Zuck and Hitler

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Mark Zuckerberg, that pillar of the 1st Amendment, tells me I cant say "Sieg Heil" as a comment on Facebook as sarcasm towards a friend who wants to murder children.  OK, I understand that, AI is a farce and a fraud and their stupid community standards program has the IQ of Donald Trump and does a straight string match just like someone might do in 1978.  Groovy, Zuck, way to go!   So instead we will try really sophisticated end runs like "Seek Hail!"  and "Trump sucks dead weenies like Adolf did".  Take that!

Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie Sets Off Facebook's Stupid A.I. Picture Checker

Facebook has an A.I. to maintain community standards. The following image violated those standards and got my post removed. Oh Facebook, we will miss your infinite stupidity when you are gone.

Of course, Ms. Thompson is hot, and the picture does have subtle sexual imagery, perhaps.  I really have to get over my affection for hot lesbians.  Its so juvenile.  But whatever.

It is our future to be tormented by weird, dysfunctional machine learning programs.  It is our fate, our destiny.  All in the name of greed.  We are so fucked.

Facebook Thinks We Are Worthless Scum

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I mentioned on Facebook (called FB so that we do not activate the incredibly annoying text recognition feature) how FB did not seem to mind changing the user interface whenever the fuck they wanted no matter how stupid the changes were and how much it inconvenienced their users.

And a friend pointed out that this was a completely valid thing for them to do and I was being wrong to complain because we are not paying for the service.

In fact, he said, this is the way it should be in the future because users are scum and we should choke down on that dick..

I think my friend is right, after all, FB only makes about $500 billion on us useless scum.

HRC On the Issues Part 1

In a recent Facebook (FB) brouhaha, I started a shitstorm by (a) advocating that Donald Trump must not be allowed to have the nuclear codes but at the same time stating that (b) I find HRC to be at best a middle-of-the-road American politician whose stated policies, designed to be non-controversial, seem far too tame to me and insufficient for the situation that 30 years of "kicking the can down the road" has caused.. Because of the controversy this caused, I recommended two things.

The first was that we adjourn the discussion from FB which is more appropriate for slinging insults and take the discussion to my blog where I can actually have a paragraph without being offensive to someone's bad reading skills. And second was that I would examine HRCs positions based on what I believe, not what you believe, but what I believe and give her a score.

What would that achieve? Not much beyond a better statement about whether HRC holds positions that I support, or not. You are perfectly welcome to have your own beliefs, I mean, like, WTF. Duh.

In the following scores, a positive score means that it is a good thing, a negative score means that it is a bad thing, and a zero means that it is neither good nor bad overall. At worst we would hope that a candidate for political office that we supported would have a positive score, even if only a tiny positive score. A zero would be disappointing of course. But a negative score would be a very bad idea. Values range from -1 to 1. 

HRC's positions were found by searching for "Hillarys position on <x>" where "<x>" might be "health care reform" or what have you.  Then from the results, I picked those that looked official and tried to avoid political third parties whenever possible.

1. Health Care Reform

"Defend the Affordable Care Act and fix it."  No thanks, what we need is for the US Government to cover health care costs for everyone, and control the greed of the doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies with legislation. We need to criminalize price gouging in drug costs. Score 0. What she advocates is not bad, but neither is it likely to make a significant difference.

2. Education Loan Reform

Some of the reform ideas are pretty good. Of course, they should have been there to begin with if this country was serious about helping people get an education, which it isn't. I do not see anything here on increasing the total amount one can get for education and the issue (which may be a non-issue, it is just impossible to tell) of to what extent these loans can pay for living expenses while attending college/grad school. Without this ability, it is all just pretentious bullshit. The poor have to live you know. Score 1/2. What she advocates is good and will make a difference. Not enough of a difference IMHO, but a difference nevertheless.

3. Welfare Reform

HRC was a force in favor of the destruction of the welfare system under the Clinton administration. This reform was a complete disaster and you can read more about that on this blog, if you care. She has never disavowed her role in this egregious republican attack on the poor. I can expect no improvement in that area under Hillary. I have been reminded since I first wrote this that HRC and Bill Clinton were not exactly responsible for this reform, the Republicans were.  Bill did sign it however.  Ok, I am going from a -1 to a -.5.  Score -.5. 

4. Visa Reform

HRC supports increasing the H1B, H2B visas in order to help corporations destroy American employment. Score -1. 

5. TTP

HRC backed off of her support of the TTP after assessing the rage that egregious trade treaty provoked. But what does she really believe. I have no doubt that she supports the TTP in her heart and will see to it that the important provisions are put into law one way or another. To an extent this ties in to the HRC credibility problem. Do I believe her or not? In general, no I don't. Furthermore, we know her inclinations based on her initial support and role as Secretary of State in creating this abomination. Score -1/2 

6. Globalization

HRC supports it of course. Anything to destroy American jobs and impoverish as many Americans as possible. Score -1. 

Conclusion

Our subtotal comes to 0 + .5 - .5 -1 - .5 -1 = -2.5.

Oh a score of -2.5 is terrible. Well, we will just have to examine more issues and see if we can not make this more positive. What shall we examine? How about where HRC stands on criminalizing corporate crime, on eliminating statute of limitations on corporate crime, on civic asset forfeiture for the poor and middle class, on civic asset forfeiture for rich and corporate criminals, on having the DOJ enforce the law even as it applies to local police departments.

Whatever this means, and I do not think it means much, we have a clear responsibility to vote for the candidate most capable of defeating Donald Trump at the polls. This is not my favorite approach to a political process, but we do not seem to have any choice.