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How countries go backwards


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2018 Sep 14, 7:53am   9,622 views  54 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (55)   💰tip   ignore  

https://www.edge.org/conversation/how-to-get-rich

To understand these losses in extreme isolation, the easiest case to understand is Japan, because the loss of firearms in Japan was witnessed and described. It took place in a literate society. Guns arrived in Japan around 1543 with two Portuguese adventurers who stepped ashore, pulled out a gun, and shot a duck on the wings. A Japanese nobleman happened to be there, was very impressed, bought these two guns for $10,000, and had his sword-maker imitate them. Within a decade, Japan had more guns per capita than any other country in the world, and by the year 1600 Japan had the best guns of any country in the world. And then, over the course of the next century, Japan gradually abandoned guns.

What happened was that the Samurai, the warrior class in Japan, had been used to fighting by standing up in front of their armies and making a graceful speech, the other opposing Samurai made an answering graceful speech, and then they had one-on-one combat. The Samurai discovered that the peasants with their guns would shoot the Samurai while the Samurai were making their graceful speeches. So the Samurai realized that guns were a danger because they were such an equalizer. The Samurai first restricted the licensing of gun factories to a hundred factories, and then they licensed fewer factories, and then they said that only three factories could repair guns, and then they said that those three factories could make only a hundred guns a year, then ten guns a year, then three guns a year, until by the 1840s when Commodore Perry came to Japan, Japan no longer had any guns. That represents the loss of a very powerful technology.


And without guns, they were pretty much fucked when Commodore Perry showed up.

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1   FortWayne   2018 Sep 14, 8:32am  

That’s the same line liberals are pushing for. Armed citizens are harder to subjugate.
2   FortWayne   2018 Sep 14, 8:58am  

Reagan brought America out of recession, unlike inept Carter.

HEYYOU says
Now we can destroy the planet with thermonuclear tech brilliance.
Reagan took Carter's solar panels off the White house ,"That represents the loss of a very powerful technology."
Nothing like Republicans holding back America.
Rep/Cons will not remove their restrictions,concealed carry permits,background checks,surrendering personal data to purchase a firearm,on the 2nd Amendment allowing them to destroy America easier.
3   Patrick   2018 Sep 14, 9:04am  

What I really fear is the Leftist Utopia, where all speech is declared hate speech so that it may be censored at will, all white people are declared racist by birth so that they may be disenfranchised, and everything good for global corporations (outsourcing jobs, insourcing illegals) is put above the welfare of the working class.

And the Left is implementing exactly those things with all of its recent actions designed to centralize control of the internet, divide the working class with identity politics, and dissolve our borders. Free speech and democracy still work, more or less, for the moment, but I expect those to be attacked and dismantled soon.

Titania is mocking the Left, but not by much. Just enough to get you to think, as a good troll should do:

4   Patrick   2018 Sep 14, 9:23am  

Patrick says
The Samurai discovered that the peasants with their guns would shoot the Samurai while the Samurai were making their graceful speeches. So the Samurai realized that guns were a danger because they were such an equalizer. The Samurai first restricted the licensing of gun factories to a hundred factories...


The leftists discovered that the peasants with their Internet would mock them while leftists were making graceful speeches about the needs of illegals. So the left realized that the Internet was a danger because it was such an equalizer. The left first banned Infowars, and then restricted access to Alex Jones...

And this is how we will lose the Internet the way the Japanese lost their guns. Already happening. Infowars and Alex Jones are crazy, but banning them is just practice for ever larger bans and ever harsher penalties for daring to be politically incorrect.
5   Bd6r   2018 Sep 14, 10:01am  

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says
Alex Jones should be the editor of the New York Times because only Alex Jones knows what the fuck is going on and knows what God is going to do with our country because he is exactly like Jesus.

Admittedly, he is a kook and irritating ass, but the issue of "slippery slope" remains.
6   RWSGFY   2018 Sep 14, 10:14am  

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says
Yes, of course. Editing is exactly like genocide. Or at least political assassination.


