What is to be said about someone who starts his campaign by declaring all Mexicans are rapists--and goes downhill from there?
What is to be said to someone who thinks Hillary Clinton has accomplished nothing?
(It is certainly possible to disagree about the value of some of her accomplishments, though the main thing I don't like about her is that she's just another lawyer. I don't dislike it either because that's just the way the game is rigged these years.)
Yeah, there are certainly some trolls around here.
No, my OP was not a troll post, just an observation, but from the troll responses, a question does occur to me. Kind of an indirect effect of the Trump trolls trying to change the topic away from Trump's incompetence, and even though I know that wasn't their intention.
Given Trump's track record, he certainly could have learned from his many mistakes (such as his six bankruptcies), but as far as I can recall, he never admits to a mistake and never apologizes. Can't learn by blaming other people for your mistakes or projecting your personal flaws onto your enemies. Therefore the obvious question is whether that's just a marketing ploy (to protect "the brand") or if the Donald sincerely believes he is perfect?
I would say that it is impossible for him to be sincere, but that could be projection. After all, my father wasn't extremely rich and I didn't have any sort of sheltered upbringing. I got to learn about my personal imperfections from the git go. Not sure how much I've actually learned from them, however... I can certainly point at a number of mistakes that I've learned from.
Quit your Sophism. We already know you have no positive defense of Donald, but changing the subject is NOT going to work if America has been decapitated.
However, I predict there are lots of other questions you can't deal with. For example "Who do you hate most?"
That's the defining characteristic of Trump supporters, but the ones who are smart enough to use computers have apparently learned not to address that one. It was kind of funny in the period when they would try to defend their various hatreds. They must have gotten a memo.
No, you are lying. They are not "pretending". She is paying people who want to support her campaign and work for it. The details of their work responsibilities are only relevant in a strategic managerial sense. She has hired large numbers of people for her campaign in many capacities.
So why do you want to decapitate America?
As already noted in the comment you ignored, I think that the most likely reason is that you are working for Putin or you sincerely hate America. Interesting problem, since you can't prove a negative, can you?
Sorry, but you are posting in a profoundly ignorant way, or you are completely distorting the meaning of "decisions", "accomplishments", and "empty". True, I haven't always agreed with the things that Hillary has done, but mostly I have agreed with her objectives and been saddened in those cases when she was prevented from succeeding. One obvious example would have been healthcare reform back in the 90s, when she didn't even have a real job. However, her greatest and most obvious accomplishment was cleaning up a small part of the international mess left behind by Dubya and the big dick Cheney. Of course in that area she obviously could have done much more if the so-called Republicans weren't pledged to President Obama's failure from day one of his presidency, and by extension to the failure of every part of the federal government under his control.
That's as polite as I can get. You didn't actually say anything in response to the substance of my comment, so now I get to repeat the question: "Why do you want to decapitate America?"
Anyway, the introduction to my comment is that I don't like or dislike Hillary, but she is clearly well qualified to be president and the Donald is clearly fundamentally not qualified. The HuffPo piece is just one more angle on why not.
Therefore I believe that a Trump victory would be quite similar to a decapitation strike. Insofar as America has real enemies including Putin and Daesh, they would obviously be motivated to do anything they can to help Trump win. Hacking the DNC is one angle, but I'm more concerned about a major terrorist strike timed just before the election. America's enemies may be crazy, but they aren't stupid.
Cue the crazy trolls. Actually, I'm not convinced all of Trump's trolls are crazy. Even the ones that seem to be sincere might be faking it, like Trump himself. Actually makes more sense to me that some of them are paid to fake it (perhaps by Putin and his fiends). (Apologies to Rocky and Bullwinkle, eh?)
Well, I think we are mostly in agreement that increasing the uncertainty will deter some trolls. However, I think slashdot should focus on relatively simple rules and mechanisms and let the uncertainty arise when people set their individual preferences using those mechanisms.
However, I still think that there are some trolls who will continue posting no matter what. Some of them are just insane, which is a perfect and perfectly useless explanation for their behavior. "He did it because he's nuts. Who knows what he'll do next? He's nuts."
Your reply was evidently intended for the comment above mine. No relevance to anything that I wrote.
