Don't just stop at not building them in your country: Why not make an international treaty banning killer robots globally? Hell, it worked with landmines (except some savage countries like the US and Russia still haven't signed it.)
The issue with killer robots is that once you introduce them, you won't be able to let the decisions be made by humans. At some point robots will fight robots and at that point it just matters who shoots first. Quick reactions matter and a human will always be slower than AI. So you end up with autonomous killing machines and sure enough they will also kill humans in the process.
The incident to which the AC is referring is about a poppy burning which was in the news just a few days ago. A man was arrested for burning the poppy on Remembrance day.
This is probably similar to the flag burning controversy in the US. (See also the excellent Futurama episode on why it makes not sense to defend freedom of expression by abolishing it)
Saying something stupid is not a crime. The simple fact that you are not telling the truth does not constitute a crime, nor does your ignorance in making false statements.
What you were probably referring to is saying something offensive or insulting. I think you're right insofar as free speech is indeed under attack in a lot of countries, but that should be all the more reason to defend it. It has been proven numerous times that in practice it is impossible to outlaw insulting statements without harming free speech.
For example, in the UK, a teenager was arrested for calling the "Church" of Scientology a cult. You can't tell me that this is not a ludicrous undermining of free speech laws.
In the UK you can get arrested for all kinds of things you say: Calling a police horse gay, for example. If someone feels like something you say could insult someone, you get arrested. Now, not all of these (ludicrous) charges are successful, but still I think there already is a bad chilling effect.
Listen to Rowan Atkinson's (Mr. Bean) excellent 10 Minutes speech on the topic and why he is part of the campaign "Feel free to insult me".
In the early days, it was pretty easy to be a computer hobbyist. Nowadays we see that manufacturers restrict their devices (including the iPhone) and the user loses control, being locked out and unable to tinker freely with their device. Cory Doctorow suspects that many powerful advocacy groups will try restrict general purpose computers and the general purpose network (possibly outlawing tinkering, which in part is already being enforced), which poses not only problems for hobbyists, but the whole society.
Do you recognize that there might be a genuine problem in restricting the user to a – maybe somewhat safer, but unfree – walled garden and using laws to enforce it? I know you've stated your opinion on DRM before, nevertheless I'm interested what you might have to say about more recent developments.
In Germany there is an odd situation right now, where ISPs can't be held accountable for what their users do, while private individuals or small hot spot operators are (somewhat) liable for someone else using their network for illegal activities. This basically means you can't open up your WiFi to visitors and neighbours without spying on their Internet usage.
(On the other hand, in contrast to the US, if you get caught, you don't have to pay $1.5 million (or even $54,000) for copyright infringement.)
Me still thinks this is doubleplusungood. If you want to protect your kids, don't let them unsupervised on the Internet when they are still young. You don't let them play on a dangerous road either, do you?
My university building is 80m from SuperMUC; there is a large campus at the site with several thousand students and employees. In winter it most definitely makes sense to use the heat from SuperMUC, as the average temperature is about 0 degrees Celsius. In summer it might be a bit more difficult to dissipate heat on hot days, though the average temperature is still only 19 decrees Celsius for July.
In case of a legal dispute, the police should be forced to release their video, as to provide the clearest possible picture of the case. They should not only release them when it suits them. Unfortunately, presumably incriminating police videos often end up "missing", with little or no consequences for the policemen.
This is fine, they should present their own point of view. The evidence suggests however, that police brutality exists and that often there is no persecution of the perpetrators – sometimes they even drop investigations against police and instead charge the victims with resisting arrest.
There is a Blue Code of Silence in the police that will protect a violent minority of policemen. In Germany there was a famous case of police brutality at a demonstration "freedom not fear", where the CCC released a video of the incident. First of all the policemen had to be identified, which was only possible because it was a HD video, since despite Amnesty's calls for a identification tags for policemen, there is none. When the accused police officers were questioned, they were provably lying, because the CCC had another unpublished video disproving the statements by the police. They were later convicted, but only had to pay a few thousand bucks.
This is really not newsworthy. It happens in Buenos Aires all the time. I was there 2009 at Wikimania (where RMS also attended) and I in the few days I was there multiple of my friends had their bags/laptops stolen, while I was in the same room.
The thiefs are really skilled and they make it almost impossible for you to notice the theft. The only way to defend yourself is to have all your stuff at your body all the time, thus being a harder target than everyone else.
