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The last paragraph from the article regarding John Gilmore: He's widely credited as the source of the famous aphorism "The Net interprets censorship as damage
by 1cvmask 5y ago
The last paragraph from the article regarding John Gilmore:
He's widely credited as the source of the famous aphorism "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
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The EFF has routed around John Gilmore now.
- FabHK 5y agoa) That's not the last paragraph, but the antepenultimate. b) As far as I can tell, Gilmore was not trying to censor anyone. It seems more like the EFF has put Gilmore on the other side of their firewall.
- OnlineGladiator 5y ago> antepenultimate And I thought knowing what penultimate meant was fun. For those that don't know, penultimate means second to last and antepenultimate means third to last.
- FabHK 5y ago(There's also "preantepenultimate" if you ever want to say fourth to last without saying fourth to last...) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/preantepenultimate https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/preantepenultimate
- OnlineGladiator 5y agoNow I'm curious if there's a word meaning 'having more syllables than the definition itself' because we crossed that barrier back at antepenultimate (and penultimate already is tied with 'second to last').
- chrismorgan 5y agoWell, there’s sesquipedalia for long words. You can also try hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hippopotomonstrosesquipedalio....
- teawrecks 5y agoAnd apparently propreantepenultimate. Love this lol
- antiretard 5y agoLiteral soyjack poggers-posting reddit cunt. "Love this lol." Please kill yourself in a fucking dumpster so nobody has to inconvenience himself cleaning up the mess you left behind.
- mgdlbp 5y agoThis aversion to repetition has also engendered such words as quasihemidemisemiquaver—half half half half eighth note.
- hpoe 5y agoWell I found my new favorite word of the week antepenultimate. Thanks FabHK.
- NikolaNovak 5y agoI have now discovered "preantepenultimate" and my world is a happier place with a bit of faith in humanity restored. Thank you for leading the way :)
- __d 5y agoSo ... propreantepenultimate must have really tipped you over into ecstasy? :-)
- mgdlbp 5y agoPerhaps you'll also find joy in 'demisemihemidemisemiquaver' and friends! Here, though, the quest for elegant variation must prematurely conclude at 'quasihemidemisemiquaver'.
- NikolaNovak 5y agoI see why that would appear that way, but no... Music Theory, a.k.a. "Random disorganized thoughts of 18th century grouchy old white Austrians" is a place where logic and joy go to die! Reading "A quarter note triplet consists of three-quarter notes over the same amount of time as two-quarter notes" causes Baby buddha Jesus-Mohammad to cry and kick puppies in frustration at where humanity has gotten.
- SahAssar 5y agoHonest question: why use words like "antepenultimate" that are not in common use and don't convey any more meaning than a more common form (like third-last)?
- dredmorbius 5y agoLanguage, like programming skill or physical muscles, develops under use. Failure to extend beyond quotidian usage and trepidation over sesquipedalian terms will result in atrophy. Someone probably learned a new word today here. Or was reminded of an unfamiliar one. And yes, there's virtue as well in clarity. Sometimes that comes from precision.
- catskul2 5y agoBut it wasn't more precise.
- shadowgovt 5y agoOf course, like programming, there's also something to be said for adhering to readability guidelines. ;)
- drewcoo 5y agoIt was easy enough to suss out the meaning based on context. // No comments needed to explain this one!
- antiretard 5y agoGet a load of this retarded asshole.
- newsclues 5y agoDictionaries exist. Anyone is welcome to look up words they don’t understand.
- antiretard 5y ago
- dredmorbius 5y agoThe reading I take is that Gilmore opposed censorship, and presumably was impeding actions of the EFF which might be interpreted as same, effectively exercising power through veto (see Francis Fukuyama's concept of a "vetocracy", and note that I'm not familiar enough with EFF's governance to know specifically what veto or obstruction powers exist). The irony is that the EFF routed around Gilmore's presumed obstruction. For the record, I'm increasingly of the view that free-speech absolutism is very badly flawed. If my reading of the situation is correct, then I'd agree with the action. That said, I'm as much in the dark as anyone whose information is the Register piece itself, so don't read too much into what I'm saying.
- antiretard 5y agoOF COURSE one of the most arrogant posters on the antepenultimate subthread is an anti-free-speech fucking goon. Fuck you.
- chrismcb 5y agoWhy do you think free speech absolutism is very badly flawed?
- dredmorbius 5y agoFor the same reason (virtually?) all absolutism is: it backs itself into a corner from which there is no escape. It discards any pragmatism or nuance. What I'm evolving toward is a sense of interrelated, and often opposing, rights and obligations around communications. Free expression, a right to truth, privacy in general, though some obligation for disclosure in public interest or concern, freedoms of and from association or expression, among others. The benefit to this is that it gives a unified scope for looking at what have been a set of distinct and discrete rights. The disadvantage is that there's no simple or clear guidance, only trade-offs. Though (another benefit) at least those trade-offs are made clear, explicit, and the relationships are established. I've found a few others thinking along similar lines, with some work out of the Berkman Klein Center (at Harvard) and UC Berkeley, the latter specifically addressing a right to the truth. I can dig up specific names if requested.
