Comments by "Luredreier" (@Luredreier) on "Senate chair asks anti-repair lobbyist if "I'm a slave to your operation?"" video.

@All The Mikeys Are Taken Be real, that anti-repair lobbyist is just doing her job, even if her employer is doing something that we consider ethically wrong that doesn't justify harrassing her on social media. If you have an issue with her contact her through her work mail and stay civil.
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@wax333 You don't need to do anything with software to deal with the problem mentioned in the original post of this thread. However even in situations where software is required there is such a thing as reverse engineering that's possible. Or you could just build your own software within specifications. The later is way easier if everything is documented and well defined using industry standards and/or open source software and/or hardware. Basically the more information you have access to the better. Circuit diagrams etc of the outside hardware helps a bunch, add them for the inside of the chips and we're even closer to figuring things out. There are open source BIOSes that works with some of AMDs CPUs and several of their GPUs work with open source drivers that could probably be made to work with the hardware even if some components where to be changed as long as the behavior of said components are well known and well defined etc.
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@All The Mikeys Are Taken What Epstein did was breaking the law that was made by people voted in democractically. There's proper ways of doing things in a democracy, in this case it involves contacting representatives and politely informing them about how their voting choices may influence your voting pattern in the elections as well as what party organization you'll be backing by walking door to door to support a party, contacting the media and talking with the in the form of news paper articles, radio interviews etc and just in general bringing attention to the matter. The moment you're starting to do personal attacks on individuals you're treathening the very fundament of democracy and you become a thousand times worse then her by default regardless of how good your intention might be.
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@cryalowicki And saying that kind of stuff is what tends to lead to the police knocking on your door. We have a zero tolerance on violence in my country for a reason.
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@All The Mikeys Are Taken The cause of that is simply the first past the post system in the US, that's the main cause of why the US is a flawed democracy. But even a flawed democracy is still a democracy. March in protest marches, and since it's a first past the post system I suggest doing so especially in swing states, get attention in the media in those states, increase awareness of the topic in those swing states, make it one of the election topics that's influencing the overall result and I'm sure you'll get results. Yes, it makes things a bit tougher as you have to actually pay to go to a different state in order to get results and you'll have to walk door to door to try to convince people to vote differently in a swing state etc to get results, but even with the first past the post system you still have power to change things, even in such a flawed democracy.
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@JanBruunAndersen There's a difference between unjust laws that can be reversed in the future with a limited amount of harm done in between and laws that ruins lives or kill people. Yes, in the later case I do agree that civil disobedience is everyones not just right but duty. But if you start using civil disobedience all over the place instead of reserving it as the extreme step that it's meant to be you just end up watering it out taking away all of its bite and leaving you with little you can do when you really need it.
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@JanBruunAndersen " Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch." Not really, you can arguably say that about a flawed democracy like the US or hybrid regimes like Russia or Iran... But not in real multi-party democracies.
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@MrBearyMcBearface All political systems have issues, and the anglophone world isn't worst by any means, but look up the democracy index and you'll see that certain nations are doing better then others. And yes, I live in one of the countries that's not listed as a flawed democracy there. It might seem like arrogance, but that's really not what it's all about. There's traits of my own countrys democracy that I'm fully aware wouldn't work in a lot of other countries and that might even be considered as being problematic. But for better and worse the description that Jan Bruun Andersen used to describe democracy just doesn't apply here for a number of reasons. Among other things we vary between having two and three power blocks vying for power here, so if nothing else we got at least 3 wolves. But what's more is that our politicians genuinely are trying to do their best for the nation (not just my view but the overall view in my country), so they're more sheepherd dogs then wolves really... And they're willing to put down their weapons and come together across the politician spectrum in order to deal with issues if needed, they offer multiple different nuanced options to the voters to pick between with a compromise based on the relative power of the parties usually being the end result etc. Our system don't have gerrymandering or filibustering or wasted votes in some regions due to them not being in "swing states" or for one of the two biggest parties. It does have other issues like being overly complicated though and can be tough to understand for the individual voters with representatives sometimes being voted in from locations other then where their voters are and it being somewhat unpredictable exactly what representatives ends up in our parliament since our system is based more around parties then individual representatives. And like the US we also have different weighting of the voting power of the individual voter based on location although through different mechanisms. But it