4ntonius8lock

You are thinking in the realm of theory.

None of that works in the realm of reality.

Creating a fake ID = super illegal.

Credit cards: prepaid can be detected and blocked, same as the privacy.com ones - especially when the credit card is being used to validate something. Look at any major fraud prevention software, these things are trivial.

In the real world, if you want to make money, you need to show and prove ID with matching banking details. Any inconsistencies and you don't get paid. This isn't something you can outsmart. People smarter than you and I have been thinking very long and hard about these points, much more so than the two minutes you took to think up your post. The idea is like those videos of 'primitive underground dwellings with a swimming hole on top'. Cute, creative, but terribly impractical and useless in any real world situation.

This works. And I do it. Too many unhinged people out there. Here in the US, I've found things in restaurants a couple of times and pointed it to the staff.

It clears the liability for all involved, since no one can claim that the staff or a fellow patron 'took it'. It was pointed out by a customer and removed with witnesses. I generally mention it to more than one staff.

I try to baseline assume that the person I'm dealing with in public is not fully there (which would include the property owner). It makes it easier to deal with when it is actually the case.

The funny thing is, the most up voted comments on this topic don't even seem to be about the FA. They are mostly just 'generic advertising is bad comment/anecdote related to the title'.

Another idea I had after reading the article is that advertising is more pervasive in big cities. From what I can recall, big city inhabitants tend to have a lower life satisfaction rating than smaller town dwellers. So countries with more urban dwellers might normally have more advertising and less life satisfaction... because big cities, not necessarily advertising. Also richer nations tend to be less happy, and by being richer have more advertising. There's a lot of ways to interpret the data.

It's funny to see the group-think dynamic on display needed to make non relevant comments go up and comments related to the article be down-voted (which aren't even stating anything specific... you and I never even said 'it's this' just questioning 'maybe not that')

Another super interesting thing that I glean from the down-votes is the bottom down view only when convenient.

If you post on HN that tech companies are evil and conspiring against our privacy, people will say (IMO mostly rightly BTW) that it's mostly bottom up, with consumers CHOOSING bad options. But as soon as advertising comes in the mix, now the world is top down, with evil marketeers manipulating the masses anyway they want.

To all the down-voters: your boos mean nothing, I've seen what makes you cheer!

Having read the article, it seems they are concluding a causality that isn't necessarily there.

The whole study is based on: there's a correlation between advertising spend per capita and life satisfaction between countries in Europe.

Now that COULD mean advertising is making people unhappy.

Or it could mean that people who are less satisfied tend to buy more crap and when people buy more crap they get more advertising. It's not as if advertisers are stupid.

The researcher in the article even admits to this being a one off with no other studies backing his claim. Now what's more likely, he discovered something no one else has, or he misinterpreted the data?

Do you really want to spend your time writing to Congress to have them pass a law making smoking a protected class?

No, but I do like writing about restricting employers ability to discriminate employees based on their off-the clock personal hobbies and preferences.

Basically using your language, I hope that 'everyone is a protected class' when it comes to legal forms of entertainment and hobby.

I agree with healthcare insurance being changed.

I will say, just because it costs them more money doesn't mean they should legally be able to act on that.

Many times someone from a certain religion might cost an employer more than someone who doesn't need religious prayer breaks. But legally employers can't act on that.

I'm not saying smoking = religion, but I am saying information available to make logical decisions != the ability to act on that information. Just saying we've already made the decision that we will legally restrict companies from acting on certain pieces of information and therefore we can expand this existing framework to protect other life choices (eating fatty foods, skiing hobby, driving a sports car, having kids, etc)

You're also confusing something: that plenty of legal things are not socially tolerated.

If a company came out saying 'sorry, we don't hire feminists'... they might... face consequences. Even if that is legal.

Right now U Haul is going after an easy target, since most people hate smoking - but the idea that just because it's legal it won't have any consequences is silly.

Companies can be boycotted, they could get grilled in congressional hearings, new laws can be passed, and because of incendiary behavior they can get scrutiny for the non-incendiary behavior (see Shkreli) and other negatives can happen.

The law is supposed to codify what makes sense, and when it doesn't, it many times will soon. Many times that includes nailing someone to the wall to set an example.

