Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous comment about the legality of Elon Musk’s vote-buying scheme:

My trainers say it’s illegal

(volunteer voter registrar)

We were taught that under no circumstances could we induce or attempt to induce anyone to register to vote, let alone to vote, let alone to vote any particular way. Our role is to register anyone who wishes to be registered, and to do so according to federal and state election laws (which govern things like proof of identity). That’s it.

This means, for example, that while I can sit at a table outside a sporting event with a sign that says “register to vote here”, I cannot initiate a conversation with anyone passing by in an attempt to get them to register. I have to passively wait until they initiate the process, and then of course I can converse with them, explain how it’s done, go through the process, etc.

Yes, I know: following the law is for the raggedy poor people, not for the rich elite. But this is yet another reason Musk should be stripped of everything and deported. The US doesn’t need this malignant cancer.

In second place, it’s another anonymous comment about Musk’s gullibility and fondness for spreading misinformation:

The amount of energy required to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude greater than to produce it.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we’ve got a pair of comments from That One Guy. First, it’s another comment about Musk’s million-dollar vote gambit:

Two truisms apply here:

1) Every accusation a confession, every self-given label a rejection of.

Of course the person who turned his dumpsterfire of a social media platform into a platform to push his preferred (convicted felon) candidate, and created a lotto to collect personal data for campaign purposes to push people to register and vote accused someone else of spending a bunch of money to create a ‘propaganda machine’, the best way to know what a republican is doing/wants to do/plans on doing is merely to pay attention to what they claim someone else is doing.

2) Laws are for the little people.

Is it possible that he’s breaking the law here? Absolutely. Will he face any penalty whatsoever beyond a wrist slap at most if he is and is found guilty in court? Not a chance in hell and he knows it.

Next, it’s a comment on our post about conspiracy theories and how they are fueled by not trusting anything:

‘I reject your demonstrable reality and substitute the one given to me’

“Everything is a conspiracy theory when you don’t trust anything.”

I’m not sure this one is quite accurate either since I’d argue that not trusting things is only half the problem, with the other, more impactful half being the trust in people that definitely should not be trusted over demonstrable, observable reality, such that what the person says is given higher priority over what can be observed, tested and measured.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is another anonymous comment, once again about Musk and misinformation:

Truth does another hit piece on Musk.

In second place, it’s an anonymous comment on our post about Chris Rufo abusing academic plagiarism’s absurd norms, replying to another commenter who attempted some sort of weird irony in saying they “didn’t expect” us to be pro-Rufo:

I didn’t expect to be abducted by aliens either, but that also didn’t happen, so I didn’t otherwise think it was relevant to mention.

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with an anonymous reply to the first place funny winner above:

More anti-liar hate speech from TruthDirt.

Finally, it’s Toom1275 with a reply to a screeching accusation of “ORANGE MAN BAD”:

Orange fan SAD.

That’s all for this week, folks!