Of course "virtual murder" is nothing like a real murder. But, the depictions in video games do shape our perception of the real world, as do other media (like movies). Most recent high-budget shooters aim to present modern warfare, but tend to show only the positive aspects (adventurous, exciting, etc.), while omitting all the pain and suffering that comes with it. Additionally they show only the very limited viewpoint of one (US) soldier, not the view of the other waring party or civilians.
In film, we'd call that a "pro-war film" or even "propaganda film", and it's right to criticize those games. (On the other hand, I have no problem with shooters like UnrealTournament or Quake3 – they don't aim to show how the war is, so they don't fail while doing so)
"Go west" doesn't work anymore. You can't just rest all your hopes on being able to continue life on another planet. It's a romantic idea, but actually doing so would require efforts that are by far much larger than ending world poverty or convincing people to care about the environment. A manned mission to mars would cost $40-$80 billion. Here are some problems, each enough to explain why we won't be anything near this in the next 50 years (just some examples, I'm sure there are more):
Space expenses don't scale well. While development costs do scale, things like transport, fuel, assembly of rockets, etc. does not scale very well.
Full Autonomy is extremely hard. If earth goes down the toilet, you can't rely on yearly shipments of equipment and technology. You'd have to build *everything* in your colony, which would require a huge colony indeed (so that you have a factory that makes the robots that manufacturers your mp3 players and *everything else you rely on nowadays*) and thus an even greater effort.
Humans just love earth. Even mild changes to our environment can have extreme consequences on our health. Thinking about going to Europa, that trendy Jupiter moon? Well, it only has 0.134 g, so you need to put *everything* in giant centrifuges. And that's just one factor. Building a huge shell that keeps the pressure of 1 bar earth atmosphere and 10^-12 bar Europa atmosphere separate is another one...
I seriously doubt that. These are the two most grave concerns:
Animal pain. Animals do feel pain, and from the universal viewpoint of ethics, it doesn't matter whether it's you, me, some other human, an ape or a chicken that gets tortured. Pain is pain and our practices in factory farming causes a lot of it for only a little benefit, which is extremely unethical. (I know there are other approaches to animal's status, but there is no notable modern moral philosopher who disputes that the suffering of animals is a serious concern)
Environment. Did you know that animal production accounts for more greenhouse gases than all of the world's transportation? Yup, and that's not some veggie organization that claims that, but the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). It also takes up a lot of water, energy and is responsible for much of the destruction of the jungle.
Wikipedia's image filter would just hide images per default, you're still able to see them with just one click, at any time.
This in no way helps oppressive governments. It is about a client-side cookie and that way the client can control everything at all times. (There's not even a way for a school to hide all images, since you can always override your filter settings by clicking on the image placeholder)
If an evil government tried to filter images, they'd have to prevent pictures from actually being sent over the Internet.
Wikipedia's image filter would just hide images per default, you're still able to see them with just one click, at any time.
This in no way helps oppressive governments. It is about a client-side cookie and that way the client can control everything at all times. (There's not even a way for a school to hide all images, since you can always override your filter settings by clicking on the image placeholder)
If an evil government tried to filter images, they'd have to prevent pictures from actually being sent over the internet.
He probably got around 160mS (milliSievert) in total, which even spread on several years is quite a lot (you normally get 4mS annually. Up to 50mS/year if you're a radiation worker) (calculation, data)
I tell you what I tell everyone with this kind of argument: Please be more specific. Tell us your username, your edits (diffs!), then we can evaluate and judge for ourselves. Otherwise, it's just FUD you're spreading.
Incidentally, I know a number of ex-users who saw Wikipedia as a platform for their own personal opinion / view of the world, a means for self-expression and so forth. They were frustrated as they did not succeed (obviously) and now they complain about Wikipedia just the way you do and use the same vocabulary you did in your posts.
I'm sorry, but how is this Insightful? It is a troll post.
Please, moderators, remember: there is no +1 Agree. If a post brings up a new point or sheds a new light onto the discussion, mod it up. Don't mod it up simply because you are support a certain opinion.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a ToS;DR campaign to end unreadable ToS/Eulas or provide ways of getting useful summaries of them. Check out their List of ToS.
Don't just stop at not building them in your country: Why not make an international treaty banning killer robots globally? Hell, it worked with landmines (except some savage countries like the US and Russia still haven't signed it.)
