Erik Haugen @ech@qoto.org

@VidaliaOnion @popcornreel Yeah she's been sentenced but is awaiting some kind of appeal on it. I'm assuming this is basically PR to influence that.

@popcornreel There's also this theme: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-theranos-elizabeth-holmes-has-cast-a-long-shadow-on-female-led-startups-145754793.html Can it be that society is simultaneously captivated by her White Women's Tears and also using her example to drag all women down?

@VidaliaOnion @popcornreel I think the thing she wants is to not go to prison for the next 10 years. Whether we forget her or not is a distant second.

She did do a great job of making this article promote the idea that she shouldn't go to jail, I think.

@BlueWaveSurfer@universeodon.com Problem is assault rifles are already banned. (Well, mostly. But banned enough that legal ones generally aren't a problem. And oddly only since 1986.)

Some people focus on banning "assault weapons" (not "assault rifles") which is also a pointless effort: you can get a non-"assault weapon" rifle that is pretty much just as deadly as an "assault weapon" rifle, just without flash suppressors or pistol grips or whatever other pointless feature the "assault weapon" ban targets. (See California's rules, or the expired federal assault-weapon ban (FAWB), etc.)

I'm honestly not trying to troll, it just seems off to me that this type of ban is dominating the policy discussion, when it is obviously so pointless.

@sj_zero @QasimRashid Good point; I wonder why the felt need to complain breathlessly about hypotheticals.

@freemo I got banned from a pretty popular instance for asserting that libertarians usually aren't very violent.

@MysteryGolem @TomShafShafer @georgetakei or Franciso Franco. (Although his "raza española" wasn't exactly the same as US-style white supremacy, I think those don't really matter when you're a mass murderer.)

@Barbramon1 @TomShafShafer @georgetakei But SPLC says weird things like that with poor evidence regularly. I think the most you can say about Proud Boys is that indeed there are white supremacists/antisemites in the group. (Notably McInnes, the founder!)

Anyway: this is splitting hairs a bit. If someone is attacking you violently or committing other criminal acts maybe the most important question isn't "hmm, is this person a white supremacist?"

But, it does matter in some contexts to get these questions right, so I note all available evidence suggests Tarrio (and PB officially) are not white supremacist.

@Barbramon1 @TomShafShafer @georgetakei There are plenty of people with Spanish names who are white supremacists. Tarrio of course isn't one of them, he's a completely different category of violent criminal. (Turns out there's more than one flavor of political violence, who knew.)

@AlisonCreekside Video makes a great point about how much free press he gets.

@post @freemo @trinsec @khird @vixxo @feld What's this about having to respect opinions? This might be tangential to your point, or you mean something specific by "respect", but I've certainly heard opinions (on technical topics) that I don't "respect".

@jann @genecowan Why is he in trouble? I can't figure out why anyone is in trouble from this article, except perhaps the lawyer that represented too many people at once? But I couldn't quite figure that one out either.

@vixxo @post @freemo @feld Yeah I'm sure that's true; just like before administering a flu test one always puts on n95 respirators/etc. And gets trained to do it properly. I think it's clear that is helpful in reducing spread.

That doesn't mean surgical masks or cloth masks protect against these diseases, or me re-using a surgical mask that I leave in my car for a few days is at all a good idea.

@marleybits39@mastodon.world @jimdoppke @KFuentesGeorge The study in the post you're replying to is literally about housing assistance, though.

I mean, I get your point, but ... data?

@feld @grumpy I don't know, they could conceivably be useful for surgeons hovering over open wounds and simultaneously ineffective for slowing the spread of certain respiratory illnesses.

@feld @grumpy I don't think anyone is suggesting that surgeons stop wearing masks.

@shrockp9 Yeah, or Whoopi Goldberg re. Polanski.

Although if I may be permitted to divine intent I think the point being attempted in these two cases is nowhere near "it's a property crime against the father". (And to my point, it's worth noting Akin lost, almost surely because of his stupid comment.)

Others noted adjacent phenomena like harassment and catcalling: indeed a lot of people are pretty oblivious as to why those kinds of things are harmful. But overall we've come a long way since a lot of the events described in the thread.