Yeah, I think we're missing a big chunk of the story. He constitutionally can't be held against his will unless he's being charged with a crime past a certain point (24 hours I think?)
Not to mention, one is typically "arrested" in conjunction with being charged with a crime, not kidnapped for "emergency medical evaluation"
The various flight ceilings on commercial aviation might speak to that, but I seriously doubt any court is going to interpret the law as being about property rights as opposed to public safety / nuisance.
I used to seriously doubt that any court in the US would allow a lawsuit against an inanimate object, but apparently many municipal governments make fat bank doing just that, all the time, with Philadelphia leading the pack.
Now I know better than to "seriously doubt" any of the the idiotic things our legal system allows for.
Further to this. If we do see self driving vehicles any time soon I would have thought that would have been infinitely preferable to drones. Some kind of system that gets you to meet the truck - calling or texting minutes before arrival. A bay that only has your parcel in it.
A lot of parcels are shipped in standard boxes these days so that shouldn't be too difficult a system to build. It wouldn't replace a driver with odd or bulky parcels of course.
If you're going to go that route with it, society could easily start building both residential and commercial structures with built-in receptacle ports designed to mate with the port on the delivery vehicle, eliminating the "someone needs to be there to accept delivery" issue.
That is, presuming the industry standardizes the port design, rather than every single manufacturer having a proprietary one that nobody else's equipment will fit.
Drone delivery may be good for a farm out in the country where we don't want to waste time sending a truck and driver to the only order in fifty miles.
Well, except the fact that most figures I've seen show there is no efficient, cost-effective way to build a drone that can carry 50+ lbs and have over 100 miles of range.
At those rates, you'd be better off sending a dude in a truck.
And how exactly is a drone supposed to make a delivery to my apartment on the 56th floor in the middle of Manhattan?
It could deliver to the roof. Then you could go up and get it, or a robot could bring it to your apartment.
What happens when it's raining? Does the drone/robot just dump your shit in a puddle?
Anyway, this idea means building the infrastructure in to every single existing and new high-rise building, and passing the costs along to the residents.
How, again, is this supposed to be an improvement over the current method of paying some guy $12/hr to drive around dropping off boxes?
The number of UAVs it would take to replace a single FedEx or UPS truck would certainly be several orders of magnitude noisier.
Not to mention, it seems like it would be far more expensive.
What do you suppose is the annual TCO on all the drones that would be in the aforementioned, hypothetical fleet? Not just cheap toys, but robust airframes capable of carrying 50 lbs+ loads over several miles of space? Figure that up, then compare it to how much it costs to pay 1 guy $12.50/hr, or $26,000/yr, to drive a truck that runs about $10,000/yr to own.
We have to scan our smart card to print at my office.
Now, imagine having to scan it for each individual print, after waiting for the printer to finish with the previous user and make it's way to you. Rinse/repeat for every person on your floor.
Somebody created an account just to harass a person whose honesty has come into question before, and they just so happened to do it less than 5 minutes before someone who wasn't logged in and didn't do an actual search somehow found the user page?
Sounds like someone doesn't know how Twitter works.
Actually, I do, which is why I find the screenshot questionable - the only way to get such as screen in that exact format would be to deliberately try and hide your tracks (logging out, clearing the search bar before taking the screenshot, etc). Deliberation implies intent.
Let's say someone else follows her. They see the @her tweets. So they see it, and make the screen capture. But, they don't want to get involved in the mess, so they save the search, log out, and paste in the URL, showing the tweets in that search, without showing the person who captured it or how they searched for it.
Again, deliberation - the narrative could just as easily be that someone created a fake account, sent a handful of tweets, then did the search/logout/paste trick to cover their tracks.
My point is, we don't know the truth, and being American I tend to default to the belief of innocence until guilt is proven, which the plaintiff has failed to do thus far.
