oneJob

This is more or less an explicit version of the implicit tactics which, implemented as a whole, comprise the credit score system in the USofA. For a very direct take on the topic (there are other works on the issue, as it is backed by a fairly large school of thought) check out "The Making of the Indebted Man" by Maurizio Lazzarato. [1]

[1] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/making-indebted-man-0

I would like to see settlements of this sort for wrongful arrest. Police can arrest persons without stating the reason why, and come up with the reason at a later time. The person can be released if the police don't have enough evidence to prosecute, or even charge, the person. In fact, the police can arrest you, for which you'll have a record now, and never even intend to charge you. By this point the harm is already done, and the burden is placed on the individual to have the arrest record expunged from their record; more or less presumed guilty. Many people this tactic of harassment is used with do not have the resources or sophistication to do this. Their record now makes it more difficult or impossible to get a job or receive public benefits. They are in essence being punished without ever receiving the benefit of the justice system.

Before Silicon Valley gets all flattered, consider:

"Soifer has long studied the proportion of Harvard MBAs who pursue careers in finance; when more than 3 in 10 head for Wall Street, it's time for investors to sell, he says."[1]

I used to work on Wall Street. I left because of this issue writ large. There are quite a few pieces of research claiming this trend is a negative indicator.

[1]http://www.cnbc.com/id/45030885

I get and agree with focusing resources where you get the most payoff. But there is also something to be said for product differentiation. These two features definitely differentiate Firefox from Chrome and Safari, and do so in a useful way. There have been times that Tab Groups was the sole reason I stuck with Firefox. There have been times that the sole reason I did not move to Chrome was knowing I could never 100% personalize the GUI. Throw in the how Mozilla handled the DRM issue as well as Pocket and new tab sponsored websites fiasco and you begin to erode the privacy reasons for sticking with Firefox. Yes, Firefox must compete, must stay competitive, but if it becomes just another Chrome, there is no way they can compete with the resources Google can bring to the table. Firefox must compete on product differentiation or it will lose.

All that "non-profit" means is, from Wikipedia, :

"A non-profit organization is an organization that uses its surplus revenues to further achieve its purpose or mission, rather than distributing its surplus income to the organization's shareholders (or equivalents) as profit or dividends."

There are plenty of ways to raise capital that allow an organization to abide by such restrictions. A nonprofit is not strictly restricted on who it can hire or what products it can make or services it can offer. So, unless your definition of "successful" requires that you distribute surplus revenues to shareholders, then yes, it is possible to start a successful tech non-profit.

You can pay your employees massive salaries. You can raise massive amounts of debt to fund your expansion. You can employ ruthless business practices.

Many businesses do not distribute capital to shareholders until well after the business has matured, reasoning that the capital is better used growing the business. Meaning, the investors have a long investment horizon. Meaning, their initial smaller amount, often accompanied by additional rounds of funding, was enough to get a successful business going. Capital sources can include endowments, public and private grants, or payment for goods and services.

Personally, I believe that non-profits have gotten a bad wrap. There are some amazing companies out there that do not aim to return money to shareholders, that prioritize their product, their cause, or their customers. I'd highly, highly recommend checking out YouTube videos about Patagonia and it's founder, along these lines. You can even mis-use non-profit status. Many people don't realize that IKEA is a non-profit, and that the profits are extracted from its activities through some tax and legal loopholes.

Typically, the relevant issues are related to the raising of capital. But think about how that often turns out. Many founders raising outside capital lose control of their company or see their share diluted, that is if the company is even successful. And if it is, and they maintain control and their share of ownership, it could be a long time before there is any surplus revenue.

On the flip side, you can start a private company and be help accountable to no one but yourself. You can raise all different sorts of capital. And you can determine what social / environmental impact you make. You pretty much only lose the tax breaks.

