From reporting by The Daily Dot.
Conservative psychologist/alt-right guru Jordan Peterson officially announced that he is launching what he calls a "free speech platform" known as Thinkspot.
Peterson insists that Thinkspot will adhere to his principles of anti-censorship so strongly that the platform will only ban or remove users if it is ordered to do so by the U.S. court of law. Because there's no way that could go horribly wrong.
Peterson also mentioned that Thinkspot will have a minimum word count as opposed to a maximum. "If minimum comment length is 50 words, you're gonna have to put a little thought into it," Peterson said to the right-wing outlet NewsBusters. "Even if you're being a troll, you'll be a quasi-witty troll."
Thinkspot is being marketed as a creator-to-consumer payment processor such as Patreon while also serving as an alternative to services such as Twitter and YouTube.
Thinkspot has an intended release date of August 2019.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @08:34PM (35 children)
And what is wrong about this?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @08:45PM (12 children)
Did you miss the part where it said he's conservative? Duh.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @10:02PM
Exactly. We need crowdsourced propaganda! Trick whole sections of the working class into bartering their political power away to propagandists! Why should the rich leeches pay for their own propaganda when they can get the working class to fund imperialist propaganda with their own wealth?
(Score: 3, Informative) by julian on Monday June 17 2019, @01:12AM (5 children)
Let me show you what "conservatism" looks like online when you allow anything that doesn't violate the law. This experiment is currently being run on a website called Voat [voat.co]. I encourage you to check it out for yourself. The comment sections are especially illuminating. It was established as a censorship-free alternative to reddit.com. Here is a list of the current top post titles:
So that's what completely uncensored "conservative" free speech will look like on JP's website before too long.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by khallow on Monday June 17 2019, @03:57AM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @02:40PM (1 child)
>> Sure, I wouldn't want to read about that stuff either.
Do you mind if I ask why? Just by reading, it doesn't mean you agree with it. I was under the impression that by exposing oneself to various ideas, one can avoid echo chambers and confirmation bias. No?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Monday June 17 2019, @07:34PM
Suppose it were even as the title claims. So what?
People aren't "shaking off" belief in God nor becoming more gullible. It's a wish fulfillment headline.
South Africa wasn't a "white country" in the first place.
In each of these titles, basic premises are broken. No point to going further.
Standard fallacy deployment in the title. No reason to continue.
There's a lot of noise out there. We need to filter it out or it's garbage in, garbage out.
(Score: 1) by Snort on Monday June 17 2019, @02:49PM
Can we use reddit.com/r/chapotraphouse as an avatar for the left and "everything they stand for?" That is essentially what you are doing by simply citing voat.co. That is but one outlet. There many, many more places where people congregate and share ideas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @06:37PM
Doesn't SoylentNews have a pretty similar policy, though? I'd rather just deal with speech I think is bad than ridiculous, open-ended censorship rules created by mega-corporations.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Reziac on Monday June 17 2019, @06:50AM (4 children)
Yeah, cuz nowadays the epithet "conservative" is shorthand for "literally Hitler".
Anyone who thinks Dr.Peterson is conservative, let alone alt-right, has been listening to his critics, but has not been listening to him. He's basically a centrist with classical-liberal beliefs, tempered by a pretty good dose of realism.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @01:28PM (1 child)
Then tell me how "centrists with classical-liberal beliefs, tempered with a pretty good dose of realism" managed to get what is basically the most disgusting public figure in the entire U.S. sitting in the oval office ?
Talk is cheap. Actions are what matters. When conservatives talk, they are poor oppressed, misunderstood, and villified victims of the evil liberals trying to take away their free speech (and guns). But when they act, a sexual predator, child molester, egocentric, psychopath, compulsive-liar, megalomaniac, con-man with more than 1300 civil lawsuits against him who's destroyed countless small businesses and ruined countless lives ends-up President of the United States.
If that's what conservative "values" lead to, then every single action and campain aimed at silencing and eradicating them is totally justified, just like chemotherapy is totally justified for eradicating cancer.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Monday June 17 2019, @02:41PM
Because you aren't the US. Enough people, a near majority had other ideas about who was more disgusting.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @03:12PM (1 child)
You are mischaracterizing Peterson. I had the misfortune of watching and analyzing a two hour segment of his.
Philosophers are in three camps: the mathematicians who rule logically, the insightfuls who can deal with subjectives usefully, and the armchair who make bad claims to stir shit up.
I figure Peterson is only kept as a prof for publicity. In the two hours, he didn't actually make any correct argument. Not one. He made lots of feelie arguments and a few lone true statements, but he didn't argue in good faith. By the end I wasn't even upset or disappointed, as I paused, analyzed, and added to the tallies of flaws in reasoning. I was numb to his bullshit beyond being able to spot the many open flaw in his statements. He is a TV charlatan, a crowd-riler, not a true philosopher.