Editing is supposed to happen in media orgs. FB and GOOG have always stood on the position that they are just "platforms".
7   Bd6r   2018 Sep 14, 10:23am  

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says
Editing

I do not get what editing has to do with banning from platform because someone dislikes what is being said. May be next time someone will dislike criticism of new war US will start in Middle East, or any criticism of US Army, or criticism of police "heroes in Blue" beating up another CRIMINAL!TRESPASSING!MINORITY!, resulting in BANNING THESE EVIL PACIFISTS FROM ALL MEDIA. We can also remember how Bill Maher was banned from ABC, or how now there are attempts to ban him from HBO.
8   NuttBoxer   2018 Sep 14, 10:58am  

Patrick says
divide the working class with identity politics


Like characterizing someone as either Right or Left, and using that characterization to summarily dismiss everything they say?
9   clambo   2018 Sep 14, 11:52am  

The importation of foreign workers by the hundreds of thousands dilutes the power to negotiate wages by American workers. This is likely well known to some of the greedy employers, while others don't think about it if they are hiring guys to pick strawberries.

The interesting history of the rights provided by the Magna Carta is that after a plague killed so many workers off, the workers had bargaining power with the landowner class and royalty. The reason they had any power or rights was their own numbers had decreased in relation to the work the others wanted them to perform.

The history of information having no filters now is also interesting; this is why newspapers are going the way of the Dodo bird, why do I want to pay to read a reporter's "eye witness" story when I can just watch a free Youtube shot on scene?

The same people who want to curtail your speech, your rights, your wages, want to take more of your money so they can remain in power. The power of being in any office is intoxicating.
10   MisdemeanorRebel   2018 Sep 14, 12:16pm  

As far as outrageous lunacy goes, Alex Jones isn't bad at all.

Keep in mind the History Channel pushes the idea that Manchu Picchu was built by Aliens in episode after episode of Programming.
11   bob2356   2018 Sep 14, 12:50pm  

Patrick says
The left first banned Infowars, and then restricted access to Alex Jones...


You using the same internet as me? I typed in infowars.com and it came up just fine. ISP problems perhaps?
12   NuttBoxer   2018 Sep 14, 1:04pm  

What we have here is what's known as a slippery slope.
www.youtube.com/embed/kSVbekE2t-Q
14   Booger   2018 Sep 14, 5:24pm  

EUROPEANS DEFEAT AI BOTS IN THE MEME WARS!

15   Patrick   2018 Sep 14, 5:28pm  

Rocketmanjoe says
just wondering your source for this information? I also have no problem getting to the Infowars site


To be downranked into oblivion by the indexing monopoly (aka Google) is to lose your source of new visitors.

When this is done for political reasons, it really is censorship.
16   Patrick   2018 Sep 14, 5:34pm  

NuttBoxer says
Like characterizing someone as either Right or Left, and using that characterization to summarily dismiss everything they say?


Censorship is the core feature of the left. It is their defining characteristic now: they suppress alternative points of view with self-righteous shouts of racism, etc. And they use their power to prevent the public from hearing about the alternative points of view, via Facebook, Google, Amazon, control of the press and Hollywood, etc.

Can you think of any way that the right is censoring political speech lately?

But also, please find a quote where I summarily dismiss everything said by the left. I don't do that. I want everyone to be free to express their sincere non-violent opinions without getting banned, fired, or charged with a crime. Currently, only the left is free to speak without those consequences, and even then only if they adhere strictly to the tenets of the leftist religion. James Damore for example was in no way a right-winger. But he questioned the religion in a compelling way, using facts. So he had to be fired.

Free speech is in dire straits lately.
17   Patrick   2018 Sep 14, 5:36pm  

DASKAA says
Editing is supposed to happen in media orgs. FB and GOOG have always stood on the position that they are just "platforms".


If you edit content for political reasons, you are no longer a platform. You become a publisher, gaining liability for what you publish.
19   Patrick   2018 Sep 14, 5:41pm  

clambo says
The importation of foreign workers by the hundreds of thousands dilutes the power to negotiate wages by American workers.


This is the real issue.

This is why you may lose your job if you criticize illegals.

This is why we no longer have freedom of speech. Freedom of speech dilutes the power of the ruling class to suppress wages for the poorest US citizens. Same situation in Europe with Muslim migrants. They suppress wages and divide the working class. And that is profitable to our globalist owners.

Money -> power -> suppression of speech -> more money -> more power -> more suppression
20   RWSGFY   2018 Sep 14, 5:44pm  

Patrick says
DASKAA says
Editing is supposed to happen in media orgs. FB and GOOG have always stood on the position that they are just "platforms".


If you edit content for political reasons, you are no longer a platform. You become a publisher, gaining liability for what you publish.


Xactly. Can't have your cake and eat it too.
22   Patrick   2018 Sep 14, 6:20pm  

Rocketmanjoe says
Jones got banned from Twitter for violating it's abusive behavior policy.