So you see, it's really a matter of capital management, not of business management. You can reduce your options for raising capital from the get go, or you can choose to deal with taxes and possibly even make those go away, like GE magically does. But there are no impediments to you delivering a product or service to make the sort of impact you are hoping to make.

I had a sorta different reaction. I thought, it'd be amazing if everyone at Facebook had the option to take two months off for paternity leave and prioritize family over business without worrying about losing their job or good favor with their supervisor.

To be part of the team that sends humanity to Mars? Sign me up!

Yeah, I hate the vernacular definition of the word too but, it would have required more words to say it the other, better way.

Slash. Have read the book.

Perhaps this is the validating proof that commerce on the Internet has finally matured. There is a disruptive technology (ad-blocking) that is an existential threat to some of the largest companies on the web (Google, Yahoo, Facebook, et al.), and their reaction to date, by and large, has been to try to kill the technology. The kind of move a stodgy corporation would make.

I misread as "How we should talk to AIs."

Thought this was the AI (aka Stephan Wolfram) telling humans how it'd prefer we interact with it.

"Patients want ban on doctors taking money from prescription drug companies"

Good talk.

My bad. I said mutually exclusive. I meant and should have said independent.

Which I would have meant to mean, since ethics pervades all human endeavors, and science is a human endeavor, they are not completely independent.

So yeah, that's what I was trying to mean, but clearly said something else.

You've grossly mischaracterized my argument. I'm not sure you understood my argument. Normally I'd not reply or reply rather dryly, but given that you've taken to implying that I'm "sticking my head into the ground" and avoiding the "more important and harder to defend" question, decision, and so I'll take a moment here to answer your points individually.

I argued that they are not mutually exclusive and therefore must be balanced, which requires a decision, which is very much not sticking one's head in the ground. It is explicitly taking responsibility for any actions or decisions made from having weighed the, at times conflicting, issues / interests involved.

"Ethics as generally portrayed costs lives and increases misery in part by preventing useful studies from being done, but also though overhead from review boards."

This is an overly general statement (I'm not sure by what evidence you feel comfortable or on what basis you claim the authority to make such a claim on how ethics is generally portrayed) and not sure how you've calculate the overhead costs versus the overhead benefits (in situations where review boards prevent misery).

As to your reply, it makes a poor attempt at a "straw man" strategy, but even then lacks any evidence to support your counter-argument. You then proceed to the strategy of an "ad hominem argument", nakedly, and come across petty doing so, given the weight of the issue and the lack of seriousness with which you've treated the discussion up to that point. Finally, you've basically clumsily reworded a portion of the argument I put forth, betraying the fact that you either didn't understand my argument or are purposely trying to misconstrue my argument, while not engaging with the rest of what I put forth.

The chimpanzees are living creatures. Humans are living creature. This is an important and sober issue for many, many people. Please don't interject petty personal attacks into the conversation.

I would argue that your premise that science and ethics are mutually exclusive (they must be if you can say good/bad for science but good/bad for ethics) is completely, utterly false.

science := 1) the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment; 2) a systematically organized body of knowledge on a particular subject

ethics := 1) moral principles that govern a person's or group's behavior; 2) the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles

To take an either or approach to endeavors which touch on both science and ethics is to immediately set out with a means to ends vs ends to means approach depending on where one's priorities lie.

I'd argue that ethics is pervasive and pertinent across every and all human endeavors, including ethics, and that the task is to work the scientific process in an ethical manner. Not to put the two at odds.

Check out the book "Money: The Unauthorized Biography". It does an excellent job making an argument that a sovereign that loses control of the primary currency loses control of political primacy. This isn't just about terrorism or money laundering. It's very much about political power.

review 1: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/books/review/money-by-feli...

review 2: http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/book-review-mone...

review 3: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/08/money-the-unaut...

All awesome points. I host my own email on pretty much the same line of reasoning. The "more lucrative attack target" is a great point I hadn't factored in.