However, you do sound amazingly naive. May I recommend you consider reading Data and Goliath by Bruce Schneier, Future Crimes by Marc Goodman, Geeks by Jon Katz, The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick, and The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser?
When the troll is trying to reply to a person who will not see that reply, the troll would only have two choices: (1) Post and self-flag, or (2) Don't post and go away. Of course I think (2) is better, but in the case of (1) the troll's lack of sincerity is clear. In case (1) the troll would apparently be 'playing for the crowd' of other people who might be reading the thread, but anyone who did see it would also know that.
I'm approaching the problem from the perspective of saving time. I simply do not want to waste my time on trolls.
Of course I also admit that it's a tricky question and you are right that the trolls will try to abuse any rules you set up. For example, a really determined troll could try to maintain an army of sock puppet identities of various ages to confuse the maturity filter.
I certainly think that applies to some trolls, but I think there are various kinds of trolls, just as there are various kinds of mental illnesses. Some of them are worse than others, but I'm suggesting that we look for mechanisms that will make the trolls invisible precisely BECAUSE they are acting like trolls. Posting a reply that will not be seen may stop some trolls, but some of them will just play to the crowd in hopes of annoying someone else, even if they can't reach and annoy the person they are fake-replying to.
That is why I am advocating a self-flag mechanism for insincerity. I think one of the primary characteristics of trolls is that they are NOT interested in a sincere dialog.
The Founding Fathers would be appalled to see how the use and abuse of personal information is completely subverting their Bill of Rights. You have no protection of anything if all of your personal information is already outside of your control. If Cook was sincere, then he would at least offer a business model that would profit by protecting privacy (even if it were optional). For example:
Create a privacy protecting intermediary (PPI) that would be motivated to gather and protect ALL of your personal information in accord with YOUR wishes, not just profit maximization by selling your personal data ad infinitum while also using it to ram unneeded products down your throat.
From a time-centric perspective, here is one possible implementation: You would specify how much of your time you want to spend shopping and what you want to buy, and the PPI would anonymize your personal information and preferences and merge your data into groups of similar shoppers. That shopping time would then be auctioned off to companies that want to reach those highly qualified customers. The companies would not bother you directly, but only via the PPI. Another important parameter would be how many options you want to consider. (Personally, I would always want to see at least 3 offers for any major purchase). The PPI would split the proceeds of the auction with you, but the PPI would be strongly motivated to protect your privacy to protect its own position as the middleman.
One more thing: Competition between PPIs. You should always be free to take your data to a different PPI. Yes, that means you would have the right to demand the first PPI forget that you ever existed. Different PPIs would compete based on such parameters as percentage splits of the auctions and supplementary services like REAL filtering for ALL spam. (Personally, I would be shopping for the PPI that would maximize my time efficiency, but I suspect most people would focus on the most money.)
With disrespect to the lameness filter, I'm using "trall" for "troll" below:
Here is my three-part suggestion:
(1) Kill filter for long-lived tralls. Perhaps as an option on the "Foe" designation? If I can't see a trall's garbage then it won't waste my time.
(2) Maturity filter for short-lived sock puppets. To reduce the discouragement of newbies, it might default to "off", but I would start by setting mine to three months on the theory that most sock puppets die sooner than that.
(3) A reflexive sincerity check with an associated filter. When someone replies to a post (call it P1), then the system will check the visibility from the perspective of the author of P1. If the reply will not be seen, then it will give a warning and encourage posting elsewhere. The top of the article is always available, even to newbies. If a trall insists on replying to P1, then it would prepend a warning to the trall's comment: "Not a sincere dialog. <trall's handle> was notified this reply is not visible to the OP." The filter part would allow me to ignore all posts with the warning, again saving my time (and depriving the tralls of attention).
Only the third insightful comment that wasn't a troll mod, and I recognize the handle... Has this kind of solution been tried? (Using "trall" because of slashdot's censoring lameness filter.)
Here is my three-part suggestion:
(1) Kill filter for long-lived tralls. Perhaps as an option on the "Foe" designation? If I can't see a trall's garbage then it won't waste my time.