"a centrist with classical-liberal beliefs, tempered by a pretty good dose of realism." implies coherence. He's incoherent. He's certainly no realist. Not unless you call my drunk uncle who points out that "blacks are in jail more per capita, so they are, literally, more criminal, so it's good that they're targeted by the police" a realist. Having the nerve to speak with confidence isn't the same as speaking truth.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday June 18 2019, @01:49AM
I've watched (well, mostly listened on the side) upward of 500 hours of Peterson's stuff, including most of his university lectures. The no-particular-subject talks tend to ramble (and often back-reference previous talks, so you kinda need to be in the loop to know what he's getting at), but the lectures that have a mission are densely packed and generally stay focused, tho you might not realise what the focus is til he reaches the end and pulls it all together. Sometimes he has what I regard as wrongheaded ideas, or is just plain wrong (mostly when he wanders too far out of his field), but you could say that about everyone.
And if he's so incoherent, explain why he routinely packs the house at $200/seat, and everyone listening with intensive concentration. And as to his Youtube channel... 2,090,136 subscribers, 105,016,646 views (some of his univ lectures have topped 200k views). Obviously he's got *something* to say to a LOT of people.
And don't forget he has over 20 years as a professor. He's not some come-lately hired to make admin look smart.
But I can see why he actively annoys today's shallow thinkers: he asks that you truly examine your beliefs down to their core, and it's a rare leftist (or religious fundamentalist, the usual segment who apply the label "charlatan") who ever really does so, given the entire Marx-spectrum philosophy is a matter of faith, by definition not to be questioned. (And I'd say the same about the extreme right, but most who claim that label are, in the light of day, actually somewhere left of Stalin.) And he really annoys the snowflakes, because he refuses to kowtow to their crap.
If you want a somewhat better picture of what he's about than you'll get from some randomly selected talk (which may have been one of his lesser lights), I'd suggest his guest appearance on Honey Badger Radio, or for more depth, any of his university lecture series. Or maybe the video that brought him to general attention, where he stands up to serious harassment from the aggressive-snowflake brigade.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @08:45PM (21 children)
And what is wrong about this?
It is wrong by default. Censorship is always wrong. We should never let the courts or anybody else decide what we can see and hear on the internet. We can do our own filtering at our end. We just need a way around the damage when the authorities try to cut the wire
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @09:58PM (9 children)
Agreed. That is an excellent way of looking at things.
Sadly, federal officers knocking down your door won't think so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @10:01PM (8 children)
Who, exactly, has had their "door knocked down" by US authorities *only* for expressing themselves?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @10:06PM (3 children)
Fine, you win. It was UK authorities who knocked down Julian Assange's door, so he won't have a door to knock down when the USA takes custody of him.
He's probably homosexual too!
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @10:19PM (2 children)
I wonder how much it cost the Ecuadorians to fix their door? Oh, wait...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @11:14PM (1 child)
I could give you the cost now, in €, or we can wait until November 1st and you can have the cost in £.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @11:43PM
Your choice. Although, given that the Limeys didn't bust down any doors, I'm guessing zero. In any currency.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @10:09PM (1 child)
Well, it was more of an analogy for the praetorians in other countries. Not everyone is as blessed to live in Ruby Ridge - I mean America.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @10:17PM
Except Ruby Ridge [wikipedia.org] wasn't about free speech:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @07:04PM (1 child)
The US has obscenity laws, free speech zones, national security letters, draconian copyright laws such as the DMCA, FCC censorship, and so on. Not to mention, the US government constantly forces through similarly unconstitutional garbage such as FOSTA, which then takes massive amounts of effort to get rid of, assuming the courts happen to care about the Constitutional on that day. Simply being better in comparison to something else is not good enough.
(Score: 2) by J053 on Monday June 17 2019, @09:16PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RandomFactor on Sunday June 16 2019, @10:31PM (9 children)
There was a saying in Fidonet "route around the bastards"
Of course it was a different world then. Every byte that came down someone was paying long distance rates for (and that meant something back then..) And the government didn't really play in our sandbox.
Nowadays it isn't connectivity to the data so much as the actual data that those with evil intent want to control, but the principle remains largely the same, and in a way the results are the same.
Google is broken, you get DuckDuckGo
Twitter is broken, you get GAB
YouTube is broken, you get BitCHUTE
Patreon is broken, you get THINKSPOT
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by arslan on Sunday June 16 2019, @10:47PM (5 children)
I'm puzzled, decentralized alternatives like IPFS [ipfs.io] (and its various equivalents) have existed for a while now and yet the uptake just isn't there, even among the geeks. Is it because the issue is only serious enough for whinging in internet boards, but not enough to actually take action?
