Domain: wikipedia.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to wikipedia.org.
Comments · 444,599
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I CAN'T HEAR YOU!
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Re: It's Star Wars all over again
Well... sometimes. The goal of US foreign policy is ultimately to further US interests. Sometimes that involves supporting democracy over dictators, sometimes the opposite. Sometimes it entails sowing some chaos and letting the chips fall where they may.
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Re: The big HR 'WHERE' clause
The problem is that for discrimination suits you need to show mens rea. Although I think that people like to point to the statistics as evidence that some nefarious conspiracy is going on, the reality is that even if people *are* discriminating based on race, age, etc, they don't actually realize that that is what they are doing. Was it that the older gentleman was old, or was it that the hiring manager was young and possibly related to another young person as a peer on a subconscious level? Is there a difference? Perhaps not in the end, but definitely in the prosecuting of the suit, since if the plaintiff is not consciously, specifically targeting people for exclusion based on age, then they are not actually violating a law. You need intent.
The exception to this is whenever a policy is discriminatory, intent or no. I don't think that this fits that bill.
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I can cherry pick data, too
Are you referring to the Gramm*-Leach*-Bliley* act?
* Sen. Phil Gramm (R, Texas)
* Rep. Jim Leach (R, Iowa)
* Rep. Thomas J. Bliley, Jr. (R, Virginia) -
Another step closer ...
... to Saturn 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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Re: Spiral of escalation
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Re:nothing new
Freedom of speech appears in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which act as the "standard" definition for those countries who have adopted it (the US is not among them, BTW).
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Trump?!?!? What fucking planet do you live on?
This is straight-up statist/authoritarianism that any Socialist/"progressive" would be proud of.
Or have you missed who's going around the US saying crap like "speech is violence" and actually institutionalizing methods to shut down dissenting voices to the point it has a fucking Wikipedia page? And to hell with free speech?
Who calls ideas they don't like "hate speech"?
Hint: it ain't Trump.
Hell, even Chelsea Clinton gets attacked by "progressive" bigots for daring to speak against anti-Semitism.
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Re:nothing new
Is 'freedom of speech' actually entrenched in the laws or constitution in every country?
In the US it wasn't until the first amendment was ratified.Does it have the same meaning in every country?
Also, does the Government of every country treat it the same?
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Re:If you act like a paper tiger, you get attacked
Checking facts, like how we are a party to a UN treaty prohibiting this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
No, that's an undesirable fact-- gotta IGNORE that part!
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If you act like a paper tiger, you get attacked...
Lead a race to the bottom.... might want to check your facts:
Polyus space-based megawatt laser anti-missile weapon system launched by Russia in 1987.
Ironically, much of the engineering that went into this Russian weapon system is now an integral part of the International Space Station.
It's not a race to the bottom until someone pulls the trigger.
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If you act like a paper tiger, you get attacked...
Lead a race to the bottom.... might want to check your facts:
Polyus space-based megawatt laser anti-missile weapon system launched by Russia in 1987.
Ironically, much of the engineering that went into this Russian weapon system is now an integral part of the International Space Station.
It's not a race to the bottom until someone pulls the trigger.
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Another scary 737 single-sensor failure situation
737's can inappropriately (and repeatedly) retard the throttles to idle if the single radar altimeter used gives a bad reading. (And the plane has two radar altimeters!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
There are supposedly other similarly reported incidents.
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Spiral of escalation
We use China's satellites as justification to build space weapons. Then China uses our space weapons to justify space weapons of their own. The we use that to justify bigger and better weapons, On and on. The only winner is the MIC.
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Re:Mr. Fusion
Reasonably powerful? Do you mean capable of reason? Because it's likely that such will happen in a supercomputer before it happens in some hobbyist's garage.
Well maybe, maybe not. I mean we didn't start out as humans, before that we were monkeys etc. all the way back to single celled organisms. It might be that we're trying too hard to replicate intelligent behavior rather than find the underlying principles of intelligence. For example take AlphaZero, it was based on AlphaGo Zero which played Go. But rather than being a dedicated engine with a lot of specific programming for Go it just as easily beat the best at chess and shogi.
