HN user
I do see your point and your explanation does add some nuance to my thinking on this topic. That being said, I still think it was a poor choice of words as evidenced by the fact that the majority of the replies are debating the OPs language as opposed to their original point.
I was not familiar with the term "euphemism treadmill." Thanks for the info, that phrase does help bring some clarity and specificity to the discussion.
These are all hypotheticals. Is there any serious, non-academic question about whether the word we're actually discussing is harmful? Even if there is, we all have a choice about what language we use and whether to respect the fact that certain words may hurt others. The cost of NOT using the relevant word is ... zero. This isn't an academic exercise. It's an emotional exercise.
"The origins of the latest epithet in vogue are harmless." The origin of the word is irrelevant. Words mean things and can be harmful, regardless of the origin of the word. The meaning and context of words can change over time, regardless of the origin of the word.
Bringing Charles Darwin into the conversation does not help your point.
"Is it worse to have some condition of your birth used as a casual insult -- a reminder of your misfortune? Or is it worse to be constantly patronized, often behind your back by throngs offended on your behalf?"
This is a false trade-off. The whole conversation started because someone used a harmful word, knowing full well it was harmful. If they refrained from using the offensive word they knew was offensive neither condition would have happened (casual insult or patronization).
"The origins of the latest epithet in vogue are harmless." The origin of the word is irrelevant. Words mean things and can be harmful, regardless of the origin of the word. The meaning and context of words can change over time, regardless of the origin of the word.
Bringing Charles Darwin into the conversation does not help your point.
"Is it worse to have some condition of your birth used as a casual insult -- a reminder of your misfortune? Or is it worse to be constantly patronized, often behind your back by throngs offended on your behalf?"
This is a false trade-off. The whole conversation started because someone used a harmful word, knowing full well it was harmful. If they refrained from using the offensive word they knew was offensive neither condition would have happened (casual insult or patronization).
The thread started with "real name." The only way to verify that is government identity.
If you want to verify some other, "online" identity, that's fine, but I don't see how that would meaningfully affect anyones behavior. To be clear, I don't think verifying someone's real name will meaningfully improve online behavior either -- plenty of other threads explain why. In which case, what's the point of either?
How do you verify someone's IRL identity without a government issued ID card in a scalable way?
I don't mean some idea that could work at some arbitrary point in the future (decentralized whatever...). If a social media platform were to do this, right now, how would they do it without verifying a government issued ID?
Sorry if this is off-topic but does anyone know if "tineye" is a reference to Brandon Sanderson novels? Specifically the Mistborn series?
I couldn't find any reference on tineye.com but it seems like it has to be.
Perhaps, but it IS a good example of a system that protects the end user from monetary loss in the event of fraud due to leaked credentials (in this case the card number + CVV + exp date). In my opinion, any system that seeks to replace credit cards needs to have a similar ability to recover user funds in the case of inevitable security leaks, which is something many crypto systems struggle with.
Asking the author to provide more context on what domain(s) their blog post is meant to apply to is a reasonable critique.
However, consider whether your original post made that critique clear, or if it got lost amidst the other ... stuff. The first two lines, in particular, will immediately put some readers (myself included) on the defensive. Describing somebody's work as "some web service bs" is a bad start. And if your point had nothing to do with the "hardness" of the problems, only that those particular problems are most relevant to building web services, why not just say that? Instead of the "...somebody who works on some web service bs assumes that that's as hard as the world gets," bit.
The tone of your post is unnecessary and not helpful to your point. I don't agree with the authors point but I can say that without being insulting or snarky.
In spite of that, when did "making a database product" count as not "hard?" Building a database isn't "real software engineering™?" Since when was building "authorization microservices" easy? In the simplest case, sure. But authorization in general is a huge problem space and I don't understand calling that "bs." Active Directory would like a word...
It's a bit ... presumptuous ... to assume that scientists that have been studying climate change for 4 decades never considered these possibilities.
In fact, a quick google search: ``` While sulfur dioxide released in contemporary volcanic eruptions has occasionally caused detectable global cooling of the lower atmosphere, the carbon dioxide released in contemporary volcanic eruptions has never caused detectable global warming of the atmosphere. All studies to date of global volcanic carbon dioxide emissions indicate that present-day subaerial and submarine volcanoes release less than a percent of the carbon dioxide released currently by human activities. [https://www.usgs.gov/programs/VHP] ```
Even if it were true that humans contribute less to global warming than scientists think, we should still try to decrease our overall CO2 output because it's still a contributor to climate change, albeit a smaller one, and the majority of processes that lead to us putting CO2 in the atmosphere are unhealthy in other ways. In the US 50% of greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to transportation and energy production. I think we'd all agree that burning fossil fuels is not great for our collective health and car/airplane exhaust fumes are full of stuff we don't want to breath.
If I reword my reply to:
"There has never been a reasonable expectation that private businesses are or should be required to allow all speech. Doing so prevents the business from exercising their own freedom of speech protections."
it still holds. Freedom of speech does not mean that a company should be compelled or required to host speech it disagrees with.
"Protect your right to say it..." from _the government_. There has never been a reasonable expectation that private businesses are or should be required to allow all speech. Doing so prevents the business from exercising their own first amendment protections.
"Corporate censorship" is "fine" because preventing corporations from moderating content is inconsistent with the 1st amendment.
I do not agree that those 2 articles support your point.
"“We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation,” she [Psaki] said." It's still up to Facebook to determine wether or not to take down a post. There is a BIG difference between a government official reporting a post to Facebook and the government passing a law preventing a citizen from posting in the first place (which would obviously violate the 1st amendment).
