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Google admits to censoring the World Socialist Web Site

While both Dorsey and Zuckerberg refused to give names—claiming they would provide a list at a later date—when Lee got to Pichai, the Google executive responded that “we have moderation policies which we apply equally... We have had compliance issues with the World Socialist Review [sic], which is a left-leaning publication.”

Although Pichai used the name “World Socialist Review,” a print newsletter that ceased publication in 2011, it is clear that he was referring to the World Socialist Web Site. In fact, a Google search for “World Socialist Review” actually yields the WSWS in its top two results.

Pichai did not explain what he meant by “compliance issues,” but his response to Senator Lee was absolutely clear. He was saying that Google does in fact take censorship action against left-wing and socialist publishers, and an example is the censorship of the World Socialist Web Site.

Whatever happens this election--and, being blunt, as of 1600 EST on 3 November I am expecting a Trump win--one thing is for certain: this election and the previous 4 years have brought out the absolute worst in this country.

Even as cynical as I am, I had no idea that something on the order of 40% of the nation's grown-ass adults are some combination of ignorant, willfully stupid, and/or outright *evil* enough to back the GOP. My very worst-case estimate would have been one in four or about 25%. To know it's almost half the nation is almost beyond comprehension. Have we always been this horrible and it took social media and the Internet to make it widely-known, or has something happened during the last couple of decades to turn people into this?

I think it's a little from column A and a little from column B. Certainly without Twitter and Facebook reducing the cost, latency, and effort of real-time communication to huge masses of people to near-zero, things wouldn't have gotten this polarized this fast. But some part of me also knew, even from childhood, that a lot of people are just awful deep down. No redeeming qualities, or at least none they wouldn't happily toss into the compactor and pull the switch if they thought it benefited them somehow.

At this point, *whatever* your politics are, there is no sane, rational excuse for supporting Trump and the GOP. None. Leave aside what you fear the Democrats will do if elected: Trump and company are systematically gutting the nation's institutions, driving up the deficit to insane levels (funny how that only matters when it's a D in the White House, huh?), alienating every ally we have, corroding worldwide health and defense initiatives, and dragging the US's reputation at home and abroad through something that *wishes* it could be called "mud." This is not merely unsustainable, as is the corporate Democrats' constant sucking up to big business: this is self-destructive, and rapidly so.

The reasons some of our frothier members give for supporting Hair Furor are as convoluted and bizarre as they are disgusting. Mostly I see a whole lot of people lying to themselves about what it is they're supporting, hiding behind euphemisms like "making common cause" in the course of trying to convince themselves that they aren't becoming what they ally with, that they can give it up any time they like, that they haven't irrevocably sold their souls off as noetic scrap. I see people parading around high-sounding ideals of freedom and liberty they do not even half understand, much less truly support.

I see incredible, Schwarzchild-radius selfishness, with the accompanying event horizon of permanent solipsistic shortsightedness such an attitude inevitably brings. I see people insisting that they're just forming temporary alliances of a sort, that they are more or less *using* the actual crazies instead of the other way around, that "the enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy, and I can ride this tiger as long as I feel like and it will never, ever turn around, buck me, and eat me alive."

Fools. Complete and utter fools, every last one of them. And the worst possible thing is happening: *they're going to get what they think they want!*

A perfect example of this is as follows: Runaway makes a big deal about "originalism" with regards to the appointment of Barret to the Supreme Court. It is clear he 1) has no earthly idea of what "originalism" means (and to be fair, no one on the SCOTUS does either; it's another of those "truth, justice, and the American Way" feelz-words) and 2) has really, *really* not thought this through. At all. Why? Because he's just about retirement age, not in the best of health, and is cheering on the permanent capture of an entire branch of the Federal government by the party that wants to get rid of Social Security, Medicare, and all the other programs that are going to prevent his shriveled stupid Fox-News-jihadi ass from dying homeless under a bridge at 68 of malnutrition and untreated sickness! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

I really can't comprehend the seething, teeth-grinding, spleen-wringing, malevolent mediocrity that would happily consign itself to this fate, completely needlessly, just to "own the libs." This makes him, and all who think like him, exactly as much of a suicide-bombing nihilist as any terrorist in a dynamite vest who pops off in the subway station...just far, far more cowardly. I cannot understand the kind of hate, *actual fucking hate,* that would make someone willfully condemn themselves and others like them to a slow, miserable, and above all unnecessary death just to hurt other people.

THAT is hate, not abusive language on the internet. That is stone-cold spiteful soulless nihilism.