Uber(!?) managed to pull off some impressive results with Go-Explore, a family of so-called quality diversity AI models. Open AI Five is constantly improving in DOTA, even though they're not playing the full game yet it's an open map with team play. Tencent is showing off some good Starcraft II play, even if they can't beat the best. DeepMind made some ass kicking Quake III Arena capture the flag bots. But is there some kind of supreme overlay that could evolve into all these AIs? I would say probably yes.
That's really the holy grail of AI, what is like the "spark" of intelligence that learns to learn. It's probably relatively simple once we can look at it in retrospect, it's not a lot of code to do one specific task. It's some kind of general pattern to create more complex, dedicated "sub-AIs" for specific tasks like we have different brain centers in the brain. That and a few billion years of evolution, but computers can get pull that off pretty quick if we can just figure out where we're supposed to start. It'll probably start by beating us at tic-tac-toe, not any of the above.
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Number 1? Let see competitions that matter...
For instance Google Code Jam". A contest in English, from the US. Between 2003 and 2018, 45 persons won the 1st, 2nd or 3rd place. Among the 45, only 3 are Americans...
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Trust me, it's better this way
I became politically aware during Reagan and Bush1's presidency, with control of Congress split. I thought it was was the worst thing ever that Congress couldn't get anything done. Then I got to experience the Democrats controlling both branches of Congress under Bush1, Clinton, and Obama; and the Republicans controlling both branches under Clinton, Bush2, and Trump. Trust me, it's better when control is split.
See, Americans are on average centrist. Unfortunately, our plurality wins election system means the optimal solution is for there to be only 2 political parties - if you vote for a third party it's essentially a vote for the opposition party, as it takes away a vote away from the major party you more closely agree with. So when one of the two major parties has complete control, it results in laws and policies being passed which are either to the left or right of what Americans on average want. Worse yet, the extreme left and right are disproportionately effective at controlling both parties because those in the middle are split between two parties so their influence is halved, and each party is completely missing the opposite opposing viewpoints needed to balance out the extreme positions.
So as bad as do-nothing split control is, it's preferable to one party being in control and passing stuff which is far to the left or right of what most Americans really want. The only real fix is some sort of instant runoff voting system, which allows you to vote for the candidate you really want, without fear of wasting your vote if that candidate doesn't really have a shot at winning. -
Re:Hahaha they will never get me.From the www.steering-wheel-ipad.com main page:
"... the iPad Steering Wheel Mount is the "must-have" iPad accessory for anyone who spends significant time behind the wheel of an automobile." -- Stanley Milgram
Stanley Milgram died in 1984. Also:
The iPad Steering Wheel mount is covered by several patents including US Patent 5,162,150.
That is the patent for duct tape.
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Re:Photons vs time
Photons only travel at c in a perfect vacuum and since the universe is not a perfect vacuum, a short amount of time does pass in the photons frame of reference.
No. They always travel intrinsically at c, no matter how polluted is the vacuum. Refer to Diffraction
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Re:Small wonder
Hey! Small Wonder was rad(ical).
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Re:vaccines are our best bet on all microbes
David.
Basically, what you are suggesting is that vaccinations cause autoimmune. Yet, logically, that makes little sense.
We already know that viruses and bacteria DO cause autoimmune. GBS is a great example of one.
The notion that vaccines don’t cause autoimmunity makes sense. Since vaccines don't drive the immune response nearly as vigorously as natural infections do, it is less likely that they would induce autoimmunity. However, scientists continue to study questions related to vaccines as a cause of autoimmunity as they arise.
Here is an interesting case. If you look at this, you will see that far more women get 2 types of autoimmune disease, but also that America/UK,which are vaccinated LESS than these other nations, have much higher incidence rate.
The evidence is overwhelming that vaccines do not cause autoimmune any more than they cause autism.
BTW, based on your response, it is obvious that you do not have the background on immunology. Im guessing that you have an autoimmune disease and read bits and peices. If I'm wrong, please let me know.