does all make sense if you take your time to understand it. And both parties with strong support in individual locations that's unpopular elsewhere in the country and parties that have a broader appeal without any single stronghold can get representation and both small and big parties can get into the parliament. Meaning that many different points of views are represented there and in the public debate. Our system is also based around the idea of negotiations being the main source of power for the politicians so sometimes the big parties make deals that's at odds with the values of their own coalition partners because they think that's in the nations best interest (even if I as a voter for one of those smaller parties might disagree) and other times us voters for said smaller parties can switch to a different small party with similar values to our original party in order to punish their coalition partners, similar to how voters in the middle usually play a big role in tipping the scale in for instance US elections in said swing states without us having to completely switch to a party we disagree with. In short, our representatives are held responsible for their actions as parties instead of individuals. Parties negotiate for power based on their values on an individual case by case basis meaning that a party program actually matters with some parties overlapping with some other parties in certain areas but in other areas they may have more in common with parties in a different power block entirely, and due to the negotiations they can actually get results if there's a majority in the parliament for those values (for instance a minority supporting that stance within a big party + enough smaller parties supporting the idea or a opposition party supporting it etc). Yes, there are issues like horse trading happening, where a party might agree to do something they kind of disagree with in order to get political support for something they care more about etc. But on the whole I feel like the system works fairly well with very little corruption or other failures of the democratic process. While it does happen that big parties might force through policies that the majority of the population disagree it's a rare occurence and one that we as a people have ample opportunity to respond to in an orderly fashion. That said, no system is perfect, and I'm sure there's elements of other systems, including the US one that we can learn from.
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@ronb7062 Thank you, I appreciate that. :-)
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@racitup4114 The riots are of course going too far, but the demonstrations are justified. This is global because the population in most nations have genuine valid grievances again the authorities in general and the police in particular. As for saying that it's claims, look at the videos of several different cases of police brutality yourself from the beginning to the end unedited, instead of looking at brief excerpts that gives the viewer the wrong impression. And look at the statistics. Minorities are more likely to be killed by the police even when unarmed. Even when not resisting arrest and/or not being involved in any crime to start with. And they are more likely to be treated like suspects even when there's no valid cause of suspicion.
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@ltcshow6175 Seriously, civil war over the right to repair... That idea is just offensive. While the bills restricting those rights are clearly unethical you just can't compare it with issues that genuinely warrants extreme measures.
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@cryalowicki I see, jeez... Well, this is the kind of things that should influence your voting pattern and where you choose to walk door to door for a candidate in the elections... And yes, this is one of the reasons why I'm glad I live in a small country. While bribes exist in small countries too it's easier to make a small country not corrupt then a big one.
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@pelic9608 Yeah, those was the days. :-P
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@davidamoritz Read the original meaning of that word...
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@John Doe How so? Why are we somehow "pussies".
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@ltcshow6175 The principles of how to be a good citizen in a society where power originates in its people are pretty universal for said societies and not limited to my nation. You don't need to use our democratic system. But be a good citizen, instead of being a problem that's worse then the issues you're trying to address.
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@racitup4114 Possibly, but even so there's actions that's acceptable and actions that's not in a civil society.
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WingsOfTruth Really...
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@Mekronid Exactly, last resort. And you dare insulting those who have died for truly important rights like the one to express themselves or organize with something like just wanting to repair things? Yes this is bad, but violence should be reserved for truly important issues where our very freedom or even lives are at stake. It shocks me that you don't have more respect for the workers of the past who have fought for said rights. As for the right to repair, it's important, but it's on a totally different scale and suggesting that it's as valid to use civil disobedience and violence for that as for the right to unionize, vote or speak freely... I don't even have words.
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@ColinFox You're really comparing arguing for laws that allows a agreement to be made where someone is restricted in their freedoms and rights with regards to what they're doing with that item (kind of like when leasing a car or buying a online game these days) with actual laws killing, torturing and limiting the freedoms of people in a whole *country*? The later not only makes fighting back by any means justified but a duty, the former on the other hand does not and talking about using violence in that context is an insult to those who actually have a reason to fight that way.