(2) Maturity filter for short-lived sock puppets. To reduce the discouragement of newbies, it might default to "off", but I would start by setting mine to three months on the theory that most sock puppets die sooner than that.
(3) A reflexive sincerity check with an associated filter. When someone replies to a post (call it P1), then the system will check the visibility from the perspective of the author of P1. If the reply will not be seen, then it will give a warning and encourage posting elsewhere. The top of the article is always available, even to newbies. If a trall insists on replying to P1, then it would prepend a warning to the trall's comment: "Not a sincere dialog. <trall's handle> was notified this reply is not visible to the OP." The filter part would allow me to ignore all posts with the warning, again saving my time (and depriving the tralls of attention).
Another rare "insightful" post that isn't a troll mod.
Per the subject, I'll use the substitute "trall" most of the time below. It's called the lameness filter, and there is probably a funny story behind it, but it's still bad insofar as it prevents discussion of the problem.
I agree with you on many points, but the problem with your tolerance is that your time is finite and there is an infinite supply of trolls eager to waste your time. Their freedom of screech should not forbid you from wearing earplugs.
Here is my three-part suggestion:
(1) Kill filter for long-lived tralls. Perhaps as an option on the "Foe" designation? If I can't see a trall's garbage then it won't waste my time.
(2) Maturity filter for short-lived sock puppets. To reduce the discouragement of newbies, it might default to "off", but I would start by setting mine to three months on the theory that most sock puppets die sooner than that.
(3) A reflexive sincerity check with an associated filter. When someone replies to a post (call it P1), then the system will check the visibility from the perspective of the author of P1. If the reply will not be seen, then it will give a warning and encourage posting elsewhere. The top of the article is always available, even to newbies. If a trall insists on replying to P1, then it would prepend a warning to the trall's comment: "Not a sincere dialog. <trall's handle> was notified this reply is not visible to the OP." The filter part would allow me to ignore all posts with the warning, again saving my time (and depriving the tralls of attention).
So far this was the only post moderated "insightful" that wasn't an obvious troll (or sock puppet) mod. Seems to be about par for today's slashdot, but maybe I'll find another.. (Only two "funny" mods in such a target-rich environment. Slashdot has seriously broken its funny bone.)
[How is it possible to discuss the problematic topic when slashdot censors those discussions with the so-called lameness filter? Anyway, the rest of this post uses the substitute "trall" instead. Mindless censorship of any discussion of a problem is certainly not a solution, but there must be a story there.]
To me it makes little sense to worry about unsolvable problems, so the real question is whether or not the trall problem can be solved or at least ameliorated. I think that depends on understanding something of the tralls' motivations and short-circuiting them. Can the tralls be potty trained to short circuit themselves?
Focusing on the time-wasting and attention-seeking aspects of tralls, I think the focus should be on reducing the time they waste and starving them of attention. Here is a three-part proposal (as customized for slashdot) (and I would even be likely to help fund such a feature if slashdot had such a funding mechanism).
(1) Kill filter for long-lived tralls. Perhaps as an option on the "Foe" designation? If I can't see a trall's garbage then it won't waste my time.
(2) Maturity filter for short-lived sock puppets. To reduce the discouragement of newbies, it might default to "off", but I would start by setting mine to three months on the theory that most sock puppets die sooner than that.
(3) A reflexive sincerity check with an associated filter. When someone replies to a post (call it P1), then the system will check the visibility from the perspective of the author of P1. If the reply will not be seen, then it will give a warning and encourage posting elsewhere. The top of the article is always available, even to newbies. If a trall insists on replying to P1, then it would prepend a warning to the trall's comment: "Not a sincere dialog. <trall's handle> was notified this reply is not visible to the OP." The filter part would allow me to ignore all posts with the warning, again saving my time (and depriving the tralls of attention).
Too late now. Twitter is already dead, though it isn't certain the trolls did it. The fundamental idea wasn't that great.
I can barely even speculate what the high traffic signified. Perhaps "If it is easy enough, many people will tweet"? Or maybe "Tweet now, it's easier than thinking"? Twitter is just noise, but it links to random stuff, some of which is not noise?
Anyway, looking for insight into trolls and lameness, and this was the most recent article on slashdot. Surprised not to find the Subject: comment, but I didn't really search that hard.