You realize you just contradicted yourself here, right? If trust is a binary decision, than the statement "Trust all the time isn't the same as trust everyone all the time." would be invalid, since it implies degrees of trust rather than a "yes/no" configuration.
No. That's not a contradiction. Trust is binary.
If trust is "true/false," and trust is necessary to live in a society, Then why won't you give me your banking access information? You trust me, right?
But trust isn't a single act. It's a binary between "yes" or "no" but not for all options. If your friend has been playing the "pull the chair" joke, you could trust your chair to hold you, but not trust it to be there. You still have trust all the time, just not in everything all the time. I trust that my next breath will contain oxygen. That is permanent, unless I'm in a fire or otherwise in trouble. But that doesn't mean that I have to trust everything all the time. Just that not trusting anything at any point in time would result in paralysis, and is mostly impossible. 10 minutes of analysis of the air before each breath isn't sustainable.
Methinks, in this paragraph, you are conflating "trust" with knowledge. See, I don't "trust" a chair to hold me, because that would imply that I don't know the condition of the chair prior to sitting in it. I know it will hold me, because I visually (and perhaps physically) verified the integrity of the structure prior to sitting in it. Same with the air you breathe - you're not "trusting it to contain oxygen," you know it contains breathable oxygen. That's why you don't try to breathe underwater - not because you don't trust water, but because you know that there's no breathable oxygen in it.
"Verify, then trust," makes a hell of a lot more sense than the inverse.
If this were a courtroom, she would be the plaintiff (because she's the one making an accusation of harassment), and thus would be required to provide the supporting documentation that gives her claimed evidence credibility.
No, that's not how it works. In a courtroom, the balance of the evidence is not slanted to any special requirement of "proof", just "preponderance". And a screen shot of harassment is evidence that could be sufficient for a "win".
Unless the defense can cast a reasonable doubt on the veracity of said evidence, which IMO has happened with this case. Somebody created an account just to harass a person whose honesty has come into question before, and they just so happened to do it less than 5 minutes before someone who wasn't logged in and didn't do an actual search somehow found the user page? For me, that's enough to say that the "evidence" presented is not strong enough for a conviction, and would require supplemental exhibits.
OK, so what's your banking access information? What, don't you trust me (and the rest of the Slashdot community)?
Trust all the time isn't the same as trust everyone all the time.
When your argument predicates social interaction on generic "trust," that very much is what you're saying.
Do you also trust that the voting machine you use hasn't been tampered with, or is there that nagging little thought in the back of your head that something could have been rigged?
There has never been a voting machine type that hasn't been tampered with, even paper and pen methods. Do "trust until proven otherwise" wouldn't apply, as "proven otherwise" has been met.
OK, so the woman in question has been called out previously for making dubious and outright dishonest statements.
Also, the men who trusted Jeffrey Dahmer died before (or rather, as) he could prove himself otherwise.
"Don't assume to know a man's heart until you've walked a mile in his shoes."
Obviously, and contrary to what is apparently popular opinion on Slashdot, trust is not a binary decision.
But it is. You either do it or you don't. How do you 37.5% trust your chair to not break when you sit in it? Find a weight exactly 37.5% of your weight and place it on the chair to test it before sitting down?
You realize you just contradicted yourself here, right? If trust is a binary decision, than the statement "Trust all the time isn't the same as trust everyone all the time." would be invalid, since it implies degrees of trust rather than a "yes/no" configuration.
Well at least you accept that. Now we just have to work out the details.
but you've given me no reason to distrust you on certain things.
Equally, I've given you no reason to trust me. I could be a pathological liar, or I could be incapable of dishonesty. You have no way of knowing for sure. So wouldn't it make more sense to default to the side of caution and assume that I am not particularly trustworthy?
Do you pick up hitch-hikers? Why not, don't you trust them?
Say if you were in Second Life and you IM'd me and said, "Hey can I borrow 100L$ for a few uploads until I can get my payment situation worked out. I'd hand you 100L$.