Heck, I'd be keen to run an IPFS node (or again any of its equivalents) for SN if SN ever decides to go that route.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @11:17PM (2 children)
The motivation wasn't there because these days tribalism requires political stands. When the alt-right declares itself under siege their tribes will follow.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Tuesday June 18 2019, @03:56AM
Yea.. it makes me ponder that engineering and tech should have some form of accreditation body with the single core principle of separation of tech and politics.
Any member mixing the two should be stripped and be labelled an outcast with whatever maximum negative professional consequences society & industry can inflict on said individual.
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Tuesday June 18 2019, @11:53PM
The 'alt-right' left for elsewhere ages ago. Those under siege on the big social media platforms haven't been alt-right for quite some time.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday June 17 2019, @12:15AM (1 child)
If you have to run a "node", you're just asking for trouble. It's not really decentralized, it's more like "distributed". The system has to be absolutely positively transparent, blend in with the noise, catch the wave, hang ten...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by arslan on Tuesday June 18 2019, @03:52AM
Not sure if I agree with your definition of decentralized vs distributed. Something can be distributed but can still have a single point of dependency, like a Kubernetes cluster, the worker nodes can be distributed but they all still depend on the central command & control like the master nodes. Decentralized means you have minimal, ideally no, dependency on a central thing.
IPFS to me is decentralized. The only potential central dependency is during bootstrap it requires to know at least 1 node to talk to to join the mesh - but that isn't strictly a "centralized" entity. There's a "central" registry that makes it easier for automation, but is not mandatory. I can boot a node and manually pass it a list of other nodes that I've validated separately if I want. The whole thing is entirely encapsulated within me and my node as another actor joining the mesh - not on some central thing.
I don't see why me running a node means its not decentralized. This is not a server node, there's no concept of a server vs. client nodes. It is just a node.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday June 16 2019, @10:54PM (2 children)
I worked for a networking hardware vendor back in the early '90s.
I was doing some testing on our TCP/IP module and randomly selected an IP address to ping against. I let it run for a few days to make sure we didn't see any issues, and everything worked perfectly.
Turns out the ISP for the customer's IP address that chose charged by the byte. Needless to say, there was one angry Aussie yelling at us a few weeks later when he got his bill.
Oops.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Monday June 17 2019, @12:07AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday June 17 2019, @12:21AM
Thanks for the reference!
The Coriolis effect is a bitch! :)
I didn't open your link before responding, which may leave me open to a booting! :)
[Please stand by]
Yep. I was right. Whew! That was a big boot!
"In fact, in Rand McNally, they wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people."
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @01:41AM
Ha ha ha. If people hear what they want to hear they won't filter it. It will only reinforce their belief.
Like what you just said........
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @08:39PM (2 children)
Then it's no damn good. We need a system that no court can interfere with in any fashion. The client/server WAN cannot protect us. The service providers are just tools.
This guy won't last exactly because of this weakness.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RandomFactor on Sunday June 16 2019, @09:36PM (1 child)
I'm not overly worried about court-censored speech. It tends to be post-facto, not preemptive censorship, and subject to actual legal reasoning (ignoring the DMCA, but that's a different rabbithole)
What we are seeing right now however is prior restraint on speech and information on various platforms comprising the public square, enforced in a progressively more real-time automated fashion.
I don't really think we need another 'free speech' platform, we've got those. It would be better consolidating in that area and this being a pure payment processing play. There is a massive disaffected market there.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @10:57PM
We need more web sites, not platforms.
(Score: 5, Informative) by RandomFactor on Sunday June 16 2019, @08:58PM (16 children)
Sadly I'm on the waiting list atm, but thanks!
As a side note - Peterson isn't alt-right politically, or even particularly conservative as such things go.
A similarly oft-mislabeled example in my view is the liberal Tim Pool, who conservatives would disagree with strongly on a variety of policy issues. However his listeners lean heavily conservative as they love listening to him brutalize the fringes of his own side in an attempt to pull it back towards the center.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 1, Interesting) by NPC-131072 on Sunday June 16 2019, @09:13PM (15 children)
Hello Fren,
More information in Ari's original submission [soylentnews.org]
The claim is no longer that Peterson is a nazi, it's that nazi's are famous for free speech [wikipedia.org] and this makes him alt-right adjacent, laterally Hitler or something. Aristarchus may be able to explain it better.