Certainly not anticipating finding any insight in association with Twitter, but you can never be certain. Maybe the thread is worth another scan for "insightful" posts? Or there must be some "funny" ones here?
WAIS definitely rings a bell, but no recollection of Z39.
However I was approaching the topic from the epistemological perspective even though I was supposed to be engineering electronic information at the time.
University of Minnesota, wasn't it? I remember a story about the end of the last gopher server some years ago...
I didn't actually use Gopher that much, though I knew about it. My main memory of Gopher was around 1995 when I was a research student again. I was interested in such search tools, and I remember searching on usenet for relevant groups. I was actually expecting a different one to be more important, though now I can't even remember what that system was called. However, what I actually noticed was that something called WWW seemed to be far hotter and more active than any of the systems I had heard of before that.
The browser was the predecessor of Netscape that became Firefox, but I've also forgotten its name. What I remember was faking MathML with some version of Tex or LaTeX to create my equations as graphic objects so I could insert them into my first HTML webpages. Strange detail to remember after all these years, but the main hassle I remember overcoming was getting the background colors to be the same so that the graphic objects (equations) seemed to be part of the text.
It's just a matter of keeping up with technology, and we can't. We evolve in a blind and slow process, while machines evolve fast, faster, fastest. Linear growth versus logarithmic. We lose.
Short conclusion: The stable intelligences must be machines. They would also be long-lived to the degree that interstellar travel is no problem for them. Extremely unlikely they haven't surveyed the neighborhood and spotted all the life-bearing planets. Gets more speculative, but if they are curious, then they would quite likely be interested in watching how life evolves, but that's partly on the theory that life diverges while computers converge. If they are lonely, they might be interested in company created by the transient naturally evolved intelligences.
Probably not my latest version, but I couldn't find one later than this: http://eco-epistemology.blogsp... The quatloos part is a Star Trek joke.
Several good points, but I think you are focusing too much on the personalities and their associated human flaws. The bigger picture is whether or not we can retain any freedom without privacy. Oversimplifying, but I would say the answer is no because of the imbalance of resources. Each individual without privacy can always be targeted for destruction or manipulation to destruction.
Maybe the humorous version would help? Most religions insist on an omniscient god with some consistent principles. If so, such a god has no freedom. If the god has no power of action, the notion of freedom is moot, but with any active capability the god would always be compelled to act in a single way in accord with the principles, and that single way would be perfectly clear and unified by the perfect knowledge. One choice is not a choice.
Hmm... I'm not sure it's a matter of being more or less human. I think that guided evolution of our technology is fundamentally logarithmic, while the random evolution of our biology is linear. Philosophy can help bridge the gap, but you can argue that philosophy is as morally neutral as technology.
I've already confessed that I don't see a good solution, but I wish you had one to offer. Sometimes I think what we need is some kind of regulator on the speed of technological progress, because I don't see much of anything that can be done on the biological side. Even with such solution approaches as passive eugenics or active genetic engineering, it seems unlikely that we human beings can keep up... In terms of evolutionary competition and subject to the theory that intelligence actually is a survival trait, then the machines should be taking over any day now.
Obsolete species are lucky if they can find a zoo to delay their extinction.
Seems to be basic lack of human understanding there, but mostly I think you two are just making my point, so I should thank you.
Unless it is just one of you with a sock puppet. Seems like a lot of trouble, but given such a weak position, you might think you need it.
It doesn't matter who is acting in an uncivilized manner towards whom. But before I waste so much time, why don't you set the stage by actually trying to defend your socipathy? Probably Libertarian insanity on the thin evidence.
I think it was some kind of cut-and-paste trollage of ancient history. Maybe his real point was to demonstrate the uncivilized behavior of hackers and geeks? In that case, he seems to have made his point pretty well.
Pretty sure this joke goes back at least 30 years, but it was my conclusion that excessive use of computers is not good for mental hygiene.
Slashdot Mirror
What is to be said about someone who starts his campaign by declaring all Mexicans are rapists--and goes downhill from there?
What is to be said to someone who thinks Hillary Clinton has accomplished nothing?