I hope enough people call their lawmakers to pressure the system into dragging the U Haul executives who made this decision through the coals. This 1984 style 'we are going to see everything you do' is getting out of hand.

Great. Personally, I've changed my mind on some very serious topics: death penalty, addiction, government regulations, capitalism, etc.

In each case, it took someone patiently going over points to help me see better. It takes time for me to fully incorporate new world views. It was a process that required the patience of another human who helped me work through thoughts without judgement or ridicule.

In my case, satire did not help. In fact, it has generally made me double down on my perspective, since it has an inherently ridiculing tone (you might not agree, but that is so by the very definition of the word) - Most people I know double down when confronted with ridicule. In fact most people generally double down on their opinion no matter how thin the evidence in favor of it.

So I'm asking, what deeply held beliefs did you completely change your mind on when confronted with satire? How did it go?

Hearing people's actual experience that is outside of my common conceptions is always super interesting. I'm always open to changing my mind.

I clicked through. Source material is about 200 pages. Linking to a news article is one thing.

Linking to basically a book, without so much as saying why the book is good, is another.

I'm not relying solely on what the OP says. But I'm not spending hours reading through 200 pages to figure out what is being shared. I read a lot of books, but generally I'll read the jacket, then the intro, then maybe the first chapter, and if that grabs me, then the book.

Not sure why you are trying to imply that I only read summaries, but that's on you.

I clicked through. Source material is about 200 pages.

Linking to a news article is one thing.

Linking to basically a book, without so much as saying why the book is good, is another.

I didn't say it was bad. Just asked the OP, why submit this? What's interesting in it? If I find the summary interesting, I read further. I also mentioned that when posting 200 pages without so much as a summary, most people won't read, leaving the less intelligent 'title commentators' (something I think is discouraged in this forum, which is why I participate)

There's over 100 pages of material here. Why has this been submitted? What's interesting in it?

These type of submissions attract the worst commentators; people who will talk about the topic based on what they can infer from a title. Mostly just rehashing some personal anecdote or curious fact semi-related to the title.

Not sure I want to invest so many hours of reading to get to why this was posted. Maybe the OP could provide some context?

Satire definition: "the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues."

From Wikipedia: "satire is a genre of literature and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement."

Not only is satire bad for communication, it's bad for learning, since it must presuppose the person creating the satire is not in the wrong. Generally people who are open to learning start from the perspective they too might be wrong. Of course, you are welcome to show me examples of when satire changed your mind... that would make me reconsider a different perspective.

Good satire is entertaining.

It does not help build bridges of communication between people who think differently. That's why I think it's looked down upon here.

You are right on the /. point. :)

It has to do with the concept of government transparency. In the US, from what I understand, the founders of the country feared secret courts issuing secret sentences for secret reasons.

So the idea is that almost all government stuff is public information. It's why FOIAs are so powerful. Literally anyone can ask the government to open up it's docs on virtually anything as long as national security isn't involved (and this is abused, but to a degree only) it has to comply.

Now, such a tool will inevitably have good and bad. Just as having private court cases will also.

Personally I think we need to create a privacy reform similar to the Civil Rights act of 1964 to address this and many other concerns. I'm simply explaining the thought process where our current tradition came from.

Florida actually has much broader public information laws than the rest of the country. That's why you see so many 'Florida man' stories. My understanding is FL takes it a step further than just being public, they publish much of it by default, making it easy for reporters to sift through and find headlines.

I didn't read it. But for some of us, silly inane comments that don't add to the conversation can detract from it.

If that's what you are looking for, may I suggest reddit? On there, an article is posted and you'll have 10,000s of silly one liners with no information or further understanding. Most never having even read the FA. I personally love the fact that /. doesn't allow this. It means those of us who want to discuss topics can actually do so without drowning in a sea of silliness.

The FA we are talking about is related to the completion of the construction of the first Fusion reactor by the end of this year.

Also, fusion has only really been seriously considered AFAIK since the 70s (yes theoretical research happened before) so not sure how you get to the 'always 30 years away' thing, which sounds like we had several cycles of Osbourne effect. Not to mention the word 'always' gives your post an 'all or nothing' type of feel which is generally characteristic of people in distress whose fight or flight mode is active, blocking more nuanced views.