The issue with killer robots is that once you introduce them, you won't be able to let the decisions be made by humans. At some point robots will fight robots and at that point it just matters who shoots first. Quick reactions matter and a human will always be slower than AI. So you end up with autonomous killing machines and sure enough they will also kill humans in the process.
The incident to which the AC is referring is about a poppy burning which was in the news just a few days ago. A man was arrested for burning the poppy on Remembrance day.
This is probably similar to the flag burning controversy in the US. (See also the excellent Futurama episode on why it makes not sense to defend freedom of expression by abolishing it)
Saying something stupid is not a crime. The simple fact that you are not telling the truth does not constitute a crime, nor does your ignorance in making false statements.
What you were probably referring to is saying something offensive or insulting. I think you're right insofar as free speech is indeed under attack in a lot of countries, but that should be all the more reason to defend it. It has been proven numerous times that in practice it is impossible to outlaw insulting statements without harming free speech.
For example, in the UK, a teenager was arrested for calling the "Church" of Scientology a cult. You can't tell me that this is not a ludicrous undermining of free speech laws.
In the UK you can get arrested for all kinds of things you say: Calling a police horse gay, for example. If someone feels like something you say could insult someone, you get arrested. Now, not all of these (ludicrous) charges are successful, but still I think there already is a bad chilling effect.
Listen to Rowan Atkinson's (Mr. Bean) excellent 10 Minutes speech on the topic and why he is part of the campaign "Feel free to insult me".
In the early days, it was pretty easy to be a computer hobbyist. Nowadays we see that manufacturers restrict their devices (including the iPhone) and the user loses control, being locked out and unable to tinker freely with their device. Cory Doctorow suspects that many powerful advocacy groups will try restrict general purpose computers and the general purpose network (possibly outlawing tinkering, which in part is already being enforced), which poses not only problems for hobbyists, but the whole society.
Do you recognize that there might be a genuine problem in restricting the user to a – maybe somewhat safer, but unfree – walled garden and using laws to enforce it? I know you've stated your opinion on DRM before, nevertheless I'm interested what you might have to say about more recent developments.
Hi! I invite you to read this explanation why NC licenses are problematic.
Obligatory xkcd: http://xkcd.com/705/
In Germany there is an odd situation right now, where ISPs can't be held accountable for what their users do, while private individuals or small hot spot operators are (somewhat) liable for someone else using their network for illegal activities. This basically means you can't open up your WiFi to visitors and neighbours without spying on their Internet usage.
(On the other hand, in contrast to the US, if you get caught, you don't have to pay $1.5 million (or even $54,000) for copyright infringement.)
Me still thinks this is doubleplusungood. If you want to protect your kids, don't let them unsupervised on the Internet when they are still young. You don't let them play on a dangerous road either, do you?
Collusion Download/Demo. Looks like a pretty nifty tool. And completely without flash!
My university building is 80m from SuperMUC; there is a large campus at the site with several thousand students and employees. In winter it most definitely makes sense to use the heat from SuperMUC, as the average temperature is about 0 degrees Celsius. In summer it might be a bit more difficult to dissipate heat on hot days, though the average temperature is still only 19 decrees Celsius for July.
In case of a legal dispute, the police should be forced to release their video, as to provide the clearest possible picture of the case. They should not only release them when it suits them. Unfortunately, presumably incriminating police videos often end up "missing", with little or no consequences for the policemen.
This is fine, they should present their own point of view. The evidence suggests however, that police brutality exists and that often there is no persecution of the perpetrators – sometimes they even drop investigations against police and instead charge the victims with resisting arrest.
There is a Blue Code of Silence in the police that will protect a violent minority of policemen. In Germany there was a famous case of police brutality at a demonstration "freedom not fear", where the CCC released a video of the incident. First of all the policemen had to be identified, which was only possible because it was a HD video, since despite Amnesty's calls for a identification tags for policemen, there is none. When the accused police officers were questioned, they were provably lying, because the CCC had another unpublished video disproving the statements by the police. They were later convicted, but only had to pay a few thousand bucks.
This is really not newsworthy. It happens in Buenos Aires all the time. I was there 2009 at Wikimania (where RMS also attended) and I in the few days I was there multiple of my friends had their bags/laptops stolen, while I was in the same room.