(It is certainly possible to disagree about the value of some of her accomplishments, though the main thing I don't like about her is that she's just another lawyer. I don't dislike it either because that's just the way the game is rigged these years.)
Yeah, there are certainly some trolls around here.
No, my OP was not a troll post, just an observation, but from the troll responses, a question does occur to me. Kind of an indirect effect of the Trump trolls trying to change the topic away from Trump's incompetence, and even though I know that wasn't their intention.
Given Trump's track record, he certainly could have learned from his many mistakes (such as his six bankruptcies), but as far as I can recall, he never admits to a mistake and never apologizes. Can't learn by blaming other people for your mistakes or projecting your personal flaws onto your enemies. Therefore the obvious question is whether that's just a marketing ploy (to protect "the brand") or if the Donald sincerely believes he is perfect?
I would say that it is impossible for him to be sincere, but that could be projection. After all, my father wasn't extremely rich and I didn't have any sort of sheltered upbringing. I got to learn about my personal imperfections from the git go. Not sure how much I've actually learned from them, however... I can certainly point at a number of mistakes that I've learned from.
Where's the positive defense of the Donald? Of course it won't matter after America has been decapitated, will it?
Okay, we know there is nothing positive you can say about Trump, so you have to change the subject and repeat tired old lies.
So who do you hate most?
Quit your Sophism. We already know you have no positive defense of Donald, but changing the subject is NOT going to work if America has been decapitated.
However, I predict there are lots of other questions you can't deal with. For example "Who do you hate most?"
That's the defining characteristic of Trump supporters, but the ones who are smart enough to use computers have apparently learned not to address that one. It was kind of funny in the period when they would try to defend their various hatreds. They must have gotten a memo.
I'm not interested in your desperate and feeble attempts to change the subject. Answer the question:
Why do you want to elect Trump and effectively decapitate America?
No, you are lying. They are not "pretending". She is paying people who want to support her campaign and work for it. The details of their work responsibilities are only relevant in a strategic managerial sense. She has hired large numbers of people for her campaign in many capacities.
So why do you want to decapitate America?
As already noted in the comment you ignored, I think that the most likely reason is that you are working for Putin or you sincerely hate America. Interesting problem, since you can't prove a negative, can you?
Sorry, but you are posting in a profoundly ignorant way, or you are completely distorting the meaning of "decisions", "accomplishments", and "empty". True, I haven't always agreed with the things that Hillary has done, but mostly I have agreed with her objectives and been saddened in those cases when she was prevented from succeeding. One obvious example would have been healthcare reform back in the 90s, when she didn't even have a real job. However, her greatest and most obvious accomplishment was cleaning up a small part of the international mess left behind by Dubya and the big dick Cheney. Of course in that area she obviously could have done much more if the so-called Republicans weren't pledged to President Obama's failure from day one of his presidency, and by extension to the failure of every part of the federal government under his control.
That's as polite as I can get. You didn't actually say anything in response to the substance of my comment, so now I get to repeat the question: "Why do you want to decapitate America?"
Weird that my draft committed suicide as I attempted to reply... Reminds me of http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... in some ways...
Anyway, the introduction to my comment is that I don't like or dislike Hillary, but she is clearly well qualified to be president and the Donald is clearly fundamentally not qualified. The HuffPo piece is just one more angle on why not.
Therefore I believe that a Trump victory would be quite similar to a decapitation strike. Insofar as America has real enemies including Putin and Daesh, they would obviously be motivated to do anything they can to help Trump win. Hacking the DNC is one angle, but I'm more concerned about a major terrorist strike timed just before the election. America's enemies may be crazy, but they aren't stupid.
Cue the crazy trolls. Actually, I'm not convinced all of Trump's trolls are crazy. Even the ones that seem to be sincere might be faking it, like Trump himself. Actually makes more sense to me that some of them are paid to fake it (perhaps by Putin and his fiends). (Apologies to Rocky and Bullwinkle, eh?)
Well, I think we are mostly in agreement that increasing the uncertainty will deter some trolls. However, I think slashdot should focus on relatively simple rules and mechanisms and let the uncertainty arise when people set their individual preferences using those mechanisms.
