I'm not blaming Facebook for being successful, I'm blaming them for being incompetent idiots who shouldn't be responsible for more than 2 billion people's personal information.
OK, more directly: If you have ~600 family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, what is the likelihood (statistical probability) of finding them all or most of them on each of the social networking services? At a rough, heuristic guess, which one would have the highest probability?
Facebook has over 2 billion users. Twitter has 328 million and LinkedIn doesn't even show up on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Perhaps we could find some of our friends among Youtube's 1.5 billion users?
Breaking up and regulating Facebook would be a good start. But they're only in this mess because they're incompetent. The corporations that hold the most personal and intrusive data on us are the telcos. They also know exactly who we are, i.e. no anonymous or fake accounts when they have our home address and bank information. I wonder who they sell that data to? How could we find out?
Yep. The whole premise of manifest destiny is purely a justification for genocide and colonisation.
I mean it as much a criticism of the European countries who instigated it across the entire American continent as I do against the former British colony.
Most people don't have the luxury of time, resources, and a functioning govt bureaucracy in order to apply for the paperwork that might be requested of them by a foreign government while their home town/city is being torn apart by military conflict. They may also have had their documents stolen from them by human traffickers and other criminals.
Yep, when you're at the bottom of a hole, the only way is up. BTW, are we talking quitting a job at McDonald's to get a job at Starbucks because after working at McDonald's you now have service experience?
I actually met a refugee in the Canadian consulate in London. He was trying to get himself and his family into Canada. His problem was that the consulate were asking for paperwork from the Syrian government that he simply couldn't get hold of. Even a phone call, to a Syrian govt. agency, was unlikely to get through because of the conflict there. Emails and letters got no response either. What are we supposed to do in that situation? Clearly, if a govt. wants to deny refugees entry, they can invent bureaucratic and "security" barriers to prevent them or just do what the USA is currently doing with the refugees fleeing from govt. death squads in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala (all Washington-back regimes) and simply lump them all in with undocumented migrants. The problem with this is that it won't deter refugees from coming. They're fleeing for their lives and anything, even concentration camps, is better than being disappeared, tortured, and killed.
"economists worry". Since when have (neoliberal capitalist) economists ever been worried about what happens to ordinary people like you and me? Did you know that they're among the professions with disproportionately high rates of psychopathy, i.e. scoring very high on the revised Hare test of Psychopathy?
Millions of people losing their jobs thereby driving down wages and reducing workers' rights is capitalism working as it's intended to.
The population of the EU is around 511 million. So far this year, 42,000 undocumented migrants have entered Europe. Compared to the population of the EU, that's a rounding error. The EU can easily accommodate the numbers of refugees coming in. The EU is not overwhelmed or being flooded by migrants and anyone publishing headlines or broadcasting news to that effect shouldn't be considered journalists (journalists are supposed to report facts, their implications, and keep things in perspective). Additionally, every EU country has ratified the UNHCR Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. In other words, EU member countries have a legal obligation to accommodate refugees.
They found caffeine/coffee drinking correlated with longer life. Correlation is not causation, and normalizing for other correlations can help in determination of cause. If coffee drinkers on average are also people that live healthier lives on average, then that might be the cause.
Yes, and conversely, did the researchers ask why the non-coffee drinkers didn't drink coffee? Is it for health reasons? Is it because they suffer from high anxiety/stress and coffee exacerbates it? There's many more possibilities than the reporting on this study seems to suggest.
The nation that lost the most people was the USSR. They lost ~14% of their population, because they fought the most brutal, relentless part of the war against the Nazi regime.
All are true.
There, I fixed that for you so you don't come out sounding like an ignorant asshole.
I bet they just can't be bothered to provide the service anymore. if it sort of works, that's OK. If it goes down for a bit, so what? It's not like you can switch to a competitor's service or anything. They can get their PR department to spin the executives' attitude into something that sounds concerned and caring.
...is that we expect these machines to teach themselves, i.e. make meaning out of what they experience (data that is input). There's only so much you can achieve through poor investigative practices like p-hacking. Yes, AI can find lots of interesting patterns and regularities in data but which ones are meaningful/useful? It's better to start with questions and go from there; specify what data is relevant/salient, where it is, how to get it, how to model and interpret it, how to control for variables, etc.. We've had a pretty good investigative toolbox since Karl Popper came up with the modern scientific method. Why don't we try to get technology to use it?
The technology itself isn't responsible or culpable. It's the people who set the parameters and decide on what actions to take that are responsible and culpable. We simply have to find people who aren't bigots to set the parameters (or train the machine learning) and decide on what appropriate, proportionate actions should be taken.
Meanwhile, in the real-world, wouldn't it be great if the people in power and those who serve their needs and who are ultimately responsible for creating cultures of bigotry weren't bigots and selfish assholes? Then we might get systems and technologies that serve the people's best interests.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not blaming Facebook for being successful, I'm blaming them for being incompetent idiots who shouldn't be responsible for more than 2 billion people's personal information.
OK, more directly: If you have ~600 family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, what is the likelihood (statistical probability) of finding them all or most of them on each of the social networking services? At a rough, heuristic guess, which one would have the highest probability?
Facebook has over 2 billion users. Twitter has 328 million and LinkedIn doesn't even show up on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Perhaps we could find some of our friends among Youtube's 1.5 billion users?
Nope. Facebook has an effective monopoly.