One of the most important issues raised by this article is that of enforcement. That the US Government is employed to enforce DRM is non trivial. Imagine you left a magnificent gold brick on your porch on the way out to work. You reason, it'd be illegal for anyone to move or take the brick without your permission, let alone enter your yard. You come home to find the brick gone and hold the US Government responsible. You tell the the Gov't, "When you leave a brick on your porch tomorrow, it better be there when you return home, or else (no campaign funds and you'll move you're $27 bank account off shore )."

The next day, there is a squad car and 4 cops sitting outside your gate. Not only that, the Gov't ensures you laws are being drafted to stiffen the penalty for anyone that might steal your brick or even enter your yard without permission, and Gov't prosecutors are standing by ready to prosecute with the threat of jail time (, but don't worry they'll pick up the legal and prison fees).

Without such Gov't activities you wouldn't be able to afford to continue leaving gold bricks on your porch.

I can't wait for the detailed HN post explaining how this scheme was defeated.

With the recent security issues surrounding LastPass, it makes me wonder, is the bar set too low even for professional products? Does LastPass not do this testing on their own? Does LastPass not reach out to the security community and contract to have this testing done, proactively? I mean, these folks pulled this off in their 10% time...

Speaking of security concerns, you might think twice before continuing to use OwnCloud as a part of your password vault solution. It's had critical security bugs in the past, and I'd wager more in the future.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2845072/ubuntu-owncloud-and-a...

Part of the value of a service like LastPass (not a fan personally, but for argument sake I think ths still holds for this issue) is that someone is (should be) always on duty to monitor the service for suspicious activity and be ready to respond to security issues in the code base. While you're in class or a meeting or a movie or asleep, they can already be locking ish down and implementing patches / fixes.

I've booked marked this. Will check out later.

"Edward Snowden Explains How to Fix the Internet"

Much love for Snowden. He is a personal hero of mine. I think he should be a personal hero of yours. I think we should have statues of the guy.

Just as Snowden didn't want the story to be about him, to be a personality piece, when he released the trove of information which shook the privacy world to its core, I think he'd agree that any response to this new information should not be focused on or directed toward what he personally endorses by virtue of him as a 'personality'.

Unfortunately, the conversation has largely focused on the technical/technology dimension, while the policy and political dimensions have not seen the same engagement by their respective members. In fact, Snowden has been used by political parties as a proxy piece in disagreements regarding East-West relations. And if technology is the answer, then the general public, almost by definition, does not have a place in the discussion.

Maybe time to change name to "foot view", or "pedestrian view", or something. Street view is becoming a bit anachronistic.

Maybe we rethink the laws putting people behind bars or the legal system that so inefficient that some public defenders have literally only minutes to devote to each individual case before we spend resources figuring out how to get them "subscribe and save".

Unfortunately Soylent does not market it as such. If they did, I'd be inclined to agree with you. However, on Soylent's website you can find the following:

"Soylent is a food product (classified as a food, not a supplement, by the FDA) designed for use as a staple meal by all adults." -https://www.soylent.com/about/

"Soylent is designed as a simple staple food, and people incorporate it into their lives to varying degrees. Some people use it almost exclusively, while others use it 2-3 times per week. There is no right or wrong amount of Soylent to eat - the whole idea is to find a balance that works for you." -https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/201273045-How-do-I...

"Our goal at Soylent is to engineer nutritionally-complete food products that are optimized for modern consumers' lifestyles and budgets. Above all, we want to make healthy nutrition easily attainable." -https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/203709619-Soylent-...

So by using terms or phrases such as 'complete', 'almost exclusively', and 'staple', and going so far as to remark that it is classified by the FDA as a 'food' and not a 'supplement', Soylent is explicitly marketing their product as a primary or complete food and nutrition source.

Their words. Not mine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staple_food

Conway's Game of Life appears to be a very fit species based on the length of the period for which it has successfully reproduced as well as the varied environments in which it has successfully reproduced.

