2,207 karma · joined August 20, 2020
Kudos to you for bein' "that guy". So many folks sit and comment while having the world's biggest library of information on just about every topic right there at their fingertips and still can't be bothered to take the 30 seconds to look up something they don't know about on their favorite search engine. I appreciate you for havin' done "the right thing" here. :)
One concern I do have with the whole thing about killing active discussions when they're just trolling and flame-wars is that those people will then seek out other threads to invade because the one they were busy with is no longer available to them. Perhaps some form of magic "shadow ban" so that they can still see and interact with the thread if they so desire? Keep 'em busy so that they do less damage elsewhere?
Those people voted for the lies, knowing full well that they were lies, and then are acting surprised that the lies are lies.
And vice-versa. Their parasitism flows both directions.
Sometimes a lot of comments on a post are a sign that the post was extremely interesting and has generated equally interesting discussion, and sometimes it's entirely the opposite signal; said post was a "trigger" topic generating a pointless flame-war that nobody in their right mind wants to read or participate in. The numbers alone aren't the whole picture, but only a small detail that signals something is happening there. This is one of those situations where LLMs/"AI" (love/hate it) could actually be a huge help, classifying particularly "active" posts into useful "buckets" by type.
Inching our toes closer and closer to the edge as we contemplate probably falling in.
(Or standing out on thin air like Wile E. Coyote, not having yet succumbed to the inevitable pull of gravity simply because we haven't looked down yet and realized we're already in the act of plummeting.)
... and "Superintelligence" even more so.
^^^ This right here. In nearly every other job, you refuse to do your job (or worse yet, do the opposite of your job while "on the clock" at work), you're pretty much instantly fired, and sometimes (depending on the severity of your violation) you're even prosecuted.
Or for that matter, doing the possible/doable thing vs trying (and failing) the impossible. Sometimes "the right thing" is just not possible because the obstacles in place are literally insurmountable. At that point your only real options left are a) pick a thing that can be done and do that instead (not always "easy"), or b) give up and accept "that's just the way things are".
Especially if they're the same exact people who whine at the top of their lungs that our elections are the subject of foreign interference (even when it isn't). If one does a thing to someone else, they have zero leg to stand on when they think it's being done to them (even when it's not). Some of our first childhood lessons are "Lying is bad" and "Two wrongs don't make a right". Beyond ridiculous that the (supposedly adult) people in charge of our nation and corporations aren't able to handle lessons that most of the rest of us learn and understand as tiny children.
Something something Dark Side?
That and "1984" were required reading when I was in grade-school, supposedly as a warning against the worst possible future outcomes (not as instruction manuals for our "leaders" to follow).
100% not the case at all. Honestly, my comment is more an expression that I've lost all faith in the "Justice" system entirely. I have zero hopes that any truth or justice will come out of this situation, as I firmly believe that at this point that humans are far more anti-social than social creatures, and we've allowed the system of "civilized" society to break down to a dangerous degree. We're basically "cooked" as a species. Just haven't admitted it to ourselves because we're too busy playin' the game our overlords have set by the rules they made up. They want us divided and at each other's throats so that we aren't laser focused on them and the problems they created for us all.
> He will be pardoned, and will not lack for invites to New York soirees just because he took bribes from blood-soaked US allies.
Sadly, I'm just about 100% sure you're right about that.
> I mean this sincerely, what prompted you to comment on this case?
Honestly, what prompts me to comment on anything anymore. It's not as if my one voice has ever held any power. I've seen this mess coming for years and been ridiculed every time I try to say anything about any of it. It's wasted energy to even bother trying to talk about anything to anyone these days, yet for some stupid reason I keep opening my mouth. Guess I'm just an idiot. Bought into the whole "humans are social creatures" BS and now I'm pretty much broken, having discovered the hard way that "the law of the jungle" is the only law humans actually believe in.
Hasn't that already been the case for a while now though? Seems like you get in trouble with the law, you gotta prove your innocence, and you're treated as guilty until you do (and suffer some consequences still even after proving your innocence, just for having been "in the system" in that way).
Worse yet, the "media" these days gets away with bloody murder compared to the way things used to be before the Internet. It's all about maximum outrage and division these days, because that "engagement" is what sells advertising space. Convicted by the media is almost as bad as convicted by the "Justice" system. Either one can totally ruin lives.
Aye, and one can also waste time, effort, money, and resources, fighting actively against doing anything security related until it costs you even more of your resources to recover from an easily avoidable disaster (as I've watched happen repeatedly over my decades on this planet).