(Score: 2, Informative) by aristarchus on Sunday June 16 2019, @09:23PM (12 children)
Pertinent part of the Original Submission:
At least JR kept the dept. line. I hope no one is putting any actual cash into this!
(Score: 3, Informative) by JNCF on Sunday June 16 2019, @10:07PM
Peterson only accepts beefcoins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Monday June 17 2019, @12:17AM
Seems like RandomFactor is willing to put his cash [soylentnews.org] (where his mouth is?).
(And he's standing in the queue at the ATM - large grin).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Touché) by NPC-131072 on Monday June 17 2019, @12:25AM (9 children)
Hello fren,
Thank you for clarifying. This site is infested with trans-misogynist, trans-racialist and trans-abelist, trumptardian Nazi bigots who mod me offtopic and troll for simply inviting you to expand on your original submission. Those of us on the morally superior left know [wikipedia.org] everyone to the right of comrade Stalin is a Nazi. It is only proper that we deplatform Nazi ideas but we on the morally superior left must also do something about relentless down-mods of our superior opinions and progressive calls for social justice. Brother, are you with me?
And for the Nazis who continually downmod me, I leave you with with a quote from our patron saint of social justice who knew a thing or two about deplatforming.
#FreeAristarchus
(Score: 4, Funny) by aristarchus on Monday June 17 2019, @12:40AM (3 children)
Anyone have a spare arrow handy? I see a NPC knee that needs one!
(BTW, Benito was a Communist, before going to the dark side and ending badly, rather like how Donald used to be a New York Democrat. Ok, nothing like that, actually. )
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Monday June 17 2019, @02:16AM
Only a sparrow, magister.
As such, it's unladen - so no consideration of its geographical race (e.g. African vs European) [wikipedia.org] apply, which makes it even harder to swallow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @09:53AM (1 child)
Mussolini was a fascist. The word fascist comes from the organizations he was involved with. He was never a communist and always opposed them.
(Score: 2, Informative) by aristarchus on Monday June 17 2019, @10:14AM
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini [wikipedia.org]
Your ignorance of history is profound, AC. Perhaps a course at a nearby community college?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 17 2019, @02:22AM (4 children)
Interesting pick for an author to quote from quite a number of them.
Are you feeling a strong affiliation with him today? Does this happen to you often?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by NPC-131072 on Monday June 17 2019, @10:40PM (3 children)
Hello fren,
Why you object to social justice? [campusreform.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 17 2019, @11:42PM (2 children)
Am not objecting. I'm only challenging your choice for the authorities you cite in regards with social justice.
I also detect something that looks like a confusion between 'social justice' and SJW; the condition is known to occasionally cause pains and inflammations in the "cognitive dissonance" area - does it happen to you too?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by NPC-131072 on Tuesday June 18 2019, @12:43AM (1 child)
Hello fren,
I know exactly what you mean. It's like when Joe Biden [livescience.com] says he's going to "cure" cancer. How can progressives get behind a candidate like this, at least not in the way feminist Joe gets behind young girls. [youtube.com] Cancer cells are clearly victims of systematic oppression by medical "science" and deserve protected minority status in the liberal utopia we're creating. Don't you agree?
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Tuesday June 18 2019, @11:31PM
Meh. Just typical hyperbolic polispeak. Like 'we're going to defeat the other team', maybe you will, maybe you won't, it's just a goal. 'Cure cancer' is pretty safe as goals go.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 1, Troll) by Username on Monday June 17 2019, @08:49AM (1 child)
I wonder how ari thinks a tenured professor can be fired in a liberal union controlled place such as Toronto.
(Score: 1) by aristarchus on Monday June 17 2019, @10:18AM
Again, do try to keep up, with things like actual facts instead of Party of Dumb prejudices! Jordan was not fired, he just found out he could make more money on YouTube than teaching. Usually those types go into administration, or cooking Meth.
So aristarchus knows exactly how a professor can be fired. Seen it too many times to even be surprised anymore. But Jordan Peterson is not one of those.
(Score: 5, Troll) by ilPapa on Sunday June 16 2019, @09:16PM (9 children)
If anyone wants to put money down on soft-boy weasel Jordan Peterson's new "free speech" platform being a success, I will happily take your action.
Remember, Jordan doesn't believe in "free speech" when it comes to people criticizing him, as you can see in his propensity for bringing defamation lawsuits. Nor does he tend to see free speech violations when his friends are the ones doing the violating.
Jordan Peterson is a stupid person's idea of a smart person. One can only hope that his new platform is built on something besides his concept of "quantum mysticism" or his belief that people can only quit smoking with help from God.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Jordan_Peterson [rationalwiki.org]
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @09:46PM
> links to atheism plus wiki
wew lad
(Score: 5, Insightful) by darkfeline on Sunday June 16 2019, @11:30PM (4 children)
The only claim that needs to be true is: "Thinkspot [...] will only ban or remove users if it is ordered to do so by the U.S. court of law".
If this is upheld, I don't really give a crap what Jordan does in his free time. It would be refreshing to have a platform that truly allows free speech.
With that said, I can see the platform getting mobbed into oblivion the moment something newsworthy happens: "God hating terrorists fund activities on this platform!", "This platform promotes racism, sexism, anti-diversity, etc.", "Thinkspot is a safe harbor for pedophiles!"
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2, Troll) by ilPapa on Monday June 17 2019, @12:01AM (3 children)
Or, it can become like a previous right-wing attempt at a "free speech platform", 8chan, and actually become a a site that promotes terrorism and a safe harbor for pedophiles.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @01:09AM
It's 8ch, clearly you don't even know the subject.
Pizzagate again? If it was true, why hasn't it been shutdown?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @02:40AM (1 child)
The chans have existed far before the current right-wing movements. 4chan goes through phases but basically exists as a counter culture. It used to be liberal under Bush, evolved libertarian by the end, and has moved to the right with Trump. As the culture became more acceptable of trannies, pedophiles, and abortion the chans liberal opinion eroded and they became increasingly hard right against the spread of degeneracy.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 18 2019, @01:32AM
Can't tell if it is meant to be funny. The chans are the very hives of degeneracy.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by sigterm on Monday June 17 2019, @12:59AM (2 children)
>Remember, Jordan doesn't believe in "free speech" when it comes to
>people criticizing him, as you can see in his propensity for bringing
>defamation lawsuits.
Bzzt. That's not how free speech works, but then I suppose you know that perfectly well already, since you've probably noticed that libel laws haven't been stricken down by the Supreme Court.
But just in case you're actually making this argument in (ignorace but) good faith, here's the deal: Libel laws don't prevent you from saying anything, and they don't empower the government to censor speech. Instead, they empower the individual to hold a speaker to account in cases where the speech is both defamatory and not truthful (in the US, that is; in the UK, speaking the truth is not a bulletproof defence against claims of defamation).
Example: Claiming that Dr. Jordan Peterson is an ethno-nationalist (which is what "alt-right" means), is both provably incorrect and a statement that defames Dr. Peterson's character. Such statements are not censored by the government, but Dr. Peterson is free to sue the speaker for defamation and demand restitution.
>Nor does he tend to see free speech violations when his friends are the
>ones doing the violating.
Citation needed.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday June 17 2019, @03:00AM (1 child)
IIUC, in order for slander/libel to be proven in the US, the speech must be defamatory, false, malicious and having caused material harm.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_defamation_law [wikipedia.org]
There are variations in the laws among the several states.
N.B.: IANAL
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 17 2019, @04:20AM
FTFY. Keep in mind that Wikipedia then states:
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Pino P on Sunday June 16 2019, @09:44PM (5 children)
How will Thinkspot maintain relationships with the major electronic payment networks, which no-platformed Hatreon?
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday June 17 2019, @12:16AM (3 children)
It won't matter because this will last 10 minutes.
Remember when the alt-right threw a hissy-fit on Reddit and all went to Voat? That lasted about 3 months.
They spent all their time attacking each other and acting like arseholes.
Now there is tumbleweed because everybody left.
(Score: 1) by aristarchus on Monday June 17 2019, @12:35AM (2 children)
This sounds strangely familiar.
(Perhaps because I am currently double spam modded for trying to start a discussion on vacant summaries?)
As Babe Ruth said about a popular restaurant, "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Monday June 17 2019, @09:51AM (1 child)
Babe Ruth? Nah... That's a Yogi Berra-ism.
(Score: 1) by aristarchus on Monday June 17 2019, @09:39PM
Right. It was the jersey auction that threw me off.
(Score: 2) by Username on Monday June 17 2019, @08:29AM
That is a good question. I think what stopped most neonazi platforms is the fact they would have to go through payment process companies from black and brown countries they hate. I don't think Jordan has this problem. He probably likes the idea of supporting chinese business at the expense of white american ones. I am assuming that Chinese payment processors are integrated with american ones, and can take american cards.
(Score: 2) by gringer on Sunday June 16 2019, @09:45PM (3 children)
If you want a socially-conscious alternative to Patreon that respects its users, try sther:
https://sther.co/ [sther.co]
Ask me about Sequencing DNA in front of Linus Torvalds [youtube.com]
(Score: 4, Touché) by Entropy on Sunday June 16 2019, @10:38PM
Sounds like "We like are against free speech." Why? Because these days someone is offended by more or less anything. Then the rather predictable offended party makes a big stink and someone thinks they have to do something because someone got their feelings hurt.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RandomFactor on Sunday June 16 2019, @10:44PM (1 child)
"Our community of creators decides how to deal with..."