You might be right that we are very far away and this is only harmful, time will tell, but I truly hope the breakthrough is here.

I said the greater freedom in America helped it win the cold war. Of course it is more nuanced than that. But that can literally be applied to everything and anything ever said - if someone said being outside jail is good or not being addicted to heroin is good... well its more nuanced... maybe someone would benefit from being in jail or from being a heroin addict... sure, but at some point you aren't really increasing understanding. You are just pedantically noting things that are obvious in a way that detracts from meaningful conversation.

It seemed to me you were arguing against my freedom point by trying to say America wasn't much more free than USSR. Since such a position seems so utterly disconnected from reality and history, I asked you to clarify your position, maybe I misunderstood.

I also asked what your point was, since I honestly can't see what you are trying to get at in the context of the conversation: should the US have more anti-freedom ML technology applied to mass surveillance and social control? Do you think that will help? Read the FA and opine, I'd be happy to hear a smart analysis. You seem to be able to do that, you seem quite smart. But picking at the edges of arguments without actually participating is kinda... detracting from the goal of conversation and moving towards ego boosting.

Also, even if you are smart, if I understood correctly that you honestly believe the USSR to be more free than the US in any significant manner based on the definition of freedom, then I'm not going to participate in this line of thought.

I've had a conversation once with someone I had just met. He mentioned 'dinosaur bones were placed there by the devil to trick us'. I asked if he meant it. With a straight face he said yes. You could say I laser focused on that, because after it, I never went beyond 'hows the weather' with him. He has every right to see it that way, I and many others have every right to think of him as slightly less 'there' and therefore avoid getting tangled with what we see as incoherent.

Yeah, that's not a concrete example of the SPECIFIC cutting edge area of AI that china dominates development of. At least I couldn't find it. I gave one for the US. I've yet to receive one for China. All I've seen is: "Look how known 'AI' can be applied toward totalitarianism. The US has none. We are at a disadvantage. " This is utter rubbish for reasons already discussed.

If ... if ... if ... might

3 ifs and one might. Let's see: If my grandmother was male and if she was catholic, she might be the pope. I only had to use two ifs to get to that one.

I'm really not sure what your point is.

Are you seriously arguing that overall there was more freedom in the USSR than in America? I just want to be totally sure I get where you are coming from. Because my post was the general freedom as in the literal definition of it: "the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint"

Because it hasn't historically worked that way.

This isn't a first to market huge advantage. Developing the plants is slow (many years) and the lag between super powers in cracking tech is generally only a couple of years (see space programs/nuclear energy programs)

It's playing into divisive tribal thinking, when this is literally objectively good for everyone on the planet.

Wind and solar don't deal with peak energy use.

See Germany vs France as an example.

I'm curious, when you say AI, what do you mean?

To me AI is machine learning. And the US is leading in that area, the forefront of which seems to be self driving technology.

Are there specific examples of cutting edge machine learning where China excels?

My understanding is they have IMPLEMENTED machine learning in an authoritarian type of way. But this implementation isn't innovative. There's no underlying tech improvement. Just the application of existing technology in a terrible way. We have the same face tracking, gait tracking tech. We just don't apply it en mass because of pesky human rights and such.

I hope they succeed. We desperately need to adopt nuclear energy world wide.

The success of such a project would pressure western governments into adopting the technology to stay competitive. Especially when the cost of a kilowatt hour plummets.

I sure dislike authoritarianism, but on this one I think everyone's interest are aligned. Anyone who isn't misinformed or sentimental will support modern nuclear. I'm amazed there isn't more unity here in the comment section; this is an objectively good thing for humanity. The advancement of science.

I think furthermore, not only is it fearmongering, it's actually wrong.

What the article calls AI is just machine learning. And America leads the way on this when it comes to cutting edge. Look at self driving cars.

It seems the article hinges on implicitly defining AI as adopting mass surveillance/freedom restricting tech.

