Impeachment Happens Tomorrow, Mozilla Firefox Goes "Beyond Deplatforming", Capital Police Can't Handle Guns, Amazon Censors the Internet, Putin's Russian Enemy Warns America (The Five for 1/10/21)
Hey,
During the heaviest week for Americans in my life (yes, heavier than 9/11), but I wanted to kick off with a few statements:
I still believe in one United States of America.
We’re still the most charitable nation in the world and among the most free.
The republic is robust, and has endured a lot.
There’s one view of studying history that leans heavily into fatalism. “Europe was bound to fall into totalitarianism in the 20th Century.” That kind of stuff.
Hell no. Two leaders (Churchill and Roosevelt) and 35 million Average Joes saved the world from 1941-1945. You take away leadership and personal sacrifice, and maybe we’re all speaking German today. Heck, maybe my daughter doesn’t exist, since she’s 1/4 Jewish.This week has sucked. Acknowledge it. But nobody needs your tears, your whining, your mournful wails. Snap the hell out of it and start thinking strategically. We all need you during this crucial time. We all need every person of reason and ethics in a world gone mad.
With that being said, here’s The Five.
[one]
You might not think Mozilla Firefox (the web browser) is a big deal. The browser lags in users behind Chrome and Safari, but is still a major player in Silicon Valley.
On Friday, Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker posted a blog declaring that deplatforming (removing individuals access to social and web platforms) was not enough, and the following changes should be made to the internet:
Reveal who is paying for advertisements, how much they are paying and who is being targeted.
Commit to meaningful transparency of platform algorithms so we know how and what content is being amplified, to whom, and the associated impact.
Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation.
Work with independent researchers to facilitate in-depth studies of the platforms’ impact on people and our societies, and what we can do to improve things.
This is insane, and will lead to further radicalization.
First off, as someone who makes a living running internet ads, it’s a terrible idea to allow competitor companies to spy on how I’m running ads.
Secondly, small businesses rely heavily on Facebook and Google ads. Draconian rules always splash over to harm the innocent, and it’s all but certain businesses with ZERO political affiliations could be put out of business by this censorship.
And there’s always the chance that people who lose their jobs due to rules like this will turn violent. The way to make society peaceful is to get as many people as possible into the middle class, get them to buy houses, have kids and give them something to live for.
This is the opposite of that.
Finally, by “tools to amplify factual voices” and “independent researchers,” Baker means members of the intellectual and political elite she can heavily influence, if not outright control.
Here’s my counter offer: free speech.
”But bad ideas.”
Combat them with better ideas. Defeat bad speech with true speech.
”But radicalization.”
Pushing people to the dark corners of the internet will only lead to further radicalization. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. As the parent of a 1/4 Jewish child, I’d much rather someone declare themselves a Nazi on the main internet, so I know who to watch out for.
That’s it. That’s the tweet, as the kids say.
The First Amendment. I believe in it. The CEO of Mozilla does not.
You can pick one of those, but not both.
[two]
As Twitter continues to purge users, the free speech social network Parler was quickly gaining new followers.
First, Apple and Google banned the app from their app stores, citing the lack of content moderation. There’s clearly some crazy stuff on Parler, which is moderated humans, and may be slower than AI to remove content. However, human-powered moderation is likely more accurate and fair.
Apparently Google and Apple were not happy with Parler’s human-moderated system, and booted them. Meanwhile, both app stores continue to allow Twitter to be downloaded.
This week, Twitter allowed the Chinese dictatorship to brag about forcefully sterilizing Muslim women.
Twitter also allowed Iran’s dictator to egg on violence in the U.S.
I have a Parler account, but I’ve never followed anyone on there…just haven’t had time. So I can’t speak to the experience on the network, which will be offline for a week or more after Amazon Web Services booted the network off their servers.
My wife asked me if it was possible for users to boycott Amazon/AWS…and the answer is, it’s impossible if you live in modern life. Amazon’s servers run 1/4 of the American internet, including almost all e-commerce. And the average user has no idea what server a website is running on. Even for a highly technical person like me, I can’t always say with certainty.
[three]
I’ll write more about the violence at the Capital building more in the future (I’m running out of time today—gotta clean the house, but I did want to point something out.