Consider reading at least this section. It is where vaccines work. -
Re:Sturgeon's Law at work.
They are basically following Sears and what they did at the turn of the previous century. Eventually Sears had several brands people wanted. Most were duds. Not only were they duds they were the same product made by another company and just repackaged.
A good example
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...Almost 99% of the time there was no difference other than a sticker.
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mini-computers
mini computers can rarely handle much more than the basics
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Re:CS is multi-platform software.
You actually missed the the biggest headache port of them all.
See... when it came to moving to 32 bit to 64 bit that was a headache. It wasn't the 32->64 bit change though - the code base was mostly already 64 bit clean as it ran on Windows too 64 bit native.
Mac OS X had two APIs for doing GUI work. Carbon and Cocca. Cocca was the modern Objective-C; Carbon was the "MacOS 9 like" API. When it came to MacOS moving from 32 to 64 bit, firstly they moved the kernel and command line tools only (no GUI). Then they did the big shift and moved Cocca to 64 bit. They had annouced a 64 bit carbon... but at the last minute, they suddenly u-turned and never released 64 bit Carbon.
As you can image, Adobe software was written against Carbon (as it predated MacOS X).
This meant for Adobe, the shift to 64 bit was actually the shift from Carbon to Cocca and then to 64 bit.
And this change, from Carbon to Cocca, is the big headache. Imagine porting from KDE to Gnome, or even, MacOS to Windows. It's THAT much of a change. The shift from PPC to X86 would have been nothing in comparison (after all, any code that was for both Windows and Mac would be already 64bit X86 battle tested!). Since Carbon was supported in MacOS 8.1, I suspect the change to Cocca was at least as much work as the shift to Mac OS X!
TLDR: The forced API change from Carbon to Cocca (as 64-bit was Cocca only) is probably the biggest headache for Adobe; even more than changing processors or processor word lengths. This is why 64 bit PhotoShop was slow in coming.
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Re: Trust
The Channeled Scablands - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"The Channeled Scablands at one time were a relatively barren and soil-free region of interconnected relict and dry flood channels, coulees and cataracts eroded into Palouse loess and the typically flat-lying basalt flows remain after cataclysmic floods within the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Washington.
... The last of the cataclysmic floods occurred between 18,200 and 14,000 years ago." -
Re:Questions for the system designers here
The probability of failure is given per flight hour. The article is inaccurate regarding this value. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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As Baxter Predicted
Xeelee Nests.
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Re: Believing in meritocracy is bad for you
Yes, we get it, you embrace post-modernism. Just consider that it's the philosophy that grew out of Communism, and the deaths of 160 million lie at the feet of the ideas you think are right
What the hell are you going on about? Post Modernism is associated with art, literature, architecture and philosophy. Do you even know what it is or are you just being parroting the words of some right wing kook like the aspie parrot many slashdotters are. Look it up, you won't find communism mentioned on the wikipedia page of post-modernism. You WILL find art, literature, architecture and so forth.
If anything Communism is associated with "Modernism", but neither Modernism or Post-modernism should be associated much with socio-economic systems.
You Pointing to me and saying "Post Modernist" and then saying "commie" is Red-baiting.
You think I'm a communist? Prove it. You'll find I've never said a positive thing about Stalin or Mao. And that I've never said the state should own the means of production...which is one of the things that define communism.
I really can't believe you are engaging in Red baiting in 2019?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Or to good description of what you are doing from Rationalwiki:
Red-baiting is a dusty old notorious bullshitting tactic used almost exclusively by the right-wing. It consists of making a false and/or groundless accusation that some person is a communist or fellow traveler, often with the aim of discrediting them or destroying their reputation. Essentially, everything that certain people dislike is to be considered Communist plots. As such, red-baiting is a form of guilt by association, a fallacy which Stalin himself used to justify some of his crimes.
And also:
"Cultural Marxism" (both uppercase) is a common snarl word used to paint anyone with progressive tendencies as a secret Communist. The term alludes to a conspiracy theory in which sinister left-wingers have infiltrated media, academia, and science and are engaged in a decades-long plot to undermine Western culture. Some variants of the conspiracy allege that basically all of modern social liberalism is, in fact, a Communist front group.