And as the title says, "let him who is filthy, be filthy still." We've long since crossed the point of no return, and there is no redemption, NONE, for the people who voted for this, who caused this, who not only let this happen but cheered it on. The next few weeks are going to be incredibly ugly, and the next few decades even uglier. I really do not know if I'll survive to make it to Canada, but the fact is I saw all this coming all the way back on 9/11 in 8th grade, the day the towers came down so close I could see the smoke rising in real time. I've been planning for an escape over a decade, hoping and praying it would never come to this, even as I knew it inevitably would. The border is less than 30 minutes' walk away and so help me Goddess I will go there on foot and claim asylum if things get as bad as they look like they will.

I hope all of you frothing nutjobs are proud of yourselves. You are about to get the government you deserve, and get it good and hard. You have sold your souls for it, and will find out in short order that you really did not get a good deal at all...

The White House science office has confirmed that:

"ending the COVID-19 pandemic" as the top accomplishment of President Trump's first term

Thank sweet Jesus of Nazareth that it's finally over!

It's so good to know that the the invisible enemy has been defeated once and for all.

I was a little skeptical about the Trump Administration's efforts, but now it's clear that everything is fine and the virus has gone away, just as the President said it would.

Now that this is finally behind us, I'm going out to the bar and getting me *two* hookers.

How are other Soylentils going to celebrate the end of COVID?

F(x)tec Pro1 X smartphone runs LineageOS or Ubuntu, features a sliding keyboard (Crowdfunding)

Pro1-X: XDA Developers collaborates to create the world's first Lineage OS and Ubuntu Touch smartphone

Δικαιοσύνη, such a fragile thing! ऋत (ṛta), a more general concept, is thought to obtain regardless of the plans of gods and humans. One consequence, however, of the disconnect between human and cosmic justice, is the imagination of compensatory realms, where the injustices of this world will be rectified. We humans have long sought to envisage the realm of Paradise, where the just, and the meek, and the cheesemakers will receive their just deserts. However, given human nature, much more energy has been expended in portraying the suffering of the wicked, especially those who escaped the fruit of their actions while alive. Welcome to Hell 101.

Plato tells of souls ensconced in the Acherusian lake, and how some are tossed into the two mighty Rivers of the Underworld, the Styx and the Pyriphlegethon, the one grey and bone-chillingly cold, the other a mass of flowing fire, and then swept into the abyss of Tarturus, subject to a planet-scale turbo-wash. And there are many other Greek imaginings of the torments of those who had it coming, Ixion and his wheel, Sysiphus and his stone, Tantalus with his tantalizing. But it really takes an Eastern genius to up the game. Chinese hellscapes are intriguing, and a bit too titillating, especially for Buddhists. But of course it is the Christians who make Hell a central part of their theology, and a major motif of art and literature. Which brings us to our topic: Trump is going to hell.

Our author here takes off on one of the great works of western literature, one usually never adequately studied, but famous enough that almost everyone understands references to it. I speak, of course, of the Divina Comedia of the immortal Dante. Ariel Dorfman has penned a revisiting of the Inferno, centered around the Fate of the Donald.

Sending Trump to Hell
Dante Alighieri Has Words for Donald J. Trump From the Other Side of Death

No doubt this will appeal to everyone's vicarious need for divine justice.

For some time now, I’ve wanted to send Donald Trump to Hell. I mean this literally, not as a figure of speech. I want him to inhabit the palpable, sensory Hell that religions have long conjured up with scenes of sulfur, damnation, and screams of perpetual pain from those who once caused grievous harm to their fellow humans.

The more Trump has abused his power and position in this world and the more he’s escaped any retribution for his crimes, the more obsessed I’ve become with visualizing ways for him to pay in some version of the afterlife.

As I mulled over the treatment he deserved for the havoc he continues to wreak on the lives of countless others here in the United States and across the globe, I turned almost automatically to the work of Dante Alighieri, the Italian poet whose Divina Commedia minutely recreated in a verse called terza rima what awaited the readers of his time once they died. Dante (1265-1321) laid out his otherworldly landscape in three volumes -- Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso -- that have rightly been considered among the towering and influential literary achievements of humanity.

There was nothing abstract about the Hell he created. Dante pictured himself personally taking a voyage into the hereafter to meet men and women, both of his time and from the past, who were being rewarded for their virtue or eternally castigated for their offenses. Of that journey through purgatorial fires and heavenly wonders, guided by his dead childhood sweetheart Beatrice, it was the Florentine writer’s descent into the saturated circles of Hell that most fascinated and enthralled readers throughout the centuries. We listen to stories of the wicked as they express their remorse and experience the excruciatingly sophisticated torments he dreamt up as suitable reprisals for the damage they did during their earthly existence.