And if I was a person on the street you'd never met before, and I asked you the same question (but with Dollars, obviously), would you be so readily willing to trust that I'm not going to steal that money?
Or maybe I offered to sell you something on Craigslist, and have you come meet me at a place of my choosing. Would you think it a bad idea to assume that there's a chance I have ill intent? Because people get robbed/murdered in similar scams quite often these days.
Ever played Rust? There's a valid allegory there.
Nope, console gamer, so none of those Zombies meets survival games...yet.
Well, the concept is that you start the game naked with nothing but a rock, and when you get killed you lose all your gear and have to start over. I haven't played either, but apparently the people who do have developed a culture that many are saying is inherently sociopathic - activities like torture, backstabbing, and senseless murder are the norm rather than the outliers.
But...in those games, wouldn't cooperating with others and forming communities together make the group so strong that the zombies wouldn't be a threat?
Yes.
Yet, that's not how the majority of people choose to play. Sure, you'll get your little enclaves of people who are Steam friends or some such, but generally speaking, on a server where no-one knows anyone, it's essentially a murderous free-for-all. To me that says something about human nature... something most people would probably prefer to assume doesn't happen.
Say you walk up to my door with a minor injury...I don't need to hand you my keys, I can say "Hey dude, need me to call someone or do you need a ride?"
Sounds like a good way to get murdered... or raped then murdered, if you're a woman. You may think that's ridiculous, but people gaining unauthorized access by feigning need is far from unheard of.
I would handle that situation by offering to call an ambulance, or at the very least having a buddy help me "stabilize the patient" while I dressed the wound.
You're really a hypocrite. You don't recall the "calling you a stupid shit on virtue of making stupid arguments" and you being a petulant asshole pretending that was an ad hominem. Then immediately, in the very next post you made, doing the same thing regarding Jeff Bezos.
Yea, because I'm not an obsessive little prick. See, some people have more going on in their lives than what they post on Slashdot, so we tend to not bother remembering unimportant comments we made on unimportant subjects to unimportant people.
That you have double standards of that degree
Coming from you, that's really funny. Enjoy your fantasy world where you're infallible and anyone who disagrees with your holy edicts are just dumb chumps. Me, I've got more important things to do.
Number two, you apparently parsed it wrong. But I'll cut you some slack, since sarcasm can be hard to infer in text posts.
Number three, upon consideration of the evidence (screenshot) presented, I now find the initial claim dubious, and have since retracted my earlier stance on the matter.
Isn't it also "genuine sexism" to assume she's not lying?
She's provided evidence of harassment.
No, she's providing a claim of harassment, but as has been pointed out by others, she has also been caught misrepresenting herself in the past, and the details of this new "evidence" appear to take credibility away from her claims, rather than enforce them (namely how, in the screenshot, you can see it was taken by a user not logged in, and that the account in question was created less than 5 minutes before the screenshot was taken).
If this were a courtroom, she would be the plaintiff (because she's the one making an accusation of harassment), and thus would be required to provide the supporting documentation that gives her claimed evidence credibility.
Those accusing her of lying haven't provided proof of lying.
They don't have to - burden of proof goes to the accuser, and as mentioned earlier, she is the one who is actually making an accusation here.
The win goes to the side with evidence, even if weak.
I prefer a system where the evidence is thoroughly investigated, especially if it's weak, rather than just defaulting judgement to whoever makes the most convincing case but can't actually prove their claims.
Personally, I don't trust her, not because she's a woman or anything stupid like that, but rather because I don't trust anyone I don't personally know.
If that were true, then you'd never leave your house.
Why do people assume complete trust is required for social interaction?
Assuming everyone is a violent murderer until you "know" them would be debilitating,
Yes, it would be.
and that's the natural consequence of your assertion.
No, it's not.
I trust all the time.
OK, so what's your banking access information? What, don't you trust me (and the rest of the Slashdot community)?
