Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is That Anonymous Coward with a comment about religious rules, regulations, and exemptions:

I enjoy how their deeply held beliefs can never ever be questioned, because that would be a burden on them and open a can of worms…

Like when Hobby Lobby was screaming that having to have insurance with contraception included violated their deeply held beliefs… up until you look at where they had invested the companies retirement fund into a corporation that makes contraceptives. We’re against it unless we can profit from it really isn’t a biblical thing I’ve ever heard of… but then the book does turn to ash in my hands.

Or the “pastors” of like 3 people “churches” who were recruiting new members by offering them letters to explain it was a biblical sin to get a shot to save others lives.

I did enjoy the CEO of one of the hospital systems, in CO IIRC, who published a list of all the medications that were just as bad as the vaccine according to several religious reasons & they had to certify they had never used any of them. Things like tums, tylenol, ibuprofen, ex-lax, preparation h…

Deeply held beliefs are things that you live every day, not just roll in for the Mass on Xmas Eve once a year.

In second place, it’s an anonymous comment suggesting some things society could do to preempt the growth of hate movements:

• Task law enforcement with actually pursuing cases of harassment and stalking.
• Pass real minimum wage, worker safety, and employee rights laws so people can have good jobs that are not at the whim of the Quarterly Earnings Report.
• Fund K-12 and public Universities so that good education is available to anyone who wants it. This includes proper funding for small classes and special education.
• Universal health care independent of employment and funds.
• Break up the real estate/NIMBY cartels so that people can afford quality housing.

Let a man get a good job with which he can provide for his family, and you will be amazed at how angry he isn’t.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with an anonymous comment about automated takedowns on Twitch:

There’s an important point to be made here: automated takedowns like this are diametrically opposed to platforms like Twitch, which are real-time.

Sure, the players can challenge the takedown. But they’re unlikely to be able to re-create the original livestream experience, as they’ll have to re-create the original buzz to get people to log in, at which point people have to have some expectation that the stream won’t immediately go offline again and waste their time.

Now move this from the gaming forum to the political one: you can have takedowns like this shape an election campaign, and there’s nothing the site host or the campaigners can do about it.

Next, it’s an anonymous response to the White House’s suggested tech platform “principle” of transparency in moderation decisions:

Before that, how about some transparency in things that really affect the public, like how various government departments make decisions, and a big reduction in what the government can had as a secret matter.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Bergman with a response in a comment exchange about Texas’s religion-justified homophobic bigotry:

I defy even Texas to prove gay secks causes more gay people to exist!

In second place, it’s That One Guy with a comment about the death of Amy Klobuchar’s news link tax bill:

‘How dare you add you idiocy to my boneheaded bill?!’

Amy Klobuchar proposes stupid bill.

Ted Cruz proposes stupid amendment.

Amy Klobuchar throws tantrum and yanks bill.

How about that, two wrongs made a right

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from mvario regarding the DEA’s silly fearmongering about colorful fentanyl:

wait…

I’m having an adverse reaction to looking at that picture of Fentanyl! I was told by a helpful police officer that it could happen. I’d best go for a lie-down.

And finally, we head back to last week’s comments post, where one commenter raised a “quibble” with another’s Star Trek reference, and tracyanne had this to say:

That’s The Trouble with Quibbles.

That’s all for this week, folks!