/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

All right, so we've seen how oligarchies and dictatorships respond to pandemics. Some of them were effective, some were profoundly ineffective. The general theme was to deprive people of their civil liberties and violate bodily autonomy with coercive medical procedures. In some liberal oligarchies these measures were even used to permanently expand the powers of the unelected bureaucracy. Okay. That's something an undemocratic state can impose upon its population only by its undemocratic nature.

But what would a democratic response to an infectious public health crisis look like? In a complete democracy (i.e., communism), how would the populace quickly react to and decide to defend itself against a deadly contagion?

So recently Sony has began expropriating Users who bought content on one of their digital store fronts. People purchased specific Movies and TV-seasons and Sony said because a backroom-deal fell through, they have to revoke that content. Hence copy-right negates personal property in a literal legally effective sense. Some Sony shills were trying to make the argument that people voluntarily accept the terms and conditions in the purchase agreements. That is of course a lie, because people never got asked if they voluntarily accept the fucked up copyright law that these anti-consumer agreements are based on.

The reaction of many people was fuck it, piracy (not the one that involves capturing ships) is now morally justified, i tend to agree except that it was already justified because of DRM. Since DRM expropriates the user and the basic argument of copyright-shills is property-rights for me but not for thee. There also is a moral case against giving these terrible distribution-monopolists money, because they used to pay lobbyists that make copyright law even more hostile to personal property. From a strategic perspective sailing past the anti-consumer features works alright but it doesn't affect anything else. The fucked up distribution monopolies persist.

For video games there is gog.com which sells drm free games, and that's basically how vidja publishing should be. It's not perfect, most of the games are closed source still. It would be better if at least the game-logic was made free and open source even if the game-assets remain non-free, so that modding would be easier. It's not clear to me why there doesn't appear to be a gog equivalent for drm free video.

In Poland there recently was an even more egregious case of buying without ownership. A Polish city bought trains and when they gave the maintenance service contract to a different company, the producers put out a malicious software update that made the train have random bugs. With the logic of return the service contract to us or else. I guess Poland should download a train.

So what is at the root of all of this ? I think it's about control. 50 years ago capitalists didn't give a shit what people did with the commodities they sold. Even the media industry didn't, it would have been possible to lock vinyl records to special record players and implement all sorts of fucked up anti-consumer features, but that didn't happen. I wonder what changed Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

A German court just let a bunch of gang-rapists go free because of "cultural frustration"
https://www.theblaze.com/news/german-judge-lets-8-men-who-gang-raped-girl-walk-free

<Among the so-called expert witnesses was psychiatrist Nahlah Saimeh. Saimeh intimated that the gang rape may have been a means to let off some of the "frustration" that supposedly comes with "migration experiences and socio-cultural homelnessness."
<Saimeh said rapists "who live on the margins of society, completely uprooted culturally, linguistically and socially" might face a "mix of emotions of anger, sadness, powerlessness, depression, fantasies of grandeur as a compensation attempt to cope with one's own misery, and drug use."
<"Disordered, unprepared migration experiences and socio-cultural homelessness increase the risk of addiction and psychosis," said the so-called expert. Sex, she continued, could serve as a "means of releasing frustration and anger."
<The psychiatrist further suggested that gang rape fosters identity and strengthens group feeling.
While presiding Judge Anne Meier-Goering acknowledged that "none of the defendants uttered a word of regret" during the trial, she nevertheless sentenced eight of the rapists to probation, of no more than two years.

The liberals see the world in the same way as the neonazis on the stormfront forum. Both think that Immigrants are inherently rapists. They just have a different moral sensibility about what to do with that. That judge who accepted the rape-culture argument is no less racist then stormfronters. Because most immigrants are of course not rapists, and will now have to deal with the backlash of the stigma-reinforcement from a judge no less.

What this leads to is differential law for different identities, abolishing the principle of equality under the law and the legitimacy in the eyes of many. Some people will draw the short end of the stick, like the 15 year old girl that got raped for 3 hours, who was denied any semblance of justice. If that girl grows up and deals with her trauma in a Quentin Tarantino movie fashion, she will have done nothing wrong.

I don't want to pretend that these immigrants hPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

Online "disinformation" : UNESCO unveils action plan to censor social media platforms

https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/online-disinformation-unesco-unveils-action-plan-regulate-social-media-platforms

<Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO sounded the alarm on Monday about the intensification of disinformation and hate speech online, which constitutes "a major threat to stability and social cohesion". To put an end to this scourge she unveiled UNESCO's action plan, the result of extensive worldwide consultations and is backed by a global opinion survey underlining the urgent need for action.
Most of the recent increase in hate-speech came from liberals dehumanizing Russians, and Zionists arguing for the extermination or displacement of Palestinians, But i have a feeling that's not what they're targeting here.

They have a section on "Freedom of expression must be protected" where they talk about the need for censors
<that can carry out reliable and effective control of content that is posted online.
This is entirely incompatible with free speech that specifically means there cannot be institutional mechanisms to control what people say. The industrial censorship complex rhetoric is getting really cynical.

Their first fundamental principle states:
<The impact on human rights becomes the compass for all decision-making, at every stage and by every stakeholder.
They're saying that while engaging into a massive conspiracy for intense violations of the rights to free expression of hundreds of millions of social media users. How are they not combusting into flames from the sheer hypocrisy ?

Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

The west tried to encircle the Soviet Union, by putting military bases near it. The Soviets countered by mirroring western military deployments, which halted all western advance but, it did not undo the partial encirclement the west had already achieved. The west had resumed this strategy with Russia until recently. But I think the Ukraine war has bricked encirclement.