And by the way, I used the above text in response to ANOTHER alt-right/libertarian/right wing Slashdot asshat back in 2018.
This is one reason why I sometimes can derogatory towards tech guys, they tend to parrot things they don't really understand and have little familiarity with things outside of code/tech/geek hobbies. Maybe you watced a video where some "rationalist libertarian" with a shaved head and viking beard says he "destroys" liberals/SJW's/whatever by connecting them with communism via post-modernism. That doesn't mean he's right, or an expert. And you are no expert on anything that isn't code or tech.
This link, basically describes you, Mashiki, Roman-mir, mi, Archangel Michael, russoto, DNS-and-Bind, EpyT-r:
https://theoutline.com/post/70...
Read it, and realize what you are. Some dude on the spectrum who got told he was so smart in grade school/high school for so long that he got a big head and thinks he's an expert in everything. To put it in the vernacular: Stay in your lane, bro.
But I suspect you deny all correlation between choice and consequence
Using a strawman of putting words in my mouth I haven't actually said? Choices do have consequences, but external factors beyond one's control can and do limit the choices one can make.
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Re: No, they aren't.
it means you can provide links.
Indeed. The Wikipedia article on the subject link to the most relevant peer reviewed articles on the physiological differences between brains of transsexuals and those of non-transsexuals, which in turn highlight the physiological differences between male and female human brains. Focus on the huge "Biological factors" section and its links and you're good to go.
PS: There's also a small section with psychological speculations, but those are fluff you can ignore without problems.
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Re:Religious leaders don't deserve special trust
Yes, and it would appear that being a man of the cloth provides you absolutely zero credibility these days with regards to that as well.
Why on earth should being a "man of the cloth" provide any special credibility? If anything it should be a strike against them given that they are in most cases literally selling a false and/or unverifiable claims of the supernatural. (those churches get built with real money that came from someone and someone pays the pastor's salary) They get away with it mostly because of social tradition but it's not difficult to make the case that what they are doing fits the description of fraud or at the very least a hoax. I'm not saying this guy is (intentionally) doing anything reprehensible but he doesn't deserve any special trust or credibility just because he preaches on Sunday.
Ironically enough, it is believing in the supernatural that often keeps people aligned with good morals and ethics, hence the assumption that a man of the cloth who follows the word of God so closely would align themselves with the truth, honesty, and integrity expected of them.
It's not really special credibility as it is an inherent assumption that we cannot take these days, which is just sad.
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Re:SIT tones
how about this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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Re:Laugh now, cry later. The Internet is evolving.
Don't forget FidoNet.
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Re: It works, duh
Newsflash, motherfuckers; don't be chumps. This is the 'justice" system the way it's supposed to. What; you didn't think it existed to benefit you, did you??
Where would someone get such an idea? Here:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. ~ The Fifth Amendment [emphasis mine]
So yes, the justice system was designed to work for everyone. Anyone who says it shouldn't be is an enemy of democracy.
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Air bursts are actually fairly common
They're actually fairly common, with about 20-40 air bursts occurring each year. They're pretty evenly distributed. Russia just seems to get a disproportionate number because it has the most land area of any country by almost a factor of 2. It's also got a large population spread throughout that very large land area. The country covers pretty much the same latitude as Canada (second-largest country), but Canada is mostly deserted at higher latitutdes. So that increases the chances of a meteor being seen/recorded over Russia.
It's also worth noting that the ancient Egyptians also witnessed large meteor events and used the material to create jewelry for royalty and ceremonial weapons. -
Air bursts are actually fairly common
They're actually fairly common, with about 20-40 air bursts occurring each year. They're pretty evenly distributed. Russia just seems to get a disproportionate number because it has the most land area of any country by almost a factor of 2. It's also got a large population spread throughout that very large land area. The country covers pretty much the same latitude as Canada (second-largest country), but Canada is mostly deserted at higher latitutdes. So that increases the chances of a meteor being seen/recorded over Russia.
