Re: Swisher/Ruhle
 

I don't know who William Henry is, but I find it incredibly telling and depressing that when I say that Facebook can and should do more to stop people from lying in political ads, you say the real problem is arrogant people and fantasize about telling them off. If that's not Trump Lite, what is? I don't want to play ref. Facebook already plays ref, and it makes a lot of money from it. I want a world where Facebook stops profiteering from disseminating political lies, *and* you get to fantasize about swearing at arrogant people. Why not both?

Re: Swisher/Ruhle
 

Let them fight. Stop trying to manage things.

It’s not Trump Lite at all. I’m leaving his followers to the wolves.

You’d wish to outlaw PT Barnum. Let the rabble fight it out. And I see through your bullshit. You want to filter the arguments, to redraft the accepted spheres of deviancy as you think they ought to be. If fools will vote for fools, well, go find a better fool to run and beat them at their own game.

Re: Swisher/Ruhle
 

Not sure why you're an apologist for lying, but OK.

Re: Swisher/Ruhle
 

Not all of us want to attend a circus.

I yield my time back to Ty and TM.

Re: Swisher/Ruhle
 

I'm not an apologist for lying. I'm leery of employing what I think is an authoritarian fix for it.

Free speech, the most important right we have, is built around the notion that ideas will compete with one another. The cure for one person lying is another person saying "That's a lie."

What you seek to do is prevent speech. You seek to use a referee to filter speech and ban lies from getting traction. The aim is noble, no doubt. But I don't need to tell you just how dangerous that thinking is to a free society.

And it's no excuse, or defense, to say, "Facebook already filters commercial speech." That the company sins in that regard doesn't mean the sin should be extended to political speech. (There's also an argument that filtering commercial speech is acceptable because it's just self-protection, as such speech could be defamatory, whereas political speech rarely rises to the level of defamation because the subjects are public figures.)

It is, however, a valid defense for FB to say "We can pick and choose what we want to filter and what we don't." FB has that right. Again, it should not engage in that sin, as I noted above, but technically, legally, it can do that.

I think FB should not filter any speech at all. I think that doing so, in any regard, risks normalizing the idea that certain speech should be precluded. And I don't want any speech precluded, for a simple reason: A human will have to do the filtering. And humans are biased, fallible, and yes -- arrogant.

I can be quite arrogant. I think I'm smarter than a lot of people in a number of regards, just like many of us here. A person like me should never be in a position to filter what speech others see. I'd seek to preclude that which I didn't like. Such a dishonest filter would bend free speech into propaganda of the most insidious form. It would also further infantilize an already childish and frivolous public. Look at these people on the left and right in this country. Look at the deplorables, and the people who think of themselves as elites. These people are to a large extent poorly informed, biased sorts. Joiners and opportunists of the worst stripe. You don't allow any one of these groups to acquire the power to filter speech. You let them battle it out - throw their dimwitted ideas at each other, fight over politics and lob their self-reinforcing data and media narratives at each other - and hope that out of the mess of competing bullshit, some mix of policies that keep the Republic rolling emerges.

I can't think of a world scarier than one in which people like us were awarded the power to filter what the people we think are below us should get to read. A world in which you or I was able to save the knaves from lies by limiting what they consume - on any platform - is a fucking horror movie. I'd rather live through a dozen Trump administrations.

Re: Swisher/Ruhle
 

Going to the circus is fun, but you get to leave and go home.

Re: Swisher/Ruhle
 

You seem to be confused. Let me help.

- There's no authoritarianism here. No talk of government regulation. We're talking about how Facebook chooses to run its business.

- If you think that free speech enables ideas to compete with each other, you should be concerned when people spend money to pump lies into that marketplace of ideas. When it's advertising, which is all I've been talking about, the idea is not competing on its own merits -- it's buying an advantage.

- And again: lies. If free speech isn't a shibboleth to you, but a way to improve the interplay of ideas, how do lies enter into it? No one is talking about keeping politicians from lying, and getting their lies into the public discourse, where they can compete on the merits. We're just talking about people who pay Facebook money to push lies into to the discourse, and about Facebook enriching itself by taking that money to spread lies.

- You're afraid of referees. Why do you suppose pro sports all have them?

