Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

This week, both our winners on the insightful side come from PaulT in the conversation on last week's comments post. In first place, it's a response to a comment with a bunch of nonsense about COVID:

"99% percent survival rate"

Even if you weren't lying about the figures, one day you morons might understand that death is not the only problem caused by this virus. Even if you're happy to cause around 70 million people to die unnecessarily because you're too weak to wear a mask for a few minutes while you shop, that's not the only thing that would happen.

"The destruction of the world’s economy, supply chains, and work ethic - and the coming famine that will surely cause"

Meanwhile, in the real world, many things are back to normal. Apart from travel restrictions and the inevitable reduction in tourism money coming into my local area, life's been pretty much back to normal for months. A combination of vaccines and people actually following mask mandates (going overboard actually, I saw tourists being more careful than locals, a reverse of what you're normally expect) has meant that infection rates actually went down during August and September (when you'd normally expect a spike - my town's occupation was around 60% higher with tourists during that period), meaning that we have virtually no restrictions locally apart from mask wearing indoors.

Signs are good that once international travel restrictions are lifted, next year could actually be a record time for the local economy and businesses are already preparing - one local supermarket has just reopened after a major refurbishment. Barring the plague rats causing a new strain that overcomes our best efforts, signs are good in many places that next year will be a bumper year for the economy, and that by the end of the decade this whole thing will be as distant and meaningless a problem in our daily lives as polio was when we were kids. That is, some of us are old enough to know people who were crippled by polio, but most people don't have to deal with it on a daily basis because we did the right thing and got rid of that crap.

What's the excuse where you live for you failing? Could it be selfish morons refusing to follow basic public health guidelines due to fictional "news"?

"untested gene altering"

If you have to lie, try picking lies that people aren't already tired of debunking. They were laughably obvious falsehoods to begin with, but now you're getting boring. All your statement says is "I don't understand the science or the process", and it's getting boring now. At least we have the daily "right wing agitator who spread disinformation about COVID, dies from COVID" stories to entertain us while you voluntarily sacrifice yourselves.

"The hell with it, I'll put up with the virus, thanks"

That's your choice. The rest of us just reserve the right to tell you to get the fuck away from the rest of us in the meantime. You don't have the right to risk others just because you think that everyone else should die for your convenience.

In second place, it's a comment about the supposed labor shortage:

If I understand the whole "labour shortage" issue, there's a bunch of people who were being actively exploited who got a taste of what life is like without that, and opted to retrain or change career paths. The management then found that there was no instant pool of people to exploit coming in, and they're chosen to blame the availability of unemployment or other safety nets for their lack of incoming employees, rather than their own pay and conditions.

A lot of the evidence I've seen seems to be anecdotal, but I don't believe I've seen any examples of a well regarded local employer struggling to hire and retain staff, they always seem to be well known shitbags or the type of places that say things like "we oppose any adherence to public health measures that would protect our staff". So strange how people won't risk their lives in the middle of a pandemic for an employer who's known to barely pay minimum wage and robs your tips, while serving customers who will abuse you for doing your job.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, it's a comment from Blake C. Stacey about the notion that Section 230 is outdated because it hasn't changed since it was written in 1996:

It's deceptive to say that "the law" hasn't changed since 1996 when case law certainly has. The EFF's Ernesto Falcon made the point that given Roommates, section 230 might not even immunize the things that Haugen says need fixing.

Next, it's a comment from Bloof about the exposure of law enforcement officers who joined the Oath Keepers:

I am shocked, shocked! What's next, law enforcement officials being caught on camera colluding with far right groups so the can clear out so police can attack counterprotesters? Police departments running their own 'unofficial' secret social media packed with racism and far right lunacy? Police unions making it near impossible to fire people who have proven to be completely unfit to hold any sort of power? Police departments running recruitment ads on Brietbart? Police departments hiring people to train officers to shoot first, ask questions later and instill an 'us vs them' mindset? Police departments using qualified immunity as a selling point? Police departments leaking criminal records and other information to try and smear people of colour killed by officers even if they did nothing more than live in an apartment in the same building as an officer. Oh wait...

There's been a long term project on the far right to fill police departments with their people to help disenfranchise minorities and give them the ability to play out their shitty whims without any sort of repercussions, so these leaks will keep on coming, and little will happen aside from slaps on the wrist, they sure as hell aren't firing officers with far right ties as there'd be virtually no-one left in some forces.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Baron von Robber with a simple comment about Dan Bongino:

Politics is like traffic, the slow ones move right.

In second place, it's an anonymous comment about the takedown of our Copymouse gear:

What logo? What I see is that you've imposed a copyright symbol on a diagram of a water molecule. Although why water would be copyrighted in 1923 escapes me...

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with Stephen T. Stone's suggestion for what to do about Facebook:

The single best way to improve Facebook is to keep letting whoever handles their router updates do what they do. 🤣

Finally, it's a comment from Pixelation about the South Korean ISP that thinks Netflix owes it money:

Maybe they're on to something. Charge Netflix, and stop charging us. Free internet access, I love how these people think!

That's all for this week, folks!