Of course, I am not going to reproduce the entire piece here, you have to go look for yourself. But a few choice morsels, in a Tantalusian fashion?

Were you not the selfish embodiment of so many sins I dealt with in my Commedia? Lust and adultery, yes! Gluttony, yes; greed and avarice, oh yes; wrath and fury, certainly; violence, fraud, and usury, yes again! Divisiveness and treachery, even heresy -- you who did not believe in God and yet used the Bible as a prop -- yes, one more time!

Did you not practice all those iniquities, a slave to your loveless appetites? Do you not deserve to be called to account in ways I once envisioned: buffeted by vicious winds, drowning in storms of putrefaction, choking under gurgling waters of belligerence, immersed in the boiling blood that echoes rage, thirsting across a burning plain, steeped in the excrement of flattery and seduction, clawed to pieces by the night demons of corruption, or feeling that throat and tongue of yours that tore so many citizens apart mutilated and hacked to bits? Would it not be fair that, like other perjurers and impostors, you be bloated with disease? Would it not make sense that you be trapped in ice or flames, endlessly chewed by the jaws of eternity, like those who committed treason against country and friends in my time?

Easy to get carried away with this stuff, even as a horror genre, like Cube, or The Cell, or even What Dreams May Come or Constantine, but the important thing is mercy.

And yet, in the end, I rejected all of that. After all, I was selected not to repeat myself but because I was trusted to be creative and find an appropriately new reckoning for you -- something, said the authorities in charge of this place, less savage and fierce, more educational, even therapeutic. Thus have times changed since I wrote that poem of mine!

My mission, it seems, was not to insert you in rings of an already conceived Hell of terrifying revenge. So I began to seek inspiration from my fellow sufferers so many centuries later and there, indeed, they were -- your multitudes of victims, the ones who need to heal, the ones you never wanted to see or mourn, whose pain you never shared, who now want to greet you, sir, in a new way.

Perhaps you haven’t noticed yet, but I have. They’ve been lining up since the moment they arrived. Now, they’re here by my side, counting the days until your time is up and you must face them. And so I decided that they would be given a chance to do exactly that, one by one, through all eternity.

60 Minutes interviews, for eternity! Meeting Gold Star families with Covid-19, for ever! Mike Pence and Stephan Miller as your cellmates, interminably! As Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in "No Exit",

Hell is other people

But actually, it is only a true mirror of the soul, having to face the emptiness of your own being. And in some cases, it is not something you want to watch, or even imagine. St. Thomas Aquinas allegedly said that one of the prime pleasures of Paradise is being able look down upon the torments of the damned. But like I said: Mirror.

There's a whole lot of "discussion" around here about what Americans think about issues of import.

The results of broad-based polling may surprise you.

A recent (23 October 2020) Fivethirtyeight.com piece discusses the results of such polling, both as differences *between* parties as well as within them:

So which issues divide Democrats, and which ones divide Republicans? Two polls released this week, one conducted by the New York Times and Siena College and the other by PRRI, a nonpartisan organization that focuses on the intersection of religion, culture and public policy, provide some fresh answers.

Issues that divide Democrats

• A national mandate for a coronavirus vaccine: 47 percent of Democrats supported a national mandate to take a COVID-19 vaccine if one is approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and 48 percent opposed it, per the New York Times/Siena poll of likely voters, which was conducted Oct. 15 to 18. This is an unpopular idea with the broader American public — only 18 percent of Republicans voters and 32 percent of likely voters overall supported such a mandate, according to the poll.

• more liberal presidential nominee: About 45 percent of adults who identify as Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents said that they had initially favored Sen. Bernie Sanders (31 percent) or Sen. Elizabeth Warren (14 percent) during the Democratic primary, per the PRRI survey, which was conducted Sept. 9-22
  [...]
  Democratic voters are firmly behind Biden in his race against Trump. But there is a sizeable bloc in the party who favored more liberal candidates, and divisions between this more liberal bloc and the party’s more centrist bloc are likely to emerge if Democrats have total control of Washington next year — or even if Democrats control the presidency and the House.

• Reparations: Exactly half of Democrats (50 percent) said they supported economically compensating African Americans who are the descendants of enslaved people, and almost exactly half (49 percent) opposed this idea, according to PRRI. This is an unpopular idea, more broadly — only 27 percent of Americans, including 5 percent of Republicans, supported reparations.