Interesting, the exact opposite of the point of Thinkspot which is that you are not subject to brigading and echo chamber based sanction.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by gringer on Monday June 17 2019, @10:45PM
Yes, indeed. Sther's creator noted that there were plenty of funding communities that already dealt with giving more platforms to people who already have societal protection from harassment, and wanted to create a community that gave voices to people who were frequently ignored or silenced.
Ask me about Sequencing DNA in front of Linus Torvalds [youtube.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Sunday June 16 2019, @09:50PM (2 children)
Even if/when it comes from sources with which I disagree.
I welcome any opportunity to break the stranglehold that centralized platforms like Twitter and Facebook have on public discourse.
Which is one of the reasons I come to SN, even though I disagree with the positions of many here, and find the rhetoric of a few to be odious and hateful.
That said, it will be interesting to see if this new platform (albeit a centralized one, unfortunately. I sure do miss the days when Usenet was broadly used and freely circulated) can fulfill the goal of actually supporting free speech and fomenting discussion and debate, rather than just being a cesspool of hate-filled rhetoric.
As to the idea that Peterson should resist court orders is ridiculous. In the US, the government (despite our current jackass-in-chief's antipathy for it) allows folks to say just about anything without repercussion.
However, I am unaware of any other nation (please enlighten me if I'm wrong) that has as expansive an injunction against government censorship as does the US.
As such, I'm sure Peterson (a Canadian) has no intention of going to jail to protect the content on his new platform. As with most blowhards, I imagine he lacks the courage of his convictions.
All that said, I have no issue (in fact, I encourage it) with creating new platforms for free expression.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @10:37PM (1 child)
Usenet still is freely peered via the former motzarella.org/eternal-september.org project, which provides both free usenet access and peering arrangements for serious text-only users of usenet.
The end result of the no-binary newgroup rule is that newgroups are in the mid to high gigabyte range instead of terabytes like usenet had bloated up to during the internet of the early 00s. And without as much illegal content via the binaries subgroups there are a lot less C&Ds to clog up an ISP or online service's pipes, be they legal or digital.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Sunday June 16 2019, @10:46PM
Absolutely. But it's not *broadly used* as it once was. Mostly because the big ISPs either don't offer it (and most folks couldn't find their ass with both hands and a mirror, let alone motzarella.org/eternal-september.org project, if it ain't on FB or prominently offered by their ISP), charge extra for it, or don't mention it anywhere.
More's the pity, as it's decentralized and *could be* broadly distributed and would be a strong bulwark against censorship.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @11:07PM (6 children)
Has he described himself as 'alt-right' or is this just a smear to lump him in with other bad hombres that we MUST censor?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @11:20PM (2 children)
Alt-right means "not Marxist enough."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @12:26AM
Or insufficiently LGBTQ2S friendly.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Monday June 17 2019, @02:36AM
If the speaker is ctrl-left it just means anyone that disagrees with them on anything. They just called Bill Maher alt-right, you couldn't make this stuff up.
On the other hand, the center-right "dark web" coalition against them flirted with the label for something like 2 weeks, before some racist nationalist lunatics became too associated with it and the rest therefore turned their back on the term.
So it's a very funny word, one of those words that tells you more about the speaker than the purported object of their speech. Simply using the phrase marks you as almost certainly an authoritarian, whether on the far left or far right.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Informative) by pbnjoe on Monday June 17 2019, @01:23AM (1 child)
It is completely a smear. Not only has he not described himself as alt-right, he has repeatedly distanced himself from the alt-right and laid out their issues when questioned as to why people call him that. How can you be a "guru" of something you want nothing to do with?
The Daily Dot is an opinionated blog pretending to be a newspaper. I can only guess it is a poor attempt at having a veneer of legitimacy. This one piece alone has a lie (alt-right guru) and an opinionated interjection ("Because there's no way..."), and there's no opinion tag to be found because they don't exist on that website. Other pieces of "reporting" there include tweets about a garbage search result regarding a toddler cartoon character. [dailydot.com]
The editor did a good job removing aristarchus' "additions" in the original submission, but sadly the source material wasn't much better.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pbnjoe on Monday June 17 2019, @01:35AM
In seemingly every post they have about the man, they call him alt-right with a hyperlink to make you assume they have proof of it, but all it links to is another instance of them name-calling or their piece about the term in general. What a repugnant excuse for a publication. Everyone involved should be embarrassed. Make sure you have ad-block enabled if you visit to see what I mean.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Tuesday June 18 2019, @02:20AM
He's actively denied being "alt-right" and has in fact stated that "the alt-right hates me" (which, in my observation, is largely the case).