Nope, he got banned because he disagrees with our owners. That was his crime.

Rocketmanjoe says
If people don't agree with it they are free not to use the service


Nope, not free in a de facto sense. See the comic above:

https://patrick.net/post/1318899?offset=0#comment-1535124

Herdingcats says
Then why don't Trump supporters call him out on his hiring of foreign workers?


Does he hire illegals?
23   RWSGFY   2018 Sep 14, 6:23pm  

Rocketmanjoe says
DASKAA says
If you edit content for political reasons, you are no longer a platform. You become a publisher, gaining liability for what you publish.


Xactly. Can't have your cake and eat it too.


Unfortunately editing and banning are not synonymous.


Somebody in this thread implied they are the same. (I don't see much difference myself either).
24   marcus   2018 Sep 14, 6:46pm  

personal
25   marcus   2018 Sep 14, 6:56pm  

Social media shouldn't be used to manipulate the masses in either direction. Sure it's tricky to have truth police. But maybe it's not THAT tricky to know when some comission or something defines something as an outright lie or at least nothing more than a fucked up rumor.

Examples:

1) John McCain had half black child with some woman, now an adopted daughter

2) Hillary CLinton routinely murders people for political reasons

3) Barrack Obama wasn't born in AMerica and is a Muslim in favor of Jihad in America

4) Donald Trump paid prostitutes in Russia to piss on him or eachother, and there are videos of this, being the reason he has to kiss Putin's ass.

5) Hillary's liberal friends have been running child prostitute rings out of a Pizza shop in D.C.

People can speculate, but it should be acknowledged that it's speculation, and probably BS rumor when it happens.

And let's face it. If you allow all kinds of bullshit propaganda and lies, it favors the eventual success of a right wing authoriatarian dictatotrship. Why ?

Because there are so many right wingers that will believe any kind of silly nonsense about "teh libruls." Anf too much right wing money in a system in which money is power to spread more of it. This has been proven repeatedly. Where as on the left, there are a lot of voices that are sort of like McCains voice in the famous situation with the lady calling Obama an Arab. There's not much integrity and human decency in politics. But there's way more on the left than the right.
26   marcus   2018 Sep 14, 7:04pm  

In theory, it might be nice to keep it wide open. But we've been learning what that leads to.

Too much fucking noise from algorithms flooding the internet with garbage, lies, inculding on Patrick.net.

Is that really what you want ?You know AI will be able to overwhelm us with bullshit 24 7 if you're goiung to just keep it the wild wild west.

Come up with a solution instead of arguing for something that's impossible.


Maybe humans get some form of ID that allows them to represent themselves as a real person on the internet. This doesn't foil troll shops in Russia or eastern Europe, but it would at least make it hard for computer algorithms to overwhelm the discussion. You know, that is, if there is a real discussion happening.

Maybe it's not that hard to see, that eventually there are regulations and oversight of social media that need to happen. The question isn't whether it should happen. The question is how to do it in a relatively positive and free way.
27   MisdemeanorRebel   2018 Sep 14, 9:23pm  

Rocketmanjoe says
Jones got banned from Twitter for violating it's abusive behavior policy. Do you consider abusive behavior non-violent?


Since when is grilling a public figure "Bullying".

Rubbish.

Jones treated the CNN guy Oliver Whatshisface... the way politicians and pundits ought to be treated by reporters generally.

Getting in his face, being a little dismissive/insulting, demanding answers.

You ever see British or Irish or Aussie TV at work on a interviewee? Jordan Peterson with that Channel 4 Gal... Stephen Sackur...
28   MisdemeanorRebel   2018 Sep 14, 11:02pm  

Rocketmanjoe says
Apparently these companies feel their policies had been violated. What is your solution? Government control? All social media? What controls should the government put on patrick.net?



We just found out that Google Executives gave Left-wing activists groups bumps in the search engine and pumped up hashtags for users that fit certain criterion. No denialist BS - unlike a smearjob NYT/WaPo Column it names the email author and position.

They had a mournful conversation after the President was elected, vowing somebody like him would never be elected again and they need to develop machine learning and AI to stop it from happening again.

That they thought they needed to help the forces of progress. They display 80-90% of all search results in the world (inc. the USA). Now they're building a censored Chinese internet.

So it's pretty clear what their intent of more machine learning/AI really is - to be deployed against their perceived political opponents.