However, I still think that there are some trolls who will continue posting no matter what. Some of them are just insane, which is a perfect and perfectly useless explanation for their behavior. "He did it because he's nuts. Who knows what he'll do next? He's nuts."
Your reply was evidently intended for the comment above mine. No relevance to anything that I wrote.
However, you do sound amazingly naive. May I recommend you consider reading Data and Goliath by Bruce Schneier, Future Crimes by Marc Goodman, Geeks by Jon Katz, The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick, and The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser?
When the troll is trying to reply to a person who will not see that reply, the troll would only have two choices: (1) Post and self-flag, or (2) Don't post and go away. Of course I think (2) is better, but in the case of (1) the troll's lack of sincerity is clear. In case (1) the troll would apparently be 'playing for the crowd' of other people who might be reading the thread, but anyone who did see it would also know that.
I'm approaching the problem from the perspective of saving time. I simply do not want to waste my time on trolls.
Of course I also admit that it's a tricky question and you are right that the trolls will try to abuse any rules you set up. For example, a really determined troll could try to maintain an army of sock puppet identities of various ages to confuse the maturity filter.
I certainly think that applies to some trolls, but I think there are various kinds of trolls, just as there are various kinds of mental illnesses. Some of them are worse than others, but I'm suggesting that we look for mechanisms that will make the trolls invisible precisely BECAUSE they are acting like trolls. Posting a reply that will not be seen may stop some trolls, but some of them will just play to the crowd in hopes of annoying someone else, even if they can't reach and annoy the person they are fake-replying to.
That is why I am advocating a self-flag mechanism for insincerity. I think one of the primary characteristics of trolls is that they are NOT interested in a sincere dialog.
The Founding Fathers would be appalled to see how the use and abuse of personal information is completely subverting their Bill of Rights. You have no protection of anything if all of your personal information is already outside of your control. If Cook was sincere, then he would at least offer a business model that would profit by protecting privacy (even if it were optional). For example:
Create a privacy protecting intermediary (PPI) that would be motivated to gather and protect ALL of your personal information in accord with YOUR wishes, not just profit maximization by selling your personal data ad infinitum while also using it to ram unneeded products down your throat.
From a time-centric perspective, here is one possible implementation: You would specify how much of your time you want to spend shopping and what you want to buy, and the PPI would anonymize your personal information and preferences and merge your data into groups of similar shoppers. That shopping time would then be auctioned off to companies that want to reach those highly qualified customers. The companies would not bother you directly, but only via the PPI. Another important parameter would be how many options you want to consider. (Personally, I would always want to see at least 3 offers for any major purchase). The PPI would split the proceeds of the auction with you, but the PPI would be strongly motivated to protect your privacy to protect its own position as the middleman.
One more thing: Competition between PPIs. You should always be free to take your data to a different PPI. Yes, that means you would have the right to demand the first PPI forget that you ever existed. Different PPIs would compete based on such parameters as percentage splits of the auctions and supplementary services like REAL filtering for ALL spam. (Personally, I would be shopping for the PPI that would maximize my time efficiency, but I suspect most people would focus on the most money.)
With disrespect to the lameness filter, I'm using "trall" for "troll" below:
Here is my three-part suggestion:
(1) Kill filter for long-lived tralls. Perhaps as an option on the "Foe" designation? If I can't see a trall's garbage then it won't waste my time.
(2) Maturity filter for short-lived sock puppets. To reduce the discouragement of newbies, it might default to "off", but I would start by setting mine to three months on the theory that most sock puppets die sooner than that.
(3) A reflexive sincerity check with an associated filter. When someone replies to a post (call it P1), then the system will check the visibility from the perspective of the author of P1. If the reply will not be seen, then it will give a warning and encourage posting elsewhere. The top of the article is always available, even to newbies. If a trall insists on replying to P1, then it would prepend a warning to the trall's comment: "Not a sincere dialog. <trall's handle> was notified this reply is not visible to the OP." The filter part would allow me to ignore all posts with the warning, again saving my time (and depriving the tralls of attention).
Only the third insightful comment that wasn't a troll mod, and I recognize the handle... Has this kind of solution been tried? (Using "trall" because of slashdot's censoring lameness filter.)
