject your comparison for that reason.
Start listing off all countries in your head. At least 2/3 of them are going to be to the right of the US. That puts us firmly in the middle of the left of the political spectrum worldwide. Which is entirely irrelevant because we were talking about internal US politics, so external definitions of any kind do not matter. At all.
You really should drop this argument. You're wrong and you know it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Sunday October 15 2017, @11:40PM (1 child)
Western Europeans? You mean like Japan? S. Korea? Australia?
And if you mean "left" to say that we're better and freer than Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Egypt and most other countries, then I agree.
You're twisting *my* words. Perhaps I wasn't clear WRT to the left to right *spectrum*. You say that there are many more authoritarian regimes than the United states.
I say that *on the political spectrum* the "right" in the US is very much on the right side of the political *spectrum* and that what you laughingly call the "left" in the US is also on the right side of the political spectrum.
Those two statements are not mutually exclusive.
I'd also assert that if the more reactionary portions of the R's had their way, we'd live in a place more like Saudi Arabia than Australia. More like China than Denmark.
I'll say it again and use small words so you'll be sure to understand, The number of places that are authoritarian hellholes doesn't change the political spectrum itself.
Here's some actual information about such things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum [wikipedia.org]
And here's an interesting application: https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016 [politicalcompass.org]
There won't be any surprise with you as to the results of this test: https://www.politicalcompass.org/test [politicalcompass.org]
Perhaps you might surprise yourself though.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 16 2017, @12:53AM
Again, you move the goalposts to an irrelevant set. You're also wrong but let's leave that for now. International definitions of right and left are the wrong measure for internal comparisons. Period. This means your entire argument is pointless.
Now, back to you being wrong. You really, really need to study world levels of social spending if you believe even the right-wing of US politics is anywhere but solidly on the left of the international scale. Pay particular attention to us spending more on entitlements than anyone but Sweeden. Now if you were talking the liberty vs. authoritarian axis, that's an entirely different matter. Start listing off the nations of the world with freedom of speech, religion, the press, association, yadda-yadda-yadda enshrined in their constitution. It's going to be a very short list and it will include few if any of your favored European nations.
So, no, despite what your extreme-left professors taught you in college, the US is not a poor-hating, authoritarian hell hole. Not by any rational standard.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.