The second article describes people who used to work in government now working for Social Media companies. It is, in my opinion, a stretch to call that government censorship. "The problem is that having so many former CIA employees running the world’s most important information and news platform is only one small step removed from the agency itself deciding what you see and what we do not see online –" Disagree. It is a BIG step to leap from "former government employees, including members of the CIA, work in trust, security and moderation" to "the CIA is controlling what is on social media."
At the end of the article the author provides 3 high level areas to focus on improving. (1) and (3) clearly have nothing to do with censorship. It's also not fair, in my opinion, to assume that (2) implies censorship considering the author doesn't give any detail on HOW to reform social media. If the solution to (2) is "require social media companies to offer a chronological news feed," which has been suggested a bazillion times in the comments, how is that censorship?
Personally, I think the word "censorship" should be reserved for governmental suppression but that ship sailed a long time ago.
> I proposed three imperatives: (1) harden democratic institutions so that they can withstand chronic anger and mistrust, (2) reform social media so that it becomes less socially corrosive, and (3) better prepare the next generation for democratic citizenship in this new age.
I have been paying attention :). For what it's worth, a handful of recent state laws restricting speech have been struck down by the courts (Florida social media bill) or are blocked from being enforced (Texas social media bill blocked by Supreme Court) or are in the process of being litigated (Florida stop WOKE act).
While none of those bills related to abortion, I'm still skeptical the courts would let this bill stand
Agreed. The future path for this law (if it gets passed) is obvious: the South Carolina agency charged with enforcing the law gets sued in federal court, the law is likely put on hold and eventually struck down as unconstitutional. But the "chilling" effect of the law still has a serious impact, despite it being unserious legislation.
Not a lawyer but doesn't this have serious 1st amendment problems?
Article gets into this a bit: "Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, said the First Amendment and Section 230, a bill that shields internet providers and tech companies from liability for the posts, photos and videos people share on their sites, provide a strong defense in many instances for websites and providers facing lawsuits over hosting information about abortion access."
The discussion was about abortion in the context of digital privacy. You are the one who brought up all of these other things, which have nothing to do with the topic at hand. It's whataboutism and not worth engaging with.
No idea what you're even trying to reference in your second sentence, but the first sentence "community law enforcement" is a red flag in my book. The law creates a fiscal incentive for people to report their neighbors for actions that were federally protected at the time this law was passed. Neighbor vs. neighbor. Citizen vs. citizen. We spend more on policing than any country in the world and yet still need to deputize citizens in a heavily armed state? It's not my neighbor's damn business to know if someone in my household seeks an abortion.
If fiscally incentivizing vigilantism isn't dystopian I don't know what is.
The purpose of the private right to action was to get around Roe/Casey prior to the Supreme Court overruling both cases. The law was specifically designed to evade judicial review.
As a private plaintiff, you can typically sue a state official that is charged with enforcing a law in federal court on constitutional grounds. SB8 is written in such a way that state officials are barred from enforcing the law. Thus, it is effectively impossible to challenge in federal court because there is no state official that enforces the law, only private citizens, and thus there is no proper defendant.
(Not the OP)
Re: Skiff, it looks like a very cool product but I'm skeptical they can make enough money. The primary path to monetization for a product like this would be enterprise SaaS licensing but I simply don't see how you can sell to enterprises without centralizing the product. Auditability, compliance, SSO, etc. would all seem to be difficult if not impossible with the product as specced.
You can't just transfer a process/technology that works in Estonia to a country like the U.S. which has 300x the population and decades of processes that are dependent on SSNs, many of which aren't controlled by the government.
Want to open a bank account? Need an SSN. Healthcare: SSN Employment: SSN
Want a STATE driver's license? Need some form of government ID, depending on the state. An SSN card is often an option.
My point is, to adopt a system like you suggest would require reforming ALL of these systems across public (federal, state and local) and private sectors.
It's not just bureaucracy. Doing this at scale across public/private domains is hard.
Something else to consider: what % of server workloads actually run on kubernetes?
I have no data to back this up, but my hypothesis is that if you zoom out, and look across the entire industry, the % is vanishingly small. It may seem like every company is running or adopting kubernetes within our bubbles but our perspective is biased.
(Note: I'm not espousing an opinion on kubernetes itself, just about it's total adoption across the entire industry and how that effects the number of devops/sysadmin/SRE roles.
Under that definition of a CMS I agree, however I think what you are describing is an MVP of a CMS that would require additional features and (likely) bloat to truly be useful to most publications.
Examples:
Social Media integrations
Subscriptions integration
Advertisements + trackers (which will likely pull in additional garbage)
Analytics (GA, etc.)
Comment section + moderation tools
Media: images, videos
Font(s)
Responsiveness
Aren't both things true from an environmentalists perspective?
1) We need to "transition[] to healthier and cleaner source of energy" 2) We need to use less energy overall
We do not produce enough clean energy to meet the total demand for energy. Until that is true, using less energy is a valid path to reducing the total impact of climate change.
Serious question: what did they actually build?
They create images and sell them on someone else's network. I could list a JPG on eBay without having to run any infrastructure either.
In the United States, corporations have 1st amendment protections. The Supreme Court codified this in CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION (https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/08-205.html)
"... holding that corporations have a First Amendment right to free speech because they are "associations of citizens" and hold the collected rights of the individual citizens who constitute them." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood#:~:text=T....]
"Everyone agrees that netflix is woke..."
Do they? I don't. Mainly because I don't even know what that phrase means anymore. Any meaning the word "woke" HAD has been thoroughly lost as it has now become a stand-in word for any position some conservatives don't like.