But all the Big Tech firms claim only to be Platforms - when they edit like a very biased Publisher

The same people who didn't want Comcast charging them extra for Youtube or Facebook, are now telling us Youtube and Facebook should have the power to completely ban users and content creators according to Opaque Standards. But a browse of #VerifiedHate - @VerifiedHate who did no more than retweet anti-white, anti-male, anti-straight tweets from "blue check" verified Twitter accounts, was banned but the quoted accounts remain - is proof of bias.
29   MisdemeanorRebel   2018 Sep 14, 11:13pm  

Rocketmanjoe says
So then what do you propose to be done? I am not hearing any solutions. How do you propose to force YouTube and Facebook to not ban users that they feel violated their policies?



I hinted at it. Enforcement of open, obvious criterion - like no CP. No calls to violence. Standard stuff

Anything beyond that makes you a Publisher, not a Platform.

That means you can be sued over the content.
30   Patrick   2018 Sep 15, 11:51am  

@Rocketmanjoe please point out any instance of a political point of view that was censored on patrick.net, ever.

Didn't think so.

But also, is patrick.net a monopoly, or do you have easy alternatives to patrick.net?

Thought so.
31   LeonDurham   2018 Sep 15, 12:15pm  

Patrick says

But also, is patrick.net a monopoly, or anywhere close to it? Do you have easy alternatives to patrick.net?


Are you implying there is no alternative to Google or YouTube?

Pretty sure I can watch Alex Jones whenever I want whether he's on YouTube or not.
32   RWSGFY   2018 Sep 15, 12:26pm  

LeonDurham says
Patrick says

But also, is patrick.net a monopoly, or anywhere close to it? Do you have easy alternatives to patrick.net?


Are you implying there is no alternative to Google or YouTube?

Pretty sure I can watch Alex Jones whenever I want whether he's on YouTube or not.


I can install solar panels on my roof and Tesla Powerwall in my garage and cut the power line but this doesn't mean PG&E is not a fucking monopoly. And the great fuckin state of California agrees and regulates the fucking thing as a fucking monopoly it is.
33   LeonDurham   2018 Sep 15, 12:31pm  

DASKAA says

I can install solar panels on my roof and Tesla Powerwall in my garage and cut the power line but this doesn't mean PG&E is not a fucking monopoly. And the great fuckin state of California agrees and regulates the fucking thing as a fucking monopoly it is.


lol-the government CREATED and enforced that monopoly. Not exactly the same thing.
34   marcus   2018 Sep 15, 1:43pm  

President Donald Trump's Presidency is a real world demonstration of ___________________________________________________



Patrick says
How countries go backwards


But not in the way he means, when he says MAWA, or MAGA.
35   LeonDurham   2018 Sep 15, 1:47pm  

Yes, I would think deleting anyone that points out the political bias of the moderators would qualify as censorship.

It's Patrick's site, so he can run it however he wants, but at least be honest about what the site has become.
36   MisdemeanorRebel   2018 Sep 15, 1:49pm  

Comparing a stand alone website to Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube is absurd.

It's like saying "So there's only Walmart Supercenters for groceries within an hour drive. But there is Ray's Pizzeria, Papa Johns, and Pizza Hut, so there is no food monopoly. "
37   LeonDurham   2018 Sep 15, 1:54pm  

TwoScoopsOfSpaceForce says
Comparing a stand alone website to Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube is absurd.


Who is doing that?
38   bob2356   2018 Sep 15, 2:18pm  

Patrick says


But also, is patrick.net a monopoly, or anywhere close to it? Do you have easy alternatives to patrick.net?


Typing infowars.com is not an easy alternative to typing facebook.com? Is the w missing on your keyboard?
39   bob2356   2018 Sep 15, 2:19pm  

TwoScoopsOfSpaceForce says
Comparing a stand alone website to Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube is absurd.

It's like saying "So there's only Walmart Supercenters for groceries within an hour drive. But there is Ray's Pizzeria, Papa Johns, and Pizza Hut, so there is no food monopoly. "


Comparing a grocery store to restaurants is even more absurd.
40   RWSGFY   2018 Sep 15, 3:07pm  

LeonDurham says
DASKAA says

I can install solar panels on my roof and Tesla Powerwall in my garage and cut the power line but this doesn't mean PG&E is not a fucking monopoly. And the great fuckin state of California agrees and regulates the fucking thing as a fucking monopoly it is.


lol-the government CREATED and enforced that monopoly. Not exactly the same thing.


Nope, government did not "create that monopoly" it grew onto one by itself.

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