...we don't trust you to run a virtual community, so why the hell would any of us want to live in a REAL community under your control?
I'm sorry, what's that you're ranting about? I couldn't quite hear you over the shrieking noise of soul-crushing debt brought on by an insane real estate market.
(There's nothing REAL about the justification for California housing costs, so you better fucking believe those who are forced to live there are going to jump all over this bargain.)
I have a Google Music subscription, so I get Youtube Red (no commercials) for free.
The family plan is affordable and comparable to other services. And my son isn't bombarded with commercials on youtube. Win win.
Do you also enjoy paying HBO just to access Game of Thrones?
How about Netflix for their exclusive content? Hulu Plus? UFC? Spotify Premium? Tidal? Hell, even PBS now has a fee-based subscription service.
Sorry, but I don't call the continued fracturing of content across dozens of services a "win". It's death by 1,000 cuts, resulting in cord cutters financially "winning" about as good as a Charlie Sheen Truth tour. And when enough forced revenue is generated with this annoy-the-shit-out-of-the-customer sales model, they'll likely start charging you a separate fee for Google Music and YouTube Red. Why? Because they can.
"Cohen is trying to prove that YouTube is committed to making people pay for music and silence the "noise" about his company's purported harm to the recording industry..."
Oh, so you wish to silence the purported noise by forcing customers to pay by annoying the shit out of them? Thanks for clarifying what 21st Century customer service has become for those Too Big To Fail. A Fuck You Very Much And Have A Nice Day mantra from you friendly owns-the-neighborhood mega-corp. I've said it before. Corporate Arrogance is not a good thing, but there's never enough people that give a shit enough to stop it, so it will continue to spread like a disease.
"...The labels companies have long criticized YouTube for hosting videos that violate copyrights, and not paying artists and record companies enough."
Oh, so THAT is the reason you're doing this? You care about the artists? Well, I'll be waiting for your financial statements that show that 100% of the revenue generated from this WILL be supporting that justification then. Needless to say, I'm not holding my breath.
"The Seattle-based company also has opened its own line of bookstores...A bigger network of stores would put inventory closer to where shoppers live, potentially enabling quick delivery..."
So, Amazon defines progress as essentially converting themselves back into the very brick and mortar model they decimated? Putting inventory "where shoppers live"? Don't make that bullshit sound like it's some 21st century cutting edge concept; it's how the world did business for the last few thousand years.
That's a cute story, but everyone seems to be ignoring the elephant in the room. Or more to the point, the human no longer behind the wheel.
Sure, a robot may not completely take a job in this case, but how much can you expect to make an hour when your job title is changed from "Heavy Equipment Operator" to "Robot Babysitter"?
Let's stop ignoring or dismissing the impact already. If robots did not make work cheaper and more efficient, no company would be buying the damn things. And if there's an opportunity to lower costs (read: salaries), you better believe a company will do it.
I am, only because I have to. I have to look at my phone all the time in order to answer emails that have to do with running my company. I'm super busy, all the time. I don't Face/Tweet/Chat/Gram. I'm dealing with problems and not fun stuff.
I'm always surprised when I see other people on their phones as much as me. I can't imagine being on a phone when not absolutely needing to be. Most people have serious gadget addictions.
Uh, your "super busy all the time" defines your addiction. Being a workaholic isn't any better than being addicted to Social Media, especially if you have a family.
Isn't that bit obvious? Most adults in the US and even most teens have smart phones and even if they don't realize it their smartphone is constantly online for everything from their visual voicemail to their questions for siri to call a contact.
Exactly. And this question will likely be irrelevant within the next decade. Airplane mode will become unnecessary as WiFi fills the friendly skies, and you'll truly have to find the middle of nowhere to remove yourself from the ability to get online.
Perhaps the government should start planning transportation according to smart people instead of sheeps. Madness, to accuse people of selfishness when it's obviously lack of planning that's the problem.