I trust the guy in traffic to not deliberately ram me.
Do you really? You assume he's not going to, because he's not driving like that's his intention. But say the guy in traffic is driving erratically, swerving between lanes, and being belligerent. Do you trust him to not do anything that could damage your vehicle and/or harm you?
Or do you temper your trust based on the circumstances at hand?
I trust the ATM to not give me $100 and deduct $1000 from my account.
Do you also trust that the voting machine you use hasn't been tampered with, or is there that nagging little thought in the back of your head that something could have been rigged?
I trust the store to sell me the item labeled, and not poison in a peanut butter jar.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I think we're missing a big chunk of the story. He constitutionally can't be held against his will unless he's being charged with a crime past a certain point (24 hours I think?)
Not to mention, one is typically "arrested" in conjunction with being charged with a crime, not kidnapped for "emergency medical evaluation"
Stephen King is probably lucky he lives in a different area of the northeast.......otherwise, he'd be on trial for all sorts of sick demented things.
No shit, ever bothered to read The Stand or Black House? Dark stuff there.
Non-misspelled link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
The various flight ceilings on commercial aviation might speak to that, but I seriously doubt any court is going to interpret the law as being about property rights as opposed to public safety / nuisance.
I used to seriously doubt that any court in the US would allow a lawsuit against an inanimate object, but apparently many municipal governments make fat bank doing just that, all the time, with Philadelphia leading the pack.
Now I know better than to "seriously doubt" any of the the idiotic things our legal system allows for.
Further to this. If we do see self driving vehicles any time soon I would have thought that would have been infinitely preferable to drones. Some kind of system that gets you to meet the truck - calling or texting minutes before arrival. A bay that only has your parcel in it.
A lot of parcels are shipped in standard boxes these days so that shouldn't be too difficult a system to build. It wouldn't replace a driver with odd or bulky parcels of course.
If you're going to go that route with it, society could easily start building both residential and commercial structures with built-in receptacle ports designed to mate with the port on the delivery vehicle, eliminating the "someone needs to be there to accept delivery" issue.
That is, presuming the industry standardizes the port design, rather than every single manufacturer having a proprietary one that nobody else's equipment will fit.
Drone delivery may be good for a farm out in the country where we don't want to waste time sending a truck and driver to the only order in fifty miles.
Well, except the fact that most figures I've seen show there is no efficient, cost-effective way to build a drone that can carry 50+ lbs and have over 100 miles of range.
At those rates, you'd be better off sending a dude in a truck.
And how exactly is a drone supposed to make a delivery to my apartment on the 56th floor in the middle of Manhattan?
It could deliver to the roof. Then you could go up and get it, or a robot could bring it to your apartment.
What happens when it's raining? Does the drone/robot just dump your shit in a puddle?
Anyway, this idea means building the infrastructure in to every single existing and new high-rise building, and passing the costs along to the residents.
How, again, is this supposed to be an improvement over the current method of paying some guy $12/hr to drive around dropping off boxes?
The number of UAVs it would take to replace a single FedEx or UPS truck would certainly be several orders of magnitude noisier.
Not to mention, it seems like it would be far more expensive.
What do you suppose is the annual TCO on all the drones that would be in the aforementioned, hypothetical fleet? Not just cheap toys, but robust airframes capable of carrying 50 lbs+ loads over several miles of space? Figure that up, then compare it to how much it costs to pay 1 guy $12.50/hr, or $26,000/yr, to drive a truck that runs about $10,000/yr to own.
I fail to understand why everyone assumes that drones will be flying over their property.
I automatically assume that delivery drones will be required to fly not far above existing roadways.
Doesn't that, you know, completely defeat the purpose of using aircraft?
People like you are why we cant have nice things.
You can have all the nice things you want, provided you're not using them to violate the private property rights of others.
What you mean to say here is, "People like you are why I can't ignore your rights and play with my toys as I please."
