cassalian

There's been a lot of question about the motivation for this feature. Am I the only one that thinks this could be related to things like the EARN IT (or something similar).

Here's an article from a year ago on EARN IT:

Theoretically, a system that uses client-side scanning could still send messages encrypted end to end, and so the Leahy amendment would not offer any protection, but many of the same confidentiality concerns with backdoored “e2ee” systems would continue to apply.

Source: https://cdt.org/insights/the-new-earn-it-act-still-threatens...

I'm doubtful of the harms of misinformation and the role it plays in persuading people's opinions (I believe people are fairly intelligent rather than undiscerning parrots of thought). However, if I were to accept the claim misinformation is rampant and that it is persuading large numbers of people, then I would think the solution would be to better educate people on how to "not believe everything you read" by checking sources, questioning what motives the author might have, checking who the author is, finding a related article from a different source, etc. IMO this would prevent the need for platforms to remove misinformation (something that can be easily abused to remove content that doesn't fit a certain political agenda or similar) since the public would capable of filtering out misinformation themselves.

The war on misinformation seems to be driven by the democrats today; however, it could easily be driven by the republicans in the future. Regardless of who is pushing the war, IMO a war on misinformation will always lead to polarization. After all, your opponents aren't rational, rather, they've been brainwashed. As such, there is no need to engage with your opponents views, conveniently leaving your own views completely unopposed (and thus obviously correct and good).

Thanks for the link!

Could you provide the source for the supreme court agreement? It seems to me that forcing someone to get a vaccine would just as much violate their individual liberties so I'm rather curious what issue the supreme court was specifically addressing

Yes it does - I do not believe in the "rules for thee, but not for me" type of thinking

Why should society be concerned with rehabilitating the most violent of offenders? To be a bit more specific, assume we are talking about a parent that has brutally beaten their child to death, or someone who has knelt on someone else's neck until death was inevitable. This person has killed someone, an action that is absolutely irreversible. Why should that person be allowed back in society? I don't want society spending time and money rehabilitating this person. In my opinion, this person has forfeited their right to live in society when they chose to take someone else's life.

To be clear, I'm not talking about non-violent crime or even most types of violent crimes - I'm referring to the most violent of offenders. There are 7 billion people in this world, I think society will carry on just fine if we remove the tiny fraction of people from society that commit the most heinous of violent crimes (i.e wanton murder).

So what's society get out of rehabilitating this person? Let's assume this person can add moderate value to society, such as being capable of working an average job decently well (thus bringing value to their employer, the customers they help, and greater society through taxes). Now weigh that value added against the fact that their victim will never re-enter society again. Is that value added worth it, and is it fair to their victim?

I am open to having my opinion changed on this topic so if you have a good argument for why we should be concerned with the most violent offenders, please do share and I will weigh what you say carefully. However, please make sure you are addressing the case of deliberate, unprovoked murder since my response is only addressing this form of crime.

8th graders are typically 12-13 years old, not 10 - 10 year olds are typically in the 6th and 7th grade.

My sister is still in school and the anti-cheating software gives her a lot of anxiety - not that she's a cheater or anything, but because it is well known that this software flags non-cheaters as cheaters. For example, she is not allowed to look around or talk to herself while working on a problem, both of which help her to demonstrate her knowledge effectively. If the goal is for testing to demonstrate a student's knowledge, then employing techniques that hinder a student's ability to do so in the hopes of catching cheaters is counter productive to the original goal. After all, you want to know if she can apply fundamental techniques and skills - not whether she can apply these fundamental techniques and skills while behaving under a very strict set of rules.

Even in early level mathematics, there are plenty of opportunities to introduce word problems that can only be solved by applying the relevant techniques. As long as the teachers are defining these word problems themselves (rather than pulling them from an online resource), they stand as a pretty good guard against cheating since they require students to first recognize the technique that needs to be applied, and then to extract the relevant variables from the word problem to apply that technique.

Furthermore, in early level mathematics, you can still have students present solutions to problems and explain why the solution works. For instance, say you were interested in whether or not a student has grasped the basics of derivatives - simply get on a call with that student, give them a random function to solve the derivative for, and then have them do so in front of you.

These are all things I've quickly thought of that would have at least be partially effective in measuring knowledge. I imagine any person with a career dedicated to instructing students could come up with many more options that could be even more effective.

Instead, they seem happy we're making their study possible, and accepting of what they're asked to do. They know it's important that they can demonstrate unequivocally that they have particular skills.

Students are happy to be able to study and know that it's important to demonstrate their skills - but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't be happier if they could demonstrate their skills without the invasive testing software. I argue this is setting up a false choice: "you can either learn nothing at all, or do so under this cheating software". But the reality of the situation is that they can still learn and demonstrate their skills without the cheating software.

I see it as a currently-necessary annoyance, as the least bad option... shutting down education until the pandemic's over is unfeasible.

Is it necessary though? Have you considered there are ways other than testing for a student to demonstrate their knowledge on a subject? Projects, presentations, and writing all come to mind as effective ways to measure knowledge on a subject and do not require treating all students like cheaters because a few choose to do so.