- xhkkffbf 5y agoWhile I don't know anything about the board's decision, I think someone who is anti-censorship would be out of favor with a Silicon Valley world that increasingly believes in censoring anything someone (in power) considers "misinformation." This is a big, big change from the early days of the Internet when people believed in free flowing information. John's attitude is so old school. Shaping the attitude of the populace through selective amplification is now.
- anyonecancode 5y agoA nuance I see missing from the censorship/free speech dichotomy is around what's essentially DDOSing of speech. I think that the free-est speech has something equivalent to the voting idea of "one person, one vote." No one should be silenced, but also everyone should have equal representation. In the same way that being very rich generally gives you effectively much more power than having a single vote, and so is a corruption of democracy, I think we see a similar thing with online discourse, where those with extra resources are able to essentially "flood the zone" and dominate the discourse. So the question is what should be the effective response? Those pushing the censorship/free speech framing argue that removing voices is wrong -- banning, deplatforming, etc. That may be right, but it's also incomplete as it doesn't address the dynamic of the well-resourced voices overwhelming everyone else. I don't know what an effective solution _is_ here, but I know what it _looks_ like -- all voices with equal access. I don't think the censorship/freedom framing gets us there.
- shadowgovt 5y agoThis is the key ingredient missing from most online fora that is not missing in most face-to-face fora and the actual halls of government (well, most of them): equal time. In a public physical venue, it's much easier to allocate one person, one time slice to present their views. There are exceptions (lobbying is a huge hack on this, and indeed, there's a reason many see lobbying as anti-democratic). But in contrast: online speech is dominated by whoever has either the most leisure time to toss at an online forum or the willingness and resources to sock-puppet up and turn their one voice into an echoing hydra. Factor in state spending on those hydras and the situation turns pretty un-democratic pretty fast.
- concinds 5y ago> So the question is what should be the effective response? Those pushing the censorship/free speech framing argue that removing voices is wrong -- banning, deplatforming, etc. That may be right, but it's also incomplete as it doesn't address the dynamic of the well-resourced voices overwhelming everyone else. It's a good point, but the loud voices that have been driving this "anti-free speech" shift are also a loud minority. The people who got Alex Jones banned everywhere, got YouTube to start demonetising videos, got Trump banned from Twitter, were essentially a small group of influential Twitter users (some of whom also had jobs in the media, giving them huge platforms to put pressure on these companies). It's a "natural law" of human societies that the 1% are disproportionately loud, on any issue, and drive what the other 99% hear and think; not just a feature of online spaces. When you think of a liberal, or a conservative, or a college student, for example, whatever you picture in your head is just the loudest, most visible portion of that group, but is likely a tiny minority of that group. Whatever opinion you have on science, or nutrition, is driven by a very tiny loud minority, whether that's lobbyists, or a few influential individuals (maybe Neil deGrasse Tyson, maybe Al Gore, maybe a prominent scientist, or maybe the Coca Cola company). Without them, the popular mind might think quite differently. Ergo; the "censorship shift" isn't about giving the minority their voice, it's two warring minorities struggling for control of the Overton window.
- tpmx 5y agoAnd sensible people are routing around the current EFF as a response.
- busterarm 5y agoI stopped giving money to them a couple of years ago and have started to become highly critical of recent stances they've taken but every time I mention this I get berated/downvoted to oblivion. It's sort of vindicating to start seeing others feel the same way finally.
- smartbit 5y agoWhere do you donate your money now? noyb.eu?
- busterarm 5y agoSoftware foundations. They actually do things and aren't just a bunch of activist lawyers.
- alanbernstein 5y agoActivist lawyers provide some value, no? Can you elaborate on why you've stopped supporting EFF? I'm just curious as I've basically been a blind supporter of them for years, and this removal has reminded me that I should actually pay attention to what's going on in the organization if I'm going to donate to it.
- busterarm 5y agoYeah, they blatantly misrepresented a overwhelmingly-supported bipartisan bill (all opposition came exclusively from Third Way Democrats in the House, about 1/3 of the party), Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act, using anti-Trump fearmongering tactics. The Bill would make the Register of Copyrights position accountable to both the legislative and executive branches of government and selected by committee. It also established eligibility requirements to hold the position. Currently the position is appointed directly by the Librarian of Congress with no oversight (effectively only accountable to the executive, in the sense that the President can order the Librarian to select a new Register or risk the Librarian's job). The EFF is extremely buddy-buddy with the Library of Congress and from what I can gather lobbied hard against the Bill to protect their friends from diluted political power. It's a position that's completely opposed to principals one would hold if they wanted a transparent, accountable government. It's not a position that I thought made any sense for the EFF to support. I challenged Katharine Trendacosta on their Activism Team who sent out the fear-mongering mailer and was given the brush off.
- RickJWagner 5y agoGiven EFF's recent political leanings, I'd think Gilmore has a good chance of eventually having the high ground.