The problem is thay it's not even as extreme as the kkk, if your opinions don't mesh with the current progressive groupthink, you will be downvoted, ignored, and bullied.
The same happens to a lesser extent on HN, but without the bullying.
The end result is content that leans in only one direction because everyone else has been silenced, they don't bother posting, or they left.
The irony is that this behavior is exactly what progressives have claimed to be fighting (discrimination and online bullying)
The IRS has been a tool for the Democrats for decades. It can't be a coincidence that many more Republican/right leaning groups have been relentlessly audited.
If there is no fee decrease for the average consumer, electric cars will never be fully adopted. Unchecked government greed is a big problem. There needs to be more government accountability in terms of spending.
Hawaii is putting a stop to solar. Taxing the panels and making it more cost effective to use standard electricity.
The only way it will grow is if it's actually cheaper for the average consumer to use solar. It will most likely never be cheaper, because as soon as it it, the government adds a tax for lost revenue from standard electricity.
The same thing is happening with the electric car: Some states are now proposing a per/mile car usage tax (where a mandatory black box needs to be installed in your car to track it) to make up for the lost gas tax revenue.
Why would it be wrong for you? Your goal is to start a business. This is your passion and something that interests you.
On the contrary, I know so many people that are not that interested in owning a business. They stumble on some sort of idea, but end up failing because they aren't willing to sacrifice and put the work into actually running it.
A business is tough. If you aren't interested in it, you won't make it in the long-run.
We now live in an age where stating an opinion that is against the current narrative will get you fired or your personal life ruined.
I've seen so many people on Facebook talk negatively about Republicans, Christians, and white males with impunity.
You can't tell me how bad discrimination is, while at the same time being brutally discriminating against someone you don't like. It's this sort of hypocrisy that leads to people like Donald Trump running for president (and getting lots of support).
Why bother having ads anymore? I would just make an entire article or video one big advertisement for a product I am trying to sell.
This is the next logical step for ads..and all of the people that think they have some sort of power right now, will be surprised when there is truly no way to block it in a few years. Because popular sites need to make money to pay for hosting and when enough of them do this, you won't really be able to ignore it all.
Other alternatives might include major paywalls for content (if it gets bad enough) or a tech-savvy advertisement company that gets around these ad blockers (I actually have lots of good ideas that would work and might start a company myself).
The same thing happened with software. Companies were tired of fighting piracy, so they made everything in the 'cloud'.
I used to sell software and got tired of piracy. When I just ignored it, my sales would go down to almost nothing. The issue just isn't the copying of software. It's that these sites also start ranking higher than my own in Google and many people will get to the counterfeit copy first. Price never mattered. I could charge 99 cents and the piracy would stay pretty consistent.
I would also get people contacting me up trying to sue me because they downloaded an illegal copy, thought it was mine, and they got a virus/lost data. Of course they have no real basis for a case, but the time and effort involved in answering the inquiries was a huge waste of time.
Now, my customers don't even get to have a copy of it. They get to rent it for a fee every month (all hosted on our servers). It's great for me, but not for software freedom. It's really the only way to survive these days.
The app markets are pretty dismal as well. The only apps actually making a profit are the ones that are in the top 5. The rest are fighting for scraps. It's much better to give away your app for free as part of a paid, monthly service.
The price of the app alone really can't be used to sustain a business.
The sad thing is that the end result of all of this is the concentration of wealth to fewer, large and wealthy companies. Small companies can't handle the loss in revenue and it will mean less power for all of us.
You are actually contributing to further wealth inequality and ironically, trying to stop it at the same time.
temperature != climate. This is what all of the same people writing articles like this chirp out whenever someone talks about current temperature changes having anything to do with climate change.
Right. You don't look at skin color, gender, or sexual orientation. You choose from a pool of all. The best person for the job.
It's ironic that I get down voted in a discussion about true equality, for actually proposing true equality, by people proposing discrimination in an attempt to fight discrimination.
The reality is that we don't want true equality. All of these calls for 'diversity' are merely punitive. Meant to punish the majority for wrongs they never committed in the first place.
It's pretty telling when a company can come right out and say they only want to hire women, with an entire staff of women, and it's seen as 'diverse' (this doesn't even make sense)
I, for one, will never institute these policies in any of the companies I run. I will always pick the best person for the job.
People may be enjoying new content, at the expense of devaluing the entire industry.
After a decade of music sharing, the next generation grew up just expecting music to be free. This is exactly what many of us were saying and many doing the sharing said it wouldn't happen.
There were even alleged studies that claimed file sharing would increase artist profits. The proof is here and this never happened.
The problem is two-fold: You have amazon devaluing ebooks value through their service and the scammers devaluing it even further.
We are in a transitional period on the Internet, which may eventually give big corporations everything and leave everyone else with the scraps if we continue handing everything over on a silver platter.
How so? These things happened a long time ago. At some point, we need to stop blaming all of their woes on decades or century old treatment.
Most immigrants were used as essentially slave labor at some point. The Chinese, for instance, were used to build the railroads in the US. The Italians and Irish were also treated poorly for decades.
The same happens to a lesser extent on HN, but without the bullying.
The end result is content that leans in only one direction because everyone else has been silenced, they don't bother posting, or they left.
The irony is that this behavior is exactly what progressives have claimed to be fighting (discrimination and online bullying)
Edit: haha, the ironic downvoting happened fast.