Since the problem is massive congestion on our roadways, the problem to solve is capacity, which is sometimes difficult to budget based on estimated future use. And of course you can't forget about the greed and corruption within construction. Gotta keep pockets lined in perpetuity with never-ending maintenance and expansion.
I'm not saying that building more roads is the solution. Lots of governments are about to go bankrupt on road maintenance alone.
Oh, they've solved that whole budget thing around me. Every new road being built is a fucking toll road. Problem solved.
However I think technology can save us here.
There was hardly any road traffic last week when kids were on spring break, proving just how much of an impact school alone can be with congestion. We have high-speed internet at home, inexpensive VPN technology, and cloud collaboration. Companies have the capacity to support remote work. They refuse to do so. Same goes with high school. Millions could be saved if we converted high-school to virtual school.
We have the technology already today to fix the congestion problem. The real problem is ignorance and refusal to embrace it.
whats the point of some exploit if you already have admin? You can do anything you want already
Perhaps we should stop taking the rather ignorant approach that even admins should have access to *everything*. Fuck that. It's called need to know.
The military understood this concept with compartmentalization of data decades ago. Perhaps it's about damn time we pay attention to the value of that.
And yeah, I DO realize that means questioning the trust of your own SysAdmins. How many times does industry need to repeat the words "Insider Threat" for people to pay attention? SysAdmins aren't magically immune...
That wasn't insider trading. Hillary went to a crooked stock broker who simply stole money from one client and gave it to another; he wasn't prosecuted by then Attorney General of Arkansas Bill Clinton for some reason.
Uh, knowing ahead of time that her husband wouldn't prosecute is likely just another form of insider corruption...
"properly measure performance and manage employees working remotely"
Like that will ever happen. Yes, I'm bitter about being f*cked over because I work remotely. Top rated employee in my group year over year? Check. Passed over for promotion? Double check. So why the f*ck would I want to work my ass off again? For a measly pittance of a pay raise? uncheck.
If you work for a company that requires that amount of ass-kissing face time in order to be properly recognized, perhaps it's time to work for another company.
In the meantime, remember you could be spending a couple hundred a month on fuel and vehicle maintenance costs to commute 20+ days a week, twice a day. And that doesn't include the reduced stress and health benefits of not dealing with smog-infused traffic every day, or the reduced risk of not becoming one of those 40,000 deaths per year on our roadways. There is likely nothing you will spend more on in your lifetime than medical costs, and driving is most likely one of the most dangerous activities you do on a regular basis.
Despite everything she claims, on the few occasions I've had a chance to work from home I can't keep my wife from bothering me every 10 minutes. At least when I'm at work I can ignore the text messages while I focus on my job, and headphones keep most of the random office drop-ins at bay.
I guess if I was single it wouldn't be too bad, but I detest having to use a VPN and the upload speeds on home internet make a lot of things painful. Unless work was going to pay for a nice fast connection, docking stations, monitors, etc. I'd rather just go to the office.
How many hours are wasted every month by you sitting behind a steering wheel in traffic, commuting to and from an office every day? A full-time employee with an hour-long commute (not uncommon) equals 40 hours a month wasted. When I was able to work remotely, I also pocketed upwards of $200 a month in gas and vehicle maintenance savings. I also used an hour out of every morning to work out, so it gave me considerable health benefits as well.
When it comes to the productivity gains and happy employees, it's not hard at all to justify a company subsidizing faster internet, and one-time costs for docking stations and dual-monitor setups.
As far as interruptions at home, IMHO that is simply a matter of recognizing and respecting the fact that you're at work during certain hours regardless of the location.
You grossly overestimate how much money most companies are willing to spend on their employees.
I have *never* worked for a company that was willing to pay for a laptop for me to work from home, and that's including the one job that I had where telecommuting was even possible.
You grossly overestimate what it takes to work remotely. How much horsepower does it really take to run a VPN client and a Remote Desktop client? Could a Raspberry Pi do it? I would likely cost more for a dual-monitor setup, and a "dumb" terminal used to securely connect you to a virtual machine behind a VPN would continue to secure all of the critical company data onsite and NOT on some remote PC.