- Most media have editors. What do you think they do? Do you think they stop doing it when people say to them, "hey, you're stopping speech."

- The authoritarian hellscape that scares you is, in principle, how Facebook operated until a few months ago, when it dropped the rule that political ads (again: not speech -- ads) can't have lies. If you think that slope is so slippery, you'll need to explain how we climbed back up it.

Re: Swisher/Ruhle
 

We ban all sorts of lies, and filter all sorts of speech, in a lot of different contexts.

Re: Swisher/Ruhle
 

To the extent that by "We" you mean to suggest that we are all in this together with Zuckerberg, get bent. Otherwise, right on, brother.

Re: Swisher/Ruhle
 

I showed up at the circus once and yelled "they all have support wires" during the trapeze show and they told me I couldn't do that.

And it wasn't even a lie.

Re: Swisher/Ruhle
 

I went to the circus once and a whole lot of clowns got out of a small car. It was like the Trump Administration, but in reverse.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I am finding it hard to get any work done today. This Sondland testimony feels like a turning point.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Re: Swisher/Ruhle
 

Ty deletes all sort of stuff here- especially true stuff.

Re: Swisher/Ruhle
 

I deleted the rest of this paragraph.

Re: Swisher/Ruhle
 

Reading back, I realize the "we" here is ambiguous.

I mean, you didn't really mean to imply that Sebby has a filter, do you?

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

One of my best friends runs a lab in Colorado, and he says he dreads any industry get-togethers, because everyone is like that. It's the end all be all miracle cure to everything. He also gets a ton of unsolicited resumes from assorted idiots who want to work in the industry without having a clue what his little corner of the industry does.

Lately, he's been working on pointing out the danger of some drug tests and getting to the bottom of what's causing people to get sick from vaping. (He's particularly proud of the fact that the New York Times petty much confirms through both picture and paragraph that he's a mad scientist.)

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

Someone I love kicked a very nasty coke addiction by spending a two weeks in a room with as much weed as he could smoke. Never touched coke again.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I hesitate to compliment the man at anything, but i'm amazed, given how much he uses the media, he is not covered with sharpie ink all the time.

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

Once again you are wrong. Edibles are fantastic, you just have to buy a product that is consistently in the ballpark of the number of milligrams you want to ingest. I use them all the time. If you're taking 20 milligrams, you're going to have a bad time. Five milligrams is perfect. If it's a long night, have another one, 3 hours in.

TM

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

I suspect ideal dosage depends on a lot of factors, and is probably a personal issue to be worked out between one and one's edibles (and there may be people for whom 20 milligrams is a "just getting warmed up for the big Melt Banana show" type of situation). But yes, you are are correct. And Sebastian is wrong once again.

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

That is a fair point. The other day some dude told me he takes a 100 milligrams when he does edibles. That blows my mind. But, yeah. I imagine Snoop Dog would probably run through my gummies like Skittles.

TM

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

not snoop https://www.civilized.life/articles/...nabis-edibles/ probably learned in a less regulated time than now

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

All I want for Christmas is.... President Pelosi.

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

You are smoking crack rock. And apparently in doses that are way too high.

TM

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

Let me enjoy it, please. It's a lovely vision. So much better than the circus.

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

But Trump could be realizing there's no "off switch" for this and resign for "health reasons," BEFORE losing an election, or impeachment. The question becomes can Pence ram a new VP through (what, the Senate, right?) before his shit starts to burn.

Impeachment
 

I'm sorry, but what are you talking about? The House will pass articles of impeachment and the Senate will gesture towards a trial and vote it down. I will be shocked if more than 4 Republicans break ranks and vote in favor of removal.

Trump isn't going anywhere. Despite all the booing, he actually believes that people love him. He is going to burn the Republican Party to the fucking ground and he will have to be dragged from office after he loses in 2020.

TM

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

I've been saying "resign for health reasons" for years. I figured the trip to Walter Reed was a warm up for this.

Re: Impeachment
 

You might be underestimating the man’s inability to have a public loss. Or I hope so. But the bigger question is whether slave’s opinion has now changed.

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

Gotta be really disciplined with that stuff. Purity’s also huge. Most is cut with shit that’ll keep you up after the high’s done.

I couldn’t imagine being addicted. That’s got to be insane.

