On the theory that hackers are technological leaders, it looks like they are leading us down the drain.
Each time I seriously consider the Fermi Paradox, I keep coming to the conclusion that technological civilizations are quite prone to suicide via insanity. We are apes with nuclear bombs and biological weapons and no understanding of what we are doing. We have reached the point where we could accidentally exterminate ourselves at any time, but soon it will only take one madman to do it on purpose. Never been a shortage of madmen.
The transition from naturally evolved intelligence to rationally designed intelligence appears to be quite rocky. My quatloos say we're gonna lose and exterminate ourselves first.
Hard to describe this situation succinctly, but I'll take a shot at it...
Assange has some good principles, but he is more fanatical about them than most people. The combination wound up putting him in a leadership position, but it was not because he was well balanced and an all-around nice fellow. Actually, I think he was a little bit crazy from the git-go, almost surely including a touch of paranoia, but subsequent events have proven that his paranoia was well justified. He has real enemies, powerful enemies, and they would like to put him away and they have been putting lots of pressure on him for many years. He has effectively been imprisoned for a mix of lèse majesté and kicking rich bastards in the wallet, and they still want to lock him up in much nastier and darker places. Forever.
It is not surprising that he is getting nuttier. In this case, I think he is just being opportunistic and exploiting a kind of birthday paradox. In any group of 75 randomly selected people, the odds are 99.9% that two of them share a birthday, and in any large organization with lots of employees (such as the DNC), there's a high chance that at least a few of them will die suspiciously. If this guy was an important source for Assange, then producing the proof might be useful as a prod to the investigators, because it would establish a possible motive, but just hinting around is only destroying Assange's own credibility. He's looking like a revenge-seeking rumormonger, which must be making his real enemies exceedingly happy.
In a sense, the sad story of Assange is serving his enemies simply by deterrence. His life has been ruined, and there are no signs of improvement going forward. Revealing state secrets is a bad idea, and trying to help other people who want to reveal state secrets may be even worse, depending on how you perceive the situation that Assange has been suspended in. Not as bad as getting waterboarded, but certainly not good. The same thing applies to revealing non-state secrets involving powerful people, but I'm not sure how much Assange has been involved that kind of thing.
Was or is Assange also a sexual deviant? I don't think it matters. Plenty of worse deviants out there, and that is not why they are after Assange. Let's not confuse him with Roger Ailes or Bill Cosby, eh?
While I agree with you about encouraging newbies, I think or hope that concern can be handled with cautious wording encouraging newbies to post at the top level or a perhaps default setting of off or a very short time period. Then again, whatever barriers you put in their way, the serious trolls will game the system...
The ghost thing reminds me of a BBS a friend did. He would banish troublemakers to a private universe part of his system. Long time ago.
Amusingly enough, after all the time I wasted trying to fix the problem, it simply went away after another forced Windows 10 upgrade. What Microsoft breaketh, they might fixith? Just be patient and keep hoping, eh?
The general topic of non-ownership of your own computers was raised a few times in the discussion. Just so.
In my lifetime we have gone from hacking the OS to totally sealed black boxes. (Yes, I know that Linux still permits access to the innards, but the failing economic models of Linux were also touched upon in the discussion.)
Extremely persuasive. Now I want to know which forums you're running? Can I join?
By the way, now I also want to run this 3-part suggestion past you. Posted it a couple of times, but it's not very visible on slashdot, so...
(1) A maturity filter. If you enable this option, then identities that are too young will become invisible. (My belief is that most sock puppets only last a few weeks, so a two-month maturity setting would remove them from my sight.)
(2) A kill filter of some kind. On slashdot, perhaps an invisibility option on the Foe setting would suffice? (Again, stop wasting my time.)
(3) A self-discredit tag for insincere replies. When you click on "Reply", the code would check to make sure the reply will be visible to the author you are replying to. If it's visible, no problem, but if your reply would not be visible (per (1) or (2) above), then you would get a warning and a suggestion you write elsewhere, perhaps at the top of the discussion. If you insist on replying to that comment, then the post will be preceded by a discrediting disclaimer such as "This reply is NOT part of a sincere discussion and the author of the reply was warned that the reply would not be visible to the person it pretends to reply to."