No office. No cube furniture. No traditional desktop hardware (VMs instead). Reduced office footprint. Reduced A/C and other environmental costs. Upwards of a $200 benefit back in the employees pocket every month from not being forced to waste gas and vehicle maintenance costs related to commuting to an office every day. Not to mention a rather huge benefit to productivity (an hour-long commute one way for a full-time employee equals 40 hours a month wasted sitting behind a steering wheel), along with less stress (I don't enjoy sitting in traffic), and generally a happier employee. When I was working remotely, I gave back half of the 40 hours gained from telecommuting and used the other hour saved every day to work out, which makes for a healthier employee.
I don't know why companies continue to be blind to these benefits, and refuse to train managers on the proper way to manage and measure remote workers.
"...products range from $3,995 (for a standard one-person booth) to $15,995 (for a two-person "executive" booth)"
So, after you destroyed business privacy by embracing the open-floor plan, your answer is to build obscenely priced closets?
Kind of makes you wonder how much it would cost to throw up some drywall and mount some doors and you know, give employees the privacy of an office again.
Or better yet, grow the hell up and learn to properly measure performance and manage employees working remotely. We sure as hell could use a few less million cars on the road every day.
"Thank you for your payment. We strive to be the best when it comes to timely decryption of your data. If you could please fill out this short survey and rate our performance today, we would greatly appreciate it."
More importantly: what the fuck is an ultrasonic jammer? I've heard of RF jammers, but sound jammers?
You've never heard of a sound jammer? What the fuck do you think a white noise generator is? What the fuck do you think it does? Pull your head out of your ass.
...If signs of antisocial behavior is present among those that conduct mass killings, does it logically follow that exposing millions of teenagers to graphic depictions of antisocial behavior also plays a factor in the selection of the rare individuals that do become homicidal maniacs.
Yes, I do agree we can look at common traits, and looking at the group of people who have committed these heinous crimes is the way to do it. We certainly have a large enough pool going back several decades, and violence in many forms has existed for that long as well.
Is there the possibility that these violent games in combination with other factors provide a hammer as the primary tool to deal with social problems in which innocent people become to look like nails. Maybe.
Yes, it is a possibility, but when you compare that against the massive numbers of people who are exposed to many forms of violence every day, it becomes little more than a "maybe".
A more accurate way to analyze the impact of violence is to look at this who purposely expose themselves to it. We now have professional gamers who play violent video games all day as a job, and yet we also find a massive void of murderers in that group.
We can look at hardcore fans of graphic horror films, or creators and fans of heavy metal music, and find similar voids of evidence, and yet both have been blamed in the past for creating killers. The bottom line is we may never truly understand what creates a murderous psychopath, but constantly watching the media regurgitate the usual suspects every time a murderer pops up in society tends to get very old, particularly when violence in the world is so damn common, and murdering psychopaths are thankfully not. I still feel that more analysis needs to be done regarding psychiatric drugs (another common denominator among murderers). Start looking at physical impacts, and not merely the environment.
Even though you're trying to make a different point, you're missing the point. Sure, actual war is horrible and stressful. But the typical kid with problems (like the traumatized, autistic, violent, ignored one that just killed 17 people after giving off sure signs of his willingness and ability to do so, and his desire and likelihood to do so) doesn't experience actual war at all. On the other hand, the guy who played temporary host in a brief foster-like capacity for that kid said in an interview that he'd see him playing violent FPS games for 15 or more hours a day, and that the kid was all about "kill, kill, kill, and blowing things up" and couldn't stop talking about doing so as he played those games. For kids who have trouble separating fantasy from reality, the games are a pure petri dish in which to stoke the urge and desensitize the eventual murderer.