It's also worth noting that the ancient Egyptians also witnessed large meteor events and used the material to create jewelry for royalty and ceremonial weapons. -
Air bursts are actually fairly common
They're actually fairly common, with about 20-40 air bursts occurring each year. They're pretty evenly distributed. Russia just seems to get a disproportionate number because it has the most land area of any country by almost a factor of 2. It's also got a large population spread throughout that very large land area. The country covers pretty much the same latitude as Canada (second-largest country), but Canada is mostly deserted at higher latitutdes. So that increases the chances of a meteor being seen/recorded over Russia.
It's also worth noting that the ancient Egyptians also witnessed large meteor events and used the material to create jewelry for royalty and ceremonial weapons. -
First things first
Before doing work with critical data, ALWAYS mount a Scratch Monkey.
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Re:This IS the GOP
Moved to Texas about five years ago, from Nevada. Anybody who is selling the idea that GOP-run states are bastions of regulation-free sanity is shilling. In any city or suburb with lots of an acre or under, what you can do with your house (what trees you can cut down, how big a patio can be, etc.) is largely controlled by the same levels regulations/permits/etc. you would find in Southern California (where I also lived).
It seems less about mistrust of government than mistrust of the "next level". Local municipalities mistrust the state government in Austin, which is largely derided as "liberal", especially when it comes to things like school funding. The geniuses in state government (like Gov. Abbott, L. Gov Patrick, or our proud boot-lickers, senators Cruz and Cornyn) constantly decry the evil of the federal government. And, of course, national GOP never passes up to undercut international organizations like the UN, WTO, etc.
Back to the topic, though, I think the posts saying that this about protecting dealerships are likely right. In North Texas, auto dealerships spend lots of money on TV advertising, it's at least half of what you see on local news advertising, and they do throw lots of capital into their showrooms and facilities. They obviously make a lot of money and aren't afraid to throw it around, and are probably showering the state government with it, in the hopes of not becoming the next dead retail segment, buried in the same pit as anchor-store shopping malls.
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Re:"Edge of the Universe"
I think they mean, edge of the observable universe.
Isn't that edge the Cosmic microwave background ?
And wouldn't "near the beginning" of the universe be a better way to describe it than "edge"?
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Re:Irresponsibility as usual
Do you really think that these "privately run" prisons give perks and bonuses to LEOs who arrest people?
Since there is at least one case of bribing judges to send kids to privately run detention centers,, it's not a stretch to think that a private prison operator might bribe LEOs.
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Re:Never, ever talk to the police.
Apparently the world disagrees with you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You proved me point poetically. People are too concerned with posting lists of links than to actually read what they are about. You posted an alphabetical list. A single police officer getting in trouble for some corruption related issue, even when identified internally by the police and handled with justice would qualify a country to be on that list.
Your ignorance is perpetuating hate and stupidity.
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Re: LOL that you again WindBourne
'Measles was a minor annoyance illness for thousands of years before anyone invented a vaccine. It's just not that bad.'
You're an idiot or you're Jenny McCarthy.
"In 2011, the WHO estimated that there were about 158,000 deaths caused by measles. This is down from 630,000 deaths in 1990.[4] "
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Universe expanding
Light scatters in all directions (for the most part) from the origin of a single point of event.
No, a photon will travel in a straight line from it's point of origin unless acted upon by an outside force. You are describing what happens to the innumerable photons that are emitted from a typical light source which is not the same thing. The photons that we see from these distant sources have traveled a long distance in a straight line (*) to get to us.
(* straight in this context is not the same Euclidean geometry straight line you might have learned about in high school)
So if it happened 13 billions year ago, how is it still observable?
Because the universe expanded faster than the speed of light. Space itself is expanding to this day and so some light that was emitted a long time ago is just now reaching us. Some light that was emitted a long time ago will never reach us because it's too far away and space is expanding too fast for it to ever get to us.
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Re:Never, ever talk to the police.
The guy's first mistake was thinking he could somehow talk to the police himself and "clear things up". You will never, ever succeed at that.