Even our police often don’t handle guns properly. You should NEVER hold a gun and a baton in the same hand, as seen in this photo from the Capital police clashing with rioters.
Also, if you’re in a possible life or death struggle…maybe go ahead and ditch the COVID mask. You need to breathe freely in a struggle for your very survival.
Anyway, if you thought guns were hard to buy before…just wait.
If you’ve ever thought about purchasing a firearm for protection, I would get one as soon as possible, while there are still some available.
But most people don’t have the knowledge or tools to understand the ecosystem of guns, and often don’t know what the safest, best option is for their living/family situation.
I’m working on an ebook/course on this. But if you need information right now, I’m offering a 20 minute coaching call to help you build a customized plan to purchase, customize and store a gun for personal defense.
Get the info that will keep you and your loved ones safe, and avoid getting ripped off at the local gun store that’s just trying to unload a bad product on a first timer to get it off their shelves.
When I take this to the public, the price will be $100.
However, I’m offering this for $50 to the “inner circle” of readers of The Five this week only. After that, the price goes up.
Your options on what gun to purchase will narrow with every day you wait as the few remaining guns in stores sell out during this time of uncertainty.
To book a call, simply email/text me at sethtowerhurd@gmail.com or 314-580-3719.
There will be more violence coming from the extremes on the political spectrum. I can’t stress highly enough that you should stay as far away from riots and unrest as you can.
But this summer, the riots were just 2 miles from my house. I don’t want you to ever know that terror. But if you do, I want to make sure you have what you need to keep you and your loved ones safe.
Get a plan. And get what you need.
Schedule a call now.
[four]
Russian dissident and chief Putin critic Alexei Navalny is warning the U.S. about the consequences of Twitter’s censorship. The New York Post reports:
Navalny, a ferocious Kremlin critic, only narrowly survived after he was poisoned in August with the nerve agent Novichok by agents of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He spent more than a month in recovery at a Germany hospital in Berlin.
“I think that the ban of Donald Trump on Twitter is an unacceptable act of censorship,” Navalny said in an 11 part Twitter thread. “Don’t tell me he was banned for violating Twitter rules. I get death threats here every day for many years, and Twitter doesn’t ban anyone (not that I ask for it).”
“Of course, Twitter is a private company,” Navalny continued “But we have seen many examples in Russian and China of such private companies becoming the state’s best friends and the enablers when it comes to censorship.”
[five]
Democrats (and some Republicans) will attempt to impeach Donald Trump tomorrow. The Daily Wire reports:
Democrats have at least 180 co-sponsors for articles of impeachment against President Trump and they plan to introduce the measure on Monday.
While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has called on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office — an idea that Pence has reportedly rejected — she says the House will take action if Trump doesn’t resign.
This isn’t going to happen, and in my opinion it’s largely inconsequential.
If you think Trump is going to fire off nukes in his last week or so in office, you’re a wing nut conspiracy theorist who doesn’t understand how the military works (Presidential orders can bet stalled for court review…so unless you think the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff wants to start a war with nuclear weapons, there’s no danger of this happening).
What the impeachment proceedings will do is further anger the kind of people who attacked the Capital and make additional violence more likely.
President-Elect Biden isn’t helping by calling Ted Cruz a Nazi (Cruz is Hispanic…somebody Google and see how many Hispanic Nazis you can find out there).
I’ll close with this. I believe we can learn from The Whiskey Rebellion, early in our nation’s history. From History.com:
Washington met first with the rebels, who assured him the militia was not needed and that order had been restored. Washington opted to retain the military option until proof of submission was apparent.
The large and well-armed militia marched into western Pennsylvania and was met with angry citizens but little violence. When a rebel army didn’t appear, the militia rounded up suspected rebels instead.
However, the rebellion’s instigators had already fled, and the militia’s prisoners weren’t involved in the rebellion. They were marched to Philadelphia to stand trial regardless. Only two men were found guilty of treason, and both were pardoned by Washington.
The violence ended thanks to Washington’s statesmanship.
If our leaders will not call for de-escalation, then we must do it with our own neighbors, friends an co-workers.
Put down your own mini Whiskey Rebellion this week with calm, rational conversation. Implore people leaning to extremism on either side to return to rationalism. Help them see hope in the American future.
It’s still there. Help them see it.
Until the next one,
-sth