Speaking of missing the point, you are purposely being oblivious to statistical facts. The kids who have trouble separating fantasy from reality who go on to murder other humans represent a miniscule fraction of the total number of people who play violent FPS games. We now have professional gamers and sponsored gaming events. One would think if there was truly a correlation to be found, we would find a lot of kids who engage in virtual violence as their job eventually becoming murderous psychopaths. And yet, we don't find it. In fact, there is a rather large void of evidence at the professional level (I found a single case of murder by a pro gamer, which was a 16-year old and a robbery gone bad). There have been FAR more football and basketball players who have killed people than pro gamers. Perhaps we should start analyzing the impact of all professional sports.
If you really want to dig into correlations, take a look at the statistics regarding mass murderers and psychiatric drugs.
As far as other "petri" effects, the world is full of violence. Video games is but one example, and one that is weak in correlation. You can't surf through 20 TV channels at any hour of the day and not find violence being represented in some form. The evening news depends on violence for ratings. Damn near every top-grossing movie has violence represented.
Aside from straight to lies, "alternative facts" are a huge problem. Things that are kinda true but which are misleading or deliberately omit important caveats.
Agreed. That is a growing problem. That said, I see "fake news" on a different level that lends itself more towards the liar-liar end of the bullshit spectrum.
Statistics are often abused as alternative facts, because you can work the numbers to say pretty much anything you like.
Absolutely agree with you here. Statistics is a form of data manipulation. More often than not, they are used to prove one's agenda and not much else. Personally I see the need for more regulation around the use of statistics because of the manipulative power they hold.
Slashdot Mirror
...we don't trust you to run a virtual community, so why the hell would any of us want to live in a REAL community under your control?
I'm sorry, what's that you're ranting about? I couldn't quite hear you over the shrieking noise of soul-crushing debt brought on by an insane real estate market.
(There's nothing REAL about the justification for California housing costs, so you better fucking believe those who are forced to live there are going to jump all over this bargain.)
I have a Google Music subscription, so I get Youtube Red (no commercials) for free. The family plan is affordable and comparable to other services. And my son isn't bombarded with commercials on youtube. Win win.
Do you also enjoy paying HBO just to access Game of Thrones?
How about Netflix for their exclusive content? Hulu Plus? UFC? Spotify Premium? Tidal? Hell, even PBS now has a fee-based subscription service.
Sorry, but I don't call the continued fracturing of content across dozens of services a "win". It's death by 1,000 cuts, resulting in cord cutters financially "winning" about as good as a Charlie Sheen Truth tour. And when enough forced revenue is generated with this annoy-the-shit-out-of-the-customer sales model, they'll likely start charging you a separate fee for Google Music and YouTube Red. Why? Because they can.
"Cohen is trying to prove that YouTube is committed to making people pay for music and silence the "noise" about his company's purported harm to the recording industry..."
Oh, so you wish to silence the purported noise by forcing customers to pay by annoying the shit out of them? Thanks for clarifying what 21st Century customer service has become for those Too Big To Fail. A Fuck You Very Much And Have A Nice Day mantra from you friendly owns-the-neighborhood mega-corp. I've said it before. Corporate Arrogance is not a good thing, but there's never enough people that give a shit enough to stop it, so it will continue to spread like a disease.
"...The labels companies have long criticized YouTube for hosting videos that violate copyrights, and not paying artists and record companies enough."
Oh, so THAT is the reason you're doing this? You care about the artists? Well, I'll be waiting for your financial statements that show that 100% of the revenue generated from this WILL be supporting that justification then. Needless to say, I'm not holding my breath.
Good fences make good neighbors.
Now that's an ironic statement when talking about a country fighting for sanctuary cities and utterly defiant on applying that logic to Mexico...
How does a school which charges $40,000/yr in tuition end up cash-strapped?
Now there's the $64,000 question.
(Actually it's more like the $64 million dollar question when adjusted for 2018 tuition rates.)
"The Seattle-based company also has opened its own line of bookstores...A bigger network of stores would put inventory closer to where shoppers live, potentially enabling quick delivery..."
So, Amazon defines progress as essentially converting themselves back into the very brick and mortar model they decimated? Putting inventory "where shoppers live"? Don't make that bullshit sound like it's some 21st century cutting edge concept; it's how the world did business for the last few thousand years.
