Well, there is a reason just why the debate is on political threads...

Of course you can ask, but likely they won't answer.

Would give some probability, but not anywhere close to 1.

, Google and Apple stopped offering the Parler app in their app stores, Amazon took Parler offline (this is basically where Parler lived). Without the host (Amazon), there's no Parler. The app could be made available outside Google and Apple, and a web-based frontend might still access the Amazon backend hosting (much like Facebook or The Philosophy Forum, for example). Anyway, those companies are capitalist.

Yes, those companies are capitalist - but it can hardly have escaped your notice that there's a pandemic of political correctness going around - infecting the West, and killing our fundamental values, not least free speech. What you may not know is that the disease originates with the left. It's a left wing plague - caught by capitalist companies.

What do you think you have argued here - that Amazon and Apple should not respond to their customer's concerns? That there ought be some control on Apple and Amazon, so that folk can have free speech? But I thought there was this "invisible hand" that you said would make things work... after all, presumably Parler can get someone else to host it, if it is a decent player in the free market...

Not so sure you are being consistent here.

You seem to be having not trouble expressing yourself.

Sure. Watch this space, I guess.

I'd stick to Umberto Eco's 14 points for using that word. — Banno

Someone posted a list of from a study of common fascist characteristics more from the supporter's point of view and now I can't find the damn thing, but in short: believing that your party has some kind of destiny; believing there is a dark but unevidenced conspiracy at play thwarting that destiny; believing that the same justifies any action, no matter how illegal or immoral, which is where counterpunch comes in.

Love Eco though. The Prague Cemetery is woefully underrated.

What do you think you have argued here - that Amazon and Apple should not respond to their customer's concerns? — Banno

Given that political correctness is a dictatorial dogma, yes, I think Amazon and Google and everyone else, should refuse to tolerate intolerant left wing, political correctness bigots and bullies, and insist on human rights like freedom of conscience, freedom of thought and freedom of expression.

That there ought be some control on Apple and Amazon, so that folk can have free speech? — Banno

They can act as they see fit, but they won't have my business.

But I thought there was this "invisible hand" that you said would make things work... after all, presumably Parler can get someone else to host it, if it is a decent player in the free market... — Banno

There is; and it will if people abandon google/apple/amazon in significant numbers, they'll suffer economically.

are we looking at Parler refugees?

@counterpunch
@synthesis

Both joined in the last week, no interest in general philosophy, only posting to the political threads. — Banno

Sounding more plausible to me.

Maybe add @Rafaella Leon to the list too.

couldn't find the original video with voter demographic breakdown, but I found one with Mark Blyth making largely the same point. (Edit: if you want a longer piece putting the UK's political disintegration and rise of the right alongside the US's, he's got lectures on that too). — fdrake

Thank you so much!

Rafaella Leon — Pfhorrest

...joined two moths ago; @Brett was also considered, a member from two years back who increased his activity markedly just before being banned.

Question: How many Marxists do you think there are? (Marxist = have read at least his shorter writings and understand them; apply at least some Marxist principles like class conflict, surplus value... to contemporary problems.) — Bitter Crank

Point well taken. There are very few serious "anythings" out there.

People should take the time to read his work. Truly a brilliant economist.

Substituting identity conflict for class conflict is not, in my humble opinion, proper Marxist practice. — Bitter Crank

No doubt. Identity politics is a dead-end if ever there was one.

Question: How many Marxists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? — Bitter Crank

Marx takes the bulb out of the package, Trotsky unscrews the old bulb and then Stalin kills everyone so they won't need a lightbulb.

Marx takes the bulb out of the package, Trotsky unscrews the old bulb and then Stalin kills everyone so they won't need a lightbulb. — counterpunch

Thanks. Not enough Marx Jox around. I'll add that to my "Pretty Good Joke Book".

Not enough Marx Jox around. — Bitter Crank

The history of all hitherto existing Marx jox has been censored by neo marxists as politically incorrect!

Marxist jokes aren't funny....
Unless everyone gets them.

I looked up Marxist jokes with Google and the first couple dozen I looked at were terrible. The best ones almost made me smile, slightly.

this one is a little better. The state of Marxist human is a joke!

Student asks his principal, "Where is my teacher?".

"Citywide layoffs", replies the principal.

"My text books?" asks the student.