Almost missed your question because of the AC thing. Why the hide?
Anyway, in response to your question, my fuzzy recollection is that there was some problem with the workgroup name. Somehow Windows 10 had created a different kind and even the other Windows 10 machines didn't like it. There was a possible solution path with OS-level modifications, but I wasn't too comfortable with Windows 10 and that time, and I've mostly been discouraged from fighting against Microsoft. The time required for the struggle is almost always too much for the benefits received.
Can't even say if Microsoft is trying to make it as hard as possible or they are actively blocking the solutions. Don't see how that would matter. It's a pain in the tukhus in any case.
Hmm... I think I'd have to see the project proposal to make a decision whether or not I'd chip in for that. In the context of discussions, there is a potential for Sophistic abuse.
I think the specific version that I'd be most willing to support would freeze the editing capability as soon as someone starts working on a direct reply, but I'm not sure how to avoid deadlock. What if you open the comment for editing and then someone wants to reply? You have to put in a block on the reply "This comment is being edited"? Then with some kind of alert when it is saved and can be replied to?
However, the funding mechanism I'm advocating would have no problem with different versions of the feature. If enough people wanted to fund one version over another, then that version would be the one that got implemented. If that version had higher ongoing costs, it might be more likely to get suspended from time to time...
Okay, so what slashdot feature or ongoing cost would you like me to throw money at?
Oh wait. I'm still thinking in terms of economic models that aren't there yet.
Anyway, as it maps to the proximate problem, I think I would be most likely to donate towards a project that would simplify and unify the moderation system... I've posted my suggestions before, but no reason to bother with a detailed project proposal, even though it would be nice to see several of them to pick from.
General thanks for the interesting comments, though this is not the discussion I was looking for. Oh well, such be the power of the editors in modifying my original question. The discussion did remind me of a bunch of Windows 10 problems that I'd already dealt with. (Should I be glad I'd already forgotten them?)
I still felt that I was sort of placed in the role of "host" and I tried to review all of the visible comments (around 130 when I arrived this morning) and replied to some of them. Unfortunately, I am having a Murphy's Law morning of unusual busyness and have to leave soon. Decided to tack this summary comment on rather than spend more time reading more carefully... I also feel like I was caught off guard because I have an almost perfect record of submissions that missed the boot (sic).
My main problem of the slightly crippled Start button wasn't much addressed, though I got one interesting angle to pursue (related to the media creation tool). I do suspect the underlying problem may involve Cortana, but I didn't get any solid evidence there. Just a bit more support for my impulsive feeling.
Speaking of support, that topic wasn't touched, though it was even more prominent in the edited version of my submission... Microsoft's so-called support is just too far beneath contempt to get a mention? Or maybe it's a projected fear inducing self-censorship? For what little it is worth, I think that censorship may be the reason I'm locked out of Microsoft's support. I give off too many bad vibes?
From the Microsoft perspective, why should they risk giving me (and such people) a platform to make Microsoft look even worse? I would not be surprised if there are many people who are proactively excluded from participation. With my enhanced paranoia (with special thanks to Bruce Schneier for Data and Goliath, which I read last week), I can even imagine using analysis of personal information to cautiously pick the most annoying or troublesome people to ban. Nothing so silly and naive as dumping obvious Microsoft haters, but a tailored approach considering writing skills and potential persuasiveness... Hey, it worked for finally killing the newsgroups.
Interesting comment and maybe the only one (so far) to mention the support factor so directly. My main reaction is to note that the support topic was the main reason I decided to upgrade several machines. I had a couple of Windows XP machines that got forced over to Ubuntu, which is a sort of solution, but I've been increasingly disappointed with Ubuntu over the years, so I regarded that as a lesser solution... Also software and data compatibility issues in Ubuntu, but mostly it's the Japanese support that has annoyed me...