Here is my three-part suggestion:
(1) Kill filter for long-lived tralls. Perhaps as an option on the "Foe" designation? If I can't see a trall's garbage then it won't waste my time.
(2) Maturity filter for short-lived sock puppets. To reduce the discouragement of newbies, it might default to "off", but I would start by setting mine to three months on the theory that most sock puppets die sooner than that.
(3) A reflexive sincerity check with an associated filter. When someone replies to a post (call it P1), then the system will check the visibility from the perspective of the author of P1. If the reply will not be seen, then it will give a warning and encourage posting elsewhere. The top of the article is always available, even to newbies. If a trall insists on replying to P1, then it would prepend a warning to the trall's comment: "Not a sincere dialog. <trall's handle> was notified this reply is not visible to the OP." The filter part would allow me to ignore all posts with the warning, again saving my time (and depriving the tralls of attention).
Another rare "insightful" post that isn't a troll mod.
Per the subject, I'll use the substitute "trall" most of the time below. It's called the lameness filter, and there is probably a funny story behind it, but it's still bad insofar as it prevents discussion of the problem.
I agree with you on many points, but the problem with your tolerance is that your time is finite and there is an infinite supply of trolls eager to waste your time. Their freedom of screech should not forbid you from wearing earplugs.
Here is my three-part suggestion:
(1) Kill filter for long-lived tralls. Perhaps as an option on the "Foe" designation? If I can't see a trall's garbage then it won't waste my time.
(2) Maturity filter for short-lived sock puppets. To reduce the discouragement of newbies, it might default to "off", but I would start by setting mine to three months on the theory that most sock puppets die sooner than that.
(3) A reflexive sincerity check with an associated filter. When someone replies to a post (call it P1), then the system will check the visibility from the perspective of the author of P1. If the reply will not be seen, then it will give a warning and encourage posting elsewhere. The top of the article is always available, even to newbies. If a trall insists on replying to P1, then it would prepend a warning to the trall's comment: "Not a sincere dialog. <trall's handle> was notified this reply is not visible to the OP." The filter part would allow me to ignore all posts with the warning, again saving my time (and depriving the tralls of attention).
So far this was the only post moderated "insightful" that wasn't an obvious troll (or sock puppet) mod. Seems to be about par for today's slashdot, but maybe I'll find another.. (Only two "funny" mods in such a target-rich environment. Slashdot has seriously broken its funny bone.)
[How is it possible to discuss the problematic topic when slashdot censors those discussions with the so-called lameness filter? Anyway, the rest of this post uses the substitute "trall" instead. Mindless censorship of any discussion of a problem is certainly not a solution, but there must be a story there.]
To me it makes little sense to worry about unsolvable problems, so the real question is whether or not the trall problem can be solved or at least ameliorated. I think that depends on understanding something of the tralls' motivations and short-circuiting them. Can the tralls be potty trained to short circuit themselves?
Focusing on the time-wasting and attention-seeking aspects of tralls, I think the focus should be on reducing the time they waste and starving them of attention. Here is a three-part proposal (as customized for slashdot) (and I would even be likely to help fund such a feature if slashdot had such a funding mechanism).
(1) Kill filter for long-lived tralls. Perhaps as an option on the "Foe" designation? If I can't see a trall's garbage then it won't waste my time.
(2) Maturity filter for short-lived sock puppets. To reduce the discouragement of newbies, it might default to "off", but I would start by setting mine to three months on the theory that most sock puppets die sooner than that.
(3) A reflexive sincerity check with an associated filter. When someone replies to a post (call it P1), then the system will check the visibility from the perspective of the author of P1. If the reply will not be seen, then it will give a warning and encourage posting elsewhere. The top of the article is always available, even to newbies. If a trall insists on replying to P1, then it would prepend a warning to the trall's comment: "Not a sincere dialog. <trall's handle> was notified this reply is not visible to the OP." The filter part would allow me to ignore all posts with the warning, again saving my time (and depriving the tralls of attention).
Too late now. Twitter is already dead, though it isn't certain the trolls did it. The fundamental idea wasn't that great.
I can barely even speculate what the high traffic signified. Perhaps "If it is easy enough, many people will tweet"? Or maybe "Tweet now, it's easier than thinking"? Twitter is just noise, but it links to random stuff, some of which is not noise?
