davidhollander

> no one who's signed up for it can ever free themselves from its grasp, nor their personal information from its database.

I've personally deleted all my personal information from my first Facebook account a few years ago. There were zero consequences for doing so. I didn't even loose any friends, so I put it back up after a year offline to make it easier for people to find my email address and phone number.

> My point was that group thinking leads to moral equivocation, tolerance for authoritarianism and overall civic rot, and that we're better off if more off-beat, free thinking, smart people decline their invitation to this behemoth, or burn it in effigy

Why does Facebook promote authoritarian group think and civic rot more than email, text message, instant message, twitter, voice mail, phone calls, television, and newspapers? Is social media in general or Facebook in particular more likely to promote "groupthink" and "civic rot" than older forms of media? How can we confirm or disprove this hypothesis? Do protest organizers using Facebook to orchestrate the Egyptian revolution provide evidence supporting or negating your hypothesis?

> chose to misinterpret the most basic of my references, "camp", to mean a nazi death camp, most likely means you either didn't read what I wrote or you were trolling.

My position regarding 'violation of freedom' is hopefully clear: even comparing Facebook to summer camp is hyperbolic. As innocent as summer camps are, they violate far more freedoms than Facebook. Attendance is compulsory, and as you pointed out, your freedom of speech and ability to dissent as an atheist was denied.

I believe we share the same concerns regarding groupthink and authoritarianism. I also enjoyed your prior allusion to Orwell. But like Orwell, I believe the most harm comes from imprecision in the meaning of language. I do not believe your definition of 'freedom' and 'heinous violation of freedom' allows one to differentiate between the acts of Facebook and the acts of full blown authoritarian governments with camps. That is, I believe your method of reasoning will actually make it harder for people to identify institutions that fall into the later category, which is why I posed the question as to whether this disservices those who have suffered under such institutions.

The alternate definition of freedom I proposed was that of John Locke. He used it to derive a principle in Two Treatises on Government for detecting when governance is illegitimate and may be overthrown. I believe adopting such a position regarding freedom will help further your goal of opposing authoritarian groupthink more so than your current method and organizational target.

To resummarize my position above:

A 'violation of freedom' requires the use of force by an authority. A parent forcing a child to go somewhere in spite of their preferences is a 'violation of freedom'. A government forcing a citizen to go somewhere in spite of their preferences is a 'violation of freedom'. Neither the first case nor the second case are necessarily the same proportionality or equally 'heinous'. 'heinous violations of freedom' implies massive and egregious use of force by authority. The institutionalized system of heinous violations of freedom is known as Authoritarianism.

A company voluntarily offering a free service that users have the option of using if it fulfills their preferences has not committed a 'violation of freedom'. It is not capable of committing a 'violation of freedom' unless it first asserts the right to use force and becomes an authority. Accusing it of violations of freedom that are heinous is to accuse it of Authoritarianism.

Have I "owned up" to my position by repeating it with sufficient clarity? Could you be kind enough to point out the logical fallacies in my position, which I have offered for public critique solely so that others may help me clarify it, before accusing me of trolling?

I do not believe this matter has been previously settled by Sartre without the use of metaphysics, I generally side with Wittgenstein that clarity of definition is needed to resolve philosophical conflict.

I suspect the point of contention is lack of clarification of definitions and terms, particularly regarding 'freedom', the OP's phrase 'heinous violations of freedom', and the concept of violations of freedom in general.

I would define 'freedom' in a very narrow and non-metaphysical sense, as 'the ability to make choices free of threats of violence by others'. I derive this definition by asking the following questions: Do slaves choose where to work? Do prisoners choose what to eat? Do victims of murder choose to die? Or has someone else made the decision for them by threatening violence?

This is more or less the definition of 'freedom' by philosophers of Liberalism and more precisely http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_liberty . Under such a definition, the concept of 'violation of freedom' is semantically linked to authority, force, and violence.

Examining Stallman's logic, one finds a variety of alternate definitions of 'freedom'. Whether these are more universally consistent definitions of 'freedom' is up for others to decide. The ongoing debate over whether it is fair to characterize the actions of Facebook and similar corporations as 'heinous violations of freedom' will remain unresolved until a definition of 'freedom' is agreed upon.

Which an authority figure sent him to against his will. Authoritarian power is universally derived the ability to assert the right to legitimate force over others. This is in sharp contrast to voluntary institutions and businesses such as Facebook or Google, which assert no right to legitimate force, and are therefore limited to the power which individuals choose to grant them for catering to their preferences.

Calling Facebook an oppressive and authoritarian camp violating freedom seems extremely hyperbolic. Doesn't this disservice the experience of those who have actually died in oppressive and authoritarian camps?

Is the mental pain individuals experience when using freely provided and voluntary services equivalent to the physical pain individuals experience when coerced to perform actions against their will via threats of violence?