Thanks and noted. Will explore the idea when I have time, though the first cursory search doesn't seem to find such a tool installed on the afflicted machine.
Actually that reminds me of one of the major annoyances of upgrading on one of my machines. Can't remember the details now, but I do remember that I wound up locked out of my primary admin account, and had to go through a different admin account to regain control.
That machine wound up with the primary admin account being tightly bound to the Microsoft network, which I still don't trust, but I left it that way mostly because it appeared that it would be a lot of trouble to fix it properly. Lesser reason was to see how Microsoft wants the machine to feel, or at least get a slightly closer feel to it. Turned out to be only moderately annoying and slightly seductive.
Time, gentleman. Running out of time, and only halfway through the comments...
Growth gives you two choices. You can try to offer more variations to deal with the real differences among your growing number of users, or you can try to optimize around the most popular options and try to force all of the users to the single and best solution, where "best" means most profitable for us. You can see where that is going, can't you? The rules of the (business) game have been written by bribed politicians working for fans of cancer, because their companies are the biggest and most cancerous. They also suffer from the delusion that they are too big to fail, when the reality is that at some point they will fail so bigly that they will drag the government down with them...
If I had more time this morning I would even write about learning this lesson from two universities... The good university has a big intellectual space with room for all kinds of ideas, whereas the bad university is an optimizer and focused on forcing students into the right boxes. (The bad university had a good reputation anyway, but that was because it was also an elephants' graveyard.)
Slashdot Mirror
On the theory that hackers are technological leaders, it looks like they are leading us down the drain.
Each time I seriously consider the Fermi Paradox, I keep coming to the conclusion that technological civilizations are quite prone to suicide via insanity. We are apes with nuclear bombs and biological weapons and no understanding of what we are doing. We have reached the point where we could accidentally exterminate ourselves at any time, but soon it will only take one madman to do it on purpose. Never been a shortage of madmen.
The transition from naturally evolved intelligence to rationally designed intelligence appears to be quite rocky. My quatloos say we're gonna lose and exterminate ourselves first.
Hard to describe this situation succinctly, but I'll take a shot at it...
Assange has some good principles, but he is more fanatical about them than most people. The combination wound up putting him in a leadership position, but it was not because he was well balanced and an all-around nice fellow. Actually, I think he was a little bit crazy from the git-go, almost surely including a touch of paranoia, but subsequent events have proven that his paranoia was well justified. He has real enemies, powerful enemies, and they would like to put him away and they have been putting lots of pressure on him for many years. He has effectively been imprisoned for a mix of lèse majesté and kicking rich bastards in the wallet, and they still want to lock him up in much nastier and darker places. Forever.
It is not surprising that he is getting nuttier. In this case, I think he is just being opportunistic and exploiting a kind of birthday paradox. In any group of 75 randomly selected people, the odds are 99.9% that two of them share a birthday, and in any large organization with lots of employees (such as the DNC), there's a high chance that at least a few of them will die suspiciously. If this guy was an important source for Assange, then producing the proof might be useful as a prod to the investigators, because it would establish a possible motive, but just hinting around is only destroying Assange's own credibility. He's looking like a revenge-seeking rumormonger, which must be making his real enemies exceedingly happy.
In a sense, the sad story of Assange is serving his enemies simply by deterrence. His life has been ruined, and there are no signs of improvement going forward. Revealing state secrets is a bad idea, and trying to help other people who want to reveal state secrets may be even worse, depending on how you perceive the situation that Assange has been suspended in. Not as bad as getting waterboarded, but certainly not good. The same thing applies to revealing non-state secrets involving powerful people, but I'm not sure how much Assange has been involved that kind of thing.
Was or is Assange also a sexual deviant? I don't think it matters. Plenty of worse deviants out there, and that is not why they are after Assange. Let's not confuse him with Roger Ailes or Bill Cosby, eh?
While I agree with you about encouraging newbies, I think or hope that concern can be handled with cautious wording encouraging newbies to post at the top level or a perhaps default setting of off or a very short time period. Then again, whatever barriers you put in their way, the serious trolls will game the system...