• Religion: 46 percent of Democrats said they felt that religion causes more problems in society than it solves, while 53 percent of Democrats disagreed with that sentiment. Only 38 percent of Americans overall said that religion creates more problems than it solves, compared to 61 percent who disagreed with that sentiment, including 79 percent of Republicans.

Issues that divide Republicans

• Trump’s speech and behavior: 46 percent of Republicans said they wished that Trump’s speech and behavior was “consistent with previous presidents,” compared to 53 percent who disagreed, per PRRI. That was a popular sentiment with the broader public — 68 percent of American adults and 84 percent of Democrats wished Trump acted more like his predecessors.

• A public health insurance option: 45 percent of Republicans supported a government-operated health insurance plan that all Americans could enroll in, while 47 percent opposed this idea, according to the New York Times/Siena poll. This was also a popular idea overall — 67 percent of Americans, including 87 percent of Democrats, supported a public option.

• State and local government policies to limit the spread of COVID-19, such as requirements to wear masks: 56 percent of Republicans said state and local governments are taking “reasonable steps to protect people,” while 43 percent said those moves are “unreasonable attempts to control people,” per PRRI. These policies were broadly popular — 76 percent of Americans, including 94 percent of Democrats, said state and local governments were taking reasonable steps.

• A mini-Green New Deal: 46 percent of Republicans opposed a “$2 trillion plan to increase the use of renewable energy and build energy-efficient infrastructure,” and 45 percent of Republicans supported it, according to the New York Times/Siena survey.
  [...]
  Sixty-six percent of Americans, including 89 percent of Democrats, supported this idea.

• Getting a COVID-19 vaccine: 54 percent of Republicans said they would “probably” or “definitely” get a vaccine for COVID-19 if it were approved by the FDA, and 40 percent said they “probably” or “definitely” would not get it, per the New York Times/Siena survey. Sixty-one percent of Americans, including 69 percent of Democrats, said they would “probably” or “definitely” get the vaccine.

• The levels of discrimination Black and Hispanic Americans face: About half of Republicans (52 percent) said that Black Americans face “a lot” of discrimation, and about half (47 percent) said that they don’t, per PRRI. Forty-five percent of Republicans agreed that Hispanic Americans face a lot of discrimation, compared to 53 percent who disagreed. Most Americans overall (75 percent) and Democrats (92 percent) said that Black Americans face a lot of discrimination. The numbers were similar but slightly lower for discrimination against Hispanic Americans: 69 percent of Americans and 86 percent of Democrats said that they face a lot of discrimination.

• Immigration policy: Republicans are about equally split on allowing the separation of families at the border (45 percent supported, 53 percent opposed), protecting people who were brought to the U.S. as children but are not citizens from deportation (45 percent supported, 54 percent opposed) and creating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (48 percent supported such a pathway, 38 percent said they should be deported, and 14 percent said they should be allowed to become legal residents but not become citizens). A clear majority of Americans overall opposed separating families at the border (76 percent) and supported a pathway to citizenship (64 percent), as well as granting legal resident status to immigrants who would benefit from either the DREAM Act or DACA, commonly referred to as “Dreamers” (66 percent).

• A universal basic income: 52 percent of Republicans supported guaranteeing all Americans a minimum income, compared to 48 percent who opposed such an idea, per PRRI. Seventy percent of Americans overall, including 88 percent of Democrats, supported a UBI.

I encourage everyone to read the piece in its entirety.

That said, I think it's clear that there isn't a lot of uniformity in either party, and that the practical divisions between us are smaller than the stuff that unites us.

SpaceX Starlink internet seeks final approvals to serve Australia

SpaceX has begun applying for Starlink gateway licenses in at least four Australian cities – Broken Hill, Boorowa, Wagin, and Pimba – in one of the final steps needed before Starlink internet can begin operating on the continent.

[...] SpaceX must gain a final, more challenging regulatory approval by obtaining a spectrum license that will allow the Starlink satellites to communicate to ground stations that are based in Australia. The ACMA stated that SpaceX’s “inclusion in the determination does not confer a right on that entity to obtain a license, rather it is a prerequisite before a space apparatus license can be issued.” Carrier license thus in hand, a spectrum license is still needed to ensure that Starlink does not interfere with existing Australian communications services.