Anyway, looking for insight into trolls and lameness, and this was the most recent article on slashdot. Surprised not to find the Subject: comment, but I didn't really search that hard.
Certainly not anticipating finding any insight in association with Twitter, but you can never be certain. Maybe the thread is worth another scan for "insightful" posts? Or there must be some "funny" ones here?
WAIS definitely rings a bell, but no recollection of Z39.
However I was approaching the topic from the epistemological perspective even though I was supposed to be engineering electronic information at the time.
University of Minnesota, wasn't it? I remember a story about the end of the last gopher server some years ago...
I didn't actually use Gopher that much, though I knew about it. My main memory of Gopher was around 1995 when I was a research student again. I was interested in such search tools, and I remember searching on usenet for relevant groups. I was actually expecting a different one to be more important, though now I can't even remember what that system was called. However, what I actually noticed was that something called WWW seemed to be far hotter and more active than any of the systems I had heard of before that.
The browser was the predecessor of Netscape that became Firefox, but I've also forgotten its name. What I remember was faking MathML with some version of Tex or LaTeX to create my equations as graphic objects so I could insert them into my first HTML webpages. Strange detail to remember after all these years, but the main hassle I remember overcoming was getting the background colors to be the same so that the graphic objects (equations) seemed to be part of the text.
It's just a matter of keeping up with technology, and we can't. We evolve in a blind and slow process, while machines evolve fast, faster, fastest. Linear growth versus logarithmic. We lose.
Short conclusion: The stable intelligences must be machines. They would also be long-lived to the degree that interstellar travel is no problem for them. Extremely unlikely they haven't surveyed the neighborhood and spotted all the life-bearing planets. Gets more speculative, but if they are curious, then they would quite likely be interested in watching how life evolves, but that's partly on the theory that life diverges while computers converge. If they are lonely, they might be interested in company created by the transient naturally evolved intelligences.
Probably not my latest version, but I couldn't find one later than this: http://eco-epistemology.blogsp... The quatloos part is a Star Trek joke.
Regarding your comment about climate change, here is my recent palliative solution: https://ello.co/shanen0/post/w...
Several good points, but I think you are focusing too much on the personalities and their associated human flaws. The bigger picture is whether or not we can retain any freedom without privacy. Oversimplifying, but I would say the answer is no because of the imbalance of resources. Each individual without privacy can always be targeted for destruction or manipulation to destruction.
Maybe the humorous version would help? Most religions insist on an omniscient god with some consistent principles. If so, such a god has no freedom. If the god has no power of action, the notion of freedom is moot, but with any active capability the god would always be compelled to act in a single way in accord with the principles, and that single way would be perfectly clear and unified by the perfect knowledge. One choice is not a choice.
Hmm... I'm not sure it's a matter of being more or less human. I think that guided evolution of our technology is fundamentally logarithmic, while the random evolution of our biology is linear. Philosophy can help bridge the gap, but you can argue that philosophy is as morally neutral as technology.
I've already confessed that I don't see a good solution, but I wish you had one to offer. Sometimes I think what we need is some kind of regulator on the speed of technological progress, because I don't see much of anything that can be done on the biological side. Even with such solution approaches as passive eugenics or active genetic engineering, it seems unlikely that we human beings can keep up... In terms of evolutionary competition and subject to the theory that intelligence actually is a survival trait, then the machines should be taking over any day now.
Obsolete species are lucky if they can find a zoo to delay their extinction.
Seems to be basic lack of human understanding there, but mostly I think you two are just making my point, so I should thank you.
Unless it is just one of you with a sock puppet. Seems like a lot of trouble, but given such a weak position, you might think you need it.
It doesn't matter who is acting in an uncivilized manner towards whom. But before I waste so much time, why don't you set the stage by actually trying to defend your socipathy? Probably Libertarian insanity on the thin evidence.
I think it was some kind of cut-and-paste trollage of ancient history. Maybe his real point was to demonstrate the uncivilized behavior of hackers and geeks? In that case, he seems to have made his point pretty well.
Pretty sure this joke goes back at least 30 years, but it was my conclusion that excessive use of computers is not good for mental hygiene.