The ghost thing reminds me of a BBS a friend did. He would banish troublemakers to a private universe part of his system. Long time ago.
Amusingly enough, after all the time I wasted trying to fix the problem, it simply went away after another forced Windows 10 upgrade. What Microsoft breaketh, they might fixith? Just be patient and keep hoping, eh?
The general topic of non-ownership of your own computers was raised a few times in the discussion. Just so.
In my lifetime we have gone from hacking the OS to totally sealed black boxes. (Yes, I know that Linux still permits access to the innards, but the failing economic models of Linux were also touched upon in the discussion.)
Extremely persuasive. Now I want to know which forums you're running? Can I join?
By the way, now I also want to run this 3-part suggestion past you. Posted it a couple of times, but it's not very visible on slashdot, so...
(1) A maturity filter. If you enable this option, then identities that are too young will become invisible. (My belief is that most sock puppets only last a few weeks, so a two-month maturity setting would remove them from my sight.)
(2) A kill filter of some kind. On slashdot, perhaps an invisibility option on the Foe setting would suffice? (Again, stop wasting my time.)
(3) A self-discredit tag for insincere replies. When you click on "Reply", the code would check to make sure the reply will be visible to the author you are replying to. If it's visible, no problem, but if your reply would not be visible (per (1) or (2) above), then you would get a warning and a suggestion you write elsewhere, perhaps at the top of the discussion. If you insist on replying to that comment, then the post will be preceded by a discrediting disclaimer such as "This reply is NOT part of a sincere discussion and the author of the reply was warned that the reply would not be visible to the person it pretends to reply to."
Almost missed your question because of the AC thing. Why the hide?
Anyway, in response to your question, my fuzzy recollection is that there was some problem with the workgroup name. Somehow Windows 10 had created a different kind and even the other Windows 10 machines didn't like it. There was a possible solution path with OS-level modifications, but I wasn't too comfortable with Windows 10 and that time, and I've mostly been discouraged from fighting against Microsoft. The time required for the struggle is almost always too much for the benefits received.
Can't even say if Microsoft is trying to make it as hard as possible or they are actively blocking the solutions. Don't see how that would matter. It's a pain in the tukhus in any case.
Hmm... I think I'd have to see the project proposal to make a decision whether or not I'd chip in for that. In the context of discussions, there is a potential for Sophistic abuse.
I think the specific version that I'd be most willing to support would freeze the editing capability as soon as someone starts working on a direct reply, but I'm not sure how to avoid deadlock. What if you open the comment for editing and then someone wants to reply? You have to put in a block on the reply "This comment is being edited"? Then with some kind of alert when it is saved and can be replied to?
However, the funding mechanism I'm advocating would have no problem with different versions of the feature. If enough people wanted to fund one version over another, then that version would be the one that got implemented. If that version had higher ongoing costs, it might be more likely to get suspended from time to time...
Okay, so what slashdot feature or ongoing cost would you like me to throw money at?
Oh wait. I'm still thinking in terms of economic models that aren't there yet.
Anyway, as it maps to the proximate problem, I think I would be most likely to donate towards a project that would simplify and unify the moderation system... I've posted my suggestions before, but no reason to bother with a detailed project proposal, even though it would be nice to see several of them to pick from.
General thanks for the interesting comments, though this is not the discussion I was looking for. Oh well, such be the power of the editors in modifying my original question. The discussion did remind me of a bunch of Windows 10 problems that I'd already dealt with. (Should I be glad I'd already forgotten them?)
I still felt that I was sort of placed in the role of "host" and I tried to review all of the visible comments (around 130 when I arrived this morning) and replied to some of them. Unfortunately, I am having a Murphy's Law morning of unusual busyness and have to leave soon. Decided to tack this summary comment on rather than spend more time reading more carefully... I also feel like I was caught off guard because I have an almost perfect record of submissions that missed the boot (sic).
My main problem of the slightly crippled Start button wasn't much addressed, though I got one interesting angle to pursue (related to the media creation tool). I do suspect the underlying problem may involve Cortana, but I didn't get any solid evidence there. Just a bit more support for my impulsive feeling.
