MikeUt

> "Private security has zero authority on a public space," he later laments.

An excellent argument against the privatization of public space, such as those privately-owned parks publicized during the Wall Street protests.

> to support the tiny fraction of people who can do repairs.

And the massive fraction of people who can now choose who to hire for repairs. It is a lie to claim only repairmen are affected.

> a reasonable step for Microsoft to protect and improve their brand.

That MS chose to mandate cameras instead of hardware off-switches or disabled Management Engine backdoors to "protect their brand" should tell you everything.

But better not let consumers decide whether they want to "match Apple" and still access the Windows ecosystem, just in case.

Their skill at writing misleading headlines?

Comparative advantage theory also ignores that efficiency increases as you invest in an industry, and the acquired expertise helps related industries.

It especially ignores how another country can also buy/"partner" with your companies, and export their expertise to help their own companies, and harm yours.

A simplistic model that ignores a wide variety of behavior economic and political actors can and do engage in, yet that didn't stop economists from swearing up and down that there's nothing to worry about.

> it seems as the intent of Muse Group was to be as legally compliant as possible.

They deliberately and unnecessarily put themselves in a position where legal compliance could mean betrayal of their users.

So to tie this back to the examples he gives, you think mentioning that "black men are much more likely to commit crimes that might bring a call to the police" as a possible explanation for the disproportionate police killings, is akin to giving flat earther views equal weight in orbital mechanics?

> devices that cant have rootkits installed

And jail cells are just very secure apartments. There's always going to be a guard around to let you out, why is everyone freaking out?

They could even charge different customers different rates, partnering with advertising firms to provide customer identification and segmentation.

So did Instagram employ these fuck-you patterns from the start, or did they pretend to be friendly until they'd gotten enough market share and network effects?

That's called bait & switch, and is (if not legally in this case, then morally) rightly considered fraud.

But it is hypocritical to invoke the first amendment as a defense of private censorship when "bad" things are removed, then completely forget that defense when complaining about "good" things being removed.

It only shows up when the bad guys get censored.

So Apple's choice of no-sideloading has, through network effects, placed them in the role of arbiter of which messengers are viable, restricting choice for even non-Apple users.

Related: Berkeley Weeded Out Job Applicants Who Didn't Propose Specific Plans To Advance Diversity - https://reason.com/2020/02/03/university-of-california-diver...

(So they more than just ask)

It's interesting how

> their data showed investors spent 20% longer on the business model section of decks from all-female teams at the pre-seed stage than all-male teams.

becomes

> Men are allowed to have a vision or an idea on the back of a cocktail napkin, while women need to have fully established businesses and revenue streams.

It's easy to make someone look reasonable if you ignore their unreasonable statements.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/aboli...

"to put an end to something, such as an organization, rule, or custom"

Perhaps they should have chosen a slogan where the dictionary definition differs from the opinion of "a very very small niche".

Many large companies serve the world (Xiaomi, Hikvision, Hitachi, Samsung, Mitsubishi..) while their employees in their home countries are overwhelmingly native. So if international customer bases are the norm, but only Google (or US companies) have significant international hiring, that effectively disfavors US workers.

The choice of hiring pool is part of the hiring process. Expanding that pool to other countries is itself an act of disfavor to US workers.

Oh, okay. So we can keep claiming Google, a US company, favors white workers until when? Until less than 10%* of their US workers are white? Is that what being favored means? That companies in your own country look elsewhere to import workers?

*Ballpark white global population.

> Critics have long argued that Google and its tech industry peers favor white, Asian and male workers

Google was 51.7% white in 2020, down from 54.4% in 2019 *. The US is 61.5% white, meaning whites are under-represented at Google, and increasingly so. How can one then argue they are favored? Why do reporters not apply even the smallest degree of scrutiny to such claims?

* https://diversity.google/annual-report/

Union and Confederate veterans shaking hands at reunion to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg: https://www.loc.gov/item/2018652225/

I get the impression Americans today are more divided than people that literally used to shoot at each-other.

Those kinds of non-disclosure agreements should be illegal. Not just unenforceable, but illegal, with penalties for those that draft them. The public has a right to know the abuse carried out in the name of its legal system.

I agree it's possible, but the developed world already has sub-replacement fertility. Each additional hurdle (freezing eggs, committing to fitness, avoiding other health issues, still having the desire for more children in your 50s, ...) filters away another significant fraction of the population, until what is left has no hope of replacement fertility, or even a manageably slow decline.

You'll hit a population cliff, with all the pain associated with that metaphor.

> The dreaded issue of the 'biological clock' is where cryopreservation - or egg freezing - has completely changed the game.

Straight from the intro of Idiocracy.

And say you have your 1st child in your 40s. What about 2nd and 3rd? It takes 2.1 children per woman to sustain a population. How many 50 year old parents with a 5 year old running around will have the energy for a second child?

What's needed is a general defense against frivolous lawsuits. Something like a pre-trial phase where you're represented by a free public defender, and only if the plaintiff wins, can they move on to a "real" trial.

Edit: I should add that this should not be used to punish the plaintiff if they lose (or punish them very little), because that would imperil legitimate lawsuits. If you had a valid case, would you dare sue a multinational, if you knew losing the pre-trial meant having to pay their overpriced team of lawyers*?

*As an aside, the defendant should only be allowed the use of the free, public defender in the pre-trial, otherwise this pre-trial would be treated as just another full trial, with all the expense that entails.

> Selective truth: restrictive use of data or facts to sway opinion that might not be swayed if all the data or facts were given.

This is usually interpreted as presenting only half of a story, but the more common and powerful use is in presenting the whole story, while simply ignoring unfavorable stories, and promoting favorable ones. Is a murder front-page news, or a footnote? Depends on the murder.

That distinction is only relevant if talking about selling a patent from one patent holder to another. Instead we're talking about creating a patent.

There's a big difference between a parcel of private land changing hands, and a parcel of public land becoming private.

Parcel of public land. An overworked bureaucrat probably shouldn't be selling those off cheaply, should they? Some private land is even subject to the right to roam*, so the public can still access it.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam