Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At BestNetTech
from the live-reactions dept
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous comment about Trump’s Department of Education rolling back anti-book-ban guidance:
Remember, kids. If a government is trying this hard to ban books, you should damn well be interested in finding out what those books actually say!
In second place, it’s That One Guy with a comment about Elon Musk bringing his talent for destruction to the US government:
A socially agreed upon lie
Unfortunately and horrifyingly Elon and the MAGAt higher-ups have learned the dirty little secret that’s been holding the government and to an extent society together all this time: A huge percentage of the ‘checks’ on abuse of the system are ultimately nothing more than pinky-promises between the legal system and those with power that they won’t actually use that power, and that in exchange for the courts only handing out wrist-slaps the powerful won’t get too out of line.
Thanks to decades of cases and especially the last few years Elon and the MAGAts have figured out that the laws aren’t actually binding if you have enough power because the system is completely unwilling to hold the powerful to account if they aren’t willing to play along, and this time… they’re not.
For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we’ve got two more anonymous comments. First, it’s one about Ted Cruz blocking the FCC’s plan to bring mobile wi-fi to school kids:
As someone who actually deals with the E-Rate program, it’s pretty frustrating listening to Cruz lie.
If you want to make your argument that the funds are better used elsewhere, or that you think the FCC overstepped it’s authority in adding the hotspot program, fair enough. I personally don’t agree, but it’s a valid opinion to hold.
What I don’t want to listen to is this “what we really care about is child safety” nonsense. For starters, CIPA compliance is required for the program. Meaning all these hotspots are filtered. As such, there’s a much lower chance of children viewing anything obscene on these than there is any other random internet connection.
The idea this is somehow a big issue of bypassing parental control is nonsense. For starters, if they have internet at home, they’re almost certainly not using the significantly slower hotspot internet instead of their own. I’m quite confident most parent’s ability to monitor their child’s web access at home is WORSE than the CIPA requirements placed on the hotspots. In addition, if you don’t want your child using the hotspot at home, then, you know, be a parent and prevent it. What they seem to be saying is “disadvantaged children are better off with no internet whatsoever than risk being allowed to see a boob.”
But the absolute laugher, is his random concern that these will censor conservative viewpoints. Like, does Ted Cruz think conservative viewpoints aren’t represented on the internet? Does he think CIPA filters redirect all Fox News traffic to MSNBC? The constant paranoia of the right that everyone is silencing the loudest group of people I’ve ever seen is utterly bizarre to me.
Next, it’s one about the DOJ shutting down its civil rights division, and about the current chaos in general:
It’s a reflection of Trump’s most pervasive and obvious personality trait: cowardice. He is one of the most pathetically weak people in public life, unable to handle the slightest adversity or mildest criticism or minor sacrifice.
He’s doing his selfish best to reshape the government of the entire country for his personal benefit. This isn’t about ideology — Trump is far too stupid to even spell ideology or to grasp the concept — it’s about his fragile ego and his willingness to sacrifice a 250-year-old nation of 340 million people to ensure that the frightened little boy inside him is protected…from everyone and everything.
Over on the funny side, our first place winner is JMT with a reply to a comment about the Trump Presidential Library:
It’ll be the world’s biggest collection of picture books.
In second place, it’s an anonymous comment about the copyright drama surrounding an M. Night Shyamalan production:
This is an M. Night Shyamalan story. Are we SURE there isn’t a twist?
For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with an anonymous comment about Mark Zuckerberg caving to Trump:
“I know what I’m doing” says the guy that spent $60B in the metaverse.
Finally, it’s Cat_Daddy with a suggestion for BestNetTech’s post taxonomy:
Petition: Make a new category for all news about Brandon Carr and the Trump FCC as “Carr Crash.”
That’s all for this week, folks!
Comments on “Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At BestNetTech”
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Guys, things are getting really bad: tariffs on our friendly neighbors, leading to inevitable trade war & the destruction of the middle class consumer; wholesale obliteration of USAID and immiseration of vital non-profits both here and abroad; gangs of thuggish, armed feds roaming the countryside AND the cities, snatching marginalized people and disappearing them…it’s just so bad.
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No fucking shit it’s bad. Soon enough you might not have any rights to access anything not “holy and pure” christianity or republican online either.
So how about we talk about the weather instead or something? Nothing we say here’s going to do anything anyway.
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Do you guys know anything about 3D printing guns or finishing MUP-1 80% inserts? I think we need to take direct action, but I don’t want to end-up like Luigi. Any thoughts on what he did wrong? Was a message sent [effectively]?