Speaking of support, that topic wasn't touched, though it was even more prominent in the edited version of my submission... Microsoft's so-called support is just too far beneath contempt to get a mention? Or maybe it's a projected fear inducing self-censorship? For what little it is worth, I think that censorship may be the reason I'm locked out of Microsoft's support. I give off too many bad vibes?
From the Microsoft perspective, why should they risk giving me (and such people) a platform to make Microsoft look even worse? I would not be surprised if there are many people who are proactively excluded from participation. With my enhanced paranoia (with special thanks to Bruce Schneier for Data and Goliath , which I read last week), I can even imagine using analysis of personal information to cautiously pick the most annoying or troublesome people to ban. Nothing so silly and naive as dumping obvious Microsoft haters, but a tailored approach considering writing skills and potential persuasiveness... Hey, it worked for finally killing the newsgroups.
If only I had mod points? Maybe too long for funny?
Once again, I wish I had a mod point for you.
Interesting comment and maybe the only one (so far) to mention the support factor so directly. My main reaction is to note that the support topic was the main reason I decided to upgrade several machines. I had a couple of Windows XP machines that got forced over to Ubuntu, which is a sort of solution, but I've been increasingly disappointed with Ubuntu over the years, so I regarded that as a lesser solution... Also software and data compatibility issues in Ubuntu, but mostly it's the Japanese support that has annoyed me...
Getting too far afield and time problem.
Mwaaa haa haa. So you are the enemy I defeated!
Just joking, but most of my submissions have been rejected.
In terms of thinking in terms of solutions, maybe rejected articles should be referenced into some kind of discussion area for improvement?
I think I would give you a "me, too" mod if there was such a thing and if I ever got mod points. Anyway, close to my experiences in many ways.
Wish I had a mod point for you.
Forced optimization around MS's choice of the "best" user interface as defined by most profitable. Cf earlier reply, but time...
We should start a club? Not sure I want to be retired yet, however...
Again I wish I had a mod point, but main reason to reply is that you seem especially likely to be interested in Data and Goliath by Bruce Schneier.
Mod points, mod points, wherefore art thou mod points?
Again I wish I had a mod point to give you, but main curiosity and motivation for replying is to ask why your comment has such a low score?
Sounds very much like my experience summarized in an earlier reply. If I had more time this morning, I'd say more, but...
Thanks and noted. Will explore the idea when I have time, though the first cursory search doesn't seem to find such a tool installed on the afflicted machine.
I wish I had a mod point to give you.
Then again, it should be a "sinister" mod point.
The paranoia is getting to me, but time for another plug for Data and Goliath by Bruce Schneier.
Actually that reminds me of one of the major annoyances of upgrading on one of my machines. Can't remember the details now, but I do remember that I wound up locked out of my primary admin account, and had to go through a different admin account to regain control.
That machine wound up with the primary admin account being tightly bound to the Microsoft network, which I still don't trust, but I left it that way mostly because it appeared that it would be a lot of trouble to fix it properly. Lesser reason was to see how Microsoft wants the machine to feel, or at least get a slightly closer feel to it. Turned out to be only moderately annoying and slightly seductive.
Time, gentleman. Running out of time, and only halfway through the comments...
Growth gives you two choices. You can try to offer more variations to deal with the real differences among your growing number of users, or you can try to optimize around the most popular options and try to force all of the users to the single and best solution, where "best" means most profitable for us. You can see where that is going, can't you? The rules of the (business) game have been written by bribed politicians working for fans of cancer, because their companies are the biggest and most cancerous. They also suffer from the delusion that they are too big to fail, when the reality is that at some point they will fail so bigly that they will drag the government down with them...
If I had more time this morning I would even write about learning this lesson from two universities... The good university has a big intellectual space with room for all kinds of ideas, whereas the bad university is an optimizer and focused on forcing students into the right boxes. (The bad university had a good reputation anyway, but that was because it was also an elephants' graveyard.)