This statement confuses me, in context. What does this have to do with GMO anything? The only GMO crops that might be subject to bruising are potatoes, papaya, and squash. (And eggplant, I guess, but that's only sold in Bangladesh.) But those are all modified to increase virus resistance, it has nothing to do with bruising.
In fact, as far as I know none of the GMO crops sold in the US have their modified traits expressed in the part that you eat. (Except maybe canola?)
Or, you know, you could just remember that "shaping the environment of information so as to influence people's behaviour" is exactly what you're doing whenever you publish your newsletter, or put up your sign, or post in an online forum. Whenever you identify a human problem (poverty / addiction / bad hygiene / etc.) and say to yourself, "I should do something to address this." that's just another way of saying, "How can I shape the environment of information so as to influence people's behavior to meet this end?"
Everyone would ignore it regardless, that's why we have the FDA regulating this crap instead of making it voluntary. However, this is not a false alarm: these substances, like acrylamide, are known carcinogens in large doses. It's entirely reasonable to think that small doses might also have this effect.
I do see what you're saying though, anti-GMO people have been pushing for food labels and until very recently I was against this for being a groundless scare tactic. The recent announcement that the FDA would stop regulating GMO foods and allow the industry to police itself has me rethinking that position, however.
Everything isn't labeled as cancer causing. It's just that certain carcinogens, like sodium benzoate, are effective and really cheap. So manufacturers put them in (almost) everything. This fact is what creates a market for small, health-focused brands.
The FCC very obviously falls under the interstate commerce clause. Are you seriously trying to claim that a simplistic reading of the constitution is enough to invalidate their authority? An argument that eighty years of extremely litigious broadcasters and telcos and ISPs have never been able to sell in a courtroom, with judges who actually know something about constitutional law?
Where does this constitution-thumping bullshit come from anyway? This stuff is complicated, and thoroughly examined. Is some laymen really going to come along and say, "Hey, I read the constitution once. Did you know that everything I don't like is illegal?"
Acrylamide is not harmful unless it's in amounts equal to a river of coffee.
The problem is that this is not established. This assumes the threshold model, while California has decided to play it safe and go with the no-threshold model. We don't know which is correct.
I applaud California for sticking to their guns on their labeling law, in the face of all the guff they get. The no-threshold model makes things easier, and a whole lot more profitable, but disguising a potential health hazard for those reasons is not well justified. Californians can still drink all of the possibly-carcinogenic coffee they want, the coffee-pushers just can't pretend that it's all perfectly safe.
I'm not seeing your point here. Yes the information is on Wikileaks, plus whatever other websites which have also published it. Because it's compromised information and that's how that works. How are you tying that fact to blaming your loss of $200 on Wikileaks? Are you saying that you wouldn't have needed a new card if Wikileaks hadn't published your compromised information? That is not true.
Er... Wikileaks just publishes what other people send them. If they published your information, it means that your information was already compromised.
When I used Mint (last week and the four years previous) I didn't have any problems with Kmail specifically, but Kmail's back-end, Akonadi, would periodically just stop working. That was annoying. I've recently switched to Neon and... had some trouble getting Akonadi working. But, now that it's running everything seems to be fine.
That might not be very reassuring, but I think Kmail is worth the extra trouble. And, again, everything seems to be running fine now.
Kmail. Although, back when I used Windows I really liked The Bat. Among other things, it uninstalled cleanly - very few Windows programs like that. I wonder if they're still around...
In airplane lingo that's how the term is used. They should have recognized that it's not how the term is used in the eye of the public, but they didn't know or didn't care. "Autopilot" certainly has more marketing potential than "Fancy Cruise Control."
It was, "Don't be evil." and it was never an official position, just something one of the founders said once.
Not to make excuses, but Google has been consistently more responsible with their data than their rivals (Facebook, most notably). So... if you'd like, you could turn it into a new motto: "Be the lessor evil."
This is not true. I don't think we should be talking about cakes, it seems like an off-topic distraction, but "being a baker" does not give anyone license to force you to bake cakes.