In reality if America cares about winning the 'tech development war' (I think a better goal than the nebulous 'ai war') with China, it should be worried about improving it's education system. And working on reducing corruption (both in government spending and in private industry such as banking and health care) - In the end, it was education, freedom and efficiency that allowed the west to beat out totalitarian governments. Not the adoption of totalitarian systems of oppression.

Imagine the US trying to adopt the USSR's system to 'obtaining and classifying information' on dissidents since it was part of 'information technology'. I find the article to have a borderline fascist/anti-western-ideals of freedom undertone. Some people think in a way that seems to be completely lacking in the ability to learn from history.

I'd say there's even a third option, the causality runs back AND forth (both good thoughts can lead to good outcomes as well as bad outcomes can lead to bad thoughts and vice a versa)

Even in this third option there exist an infinite number of sub options on a gradient (where each direction carries more or less weight).

Of course, any meaningful conversation can only happen after definitions (like what is pessimistic) are agreed upon. I for one don't agree with the definition of pessimism as defined by the study.

I'm not afraid of being pessimistic.

I read the article title and wanted to see how accurate it was.

If it was accurate, it would cause me, like a rational creature, to question my tendencies. I have list of pros and cons for all my proclivities and try to use/taper my tendencies accordingly. It's not like I'd abandon my tendency toward pessimism all together, but adding something to the list of cons would put it's utility into greater question. I'm always questioning my beliefs and the utility of my tendencies, it's how I constantly improve and progress in life.

But I also question other peoples assertions. It's the natural thing to do for me. I think to question how they define pessimism is also quite logical when trying to objectively measure something.

I'm curious though, can you please tell me how I was complaining? I'm genuinely interesting in knowing why you perceive that.

When I read the tile and skimmed through the article, I thought: define pessimism.

I mean, I consider myself pessimistic, but what do THEY who designed the study consider pessimistic. I tend to find the fault in things, see how they are wrong, or in general anticipate some negativity that most people will overlook. It's literally what makes me good at my job.

So I clicked through to the study. Which mentioned it used the Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R) to test for pessimism.

So I looked up the Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R) and found what questions and answers they consider pessimistic.

These are questions a 'pessimist' is supposed to answer as being 'very true':

3. If something can go wrong for me, it will. (R)

7. I hardly ever expect things to go my way. (R)

Welp I can't say these are views of pessimists. More of someone depressed or someone who has been beaten down in life.

I admire what they are trying to do, but I'm not sure this study really is proving anything until there is a clear measure of someone's pessimism. And for that we need I think better testing for someone's natural inclinations toward belief and skepticism. I've always associated skepticism as highly correlated to pessimism (seeing why not) and a tendency to believe in something at first sight as highly correlated with 'positivism' (seeing why yes).

Objectively speaking, of the 7,000,000,000 people in the world, some percentage will have objectively way less things 'go their way' then for others. It's simply how distributions work. So for someone like that to answer question 7 affirmatively, they might not be pessimistic, just someone who has objectively had a shitty life. And for someone like that, well, less life expectancy should be expected. I know I've been lucky in life and would answer 7 and 3 as absolutely no despite myself considering myself a pessimist (and I've been called that enough to suspect others view me as such too)

Amazing, thanks for sharing. Can I ask why you think SK is putting such a prominent figure in jail over this?

I mean this in the sense that, first you guys are doing the right thing and second I think here in the US we have a terrible track record of making corporate leaders responsible for criminal activity. I'm really interested in what systematic differences exist between us that allow you guys to actually hold the powerful responsible for their crimes?

Actually with ebay I can more easily trust. Because they don't co-mingle, I know that someone with 100,000 positive reviews on ebay is unlikely to sell a counterfeit. With amazon I don't have that trust, since even if the seller is great, one single bad actor, who isn't the person I'm buying from, could infiltrate the system causing me to get a counterfeit.

Well we have gone through times when workers were mistreated; the start of the industrial revolution. It took our grandparents a lot of pain to get the legal protections many workers take for granted. Protections that have been consistently eroded.

Society's creation is a pie, and what % of GDP goes to labor vs capital classes is not fixed. It fluxes and wanes. Over the last 50 years labor's percentage of GDP has fallen consistently.

There are a number of objective measures that support this idea, none of them are perfect, but they tend to show a clear trend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_share