In America anyway. In much of the rest of the world the police are not professional thugs.
Apparently the world disagrees with you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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Re:"Edge of the Universe"
I think they mean, edge of the observable universe.
It's not so simple, as the light has limited speed anything we see is from the past, so there's a limit we can see even though the Universe might be infinite in size, because it's not infinite in time - the ultimate observable edge is the CMB (Cosmic Mircrowave Background radiation), we cannot see anything beyond because the Universe was opaque before.
So there's a point in saying "at the edge of the Universe", it means at the very early beginning, which in this case (this survey results) is very significant for cosmological theories about formation of galaxies.
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Religious leaders don't deserve special trust
Yes, and it would appear that being a man of the cloth provides you absolutely zero credibility these days with regards to that as well.
Why on earth should being a "man of the cloth" provide any special credibility? If anything it should be a strike against them given that they are in most cases literally selling a false and/or unverifiable claims of the supernatural. (those churches get built with real money that came from someone and someone pays the pastor's salary) They get away with it mostly because of social tradition but it's not difficult to make the case that what they are doing fits the description of fraud or at the very least a hoax. I'm not saying this guy is (intentionally) doing anything reprehensible but he doesn't deserve any special trust or credibility just because he preaches on Sunday.
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Re:New rule for wikipedia
Wikipedia already has a set of rules for paid content: WP:Paid. TL;DR version: It is allowed provided there's disclosure and all the other rules are strictly followed.
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Re:Disagree
He's being paid by companies to whitewash.
You claim whitewash; do you have an example?
See the end of the article for a short example. He convinced wikipedia to remove the section on Nextdoor CEO Nirav Tolia's charges of a hit-and-run. The charges were later reduced as part of a plea bargain. Is that relevant for a public figure? Maybe. Is it whitewashing? Sure.
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Re:128-bit phone numbers
> Please focus on solutions that work for everyone.
Nothing EVER literally works for "everyone"... but if you really want to be pedantic about it, the app is for user convenience.
If push really came to shove, even somebody with a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... could call their telephone service provider's customer service number to generate and obtain another batch of 10-25 40-digit numbers assigned to their phone and write them down on a page of the phone's paper "phone book" using its included pencil... crossing them off the list (ideally, with a note indicating whom they assigned the number to) as they use them one by one.
Or, someone could buy a million randomly-generated phone numbers, print them into 10,000 booklets of LITERAL "one time pads" with 100 of those numbers apiece, and provide a customer service number on the back that the purchaser could call to instantly associate the 100 numbers in that book with their "real" phone number. Maybe print 5 numbers per credit card sized perforated tear-off sheet, so the buyer could rip of a sheet at a time & carry it in their wallet to use as the need for a number arises.
The point is, it's 2019, and even someone who's dirt poor can buy a piece of shit throw-away Android phone at Walmart for $30... or get one that's practically free from a pail at a flea market or Goodwill store.
There you have it... an entire spectrum suitable for 99% of people who care enough about avoiding unwanted calls to at least lift a finger and do something about it, ranging all the way from convenient apps to numbers written on scraps of paper.
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Re:Ah yes. Good 'ol Texas
Of course it matters if you want to fix the problem. First you need to identify the problem. Which in this case seems to be corruption and not big government as you can have a really small government that does nothing but protect business interests.
Well said.
One possible fix might be to limit bribery, but that means intruding on peoples freedom.
Now I'm confused. You want to limit bribery? I see no virtue in it existing at all. (I assume you mean bribery of elected officials. People go to jail when that happens.)
As for it intruding on peoples' freedoms, I can only assume you mean limiting the freedom of people (or corporations) to contribute to political campaigns. Contributions are the only kind of "bribe" I can see fitting the situation. There are already laws that limit campaign contributions. But alas, SCOTUS has ruled that individuals, corporations, and unions can contribute unlimited amounts of money to Super PACs, and effectively hide their identities. Of course, corporations generally have far more money than individuals and unions, so it's not hard to see who benefits from this situation.
And so, I think one possible solution is to continue to evolve campaign finance reform laws.