While implicit threats of violence may exist in the majority of parent-child relationships (mandatory schooling, etc), I have not seen any evidence of such a relationship between companies like Facebook or Google and their customers.

All flora, fauna, and hydrocarbons are merely aggregates of either solar or geothermal energy, which appears to be virtually infinite for the next few billion years. The rise and fall of individual business models for energy conversion does not imply deterministic limits or that military hegemony produces any benefits.

While certain metals are rare to Earth, they are overly abundant on asteroids which robots have already visited. Severe shortages would create a corresponding incentive to invest capital in extraterrestrial resource extraction, which would lead to much greater long term abundance.

> in light of China's 50-100 year vision for where they want to be, we are basically fucked. The chinese have been securing access to all major natural resources in Africa, as well as being the manufacturing hub for EVERYTHING - while the US government is squabbling over petty short term profit efforts and securing a diminishing resource (oil).)

Is it possible for island nations with no natural resources to be wealthy? Are you familiar with the historical and economic criticisms of Mercantilism? Are you aware that world proven oil reserves are at an all time high, and that the primary source of US oil and energy imports is Canada? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism

Given that law enforcement officers are permitted to initiate physical force in mandating attendance, perhaps they could also involuntarily medicate students with mood altering stimulants to accomplish this? It might make them better off later. However since we have extinguished all opportunities available to the individual unseen from our limited perspective, by forcing choice of the benefit that was seen, it is not epistemologically possible for us to know. We must instead confine ourselves to a discussion of the means and processes by which these ends are realized. This includes discussion of whether individuals have the right to initiate force against others to achieve ends, and whether they are able to delegate rights they do not have to agencies of enforcement via nonmagical means.

> increase the age of required education to 18 [2]. This sounds like a good idea on paper

I would recommend reading Cevin Soling's "Why Public Schools Must be Abolished" for the opposite viewpoint:

While it is possible for a North Korean POW to learn calculus under duress from their prison guard, it is reasonable to assume they will: A) associate math with incarceration; B) despise the inmates who learn for appearing readily complicit with their captors; and C. try to forget the information the moment they are free.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2012/02/27/w...

> we will not know

We could try checking the internet

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden

Fear is not always irrational. If we encountered a large tiger while out on a walk, it would be a very beneficial response. To discuss the pragmatics, the problem appears to be the near deterministic impossibility of shutting off the defense contracting money spigot once it has been opened. It's not a business one has the power to boycott.

> so they have little to no basis for making an informed decision about their care or provider

The problem with not allowing individual choice in regards to health decisions is illustrated succinctly by the War on Drugs.

Additionally, even if we rigorously proved that local decision actors in a market operate upon highly imperfect knowledge when making decisions, it would not constitute a proof that a global decision actor with access to enlightened knowledge would be able to make decisions for them more efficiently or justly by employing a non-market based algorithm.

> If a child or loved one is involved you're even less likely to start thinking about dollars over medicine

Why is medicine different from food, water, and shelter? Aren't those even more important survival needs we are forced to make tradeoffs regarding every day?

Yes, most agree that security against unexpected and unpredictable costs, such as emergency room visits and catastrophic illness, is the proper role of insurance.

However, for drugs, chronic treatment, and preventative procedures, costs would much lower if consumers were allowed to shop around and haggle prices without going through insurance. This is why you see certain operations like Lasik, which are elective and not covered by anyone's insurance, becoming highly roboticized and deflating in cost rather than inflating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WnS96NVlMI

> A regular paycheck is like crack.

> the cycle you get stuck in

Is a behavior being "self-reinforcing" or "addictive" a sufficient definition that allows us to distinguish between things considered slavery, and things not considered slavery? Should screenwriters of dramatic television employing cliff hangers, alcohol brewers, and coffee shop owners, be considered slave-holders? Would you hold that waking at a set hour of the day, and sleeping at a set hour of the day constitutes slavery, due to its cyclic nature?

What term would you use to describe situations involving claims of ownership over the production of others coerced to produce against their will under threat of violence or legal sanction?

The argument was invoked by John C Calhoun, Thomas Roderick Dew, and George Fitzugh in the beginning of the 19th century in their defenses of slavery.

Additionally, any form of socialism advocating for the abolishment of capitalism through political organization rather than voluntary abandonment also presupposes that one can legitimately claim ownership over the output and life of another through use of force.

"Wage slave" is an anti-concept used by individuals to rationalize their belief that coercive slavery can be morally legitimate. In order to do so, they must conflate voluntary impositions on freedom (doing what your boss says to obtain their property) with coercive impositions on freedom (doing what your owner says to avoid violence). At the start of the industrial revolution, the term was used by plantation owners in the South to attack factory owners in the North.

Unexpected maintenance costs can be factored into the consumer cost using expected value, similar to how one accounts for recurring costs such as fuel efficiency in the decision to purchase a vehicle.