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@Mekronid People have different ideas about what is or isn't freedom, two of those three things you mentioned isn't even close to universally being considered freedoms. No, ownership of property isn't a universal freedom, it's a right that a society can choose to have or not and it's no more or less free either way as long as people have a way to change that democratically. (The Soviet Union still doesn't cut it in other words and going to that step without the majority of those affected wanting it and the rest having the option to leave would be an issue) The idea of defending ourselves, if you refer to the idea of gun ownership or the use of violence by private citizens then no, that's not considered a freedom by most people either, but is a duty if and only if our real freedom is under threat. Freedom is about ownership of our own bodies and our own fate and the right to express ourselves, move, act or think however we want without persecution. And to freely interact with others. Also there's other things that many consider freedoms that you didn't include although I personally think they fall in the same category as private property. Among a wide range of possible states that a democratic nation can be in from the far right to the far left, both with ideas of freedom that the other side doesn't recognize.
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@ltcshow6175 That's the point though, why should owning a phone be considered a right? It's a luxury that many quite frankly still can't afford on this planet. You're treating luxuries as human rights when they're not. I agree, it's nice to be able to own one, but there's nothing fundamentally wrong with such a ownership not being legal in a nation for whatever reason in terms of concepts like freedom or democracy as long as the ones enacting such laws are democratically elected and can be democratically removed. Banning phones doesn't justify violence or anything of that sort.
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@ltcshow6175 My point is that expression and democracy is what we should fight the hardest for and as long as we got that anything else should be done within the framework of civil society. Slippery slope applies to your justification too, people have a lot of different ideas about what's worth being nasty about. Before you know it abortion clinics and gun clubs gets harassing calls at home to their leaders disturbing and frightening their kids.
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@Mekronid Perhaps learn a bit more about different ideologies before speaking about them. When looking at multiple different ideologies it's ownership of our bodies and our expression that's considered fundamental freedoms required for a democracy to work. Anything else then that is meant to be negotiated within the framework of said democracy. The extent of ownership of property is one of several things that is negotiated there. Different populations will land on different solutions there. Within this framework considered that you can make your own phone with different terms then those of the big companies. Ownership might also have more flexible definitions, with limitations imposed for the common good, said allowing the freedom to roam as a freedom prioritized above that of ownership of land. Likewise a phone can be seen as a luxury. You don't need it. My grand parents where afraid of using phones because it was new technology back then, but they still lived in a democracy. I'd of course vote against banning phones, but acting as if ownership of one is a right like real rights such as freedom of speech is just... I have no words... Basically, certain things justifies civil disobedience, violence, riots etc, phone ownership just doesn't get close to that point even if I'd hate giving up the phone I'm using to type this. Mum managed just fine in a time when there was a single landline in the whole *village*. And there was times when I grew up that we didn't have a phone too, even if it never lasted long. That was in the eighties and nineties by the way. My point is just that the threshold for violence or other things that are unhealthy for a democracy should be extremely high. Otherwise we just end up with the brown shirts of the 1930s Germany all over again... It doesn't matter how justified you feel that your cause is. Harassing the political opposition is not ok in a civil society.
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@Mekronid I live in a country where communists who thinks that ownership is theft and anarco-capitalists who thinks taxation is theft has to come together regularly to make compromises in order to run if not the country then at least regions and local governments (although you sometimes find them both in the parliament negotiating with each other). They have fundamentally different views of the world, but because we live in a civil society they still treat each other with respect and are even friends in several cases. They make compromises that they're able to get a majority for and that changes the country, arguably for the better, but at least in a way that is accepted as valid. And people play by the rules of our democracy. That's the point of democracy, not to get the best leaders, but to find solutions that reduce tension and ensures that people remain civil even if they might disagree with said solutions and have very strong opinions and find the outcome of the policies of the state outright painful.
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@ltcshow6175 My approach is that there needs to be some proper demonstrations that doesn't stop till there's some real change and some proper campaigning for candidates that actually works for change, including third party candidates. Basically, I agree that something needs to be done. But it needs to be done in a civilized way.
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