The thiefs are really skilled and they make it almost impossible for you to notice the theft. The only way to defend yourself is to have all your stuff at your body all the time, thus being a harder target than everyone else.
Maybe he just doesn't believe in math You know, everyone is entitled to their opinion!
Of course "virtual murder" is nothing like a real murder. But, the depictions in video games do shape our perception of the real world, as do other media (like movies). Most recent high-budget shooters aim to present modern warfare, but tend to show only the positive aspects (adventurous, exciting, etc.), while omitting all the pain and suffering that comes with it. Additionally they show only the very limited viewpoint of one (US) soldier, not the view of the other waring party or civilians.
In film, we'd call that a "pro-war film" or even "propaganda film", and it's right to criticize those games. (On the other hand, I have no problem with shooters like UnrealTournament or Quake3 – they don't aim to show how the war is, so they don't fail while doing so)
"Go west" doesn't work anymore. You can't just rest all your hopes on being able to continue life on another planet. It's a romantic idea, but actually doing so would require efforts that are by far much larger than ending world poverty or convincing people to care about the environment. A manned mission to mars would cost $40-$80 billion. Here are some problems, each enough to explain why we won't be anything near this in the next 50 years (just some examples, I'm sure there are more):
Space expenses don't scale well. While development costs do scale, things like transport, fuel, assembly of rockets, etc. does not scale very well.
Full Autonomy is extremely hard. If earth goes down the toilet, you can't rely on yearly shipments of equipment and technology. You'd have to build *everything* in your colony, which would require a huge colony indeed (so that you have a factory that makes the robots that manufacturers your mp3 players and *everything else you rely on nowadays*) and thus an even greater effort.
Humans just love earth. Even mild changes to our environment can have extreme consequences on our health. Thinking about going to Europa, that trendy Jupiter moon? Well, it only has 0.134 g, so you need to put *everything* in giant centrifuges. And that's just one factor. Building a huge shell that keeps the pressure of 1 bar earth atmosphere and 10^-12 bar Europa atmosphere separate is another one...
I seriously doubt that. These are the two most grave concerns:
Animal pain. Animals do feel pain, and from the universal viewpoint of ethics, it doesn't matter whether it's you, me, some other human, an ape or a chicken that gets tortured. Pain is pain and our practices in factory farming causes a lot of it for only a little benefit, which is extremely unethical. (I know there are other approaches to animal's status, but there is no notable modern moral philosopher who disputes that the suffering of animals is a serious concern)
Environment. Did you know that animal production accounts for more greenhouse gases than all of the world's transportation? Yup, and that's not some veggie organization that claims that, but the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). It also takes up a lot of water, energy and is responsible for much of the destruction of the jungle.
Wikipedia's image filter would just hide images per default, you're still able to see them with just one click, at any time.
This in no way helps oppressive governments. It is about a client-side cookie and that way the client can control everything at all times. (There's not even a way for a school to hide all images, since you can always override your filter settings by clicking on the image placeholder)
If an evil government tried to filter images, they'd have to prevent pictures from actually being sent over the Internet.
Wikipedia's image filter would just hide images per default, you're still able to see them with just one click, at any time.
This in no way helps oppressive governments. It is about a client-side cookie and that way the client can control everything at all times. (There's not even a way for a school to hide all images, since you can always override your filter settings by clicking on the image placeholder)
If an evil government tried to filter images, they'd have to prevent pictures from actually being sent over the internet.
He probably got around 160mS (milliSievert) in total, which even spread on several years is quite a lot (you normally get 4mS annually. Up to 50mS/year if you're a radiation worker) (calculation, data)
Revision history is kept forever. Just click on "View history" on an article and provide us with the diff link ("prev"). Thanks.
I tell you what I tell everyone with this kind of argument: Please be more specific. Tell us your username, your edits (diffs!), then we can evaluate and judge for ourselves. Otherwise, it's just FUD you're spreading.
Incidentally, I know a number of ex-users who saw Wikipedia as a platform for their own personal opinion / view of the world, a means for self-expression and so forth. They were frustrated as they did not succeed (obviously) and now they complain about Wikipedia just the way you do and use the same vocabulary you did in your posts.
I'm sorry, but how is this Insightful? It is a troll post.
Please, moderators, remember: there is no +1 Agree. If a post brings up a new point or sheds a new light onto the discussion, mod it up. Don't mod it up simply because you are support a certain opinion.