There are a couple of different ways that could come up I guess: one is if you are a baker employed at a bakery, and the bakery owner tells you to bake a cake or you'll be fired. If you have some problem with baking this particular cake, let's say it's for a gay wedding and you don't like that, then you have the option to refuse and be fired. You can also quit, but neither of these things are easy - you're constrained by your need to eat and live and so on. I.e.: you're a wage slave. It may feel like the bakery owner, your employer, is forcing you to bake a cake, as mentioned in your job description, rather than just sitting around doing nothing, but... for convenience, we've made a societal decision that wage slaves aren't real slaves. So this doesn't count as "forcing" you to do anything, since you can technically always choose to quit and then starve to death. Also: fuck you, peasant. Get back to work.
Another way it could come up is if you are a baker who owns your own bakery, in other words you've been granted a corporate charter by the state under the principle that your business provides some benefit to society. In this case the people telling you to bake cakes are your customers, and if one of them tells you to bake a cake, and you have some problem with baking this particular cake (let say it's for a gay wedding and you don't like that), then you have the option to refuse. In which case you'll be fired: your business will be fined for illegal discrimination until eventually you're out of a job. You can also quit, but neither of these things are easy - you're constrained by your need to eat and live and so on. I.e.: you're a wage slave. It may feel like you're being forced to bake a cake, as mentioned in your advertising, but... for convenience, we've made a societal decision that wage slaves aren't real slaves. So this doesn't count as "forcing" you to do anything, since you can technically always choose to quit and then starve to death. Also: fuck you, peasant. Get back to work.
So, as you can see, no one can force you to do anything in a free society based on free commerce and free enterprise freedom freedom.
Sheis. Whew, glad she meets your approval. It'd be a shame if she did one thing to protect the people of her state without also doing every other thing you can think of first.
Most of the people here aren't seeing the positive angle here. This is complicated by the fact that this particular joke has a political aspect, but setting that aside most of the criticism boils down to: "It isn't professional."
Okay. That is true, but that's also its virtue. Little bits of humanity like this in an otherwise incredibly dry and boring technical manual are a reminder that GNU isn't professional. That has value. It's not easily quantified, but GNU is a passion project that really needs people to care about it in order for it to go on. And professionalism is all about squashing passions.
... Come to think of it, does "professionalism" have any other meaning?
Unless being a "self-declared white supremacist" was the single issue that made enough people vote for the crook.
That's awfully twisted logic. I gave you a case where people considered a minimum of two factors, and obviously cared about both of those factors, and then made a decision.
As for your example: that's not the only reason why he lost, but it's the primary reason. However, it does nothing to support what you were suggesting above. Let me refresh your memory: You implied that people are all, or almost all, single issue voters. And since network neutrality is less important than other big issues, a voting record on network neutrality will have no / almost no impact at election time. I, disagreeing with you, said that I think a record on network neutrality will factor into how many people vote, even though it probably won't determine their decision by itself. And, therefore, this vote in the senate that we're talking about is not useless.
I did not make the claim that single-issue voters don't exist, nor do I make the claim now that big issues (like child molesting) can't potentially override smaller issues.
I believe that I exactly answered your question: single issue voting is irresponsible. Did you need me to also say that I strive to be responsible with my voting?
Of course I am saying that there is no single issue that would cause me not to vote for a person. There are some issues which would make it an unpleasant decision, but some elections are like that. There was an election in Louisiana not that long ago that came down to a choice between an individual who was obviously very corrupt, and another person who was a self-declared white supremacist.
The crook won that election, even though he was deeply unpopular. So not only am I not a single issue voter, but that election suggests that most other people (at least in Louisiana) are also not single issue voters - they knew about his corruption, and disliked it, but ultimately made their decision based on a combination of factors (at least one other factor) and not his corruption alone.
You may find it important, but I will almost guarantee that the only people who care about this are already voting democratic anyway
Your guarantee is unfounded, network neutrality enjoys broad bipartisan support among voters. Once again you repeat this odd comment about this being "politics as usual." It is politics, yes, but it's unusual (not unheard of) for congress to act against something which has such broad public support. And, yadda yadda... We already had that discussion. It didn't make sense when you said it before, it doesn't make sense now. It's an odd phrase to pull out here, there's nothing particularly common about this situation if not what I said above.
I believe that I exactly answered your question: single issue voting is irresponsible. Did you need me to say that I strive to be responsible with my voting?
