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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   31244 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

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Can we have a thread about Alex Jones? Apparently the "victims" of his actions are pushing for something like a trillion dollar award.

I get it, he spoke some really shitty things about some people that just lost their children in a horrendous event. I can't imagine what they're going through. But I can't get past this mental block of "Yeah he said some shitty things, but he never directed his followers to do harassment, and the parents essentially just got cyber bullied, like just walk away from the screen, seriously. There were like two incidents of real life harassment, which have been prosecuted, and also were inflicted upon the parents who chose to engage with the public media."

Am I missing something here? Why is he being destroyed so thoroughly?

In defense of wrecking Jones:

First, reports are that he was basically ignoring the court system. I think it is entirely justifiable that "ignoring the court system" gets turned into "the court system reminds you, and society in general, that the court system is not to be ignored".

Second, people are looking at the fine and saying that it seems excessive in absolute numbers. But I think there's a lot of value in fines that are relative to someone's net worth. And I think "promoting a harassment campaign against people who had their children murdered, all for the sake of selling merchandise" is reasonably responded to with "a fine of at least 100% of your net worth". Which is about what this is.

If we fine people absolute numbers, we're giving rich people effective permission to do whatever they want while ruining poor people's lives for small transgressions; if the goal is to make them stop, then relative numbers are what you've gotta do.

a fine of at least 100% of your net worth

When did Alex Jones become the first trillionaire? I'm pretty sure he's not even a billionaire. Including him in the class of "rich people" even is questionable. Even before this judgment it wouldn't surprise me if he had debt up to his elbows that he continuously avoids through sovereign citizen-esque shenanigans (though I don't know how much public transparency there is about his finances to be fair).

I mean I know you're saying "at least", but isn't that still kind of misleading when it ends up being more like "at least 100% of your net worth, but actually more like 6000000%"?

Even then I don't see how anyone who cares about freedom of discourse at all, like a moderator of this previously de facto deplatformed community (though that's debatable given this place's moderation history), can endorse a fine anywhere close to 100% of someone's net worth for hurting people's feelings. (Everyone on this site will be begging on the streets in a day if that becomes a universal standard.)

"Promoting a harassment campaign against people who had their children murdered, all for the sake of selling merchandise" is a weakman against this site's rules too (or it least it would be if it were neutrally moderated; wishing I could put on a red hat right now to give you a cutesy warning over it). It's not like he just picked the random parents of a selection of wholly obscure child murder victims that week and decided to make them his target. He had a heterodox opinion about a highly-politicized event, child murder or not, that many of the parents most criticized chose to actively and enthusiastically participate in the politicization of, and you have absolutely no proof that he did it "all for the sake of selling merchandise". (I've not seen much evidence he encouraged any direct harassment of anyone either.) That is allowed in free societies without going broke. Obviously a free society is not what we have anymore.

After all, children died on 9/11, have died in Ukraine, have died in Syria, etc. Why not fine those with heterodox opinions about those matters billions too? If we allow the parents of muh murdered children to set the standards of discourse, then say goodbye to discourse beyond "thoughts and prayers! <3" entirely.

This argument would be a lot stronger if he had actually been ordered to pay that amount. Nothing -- not the verdict, and not the musings of reporters about how much punitive damages might be ordered -- means anything until judgment is actually entered.

My understanding is that while the trillions are only a request at this point, a judgment of nearly a billion has been fully finalized and ordered by a judge already. To me, there's not much of a difference in this case between "essentially impossible, would require him to be like 10x richer than the richest billionaire ever recorded" and "well, maybe if he somehow manages to start the next Amazon or TikTok or something despite being one of the most ostracized men in existence". It's the difference between execution via guillotine and execution via lingchi. Life is still not an option for you in either case.

The point you could make in its favor is that it's not a real punishment, at least not to the degree ordered, because there's no way they're getting that amount of money from him, but that all comes with its own problems.

Your understanding is incorrect. The trial court will not enter judgment until it rules on Jones's motion for new trial and motion to reduce damages. See Ct Code Ch 900, Sec. 52-225.

Judgment on verdict; assessment of damages when judgment rendered other than on verdict. The court shall render judgment on all verdicts of the jury, according to their finding, with costs, unless the verdict is set aside; and in all cases where judgment is rendered otherwise than on a verdict, in favor of the plaintiff, the court shall assess the damages which he shall recover.

And Sec. 52-228b.

Setting aside of verdict in action claiming money damages. No verdict in any civil action involving a claim for money damages may be set aside except on written motion by a party to the action, stating the reasons relied upon in its support, filed and heard after notice to the adverse party according to the rules of the court. No such verdict may be set aside solely on the ground that the damages are excessive unless the prevailing party has been given an opportunity to have the amount of the judgment decreased by so much thereof as the court deems excessive. No such verdict may be set aside solely on the ground that the damages are inadequate until the parties have first been given an opportunity to accept an addition to the verdict of such amount as the court deems reasonable.

Fair then. My mistake. Though I still think in this case that a billion dollar judgment having any degree of finality, such as the degree of being ordered by a judge at all, is insane.

Well, again, there is no judgment, and there is no degree of finality. The entire point of the CT statute I quoted is to prevent excessive jury verdicts from going into effect, so isn't the system designed to obtain exactly the outcome for which you are advocating?

That's not what I'm reading from the statute, and in any case I'm not seeing it in action yet. And even if the final result turns out to be more reasonable, there's still the old problem of "You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride." Nothing in this case indicates a system or society that is "designed to obtain exactly the outcome for which [I am] advocating", which is a general tolerance for a wide range of opinions.

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