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 16 2019, @11:40PM
I see no difference. Show them who made communism and capitalism, they will happily deny about capitalism, but confirm about communism!. These slogans about "Marxist conspiracy" sound right like these famous "blood sucking industrialists draining proletaryat" right from early 1920s revolutionary pamphlets. Show them any capitalism gang massacre, you will hear exactly the same screeching as with left wing when you show them Stalin's version of communism, it usually sounds like "but this was not the real communism!". This is just not how the political conflict looks like, this is how we were manipulated that political conflict looks like.
This will certainly end with censorship as the main objective of site discussed is far from free speech, the thing is that users will just not discuss the problem. And the problem is that there is a common enemy, which divides people to "alt-right" and "ultra-left". In fact, both of these ways look the same, only the words are a bit different, and both ways leads to pushing power into hands of people who shouldn't have it.
But just try to write about it and blaspheme the Saint Profit of Web 3.0 :).
(Score: 4, Touché) by stretch611 on Monday June 17 2019, @01:03AM (3 children)
Thinkspot is a good name for this because you do need to think in order to hit a 50 word minimum. /s
Thinkspot is a good name for this because you do need to think in order to hit a 50 word minimum. /s
Thinkspot is a good name for this because you do need to think in order to hit a 50 word minimum. /s
He is so very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, smart that I bow to his vast and superior intellect for being able to stop trolls with a minimum word count. I do not see any way how this method can be bypassed at all regardless of how many times I attempt to do so.
...........................................................................................................
Heck, even the troll above my comment did this without any obvious attempt to circumvent the minimum. (assuming no one posted since.)
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mer on Monday June 17 2019, @08:01AM (1 child)
Wellit's pretty easy to filter out word padding with an algorythm. An order of magnitude easier and more accurate than filtering out copyright infringement or hate speech (whatever that is).
But if they promised to not remove anything unless it's against US law... well they painted themselves into a corner.
Shut up!, he explained.
(Score: 3, Touché) by stretch611 on Tuesday June 18 2019, @09:52AM
It sounds easy to remove extra words... and essentially it is; unless you need to account for cases that legitimately repeat words and phrases.
Song lyrics and poetry often repeat phrases and sentences. Even during normal writing a person will occasionally repeat something in order to prove a point or provide emphasis. What about a far right commentor that hates Obama and repeatedly writes out his full name Barrack Hussein Obama in order to emphasize his middle name, even to the point of never using a pronoun. How do you tell a simple program that is a legitimate use of repetition when other cases of a dozen 3 word phrases may be spammy? There is no simple algorithm to accomplish this and even complex variations are liable to make multiple mistakes.
As for the sentence that I repeat the word "Very" quite often, I will admit that is something that may be simple to avoid. However, how do you avoid the rest of the sentence that just runs on and on? Theoretically. you can run some type of grammar check on the sentence and require a minimal level of sentence structure and complexity, but as you set this minimum threshold higher, the fewer people that will be able to write any comments at all.
How do you counteract the troll post above my original post? It easily surpasses the minimum word count without repetition.
And here is another way to stop the minimum... Go here https://www.gutenberg.org/files/98/98-h/98-h.htm [gutenberg.org] , copy a random paragraph and append it to your comment. I doubt any simple algorithm would be an;e tp account for that. Just make sure to ignore the first paragraph and the last paragraph to avoid word repetition.
Simply put, like spam in email, when we (as a human) look at it, we can almost immediately and accurately determine that it is spam... However, if it was simple to code an algorithm to do it for us, our spam problem would have been solved years ago.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday June 18 2019, @02:23AM
"50 words" was just a preliminary idea for how the site would work, but you amply demonstrate why one can't quantify insightfulness as a certain minimum of verbiage.
In short, it's a dumb idea based on too much idealism with regard to how discussion sites work, but I'm sure that will become obvious about two seconds after the site opens to the public, or even to the first beta testers.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Informative) by CheesyMoo on Monday June 17 2019, @03:00AM (2 children)
"Conservative psychologist/alt-right guru"
Right off the bat they are mischaracterizing Peterson.
Dave Rubin, who has interviewed Peterson multiple times, and travels with him to his speaking engagements, characterizes Peterson as a "classical liberal"... which I suppose you could argue is a conservative if you wanted to.