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What the fuck. Fuck off with your incentivization to violence.
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Sure go on, FIRE IT UP!
We’ll be right behind you.
Like way behind you.
Like in a different state.
But we’re totally behind you…
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Bro. Get a script for a benzo or start drinking. Either way SHUT THE FUCK UP!
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Why are you so mean? My heart hurts and I’m scared. I’m scared for my friends. And I’m scared for the country. I’d hoped we could commiserate–not that you’d yell at me and tell me to kill myself by combining benzos and alcohol! Wtf?
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shut up defeatist
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Mean!
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Seek therapy or shut off your Internet access, I don’t care which.
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In addition to being a shithead, you also don’t seem to understand the meaning of the words OR and SHUT THE FUCK UP!
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There are two ways to deal with being scared:
1. Become paralyzed by it and while trying to drag everyone else into your negativity.
2. Use it to get motivated to do something about it.
It’s entirely your choice, no one except yourself can do something about your fears but if you keep spreading your misery here we reserve the right to tell you to go somewhere else because we aren’t interested in it.
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I mean, I did take what I thought was noble, useful action: voting against Trump in the presidential race by casting my swing-state ballot for Jill Stein. Now what am I supposed to do? Evil triumphed.
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Two things.
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You’re supposed to SHUT THE FUCK UP!
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This isn’t doomposting. This is trolling, regardless of intent. The blizzard of bullshit being shat out by the administration is meant to paralyze you with fear. Chronically listing out everything that is bad is just feeding that. And given how much this has been stated and discussed, it’s functionally the same as being intentional.
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Fucking THANK YOU. This guy has been making himself feel bad on purpose and he wants to make everyone else feel the same as him, and it’s fucking tiring of dealing with his non-stop negativity. Dude needs therapy or his Internet line cut, but stopping here every day to bombard us with his ego-driven “woe is me” pity party bullshit is not the solution to his self-loathing.
I mean, I get it: Shit sucks worse than a SyFy Original Movie right now, and it doesn’t seem like it’ll get any better. That’s bad by any standard. But it doesn’t mean I’m gonna go lie down and wait to die—and I’m not gonna encourage anyone else to do the same.
Mutual aid and community building—helping others help each other—is how we’re going to get through this shitshow. Calling our representatives in government, no matter the level of government, will help us prove they don’t and shouldn’t go along with Trump’s bullshit. (And yes, I said “calling” and not “emailing”; apparently, getting a bunch of phonecalls about a given issue gets far more attention than emails or replies on Twitter or whatever.) And if we can’t do those things, the best thing we can do is be there for one another in whatever way we can. The worst thing we can do is accept defeat and wait to die. Fascism wants you too exhausted to help stop (or slow down) the people-eating machine that is an authoritarian government. If someone wants to jump into the maw of that machine, that’s their business, but that doesn’t mean they have to drag everyone else into the void with them.
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Look, mate. I know things are difficult, but running around and screaming the obvious is not really productive is it? Could you please do that somewhere else and not in BestNetTech? Not gonna do armchair therapy today.
“Or”, dumbass.
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Hey, something can be both insightful AND funny at the same time! Frequently, even.
So I can safely conclude general social media sites are not the best places to find good internet policy opinions.
People sure love to talk about abolishing section 230 there.
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nor is spewing doom post and defeatism to make a tech blog into a therapy session and trolls messing with people to get reactions
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I’ll agree that spewing doom post and defeatism isn’t particularly useful on a tech blog.
But I’m very much getting the opposite vibe. Too many people on the tech blog want to avoid the bad news and just stick their head in the sand. I don’t think that’s particularly useful either.
So, where is the line that separates valid comments/concerns from the doom and gloom?
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The ones that treat things like a concern versus the ones that treat it like an inevitability?
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I would be wary of dismissing anti-doomposting comments as head-in-the-sand sentiments. You don’t know what people are encountering and engaging with throughout their particular experience. They may be reading the news, finding posts on various federated sites that encourage action and hope, and then they encounter doomposting here that looks like intentional fearmongering. No amount of doomposting encourages action. Even if they are in fact looking to shove their head in the sand, doomposting isn’t going to pull them out of that. Doomposting can only help the people who benefit from fear.
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When you post about something you’re concerned about, are you…
If the answer to any one of those is “no”, you may be doomposting. And let’s be clear: Doomposting, at least in the context of all this “woe is me” pity party bullshit, is about making one’s self feel bad and trying to drag everyone else into your personal quicksand pit. I have said this before…multiple times…but the endless complaining and endless “what about me?!” posts and the endless “but what can I do?!”–style begging for a purpose or direction? None of that is endearing, helpful, or insightful. One can find plenty of resources online to figure out ways that can help mitigate any worries with direct action, community aid, or other such measures.