I'm glad for people like them.
We have to scan our smart card to print at my office.
Now, imagine having to scan it for each individual print, after waiting for the printer to finish with the previous user and make it's way to you. Rinse/repeat for every person on your floor.
From TFS:
Once the printer receives the job, it moves to the intended recipient who then has to display a smart card to activate printing.
So, instead of:
- send my job to the printer
- walk all of 10 feet to pick it up,
I now have to:
- send the print job
- wait for the printer to finish with the last person
- wait for the printer to get to my desk from $deity-knows-where in the building (and it's a big fucking building)
- wave some card at the printer
- wait for the printer to finish and go away.
Talk about "technology for technology's sake." I've seen drunk frat boys invent more useful shit than this.
Even less movement possible in office environment. Soon there will be robots to deliver coffee and spoon-feed office workers...
So, what you're saying here, is that Wall-E was more prophecy than comedy...
Somebody created an account just to harass a person whose honesty has come into question before, and they just so happened to do it less than 5 minutes before someone who wasn't logged in and didn't do an actual search somehow found the user page?
Sounds like someone doesn't know how Twitter works.
Actually, I do, which is why I find the screenshot questionable - the only way to get such as screen in that exact format would be to deliberately try and hide your tracks (logging out, clearing the search bar before taking the screenshot, etc). Deliberation implies intent.
Let's say someone else follows her. They see the @her tweets. So they see it, and make the screen capture. But, they don't want to get involved in the mess, so they save the search, log out, and paste in the URL, showing the tweets in that search, without showing the person who captured it or how they searched for it.
Again, deliberation - the narrative could just as easily be that someone created a fake account, sent a handful of tweets, then did the search/logout/paste trick to cover their tracks.
My point is, we don't know the truth, and being American I tend to default to the belief of innocence until guilt is proven, which the plaintiff has failed to do thus far.
You realize you just contradicted yourself here, right? If trust is a binary decision, than the statement "Trust all the time isn't the same as trust everyone all the time." would be invalid, since it implies degrees of trust rather than a "yes/no" configuration.
No. That's not a contradiction. Trust is binary.
If trust is "true/false," and trust is necessary to live in a society, Then why won't you give me your banking access information? You trust me, right?
But trust isn't a single act. It's a binary between "yes" or "no" but not for all options. If your friend has been playing the "pull the chair" joke, you could trust your chair to hold you, but not trust it to be there. You still have trust all the time, just not in everything all the time. I trust that my next breath will contain oxygen. That is permanent, unless I'm in a fire or otherwise in trouble. But that doesn't mean that I have to trust everything all the time. Just that not trusting anything at any point in time would result in paralysis, and is mostly impossible. 10 minutes of analysis of the air before each breath isn't sustainable.
Methinks, in this paragraph, you are conflating "trust" with knowledge. See, I don't "trust" a chair to hold me, because that would imply that I don't know the condition of the chair prior to sitting in it. I know it will hold me, because I visually (and perhaps physically) verified the integrity of the structure prior to sitting in it. Same with the air you breathe - you're not "trusting it to contain oxygen," you know it contains breathable oxygen. That's why you don't try to breathe underwater - not because you don't trust water, but because you know that there's no breathable oxygen in it.
"Verify, then trust," makes a hell of a lot more sense than the inverse.
Trust isn't boolean true/false, it's analog.
That's what I've been saying!
"weird" as in "we don't talk about it in public, not "weird" as in "only a certain tiny subset of the population engages in this activity."
From what I've seen, even 70 year old Japanese grannies are picking up tentacle-porn manga, albeit not openly.
So maybe if you loaded the magnets into a shotgun, then fired them through your brain, you'd notice an effect.
This gets my vote for Best Quote of the Day.
If this were a courtroom, she would be the plaintiff (because she's the one making an accusation of harassment), and thus would be required to provide the supporting documentation that gives her claimed evidence credibility.