But, whats more telling is that the author lumps the good professor in with the alt-right, a now meaningless distinction that was initially coined to identify white nationalists ala Richard Spencer. Now it is a vague label used to portray individuals with views that differ from the author's narrative as nazis/KKK/etc.
It will be interesting to see what happens with this platform. Jordan Peterson is probably the most well known member of the The Intellectual Dark Web. A community interested in having a rational discourse and engaging with ideas of the enlightenment. One of the things they seem to agree on is that crying about oppression is not always a valid argument, so they all get smeared as alt-right (they are also mostly white cis-males, bottom of the leftist moral hierarchy)
Free speech is important, and as social media functions more and more as defacto town-squares for a nation, we need to take consider how they impact public discourse.
Twitter and YouTube also show their leftist bias, de-authenticating users or demonetizing videos of people with contrarian opinions. Patreon has been similarly used to deplatform people. Some say that Facebook is begging to be regulated.
I don't know if Thinkspot will catch on, but Peterson has a pretty substantial worldwide following so he'll at least make a pile of loot out of this. I for one am happy to see networked communication evolve, more harmonious communication could do a lot of goof for a triggered, phone-addicted nihilistic nation.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @03:27PM (1 child)
Uuuuuuuh. More like a community interested in yes-men and a nice echo. There's no critical analysis and devil's advocacy. The goal is not to discover truth or improve subjective taste but is to justify action or belief (included in this is belief that persons in this "community" are oppressed - by such things as being forbidden from dropping the n-bomb at rap concerts).
They're not "engaging with ideas of the enlightenment" but rather "trying to find ways to justify bigotry."
Citation: I followed some groups of wanna-be intellectuals in HPMOR's early days. There were bigotry-justifiers but also truth seekers and idea explorers. I have skimmed the so-called "Intellectual Dark Web" and by comparison it clearly lacks good faith, let alone logical rigour.
(Score: 3, Touché) by CheesyMoo on Tuesday June 18 2019, @12:22AM
I wonder which discussions you actually listened to. In many of the various conversations I have heard on podcasts (Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, Sam Harris) or Dave Rubin's show they often "give the devil his due" and will use the tactic of "steel-manning" (as opposed to straw-manning) where they lay out their opponents arguments in the best possible terms in order to more effectively dismantle it.
The fact that they hold heterogenous beliefs on religion/politics, disagree about things things and go into tedious detail about the nuances of their opinions also stands in contrast to your claims of "yes-men"
For the many hours I have heard with the IDW (Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, Bret Weinstein, Ben Shapiro, Eric Weinstein, Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin and many more...) I have never heard any of them "dropping the n-bomb".
They do perhaps like to go on about how mainstream media, buzzfeed and other folks like to discredit and de-platform them continuously. That form of "oppression" they do have in common. (The fact that they repeatedly reject the oppression olympics and victim mentality also makes your comments ironic)
I think you may be confused about the group at hand, HPMOR doesn't ring a bell for me. AskJeeves returns "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality"? Is this where your racist boogy-men are hiding?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Username on Monday June 17 2019, @08:35AM
Wonder how many pot smoking hippies will sign up thinking about pot. Expert sex change syndrome.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @08:58AM
https://www.subscribestar.com/ [subscribestar.com]
https://newproject2.com/ [newproject2.com] invitation only AFAIK
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @10:16AM (1 child)
"If minimum comment length is 50 words, you're gonna have to put a little thought into it," Peterson said to the right-wing outlet NewsBusters. "Even if you're being a troll, you'll be a quasi-witty troll.""If minimum comment length is 50 words, you're gonna have to put a little thought into it," Peterson said to the right-wing outlet NewsBusters. "Even if you're being a troll, you'll be a quasi-witty troll.""If minimum comment length is 50 words, you're gonna have to put a little thought into it," Peterson said to the right-wing outlet NewsBusters. "Even if you're being a troll, you'll be a quasi-witty troll.""If minimum comment length is 50 words, you're gonna have to put a little thought into it," Peterson said to the right-wing outlet NewsBusters. "Even if you're being a troll, you'll be a quasi-witty troll.""If minimum comment length is 50 words, you're gonna have to "If minimum comment length is 50 words, you're gonna have to put a little thought into it," Peterson said to the right-wing outlet NewsBusters. "Even if you're being a troll, you'll be a quasi-witty troll.""If minimum comment length is 50 words, you're gonna have to put a little thought into it," Peterson said to the right-wing outlet NewsBusters. "Even if you're being a troll, you'll be a quasi-witty troll."put a little thought into it," Peterson said to the right-wing outlet NewsBusters. "Even if you're being a troll, you'll be a quasi-witty troll."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 17 2019, @10:27AM
Wow! Can I spam mod this, like happened to aristarchus? Can I?