This is a lie of omission:

Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts... partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.

From wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie):

Lying by omission, also known as a continuing misrepresentation or quote mining, occurs when an important fact is left out in order to foster a misconception. Lying by omission includes the failure to correct pre-existing misconceptions.

Dr. Fauci believed that the real range was somewhere between 70 to 90 percent as you pointed out; however, he gave lower estimates to the public because he didn't believe the public was "ready to hear what he really thinks". So not only was he failing to correct pre-existing misconceptions, but he was actively spreading misconceptions about how much of the population he believed needed to be vaccinated. As such, he was lying by omission.

I tend to agree that the world generally is more dull than people like to believe. However, I'd say that mostly applies to people trying to make more ordinary events more extraordinary. But in the case of covid, we already have an extraordinary situation.

I don't have any evidence that the CDC was deliberately withholding information (not to say it doesn't exist), but I do have evidence that medical leaders have felt it okay to lie to the public with regards to covid.

In the pandemic’s early days, Dr. Fauci tended to cite the same 60 to 70 percent... And last week, in an interview with CNBC News, he said “75, 80, 85 percent” and “75 to 80-plus percent.”

In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.

“When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” Dr. Fauci said. “Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-covi...

So by your logic, it would be okay for a twitter employee to modify a tweet from of the president's account to declare war (or to any number of things that would have very real repercussions in the real world)

It appears that reddit prefers that people believe it is the original author's words when they edit someone's post:

"I messed with the “f*** u/spez” comments, replacing "spez" with r/the_donald mods for about an hour," Huffman said, indicating that the only thing he secretly altered was the target of the insults.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13739026/reddit-ceo-stev...

Reddit's response can be found here: https://np.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/mbqgx2/a_clarifi...

We’re seeing a number of good questions regarding where our policies around public information, personal information, and harassment intersect. While we’re unable to comment on specific employment details, we do want to address a few of these questions, especially around what is or isn’t allowed to be posted. A few answers:

    May we allow articles about an admin's personal and professional history?

    May we allow proper names of admins?

    Can we allow wikipedia pages if they mention the names of admins?

    If we approve this kind of content can we be banned?

Nevertheless, there have been instances where mods have been removed from their positions or suspended over repeatedly ignoring site wide rules or encouraging others to break them.

    Given that this person is a public figure, why is this standard in place? They ran for public office and have been covered in the media.

    Ok, so why did you suspend the mod last night just for posting the name of an admin? (this is not a quoted question, but a sentiment we’re still seeing here so wish to address)

The EU was hit especially hard too, is that somehow the US's right-wing's fault too? Maybe the fact that the virus is incredibly contagious is at fault for there being a global pandemic...?

are you implying that the act of deciding to have a long lockdown necessitates that the decision makers do not care about children

Not quite... I'm referring to the fact that society has often gotten quite worked up over "think of the children" arguments for perceived dangers, but when faced with a real threat to child welfare, the response has been rather mild in comparison.

Anyone else find it strange that a country that has often fallen in line with "think of the children" arguments for hypothetical dangers appears to be completely uncaring about very real dangers of social isolation that are impacting our youth?

It's nice that you have been able to deal well with the situation this last year, but try to remember that your experience is not necessarily representative of the whole:

The districts, large and small, rural and urban, serve more than 2.2 million students across the United States. Of the 74 districts that responded, 74% reported multiple indicators of increased mental health stresses among students. More than half reported rises in mental health referrals and counseling. Nearly 90% of responding districts cited higher rates of absenteeism or disengagement, metrics commonly used to gauge student emotional health

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-c... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26532588)

People seem to blame the people giving out loans or the people receiving them. However, isn't this all the colleges fault for dramatically increasing their tuition over the last 20ish years?

Student loan forgiveness would be nice for the people who currently have student loan debt, but tomorrow, a whole new group of young people will be signing these loans and so what then? If the cost of higher education is allowed to rise unchecked, we are just going to continue to have this problem, no matter how many times we forgive loan debt.

IMO we need policies similar to rent control on college tuition.

It may be something entirely different though, point is it is not hard to come up with a context where these slides are not criticizing the color of people’s skin.

I agree that your above scenarios could change the context.

However, given that I perceived the slides in a different manner, and several others did as well (if no one perceived this to mean white people, then there would have been no news). Would you agree that using "white" to mean something other than the race in a seminar titled 'Facing Racism' is less likely than 'white' being used to refer to race? If not, would you agree that the Robin's usage of 'white' was poorly thought out, considering that people ended up with the conclusion that she was referring to race?

I do believe that Robin was referring to 'white' in terms of race; however, I'm willing to explore the possibility that this wasn't the case.

In the event that my assumption is correct - that Robin is referring to race - would you then agree that Robin is a member of the left who believes that white culture should be viewed negatively based on the content of the slides within the seminar?

The coco-cola incident made national news, I imagine there are better articles out there; I simply grabbed the first one on google - I should have sought out a better one to link to.