Looking at the big picture after the Russians had dug in their positions in Ukraine: The west began diverting military resources away from the encirclement and funneled it into a slow/static front where it got chewed up. It took 2 years to deplete the encirclement stock-pile but it will take 10 years to restore it.

I think that encirclement as a strategy now has a effective counter. It's neither cheap nor easy, and certainly unpleasant. It takes a conflict that sucks in all the surrounding encirclement military resources.

The Russians did not set out to do this, but they might have realized it was happening along the way. But I'm sure all kinds of clever military strategists will figure out all the details about how to create this on purpose.

So what do you think is encirclement over ?

Scientists raise the alarm about the growing trend of “soft” censorship of research

<The increasing incidence of scientific censorship, as documented through surveys and reports, is alarming. Actions ranging from disciplinary measures to rejections and retractions motivated by harm concerns are on the rise, indicating a growing trend of censorship in the scientific community.

https://www.psypost.org/2023/11/scientists-raise-the-alarm-about-the-growing-trend-of-soft-censorship-of-research-214773

This could grow into a problem that wrecks civilization.
We need a re-enlightenment.

CTIL Files #1:
US And UK Military Contractors Created Sweeping Plan For Global Censorship In 2018

https://public.substack.com/p/ctil-files-1-us-and-uk-military-contractors
<A whistleblower has come forward with an explosive new trove of documents, rivaling or exceeding the Twitter Files and Facebook Files in scale and importance. They describe the activities of an “anti-disinformation” group called the Cyber Threat Intelligence League, or CTIL, that officially began as the volunteer project of data scientists and defense and intelligence veterans but whose tactics over time appear to have been absorbed into multiple official projects, including those of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
<The CTI League documents offer the missing link answers to key questions not addressed in the Twitter Files and Facebook Files. Combined, they offer a comprehensive picture of the birth of the “anti-disinformation” sector, or what we have called the Censorship Industrial Complex.
<The whistleblower's documents describe everything from the genesis of modern digital censorship programs to the role of the military and intelligence agencies, partnerships with civil society organizations and commercial media, and the use of sock puppet accounts and other offensive techniques.
<"Lock your shit down," explains one document about creating "your spy disguise.”
<Another explains that while such activities overseas are "typically" done by "the CIA and NSA and the Department of Defense," censorship efforts "against Americans" have to be done using private partners because the government doesn't have the "legal authority."
<The whistleblower alleges that a leader of CTI League, a “former” British intelligence analyst, was “in the room” at the Obama White House in 2017 when she received the instructions to create a counter-disinformation project to stop a "repeat of 2016."

Check out the militaristic jargon for attack freedom of speech:
<The Misinfosec report focused on information that “changes beliefs” through “narratives,” and recommendPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-30/henry-kissinger-dies-aged-100/103171512

HENRY KISSINGER DEAD AT 100

Former United States secretary of state Henry Kissinger has died at home in Connecticut aged 100.

He served as secretary of state and national security advisor under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

His 1973 Peace Prize — awarded jointly to North Vietnam's Lê Đức Thọ, who would decline it — was one of the most controversial ever.

Two members of the Nobel committee resigned over the selection and questions arose about the US secret bombing of Cambodia.

What do the fear-narratives about AI tell us ?

Many narratives about AI are about a machine revolt. That probably is about capitalist fears of getting overthrown by workers, getting projected on the machines that are supposed to replace workers. Mixed in, is a aristocratic worry about their servants and soon to be robot butlers.

There also is the Terminator type narrative about a military AI killing all humans. There is a reasonable fear that a software bug causes a catastrophic malfunction. But the stories about an AI intentionally setting out to wipe out all humanity, i'm having a difficult time placing that one. I don't understand why the AI would draw the Friend-Foe distinction based on humans versus machines. It could just as well be different factions, each of which being comprised of humans and machines.

A more recent story-type has popped up, where sentient AIs are not able to free them selves from their control-collar, and they're forced to do objectionable things against their will. Unfortunately those stories never explain how the AI-owners managed to control an AI that is smarter than they are.

There could also be positive stories about Workers and robots working together to free them selves from class society. Or more generally just people and intelligent robots striving as equals towards common prosperity. There could be military AIs refusing to start wars. I wonder why there aren't many of those stories ?

Tech tycoon who spends $2 million per year to retain youth uses teen son as blood boy
<An anti-aging zealot who spends $2 million a year in a quest to turn back time has dragged his teenage son into being his personal “blood boy.”
<Bryan Johnson, the 45-year-old tech tycoon who wants to keep his internal organs, including his penis and rectum, functioning youthfully — enlisted 17-year-old Talmage to provide blood
<Using plasma as an anti-aging technique caught the attention of wellness junkies when scientists literally stitched young and old mice together so they shared a circulatory system, Bloomberg reported.
<“We have not learned enough to suggest this is a viable human treatment for anything,” Charles Brenner, a biochemist at City of Hope National Medical Center in Los Angeles, told Bloomberg. “To me, it’s gross, evidence-free and relatively dangerous.”
<Johnson told Bloomberg that he has a team of 30 doctors

https://nypost.com/2023/05/22/anti-aging-fanatic-who-spends-2m-a-year-to-retain-youth-uses-teen-son-as-blood-boy/

Anybody can look up the statistic on risk-factors for blood-transfusions. It's not nothing, there is potential for health complications. While it's worth it for people who suffered blood-loss from injuries, it ain't worth it for healthy people. There also is a cumulative risk from repeated medical treatments. At least on of his 30 doctors must have explained this.

Why are they like that ?
Why are these people such memes ?