No, that's not how it works. In a courtroom, the balance of the evidence is not slanted to any special requirement of "proof", just "preponderance". And a screen shot of harassment is evidence that could be sufficient for a "win".
Unless the defense can cast a reasonable doubt on the veracity of said evidence, which IMO has happened with this case. Somebody created an account just to harass a person whose honesty has come into question before, and they just so happened to do it less than 5 minutes before someone who wasn't logged in and didn't do an actual search somehow found the user page? For me, that's enough to say that the "evidence" presented is not strong enough for a conviction, and would require supplemental exhibits.
OK, so what's your banking access information? What, don't you trust me (and the rest of the Slashdot community)?
Trust all the time isn't the same as trust everyone all the time.
When your argument predicates social interaction on generic "trust," that very much is what you're saying.
Do you also trust that the voting machine you use hasn't been tampered with, or is there that nagging little thought in the back of your head that something could have been rigged?
There has never been a voting machine type that hasn't been tampered with, even paper and pen methods. Do "trust until proven otherwise" wouldn't apply, as "proven otherwise" has been met.
OK, so the woman in question has been called out previously for making dubious and outright dishonest statements.
Also, the men who trusted Jeffrey Dahmer died before (or rather, as) he could prove himself otherwise.
"Don't assume to know a man's heart until you've walked a mile in his shoes."
Obviously, and contrary to what is apparently popular opinion on Slashdot, trust is not a binary decision.
But it is. You either do it or you don't. How do you 37.5% trust your chair to not break when you sit in it? Find a weight exactly 37.5% of your weight and place it on the chair to test it before sitting down?
You realize you just contradicted yourself here, right? If trust is a binary decision, than the statement "Trust all the time isn't the same as trust everyone all the time." would be invalid, since it implies degrees of trust rather than a "yes/no" configuration.
Do you trust me? Why should you?
There are levels of trust,
Well at least you accept that. Now we just have to work out the details.
but you've given me no reason to distrust you on certain things.
Equally, I've given you no reason to trust me. I could be a pathological liar, or I could be incapable of dishonesty. You have no way of knowing for sure. So wouldn't it make more sense to default to the side of caution and assume that I am not particularly trustworthy?
Do you pick up hitch-hikers? Why not, don't you trust them?
Say if you were in Second Life and you IM'd me and said, "Hey can I borrow 100L$ for a few uploads until I can get my payment situation worked out. I'd hand you 100L$.
And if I was a person on the street you'd never met before, and I asked you the same question (but with Dollars, obviously), would you be so readily willing to trust that I'm not going to steal that money?
Or maybe I offered to sell you something on Craigslist, and have you come meet me at a place of my choosing. Would you think it a bad idea to assume that there's a chance I have ill intent? Because people get robbed/murdered in similar scams quite often these days.
Ever played Rust? There's a valid allegory there.
Nope, console gamer, so none of those Zombies meets survival games...yet.
Well, the concept is that you start the game naked with nothing but a rock, and when you get killed you lose all your gear and have to start over. I haven't played either, but apparently the people who do have developed a culture that many are saying is inherently sociopathic - activities like torture, backstabbing, and senseless murder are the norm rather than the outliers.
But...in those games, wouldn't cooperating with others and forming communities together make the group so strong that the zombies wouldn't be a threat?
Yes.
Yet, that's not how the majority of people choose to play. Sure, you'll get your little enclaves of people who are Steam friends or some such, but generally speaking, on a server where no-one knows anyone, it's essentially a murderous free-for-all. To me that says something about human nature... something most people would probably prefer to assume doesn't happen.
Say you walk up to my door with a minor injury...I don't need to hand you my keys, I can say "Hey dude, need me to call someone or do you need a ride?"
Sounds like a good way to get murdered... or raped then murdered, if you're a woman. You may think that's ridiculous, but people gaining unauthorized access by feigning need is far from unheard of.