SpaceX Starship fires up three Raptor engines in prelude to high-altitude flight

Update: At 1:21am CDT (6:21 UTC) on October 20th, Starship SN8 ignited all three of its Raptors’ preburners, producing a spectacular fireball noticeably larger than the one produced during the rocket’s first October 19th preburner test. A mere two hours later, with no break in between, the steel rocket prototype fully ignited all three Raptor engines for the first time ever, likely producing thrust equivalent to ~90% of a nine engine Falcon 9 booster for a brief moment.

Crucially, aside from physically demonstrating Raptor’s multi-engine capabilities, Starship SN8 – already a first-of-a-kind prototype – completed and survived a static fire seemingly unscathed on its first attempt. If the data SpaceX gathers from the milestone is as good as the test appeared to be, the company could be just a few days away from installing Starship SN8’s recently-stacked nosecone, followed by a second triple-Raptor static fire test. If that second static fire goes well, SN8’s next task will be the first high-altitude Starship flight test.

[...] Curiously, moments before preburner ignition, one of the three Raptor engines appeared to command an aggressive jet-like vent of liquid oxygen identical to a vent seen just a few hours prior during the first aborted preburner test. There’s thus a chance that only two of SN8’s three Raptor engines successfully started their preburners.

More details: Starship SN8 conducts milestone Static Fire test ahead of nosecone install

Update: SpaceX Starship go for nosecone installation forward after historic static fire

The Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching Act of 2019 (S.2658, https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/2658/text ) has languished in the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee for nearly a year.

The bill, introduced with bipartisan support, would require large communications platforms to implement APIs to allow other platforms to directly interact with users on their platforms.

Aside from the obvious advantages of this strategy (lowering barriers to entry for competitive platforms and reducing the influence/market power of these platforms), other, potentially more free speech and privacy protecting platforms could have the opportunity to flourish and, hopefully, create a broad-based decentralized digital public commons.

I have written to my House and Senate representatives to express my support for this bill. Perhaps other Soylentils might like to do so as well.

The text below is what I sent to my senators:

I strongly urge you to support the ACCESS Act (S.2658 - Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching Act of 2019) introduced by Senator Warner and encourage your colleagues to do so as well.

The bill requires that large communications platforms such as Facebook and Twitter provide mechanisms for other platforms to interoperate with their platforms.

This is important for several reasons:

1. The sheer size of these platforms lock your constituents into them, creating huge barriers to entry for competitors and stifling competition in the Social netwotking market;

2. The ACCESS Act would create a mechanism for other platforms to interoperate with these huge platforms, some of which already exist and others which could provide users not only with superior capabilities, but also with the ability to exert more control over their personal data and information (cf. Diaspora, https://joindiaspora.org );

3. These huge platforms have enormous control, not only over the news and information that their users see, but also over the marketplaces created by their sheer size. Requiring them to freely interoperate provides an opportunity to create a true public commons divorced from any particular corporate entity;

4. As we've seen in the recent (and not so recent) past, these platforms exert an enormous amount of influence and have a huge economic impact on us. As such, there have been calls to break up these companies to limit that impact and influence. I posit that creating an environment which will significantly reduce barriers to entry into this space will encourage competition and limit the impact/influence of these corporations, while creat new opportunities, new jobs and a broader set of voices on the Internet.

I'd further urge you to introduce amendments to this bill to accomplish the following:

1. Reduce the size of impacted platforms from 100,000,000 users to 100,000. This would allow a rich ecosystem of communication and social networking platforms that can interact and give everyone an opportunity to connect with others in a decentralized, open way. It would also provide strong incentives for entrepreneurship in this space and encourage innovation and competition;

2. In addition to tasking the National Institute for Standards and Technology with creating the protocols and interfaces required to implement this bill, invite the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to participate as well. The IETF (https://ietf.org/about/ ) are the people who have, for more than 30 years, been developing, documenting and implementing the technical standards that have made the Internet the economic and cultural dynamo it is today.

Please make this a priority, because broad-based, open communication, discussion and the potential for enhanced personal privacy are critical to our democracy and cultural cohesion.

Feel free to plagiarize all or some of it should you choose to pass it along to your representatives.

Do any Soylentils have ideas and/or suggestions beyond mine for why to support (or not) this bill?

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 6 Core Reportedly Offers Better Gaming Performance Than Intel Core i7-10700 8 Core CPU, Ryzen 5 5600 Comes In Early 2021 With a $220 US Price

The $150 gap between 5600X and 5800X is just waiting for a Ryzen 7 5700X to be dropped in.

Previously: AMD Announces Zen 3 CPUs