That's a cute story, but everyone seems to be ignoring the elephant in the room. Or more to the point, the human no longer behind the wheel.
Sure, a robot may not completely take a job in this case, but how much can you expect to make an hour when your job title is changed from "Heavy Equipment Operator" to "Robot Babysitter"?
Let's stop ignoring or dismissing the impact already. If robots did not make work cheaper and more efficient, no company would be buying the damn things. And if there's an opportunity to lower costs (read: salaries), you better believe a company will do it.
I am, only because I have to. I have to look at my phone all the time in order to answer emails that have to do with running my company. I'm super busy, all the time. I don't Face/Tweet/Chat/Gram. I'm dealing with problems and not fun stuff. I'm always surprised when I see other people on their phones as much as me. I can't imagine being on a phone when not absolutely needing to be. Most people have serious gadget addictions.
Uh, your "super busy all the time" defines your addiction. Being a workaholic isn't any better than being addicted to Social Media, especially if you have a family.
Isn't that bit obvious? Most adults in the US and even most teens have smart phones and even if they don't realize it their smartphone is constantly online for everything from their visual voicemail to their questions for siri to call a contact.
Exactly. And this question will likely be irrelevant within the next decade. Airplane mode will become unnecessary as WiFi fills the friendly skies, and you'll truly have to find the middle of nowhere to remove yourself from the ability to get online.
Perhaps the government should start planning transportation according to smart people instead of sheeps. Madness, to accuse people of selfishness when it's obviously lack of planning that's the problem.
Since the problem is massive congestion on our roadways, the problem to solve is capacity, which is sometimes difficult to budget based on estimated future use. And of course you can't forget about the greed and corruption within construction. Gotta keep pockets lined in perpetuity with never-ending maintenance and expansion.
I'm not saying that building more roads is the solution. Lots of governments are about to go bankrupt on road maintenance alone.
Oh, they've solved that whole budget thing around me. Every new road being built is a fucking toll road. Problem solved.
However I think technology can save us here.
There was hardly any road traffic last week when kids were on spring break, proving just how much of an impact school alone can be with congestion. We have high-speed internet at home, inexpensive VPN technology, and cloud collaboration. Companies have the capacity to support remote work. They refuse to do so. Same goes with high school. Millions could be saved if we converted high-school to virtual school.
We have the technology already today to fix the congestion problem. The real problem is ignorance and refusal to embrace it.
whats the point of some exploit if you already have admin? You can do anything you want already
Perhaps we should stop taking the rather ignorant approach that even admins should have access to *everything*. Fuck that. It's called need to know.
The military understood this concept with compartmentalization of data decades ago. Perhaps it's about damn time we pay attention to the value of that.
And yeah, I DO realize that means questioning the trust of your own SysAdmins. How many times does industry need to repeat the words "Insider Threat" for people to pay attention? SysAdmins aren't magically immune...
That wasn't insider trading. Hillary went to a crooked stock broker who simply stole money from one client and gave it to another; he wasn't prosecuted by then Attorney General of Arkansas Bill Clinton for some reason.
Uh, knowing ahead of time that her husband wouldn't prosecute is likely just another form of insider corruption...
Bring back the guillotine. Chop all their heads off, plant them on poles as a warning to the rest of the 'financial community' to NOT FUCK UP.
Those in charge of the financial community would simply hire designated head-rolling scapegoats as a response, and continue with their fuckery.
"properly measure performance and manage employees working remotely" Like that will ever happen. Yes, I'm bitter about being f*cked over because I work remotely. Top rated employee in my group year over year? Check. Passed over for promotion? Double check. So why the f*ck would I want to work my ass off again? For a measly pittance of a pay raise? uncheck.
If you work for a company that requires that amount of ass-kissing face time in order to be properly recognized, perhaps it's time to work for another company.