However, from the article, you can see several of the slides that are presented. I find it hard to believe that there's some other context than race being referred to in these slides. Do you have reason to believe that the "white" in the slides is referring to something other than race? And if not, could you provide a possible greater context that doesn't place these slides under the guise of making broad generalizations about a group of people based on their identity? I am trying to think of one myself; however, I am failing to do so.

Here's a more bland article on the incident: https://www.fox5dc.com/news/coca-cola-staff-told-in-online-t...

edit: Misread the article and grabbed the first name I saw. This edit fixes the reference:

"The seminar entitled 'Facing Racism' , given by Robin DiAngelo , was presented through LinkedIn Education publicly, although not free of charge. The company admitted that, in effect, it invited its workers to take the course, but they clarify that it was not mandator"

I would assume that Robin DiAngelo would be on the left.

There are people on the left that assume that if you have white skin, then you must act a certain way, and that way of acting is wrong. This is based solely on the person's race, no individual characteristics need be considered.

If you disagree, then please explain what happened here with coke: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/366132 "Coca-Cola Asks Its Workers to Be 'Less White' to Fight Racism"

So you'd like to make lying illegal...? I have an amendment to show you, it's actually the very first one!

Remember when the left said they wanted to unify the country? I guess squashing all opposing viewpoints is one way to do that... Maybe they should get some help from Russia and China, I hear they have a lot of experience in dealing with 'misinformation'

I do not think it's easy to convey to someone what this last year has been like for a lot of people who live alone. As such, I can't really blame the crowd that pushes for more intense lockdown measures - their motives for doing so are generally good. Thankfully the vaccine is being distributed so I'm fairly confident this will all end soon

[edit]

Facebook is not a public space at this time. As such, they have the right to kick anyone off their platform without reason - just as you may choose who to invite inside your home. To those who are arguing on free speech: your argument has no merit. And until facebook is considered a public space, your argument will continue to have no merit. If you would like to give your argument a leg to stand on, then I would suggest you focus your efforts on making facebook and similar platforms public spaces under the law. I think you'll find instances like this will serve you in making this argument.

I'm not necessarily advocating to remove the lock downs and instead simply throwing our hands up and going "oh well!", but I can't help but wonder whether there is something better than the current system. I hate this virus, I hate what it's done to the world, I hate that I'm completely powerless to do anything about it. Instead, I'm left with a chorus of desperate screams where my thoughts once were, with no one to listen and no prospect of change anytime soon.

There has to be a better solution than this, doesn't there?

I was concerned that if only partial information became available, the anti-CoC crowd might jump on this as an example of problems with codes of conduct more generally, or might point at this as part of “cancel culture” (a concept I vehemently disagree with, since what is referred to as “cancellation” is often just “facing consequences”).

The point I wish to make is that Jeremy is either experiencing some cognitive dissonance, or his frustration is overriding his fear with regards to his position on CoCs in general.

Whether he intends for it or not, his article taken as a whole aligns much more closely with the gripes from the "anti-CoC crowd" than one in support of CoCs; despite him stating that he is attempting to deter the anti-CoC crowd. Why? Well his argument is that the CoC committee is essentially a capricious entity. This is evidenced by his expected experience versus reality, among other things:

I was also heartened that the manual has a section “Communicate with the Reported Person about the Incident” which says they will “Let the reported person tell someone on the CoC response team their side of the story; the person who receives their side of the story should be prepared to convey it at the response team meeting”.

but then the actual experience did not go quite as planned:

I was stunned. The representative could not even commit to a time when they would get back to me, or tell me what would be happening next. I told them that I thought that telling someone that they had a violation report, but then not saying what it is, or when or whether they would be able to provide their side of the story, or providing any time-frame for any next step was cruel.

The next call did not happen for another week (I had made myself available to meet any time). I was shocked to read that the purpose of the call would be to “discuss the results of our investigation”. I could not understand how they could have completed their investigation and have results, without any input from me.

And Jeremy's true feelings about the situation were laid out at the top of the article:

The process has left me shattered, and I won’t be able to accept any speaking requests for the foreseeable future.

And directly following it is his dissonance/fear kicking in: > ... for the foreseeable future. I support the thoughtful enforcement of Code of Conducts to address sexist, racist, and harassing behavior, but that is not what happened in this case.

Throughout the article, we find Jeremy constantly defending the ideas behind CoCs. Despite that, the entire article serves to show how those ideas utterly failed in practice; and as such, serves as an example against CoCs. As such, I hypothesize that this is either because Jeremy does not actually agree with CoCs, but is too fearful that he feels it's necessary to consistently defend their ideas. Or he still hasn't come to terms with the fact that CoCs aren't all he's made them up to be, and now that he's gone through the other end of it and been left feeling "shattered" is struggling to reconcile his emotions and experience from his ideology regarding CoCs.

In the event Jeremy's defense of CoCs is fear based, then I am saddened about the current state of affairs. On the other hand, if it's the case that he is experiencing cognitive dissonance, I wish him the best of luck finding clarity.

Does any else have other ideas on the author feels compelled to defend CoCs while at the same time damaging their reputation via example?