Your reasoning is similar to a company computing the cost of web hosting using only the initial cost of one server, without accounting for the cost of downtime or multiple backup servers. Maximum effort does not imply a process with 99% reliability is 100% reliable, and that the cost of failure can be written off.

This is not making a claim in regards to Tesla or the accuracy of the $40k figure, merely that cost matters.

> is already partially regulated by one side: the US

> while ignorant readers think this is a benevolent editorial in defense of Internet freedom

Who is doing the external regulation is not the issue, the issue is quantity of external regulation. Attempts for the US to expand regulation must be opposed, as well as attempts to centralize regulation internationally at the behest of countries who would also like to expand regulation. There are two directions the internet can take: more external regulation or less external regulation. The goal should be as close to zero external regulation as possible.

> The author of the article (an FCC commissioner) simply defends the interests of one side

The messenger never matters, what matters is the message. Since everyone is guilty of self-interest, if it is made a criteria for wrongness then everyone is wrong.

Yes, that was my argument. I believe it stands until a semantic context for "completely peaceful and nice" can be proposed that is disjoint in meaning from "nonviolent and voluntary".

> "communism" can be completely peaceful and nice

Perhaps some forms of Anarcho-socialism could be argued to be both completely nonviolent (peaceful) and voluntary (nice). However any form of Communism calling for the abolition of capitalism, which asserts that others do not have the right to continue asserting claims to private ownership of capital independently, most certainly cannot be considered either.

Keep up the good work with regards to precompiled luajit binaries.

> you're an outcast if you don't step aboard. If your professional environment standardizes on a platform

Although employment and social circles DO limit your range of actions, you accept the tradeoff voluntarily in exchange for benefits. You can find a new job or people to associate with if the benefits do not justify the cost, without your employer or friends being able to legally threaten you with violence. On the other hand if you refuse to allow surveillance or investigation by the law, they are authorized to use as much force as is necessary to seize your property, imprison you, or execute you. It's completely voluntary in that regard.

"Voluntary" can be viewed as an antonym for "coerced", where coercion implies an underlying threat of violence. Forced denial of an individuals life, liberty, and property can be construed as violence or coercion. Such properties do not presuppose the presence of another person or governing body, so may be considered intrinsic to the individual. However, employers or friends denying the deliverance of their property or empathy to you cannot be construed as violence or coercion. Such exchanges presuppose the presence of multiple people, and therefore cannot be considered the denial of a property intrinsic to one individual.

> because the data are voluntary response data and are useless for modeling reality

Unless the reality you seek to model is regarding voluntary responders. Just pretend the OP said "those volunteering information to Hacker News (commentators)" instead of "Hacker News readers".

> Yeah, this is the reason I use a track point instead of a mouse.

VIM + touchpad beneath space bar on a standard laptop works well too. I can left\right click with my left thumb and move the cursor with my right thumb without my primary digits leaving the home keys.

> Popular science, sometimes called literature of science, is interpretation of science intended for a general audience. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_science

Conflation of genres imo, both science shows and "popular science" shows can be enjoyed independently of one another, similar to how adults may enjoy both drama and comedy. From what I've seen of Bang Goes the Theory on youtube, it appears to be a clone of MythBusters and cover much fluffier one-off engineering problems simple enough to reproduce on TV.

On the other hand, ScienceNow is more of a newsmagazine that highlights what several different researchers are currently working on, and why they are interested in that problem. Ex: natural language processing robots, growing human ears on mice for reconstructive surgery, etc.

Anyone interested in NdGT, check out the show he hosts: Nova Science Now

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/

You can watch full episodes online, no commercial interruptions after they start. It does a good job at filling the popular science video niche, in addition to Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman.

Not by default in arch linux, debian, ubuntu, etc. Requires an extra module.

I believe this is specific to OSS, which was deprecated after it went closed source for a bit and ALSA replaced it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Sound_System

I'm fairly happy using the OpenAL API instead to generate audio cross-platform at the moment.

>incomethax: They could care less about what innovative businesses think

>mcritz: I think the chamber of commerce could care less.

I think both of you meant they could "not" care less.

> So there are certainly uses for sync iteration tools (like _.each())

_.each() is NOT blocking, anymore than "var x = 1" is blocking, "callback(error, result)", or asynchronous_operation(callback) is blocking. It introduces NO synchronous waits. It cannot magically decompile your nonblocking system calls, and recompile them as blocking system calls or insert "while(true)"s. You have to explicitly add the blocking code yourself.

> Do you know/assume that the function itself takes care of the async aspects, or do you know/assume that the caller must take care to set up that structure?

It's still nonblocking. Whether one figured out how to pass all the parameters to a function and complete their intended code is a different question then whether or not completed code is blocking. Is this code blocking? == Does this code introduce undesirable synchronous waits and stalls?

Seriously, write a simple C program and prove all of this to yourself.