"State austerity plan", says the principal.

"Student loan?" continues the student.

"Federal budget cuts", says the principal.

Finally, exasperated, student asks, "But how am I going to get an education?".

To which the equally exasperated principal replies, "This is your education".

:grin:

Yeah, that's funny. Almost as funny as synthesis saying Marx was a brilliant economist. He wasn't an economist. There's nothing in his writings about what would replace the cash nexus in capitalism, or therefore how to obviate self interest and the market.

In The German Ideology (1845-46) Marx wrote about the end of the division of labor which would enable: “in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.“

How's that for a Marxist joke?

Indeed.

After sampling a Marxist reading group last fall I decided there just wasn't enough time between me and the grave to spend it on reading more Marx. One person in the group flew into a rage when I said I didn't think understanding Marx was the key to stopping the global warming catastrophe from continuing toward doom.

Tragically, I haven't heard any good jokes lately, about anything. Even The New Yorker Cartoon Department is losing its edge. Great humor has to have an edge, a little barbed wire, a little shock. Jokes approved for all audiences are like children's movies. They're baby food.

Once there are no good jokes, the world might as well come to an end.

You increase fairness by expanding access and opportunity. — synthesis

How do you expand access and opportunity?

Redistribution does not work. — synthesis

Redistribution of access and opportunity does not work?

People have to do it (succeed) themselves in order for it to be sustainable. — synthesis

People have to expand their own access and opportunity? - How?

They can act as they see fit, but they won't have my business. — counterpunch

Good luck avoiding sites that don't run on AWS.

Brett was also considered, a member from two years back who increased his activity markedly just before being banned. — Banno

I think the influx has brought latent/suppressed qualities out in a few people.

Thanks. We could all use some luck!

One person in the group flew into a rage when I said I didn't think understanding Marx was the key to stopping the global warming catastrophe from continuing toward doom. — Bitter Crank

Very astute. I couldn't agree more. To secure the future we have to improve living standards, because poor people breed more - so Marxists would have to share ever less production between ever more people. How would that work? Dictatorial government fencing off unused resources from the starving masses, because of some supposed environmental carrying capacity? The have less-pay more, carbon tax this, stop that approach assumes failure - and merely seeks to eek out our existence, until they pluck up the authoritarian courage for another commie brand genocide.

Fortunately, in reality, resources are a function of the energy available to create them, and there's more energy than we could ever put a dent in, inside the earth. The way to beat the climate change roadblock is pedal to the metal - magma power, carbon extraction and sequestration, hydrogen fuel, desalination and irrigation - spend massive amounts of energy to build a sustainable and prosperous world.

I only need a few billion to get started. Five years I'll have a working facility, producing energy from magma. I'd supply big industrial energy users first - cement, steel, aluminium. Then I'd get into shipping, to deliver energy as hydrogen, to be burnt in traditional power stations. Then I'd go into desalination and irrigation - and I've always been interested in aquaculture. We shouldn't be hunting the oceans, there's too many of us. We need to farm fish. Then, total recycling. Given enough energy landfills are a gold mine. I could sort all this out, and turn a handsome profit doing so.

Yes, those companies are capitalist - but it can hardly have escaped your notice that there's a pandemic of political correctness going around - infecting the West, and killing our fundamental values, not least free speech. What you may not know is that the disease originates with the left. It's a left wing plague - caught by capitalist companies. — counterpunch

I remind you once again what sort of things were discussed at Parler, which includes discussions to assasinate politicians, protesters and journalists and threats to violently disrupt the inauguration of Biden. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/488033

And you think that's PC gone wild? Because we really need to give people promoting violence the ability to reach thousands of likeminded idiots?

Unlike say, BLM?

That questions seems to suggest a tu quo que fallacy so try again.

Tu quo que? Not so. I advocate for the human rights of freedom of conscience and expression; for everyone, even left wing political correctness liars, bigots and bullies.

Maybe finish the point you were trying to make then with your earlier question because the only interpretation I could give it was "BLM did it too therefore nutjobs on Parler should be allowed as well". That would cleary be a fallacy but enlighten me what the point of your diversionary question was.

Which brings me back to this: In that respect you still haven't answered my questions. And you think that's PC gone wild? Because we really need to give people promoting violence the ability to reach thousands of likeminded idiots?