In the meantime, remember you could be spending a couple hundred a month on fuel and vehicle maintenance costs to commute 20+ days a week, twice a day. And that doesn't include the reduced stress and health benefits of not dealing with smog-infused traffic every day, or the reduced risk of not becoming one of those 40,000 deaths per year on our roadways. There is likely nothing you will spend more on in your lifetime than medical costs, and driving is most likely one of the most dangerous activities you do on a regular basis.
I'm glad my boss doesn't allow remote work.
Despite everything she claims, on the few occasions I've had a chance to work from home I can't keep my wife from bothering me every 10 minutes. At least when I'm at work I can ignore the text messages while I focus on my job, and headphones keep most of the random office drop-ins at bay.
I guess if I was single it wouldn't be too bad, but I detest having to use a VPN and the upload speeds on home internet make a lot of things painful. Unless work was going to pay for a nice fast connection, docking stations, monitors, etc. I'd rather just go to the office.
How many hours are wasted every month by you sitting behind a steering wheel in traffic, commuting to and from an office every day? A full-time employee with an hour-long commute (not uncommon) equals 40 hours a month wasted. When I was able to work remotely, I also pocketed upwards of $200 a month in gas and vehicle maintenance savings. I also used an hour out of every morning to work out, so it gave me considerable health benefits as well.
When it comes to the productivity gains and happy employees, it's not hard at all to justify a company subsidizing faster internet, and one-time costs for docking stations and dual-monitor setups.
As far as interruptions at home, IMHO that is simply a matter of recognizing and respecting the fact that you're at work during certain hours regardless of the location.
You grossly overestimate how much money most companies are willing to spend on their employees.
I have *never* worked for a company that was willing to pay for a laptop for me to work from home, and that's including the one job that I had where telecommuting was even possible.
You grossly overestimate what it takes to work remotely. How much horsepower does it really take to run a VPN client and a Remote Desktop client? Could a Raspberry Pi do it? I would likely cost more for a dual-monitor setup, and a "dumb" terminal used to securely connect you to a virtual machine behind a VPN would continue to secure all of the critical company data onsite and NOT on some remote PC.
No office. No cube furniture. No traditional desktop hardware (VMs instead). Reduced office footprint. Reduced A/C and other environmental costs. Upwards of a $200 benefit back in the employees pocket every month from not being forced to waste gas and vehicle maintenance costs related to commuting to an office every day. Not to mention a rather huge benefit to productivity (an hour-long commute one way for a full-time employee equals 40 hours a month wasted sitting behind a steering wheel), along with less stress (I don't enjoy sitting in traffic), and generally a happier employee. When I was working remotely, I gave back half of the 40 hours gained from telecommuting and used the other hour saved every day to work out, which makes for a healthier employee.
I don't know why companies continue to be blind to these benefits, and refuse to train managers on the proper way to manage and measure remote workers.
"...products range from $3,995 (for a standard one-person booth) to $15,995 (for a two-person "executive" booth)"
So, after you destroyed business privacy by embracing the open-floor plan, your answer is to build obscenely priced closets?
Kind of makes you wonder how much it would cost to throw up some drywall and mount some doors and you know, give employees the privacy of an office again.
Or better yet, grow the hell up and learn to properly measure performance and manage employees working remotely. We sure as hell could use a few less million cars on the road every day.
Thats just stupid, I am sure a lot of people won't be able to sleep when its daylight outside...
Yeah, I guess you're right. The entire state of Alaska stays awake for 3 months every summer.
If only we stupid humans could invent something that would blind or shade light...
With great customer services.
I can see the ransomware surveys now...
"Thank you for your payment. We strive to be the best when it comes to timely decryption of your data. If you could please fill out this short survey and rate our performance today, we would greatly appreciate it."
Ransomware criminals shouldn't shit where they drink. By failing to unlock the files, they decrease the chance future victims will be willing to pay.
I tend to doubt that. People who have no other recourse to recover their precious data will pay. Even if there's only a slight chance of success.
More importantly: what the fuck is an ultrasonic jammer? I've heard of RF jammers, but sound jammers?