I would handle that situation by offering to call an ambulance, or at the very least having a buddy help me "stabilize the patient" while I dressed the wound.
Can't a person just not trust anyone by default without being accused of racism, or misogyny, etc?
You're lucky you're not being accused of being a sociopath.
This time, lol.
Trust is the very center of society and civilization. If you can't trust, you're not going to be very good at getting along in society.
OK, so go ahead and post your banking access information in response, you know, since "Trust is the very center of society and civilization."
No, we've been over this.
You're really a hypocrite. You don't recall the "calling you a stupid shit on virtue of making stupid arguments" and you being a petulant asshole pretending that was an ad hominem. Then immediately, in the very next post you made, doing the same thing regarding Jeff Bezos.
Yea, because I'm not an obsessive little prick. See, some people have more going on in their lives than what they post on Slashdot, so we tend to not bother remembering unimportant comments we made on unimportant subjects to unimportant people.
That you have double standards of that degree
Coming from you, that's really funny. Enjoy your fantasy world where you're infallible and anyone who disagrees with your holy edicts are just dumb chumps. Me, I've got more important things to do.
Number one, there's nothing "epic" about my post.
Number two, you apparently parsed it wrong. But I'll cut you some slack, since sarcasm can be hard to infer in text posts.
Number three, upon consideration of the evidence (screenshot) presented, I now find the initial claim dubious, and have since retracted my earlier stance on the matter.
Isn't it also "genuine sexism" to assume she's not lying?
She's provided evidence of harassment.
No, she's providing a claim of harassment, but as has been pointed out by others, she has also been caught misrepresenting herself in the past, and the details of this new "evidence" appear to take credibility away from her claims, rather than enforce them (namely how, in the screenshot, you can see it was taken by a user not logged in, and that the account in question was created less than 5 minutes before the screenshot was taken).
If this were a courtroom, she would be the plaintiff (because she's the one making an accusation of harassment), and thus would be required to provide the supporting documentation that gives her claimed evidence credibility.
Those accusing her of lying haven't provided proof of lying.
They don't have to - burden of proof goes to the accuser, and as mentioned earlier, she is the one who is actually making an accusation here.
The win goes to the side with evidence, even if weak.
I prefer a system where the evidence is thoroughly investigated, especially if it's weak, rather than just defaulting judgement to whoever makes the most convincing case but can't actually prove their claims.
Personally, I don't trust her, not because she's a woman or anything stupid like that, but rather because I don't trust anyone I don't personally know.
If that were true, then you'd never leave your house.
Why do people assume complete trust is required for social interaction?
Assuming everyone is a violent murderer until you "know" them would be debilitating,
Yes, it would be.
and that's the natural consequence of your assertion.
No, it's not.
I trust all the time.
OK, so what's your banking access information? What, don't you trust me (and the rest of the Slashdot community)?
I trust the guy in traffic to not deliberately ram me.
Do you really? You assume he's not going to, because he's not driving like that's his intention. But say the guy in traffic is driving erratically, swerving between lanes, and being belligerent. Do you trust him to not do anything that could damage your vehicle and/or harm you?
Or do you temper your trust based on the circumstances at hand?
I trust the ATM to not give me $100 and deduct $1000 from my account.
Do you also trust that the voting machine you use hasn't been tampered with, or is there that nagging little thought in the back of your head that something could have been rigged?
I trust the store to sell me the item labeled, and not poison in a peanut butter jar.
Bad idea.
Obviously, and contrary to what is apparently popular opinion on Slashdot, trust is not a binary decision.
^^^ proof that any story can be derailed by conservative jackasses
Um, it's only possible for a person to derail a story if you let them.
Which it appears you have done.
Ever consider just ignoring the people you find annoying? Works pretty well for me.
I'm more incredulous that Slate ran a factual story that wasn't 99% opinion.