That idea that a selection of vitamins and minerals, et al. can replace traditional food has largely been debunked, for the current state of the art at least. Perhaps in the future, but based on our current knowledge base we can not yet replace traditional food with synthesized pills and powder for the majority of one's natural life. We still do not know all of the nutritional elements of some of the most basic fruits we pick up every day in our grocery store. If you don't believe me (I wouldn't, who am I?) check out the book below. The author has been in the field for decades, well published, studied both reductionist and wholistic approaches to nutrition.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/t-colin-campbell/whole-book-ex...

I appreciate your comment. Especially paragraph two. Those cases sounds like an especially promising application of direct democracy. I'd be interested to hear if such a system has been implemented anywhere? California, and many other states have similar 'pause' mechanisms built into their 'ballot proposition' system. In the early years it still caused some huge budget issues, since there was a disconnect between it and the legislature's legal budget requirements. It has also been critiqued, very heavily, for being a tool used primarily by those that can afford to get an initiative to the ballot and then fund the initiative's campaign. I read a decent book on the topic in my undergraduate years, "Democracy Derailed" by David S. Broder. A good primer, but I'm sure there are others/better out there. A quick search of Amazon books returns many results. I still take issue with drawing the conclusion that direct democracy is a panacea to the ill of corrupt or ignorant politicians. I've worked in both local and state government, and I saw the same mix of smart, ignorant, passionate, petty, morally guided, morally bankrupt, misguided, misunderstood, enthusiastic, apathetic, hard working, leeching, etc people that I see in non-political, non-governmental circles. Simply enlarging the number of 'legislators' so that more of the population being governed is voting on each law passed does not seem to solve the problems we are having. I do love the idea of direct democracy as a veto or recall mechanism. I actually think it's brilliant. If it was built into the existing election cycle it would be so easy to implement. One possible implementation: Any law passed as of or since the previous year's November general election is automatically up for recal, and is recalled if some super-majority votes to have it recalled. Laws older than a year can be voted to appear on the next general election ballot for recal with a simple majority. Any law which is recalled will go directly to the floor of the both the House and Senate where legislators have the opportunity to ammend the law; if the House and Senate can agree on an ammended version of the law within 30 days from the date of the certification of the instigating election the law will go back to the ballot for a special general election to be held 60 days after the certifying of the ballots from the instigating election. That would be awesome. Someone should make that a thing.

From your comment: "The problem is not Direct democracy or laissez-faire. The problem is that EU laws are made by lobbyist."

Direct Democracy and laissez faire were not put forth as problems. Neither were they put forth as solutions. They were put forth simply as "two other options" for the purpose of comparison with representative democracy. There are many other possible frameworks for governance. Theocracy, for instance. The two I chose where mentioned simply to provide a point of reference to discuss the different issues a society confronts when creating a legal framework. So, based on your comment stating that the "problem is not Direct democracy or laissez-faire", I assumed you understood my comment to argue that the those where the problem, which it did not.

My comment did, however, make arguments on behalf of a representative form of governance to the effect that, it allows its citizens to engage in the process. The one form of engagement which I explicitly mentioned was lobbying, stating that lobbying, as commonly understood, entails engaging so as to guide the legislative process in a manner in which directs the process toward an end product that the lobbyist has already decided is the optimal final state of the legislation. I also made the argument that there are other activities in which non-legislators citizens could engage in activities that would not be included under the umbrella of those termed "lobbying". So, to say, "That means they will not improve over time because the laws makers and the people paying those are ok with them," you did not seem to address any of these other, non-"lobbyist" activities. And so, by not addressing them but still coming to a conclusion ("That means...") it just kinda seems like you didn't read or understand my entire comment.

But please, cherry pick which portions of my comment (which I tried to make constructive, well thought out, and upbeat) to critique, while basing at least some of your argument's authority on the fact that you're aware that I've commented elsewhere, about unrelated issues, here on HN. That's totally constructive.