You've never heard of a sound jammer? What the fuck do you think a white noise generator is? What the fuck do you think it does? Pull your head out of your ass.
...If signs of antisocial behavior is present among those that conduct mass killings, does it logically follow that exposing millions of teenagers to graphic depictions of antisocial behavior also plays a factor in the selection of the rare individuals that do become homicidal maniacs.
Yes, I do agree we can look at common traits, and looking at the group of people who have committed these heinous crimes is the way to do it. We certainly have a large enough pool going back several decades, and violence in many forms has existed for that long as well.
Is there the possibility that these violent games in combination with other factors provide a hammer as the primary tool to deal with social problems in which innocent people become to look like nails. Maybe.
Yes, it is a possibility, but when you compare that against the massive numbers of people who are exposed to many forms of violence every day, it becomes little more than a "maybe".
A more accurate way to analyze the impact of violence is to look at this who purposely expose themselves to it. We now have professional gamers who play violent video games all day as a job, and yet we also find a massive void of murderers in that group.
We can look at hardcore fans of graphic horror films, or creators and fans of heavy metal music, and find similar voids of evidence, and yet both have been blamed in the past for creating killers. The bottom line is we may never truly understand what creates a murderous psychopath, but constantly watching the media regurgitate the usual suspects every time a murderer pops up in society tends to get very old, particularly when violence in the world is so damn common, and murdering psychopaths are thankfully not. I still feel that more analysis needs to be done regarding psychiatric drugs (another common denominator among murderers). Start looking at physical impacts, and not merely the environment.
Even though you're trying to make a different point, you're missing the point. Sure, actual war is horrible and stressful. But the typical kid with problems (like the traumatized, autistic, violent, ignored one that just killed 17 people after giving off sure signs of his willingness and ability to do so, and his desire and likelihood to do so) doesn't experience actual war at all. On the other hand, the guy who played temporary host in a brief foster-like capacity for that kid said in an interview that he'd see him playing violent FPS games for 15 or more hours a day, and that the kid was all about "kill, kill, kill, and blowing things up" and couldn't stop talking about doing so as he played those games. For kids who have trouble separating fantasy from reality, the games are a pure petri dish in which to stoke the urge and desensitize the eventual murderer.
Speaking of missing the point, you are purposely being oblivious to statistical facts. The kids who have trouble separating fantasy from reality who go on to murder other humans represent a miniscule fraction of the total number of people who play violent FPS games. We now have professional gamers and sponsored gaming events. One would think if there was truly a correlation to be found, we would find a lot of kids who engage in virtual violence as their job eventually becoming murderous psychopaths. And yet, we don't find it. In fact, there is a rather large void of evidence at the professional level (I found a single case of murder by a pro gamer, which was a 16-year old and a robbery gone bad). There have been FAR more football and basketball players who have killed people than pro gamers. Perhaps we should start analyzing the impact of all professional sports.
If you really want to dig into correlations, take a look at the statistics regarding mass murderers and psychiatric drugs.
As far as other "petri" effects, the world is full of violence. Video games is but one example, and one that is weak in correlation. You can't surf through 20 TV channels at any hour of the day and not find violence being represented in some form. The evening news depends on violence for ratings. Damn near every top-grossing movie has violence represented.
Aside from straight to lies, "alternative facts" are a huge problem. Things that are kinda true but which are misleading or deliberately omit important caveats.
Agreed. That is a growing problem. That said, I see "fake news" on a different level that lends itself more towards the liar-liar end of the bullshit spectrum.
Statistics are often abused as alternative facts, because you can work the numbers to say pretty much anything you like.
Absolutely agree with you here. Statistics is a form of data manipulation. More often than not, they are used to prove one's agenda and not much else. Personally I see the need for more regulation around the use of statistics because of the manipulative power they hold.
You can lie with facts.
Yes, and you can also multiply the largest number in the world by zero, and get a similar value.
Facts + bullshit = bullshit. It's that simple, if you want truth to survive and thrive.