Breaking up and regulating Facebook would be a good start. But they're only in this mess because they're incompetent. The corporations that hold the most personal and intrusive data on us are the telcos. They also know exactly who we are, i.e. no anonymous or fake accounts when they have our home address and bank information. I wonder who they sell that data to? How could we find out?
Try finding your "friends" on another social networking service.
"Posted from my Samsung-Android smartphone."
Yep. The whole premise of manifest destiny is purely a justification for genocide and colonisation.
I mean it as much a criticism of the European countries who instigated it across the entire American continent as I do against the former British colony.
You're the one who has to explain this:
They may also have had their documents stolen from them by human traffickers and other criminals.
Your reply:
That doesn't stop them being documented.
I stand by my bag of angry bigots response.
...the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
Sounds like hate speech to me.
...in action. Facebook's got electrolytes.
You make about as much sense as a bag of angry bigots.
Most people don't have the luxury of time, resources, and a functioning govt bureaucracy in order to apply for the paperwork that might be requested of them by a foreign government while their home town/city is being torn apart by military conflict. They may also have had their documents stolen from them by human traffickers and other criminals.
Yep, when you're at the bottom of a hole, the only way is up. BTW, are we talking quitting a job at McDonald's to get a job at Starbucks because after working at McDonald's you now have service experience?
Most of the undocumented migrants are refugees fleeing from the messes that the USA and EU have made and are continuing to make.
I. Don't. Even. Know, Where. To. Start... This isn't even wrong. It's just nonsense.
I actually met a refugee in the Canadian consulate in London. He was trying to get himself and his family into Canada. His problem was that the consulate were asking for paperwork from the Syrian government that he simply couldn't get hold of. Even a phone call, to a Syrian govt. agency, was unlikely to get through because of the conflict there. Emails and letters got no response either. What are we supposed to do in that situation? Clearly, if a govt. wants to deny refugees entry, they can invent bureaucratic and "security" barriers to prevent them or just do what the USA is currently doing with the refugees fleeing from govt. death squads in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala (all Washington-back regimes) and simply lump them all in with undocumented migrants. The problem with this is that it won't deter refugees from coming. They're fleeing for their lives and anything, even concentration camps, is better than being disappeared, tortured, and killed.
"economists worry". Since when have (neoliberal capitalist) economists ever been worried about what happens to ordinary people like you and me? Did you know that they're among the professions with disproportionately high rates of psychopathy, i.e. scoring very high on the revised Hare test of Psychopathy?
Millions of people losing their jobs thereby driving down wages and reducing workers' rights is capitalism working as it's intended to.
The population of the EU is around 511 million. So far this year, 42,000 undocumented migrants have entered Europe. Compared to the population of the EU, that's a rounding error. The EU can easily accommodate the numbers of refugees coming in. The EU is not overwhelmed or being flooded by migrants and anyone publishing headlines or broadcasting news to that effect shouldn't be considered journalists (journalists are supposed to report facts, their implications, and keep things in perspective). Additionally, every EU country has ratified the UNHCR Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. In other words, EU member countries have a legal obligation to accommodate refugees.
I would say most lie. Only Syrians have a legitimate case for asylum right now. Most come from north african failed states for economic reasons.
Do you mean stable, thriving, "rule of law" states like Libya?
They found caffeine/coffee drinking correlated with longer life. Correlation is not causation, and normalizing for other correlations can help in determination of cause. If coffee drinkers on average are also people that live healthier lives on average, then that might be the cause.
Yes, and conversely, did the researchers ask why the non-coffee drinkers didn't drink coffee? Is it for health reasons? Is it because they suffer from high anxiety/stress and coffee exacerbates it? There's many more possibilities than the reporting on this study seems to suggest.
We didn't win it alone.
Absent the USA's help, the USSR may have won.
The nation that lost the most people was the USSR. They lost ~14% of their population, because they fought the most brutal, relentless part of the war against the Nazi regime.
All are true.
There, I fixed that for you so you don't come out sounding like an ignorant asshole.
I bet they just can't be bothered to provide the service anymore. if it sort of works, that's OK. If it goes down for a bit, so what? It's not like you can switch to a competitor's service or anything. They can get their PR department to spin the executives' attitude into something that sounds concerned and caring.
This is kind of like a bunch of men getting together to discuss wife beating issues.
The solution is obvious...stop doing it.
Yes, this. Wish I had mod points. Isn't it more like a bunch of wife-beating men getting together to discuss wife beating issues?
...is that we expect these machines to teach themselves, i.e. make meaning out of what they experience (data that is input). There's only so much you can achieve through poor investigative practices like p-hacking. Yes, AI can find lots of interesting patterns and regularities in data but which ones are meaningful/useful? It's better to start with questions and go from there; specify what data is relevant/salient, where it is, how to get it, how to model and interpret it, how to control for variables, etc.. We've had a pretty good investigative toolbox since Karl Popper came up with the modern scientific method. Why don't we try to get technology to use it?
The technology itself isn't responsible or culpable. It's the people who set the parameters and decide on what actions to take that are responsible and culpable. We simply have to find people who aren't bigots to set the parameters (or train the machine learning) and decide on what appropriate, proportionate actions should be taken.
Meanwhile, in the real-world, wouldn't it be great if the people in power and those who serve their needs and who are ultimately responsible for creating cultures of bigotry weren't bigots and selfish assholes? Then we might get systems and technologies that serve the people's best interests.