Really dumb drug... but that first 40 min is... well, divine?

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

I like the pen. I want a sharp up, and then if I need to deal, I can wait for it to fade, deal with people, then reload.

The best is the volcano. Look that up. But definitely not for social situations.

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

I’m not saying they’re bad. I said that they are ruining it for everyone else in the sense that they’ve become accepted by novices who overuse them and freak out. I think edibles perhaps should have been rolled out later, after smoke and vapes gave the public an idea of how the drug works.

I think edibles are fine, but you have to know what you’re doing first. Start with a pen and work your way up.

This reasoning can be applied to almost any drug. Stepping into it is wiser than taking too much of something that locks in for several hours under extreme circumstances.

The overdoses Hank cites almost all accrue from edibles. Ever see anyone have a psychotic episode after too many bong hits? Of course not. But I have seen people eat too much (granted, they were dumb) and get all kooky.

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

Yes. Of course. Your blanket statement about edibles makes perfect sense in the context of "you need to know what you're doing first."

I've never seen anyone have a weed-related psychotic episode. The first time I took gummies, I had no clue what I was doing and probably took about 40 milligrams, ten milligrams at a time because I was impatient. It was way too much and it did, indeed, last quite some time. In the grand scheme, not that big a deal.

I have also smoked very, very strong weed, thrown up and passed the fuck out and slept for 15 hours. I've done bong hits of really strong weed and the overwhelming high lasted way, way too long.

In each case the obvious issue is that I did too much of something that was too strong. So let's return to where we started. There is nothing wrong with edibles if you take the right dosage.

TM

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

I'm not sure my person was an overdose, but I understand they happen. My person grew up smoking like a normal American kid. He knew what he was doing. But somehow he was convinced that eating massive doses of concentrated oils would help him get to some higher plane. And then he’d pass out in the middle of dinner or burp excessively, or do this back and forth pacing we called elephant walk, or stare at strangers and start giggling- but none of that prepared us for Trump calling him.

I’m not talking about accidentally taking a bit too much. I’m talking about doing it intentionally, then doing it again tomorrow.

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

Episode isn't the right word. It was long term. Not hating on cannabis- most of my friends use it regularly- my uncle used it while going through chemo- all good. But ten years from now there won't be any question about whether it can cause psychosis if used in too big doses for long term.

Once I got over the pain, one of the hardest things was telling people about his problem: talking to my cousin who I got high with every other day in the 80s- "yeah he is eating too much cannabis and it is making him nuts." My cousin: "cannabis? huh?" "umm, it isn't the dope we were smoking and he ain't smoking..."

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

You saw 2 people have this "incident" in my 450sf apartment. You actually helped (thanks). What the flying fuck?

I log in for this, TM? Good good.

-SNM

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

Blah blah blah... R, if you are interested, please shoot me an email. Love to catch up.

-K

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

AON, did you watch the PBS "Country" Series? Jesus, you, me, and a few others have called out this for decades.

I'm a punk, blues, metal, jazz, hip-hop, country in that order.

Johnny Cash is the fucking G.O.A.T.

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

Agreed.

As to psychotic episode, I've not seen a medical grade breakdown, but I have seen people lose it a bit. Cookies are often the culprit. It usually goes like this:

A, who smokes a ton, makes a batch. B, who doesn't know how much A smokes, eats a cookie. B is only occasional user. B starts getting really baked, but figures it'll abate after a while, like smoke does.

It doesn't. B is now on a rocket ride and wondering why it keeps getting stronger. At this point, B confides to C that B is losing her shit. C asks what B ate. B says "just a cookie." C scowls at A and asks why A let B eat a whole cookie. B, who can eat multiple cookies like they're the Keebler Elves variety, shrugs and doesn't understand, or says he wasn't watching what B was doing.

C then breaks it to B that B is going to keep climbing in altitude for another hour or so, and that C may feel like she's reached a cruising altitude of sorts, or even starting to descend, but that such feeling may only be a temporary respite, as her condition may vary from placid to losing it a bit in a series of waves.

C will make B a strong drink and offer the Dan Ackroyd as Jimmy Carter on SNL wisdom: "You should put on some Allman Brothers, perhaps go out on the deck and watch the sunset..."

Re: Sebby's on it.
 

Majority of both houses.