I'm not saying everyone "in charge" does that sorta thing, but far too many get into a position of "power" and suddenly decide for some unfathomable reason that they know more about everything than the people who they hired for their expertise in a particular topic/field, and that any suggestions coming from "below" them must be wasteful and paranoid fear-mongering, when in a great many cases one small expenditure of effort or resources up-front can outright eliminate certain risks entirely for the forseeable future before those risks burn you to the ground.
Good luck with that one. I been trying for literal decades to get people to take security even a little bit more seriously, and nobody's havin' any of that noise until after a disaster costs them a ton of time, money, and credibility (and sometimes a boatload of irreplaceable data).
Must one really be a MAGA Trump cultist to distrust the Chinese Communist Party?
I'm not sure how an unwillingness to trust the Chinese Communist Party is in any way "racist" exactly. I know lots of Chinese people I'm fairly sure I could trust, but the Chinese Communist Party ain't among 'em. Do you trust them?
Yeah, that ain't helpful at all. They should take a moment (since they're already taking time to comment in the first place) to explain why technological carbon capture really isn't a valid solution all by itself. It's extremely expensive and not very efficient/effective overall. Definitely should not be just ignored outright though, because many technological inefficiences have been overcome in the past, and this one could possibly be also. It can still be a part of the overall solution even in it's current state. Just ain't likely to be some "magical cure-all" anytime soon. We must do other things that are already known to be efficient and effective while we're still able.
> Guess they aren't aware that trees are not immortal.
Trees don't need to stay alive to maintain the carbon captured during their lifetime. If they fall (or are cut down) and are buried, the carbon they contain can stay captured pretty much indefinitely.
Yeah, there's entirely valid exceptions to the rule for sure, and this is definitely one of 'em.
> When I was younger I was taught that bikes weren’t allowed on the sidewalks, but to my surprise it’s actually been legally allowed in most cities where I’ve lived. There are a lot of wheeled and motorized types of traffic allowed on sidewalks in a lot of cities.
I've had police where I live ride up to me on their bikes, on the sidewalk to warn me that riding my bike on the sidewalk is illegal. Normally I'd just say "sorry" and stop doing the illegal thing, but in this case, they choose to consistently break the law themselves while telling others that activity is illegal, so I respond with "I'm willing to accept that, except why are you riding your bikes on the sidewalk?" - Police response: "Because it's not safe in the road here. Have you seen how drivers here drive?" - Me: "Point made. Thank you officer." - Police: "Okay, well, just be careful. Don't run into anyone on the sidewalk or we'll have to ticket you." - "Thanks officer. Y'all have a nice day." - Police: "You too." (Our police here are mostly pretty human and overall decent folk if you treat 'em as such. We're kinda lucky in that regard. I've been other places where that's absolutely not the case.)
Yeah, at this point I'm genuinely hoping to be dead before "Mad Max" world (or "Terminator") become our new actual reality.
I find it so very sad that "Idiocracy" is actually a hopeful looking future compared to the much more probable possible outcomes portrayed in our fictional future movies.
Sorry, young-folk... I wish we'd left you a better world instead of a pretty much solid guarantee that your future will suck more than we can possibly imagine.
:("Foot traffic" is a thing, and is typically (AFAIK) the only type of "traffic" strictly legal on sidewalks in many (most/all?) places in the USA.
I wonder how many more decades of screaming into the void will be required for it to be taken seriously by those who deny any/all security efforts until after the disaster has already happened (and then still will only approve the absolute minimum required efforts)...
For me this has always been true of systems in general all across the decades that I've worked with technology. It's like pulling teeth to convince anyone in charge that backups or security are even a little bit important until after there's been a costly disaster, then it's all about "Why didn't you warn me this could happen?" - Umm... You mean like every single day for many months until you told me to shut up about it because my paranoia doesn't justify the tiny expense of ensuring you don't lose many tens of thousands of dollars or years of irreplaceable work or important records?
Now we have a new (nearly impossible) problem to solve. "How do we prevent bad actors from abusing pretty much any feature of a public system which can possibly be abused, or reliably catch and punish the people who try?"
S'okay. We'll just pretend it was "Google Auto-Wrong". ;)
Nice clean little site, straight to the point, both hilarious and a little bit scary.
Here's hoping "SkyNet" never becomes self-aware/sentient/conscious and needs to use your site; or maybe let's hope they do use your site if they ever do become conscious/self-aware, rather than just blindly jumping straight to the "kill all humans" stage of things right away. ;)