I’ll say this one more time, too: Someone worrying about a potential event that could have a negative impact on their life is fine. But when they take that worrying to a level where they’ve paralyzed themselves with fear and accepted a possibile negative outcome as an inevitability, that’s bad. And if they try to make other people feel miserable so that someone won’t be “alone” in their feelings, that’s worse. Yes. everyone is a little afraid to step up to home plate and take a shot for the fences. But nothing can happen ’til you swing the bat. If you’re not trying to turn your fear into action by either helping to bring about a positive outcome or preparing for a negative outcome (or both!), that’s your problem. Whining endlessly about your fear on the comments section of a tech blog won’t help you solve it.
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You sure love to fearmongering about 230 here. We’re fine if you want to go flood Facebook with that noise.
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It’s not like half the internet has convinced me that congress is practically frothing at the mouth for the opportunity to kill it or anything.
I doubt that’s entirely true, of course, but you can’t blame me for being a LITTLE concerned over it-and peoples’ continued ignorance over what 230 actually does.
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Now somebody on BestNetTech’s very own discord server brought up that there’s a call to overturn Marbury v. Madison, the case that allows laws to get struck down for being unconstitutional in the first place.
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THEY’RE DOOMPOSTING! BAN THEM! BAN THEM! BAN THEM! /s
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Aaaaand… somebody missed the very clear sarc mark. Typical.
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To better reiterate my comment: I see much talk of how much lawmakers in congress want to be rid of section 230, as well as legal experts (Eric Goldman for example) who seem to think it’ll be struck down or repealed.
What I don’t see is a lot of anyone speaking of the opposite. Who supports it? Who wants to strengthen it rather than weaken it? Is there some kind of compromise that’ll sate the supposed bipartisan thirst for blood over it?
SCOTUS ruled on it back in 2023, or rather, they specifically decided not to rule on it, so it could be argued they at least support it, but I hope what I’m trying to say here at least makes a modicum of sense.
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I can blame you for voicing your concerns over and over again in functionally detrimental ways. You have been told multiple times why it’s unlikely 230 is going away. You have been told to stop fruitlessly worrying in the comments. You are either a troll or a concern masochist who loves to worry. Neither is useful here.
Possibility;
Doom posting occurs primarily when there is a lack of solution posting.
There is almost zero posting here that offers ideas on methods or means of preventing or at least lessening the coming Trumpian Disamerica Project or its effects.
Perhaps if those currently chastising doom posters were to actually start posting possible solutions instead, there might be a lot less doom posting all round. Just saying.
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There are many such resources online for community building/organizing and mutual aid, many of them made by/for marginalized groups such as queer people or black people. They’re not hard to find, but if you are having a hard time finding them, go ask someone who does activist work in those groups to help you. If you want a starting place, try “On Organizing” by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg and “How to Weather the Storm” by Jason Kottke.
The resources needed to contact one’s representatives in government are also available online. Calling them by phone will have a much greater effect than emailing them, by the way. Emails can be spamfiltered with ease; a phone call with a real person voicing their concerns cannot.
If you live outside the U.S., start talking with your U.S. friends/contacts about how the actions of the Trump administration could affect your life overseas. The dismantling of USAID without the approval of Congress at the behest of a non-government organization, regardless of that NGO’s connection to Trump, would make for a great starting point. (So would his vague threats to effectively enact tariffs on the European Union.)
And if you can’t do anything else, prepare yourself for the bullshit by doing anything you can to prepare for the worst outcomes. If you think 230 has a good chance of being repealed, for example, start backing up data—images, videos, documents, MP3s, whatever—that you think might be in danger of being deleted if 230 goes away. Start looking into VPNs and other ways of getting around Internet blocks or other bullshit. Lock down your own personal security with 2FA on services that provide it, strong passwords (and a password manager), and other such measures.
You don’t need to do everything so long as you can do something. But if you need to wait for someone to tell you what to do, you might be fucked anyway. So if you want a direction, look for a way to help others, then go do that. After all, as Mr. Rogers said:
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No, other random people aren’t obligated to prevent needless worry by preparing in advance thorough practical solutions. Even in the absence of any good ideas, doomposting is still a destructive action. And much of the doomposting isn’t even relevant to the article, so it would be impossible to anticipate anyway. The solution to doomposting is to just stop posting doom.
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Here’s a solution you can start doing right now.
SHUT THE FUCK UP!