Of course I am saying that there is no single issue that would cause me not to vote for a person. There are some issues which would make it an unpleasant decision, but some elections are like that. There was an election in Louisiana not that long ago that came down to a choice between an individual who was obviously very corrupt, and another person who was a self-declared white supremacist.
You keep wondering further and further off-topic. I'm here to discuss a vote on network neutrality, not answer rhetorical questions about nothing. You know the reasons for all this shit: Why Nazis? Trump. Why Trump? Because Republicans keep supporting him. Thus it goes: Republicans support Trump, Trump supports Nazis, hence Republicans support Nazis. It's a tenuous link, it certainly doesn't fully characterize Trump or Republicans or Nazis, but it's a thing that exists. So people talk about it.
Yes, of course it's the left bringing up the Nazis. Most of the people on the right would prefer that they didn't exist and that no-one talked about them. The Nazis are firmly right-wing, and so they're an embarrassment. Thus it's politically useful to remind people on the right that they are allied with Nazis, and the principle reason for why that has suddenly become relevant (Trump). This applies whether those people on the right want that alliance or not. This is true, of course, with any embarrassing group. The left has most of the anti-vaxxers, for example, and would prefer that people on the right didn't talk about them so much.
Again: this is all really obvious. You know all this shit, I shouldn't have to tell you this.
To make an attempt to bring this back on topic: I guess you're saying that you don't like the fact that politicians spend most of their time grandstanding? Speechifying? And you don't like this vote on net neutrality because that's what this is? Fine, you don't have to like anything you don't want to. All of this talking though, this is how democracy functions. You need to know how politicians are likely to act on issues that you care about in order to make an informed decision when it comes time to vote. Thus the function of this particular vote is not to preserve net neutrality directly because, as you say, this vote is likely to fail. The function of this vote is to inform you and everyone else about the character of this group of politicians. It's one more data point to consider when it comes time for voters to make their decision. For this reason, this vote may help to preserve network neutrality in the long term even though it won't accomplish that in the short term.
Single-issue voting is irresponsible. There are people who do that, it's true, but the fact that a politician's stance on network neutrality doesn't completely determine my vote doesn't mean that it doesn't factor into my vote. It is one issue, of many, that I care about and how a politician acts on this issue certainly effects how likely I am to vote for that politician.
There are many people who care about network neutrality, all of the protests and the news coverage should have convinced you of that. There are few people who care about network neutrality above all other issues, that is true, but this does not mean that people don't care and that this will have no effect on how they vote.
What do you mean by "it's too transparent"? This move isn't trying to be subtle, there's nothing to see through here. The point is to force congressmen to be on the record about whether they are for or against network neutrality. That's it. The democrats who are pushing for this haven't claimed it's anything else, it doesn't look like it's anything else. That is clearly what it is.
Slashdot Mirror
It's hard to sell produce that doesn't bruise
This statement confuses me, in context. What does this have to do with GMO anything? The only GMO crops that might be subject to bruising are potatoes, papaya, and squash. (And eggplant, I guess, but that's only sold in Bangladesh.) But those are all modified to increase virus resistance, it has nothing to do with bruising.
In fact, as far as I know none of the GMO crops sold in the US have their modified traits expressed in the part that you eat. (Except maybe canola?)
Or, you know, you could just remember that "shaping the environment of information so as to influence people's behaviour" is exactly what you're doing whenever you publish your newsletter, or put up your sign, or post in an online forum. Whenever you identify a human problem (poverty / addiction / bad hygiene / etc.) and say to yourself, "I should do something to address this." that's just another way of saying, "How can I shape the environment of information so as to influence people's behavior to meet this end?"
Everyone would ignore it regardless, that's why we have the FDA regulating this crap instead of making it voluntary. However, this is not a false alarm: these substances, like acrylamide, are known carcinogens in large doses. It's entirely reasonable to think that small doses might also have this effect.
I do see what you're saying though, anti-GMO people have been pushing for food labels and until very recently I was against this for being a groundless scare tactic. The recent announcement that the FDA would stop regulating GMO foods and allow the industry to police itself has me rethinking that position, however.
Those are two unrelated sentences. The threshold model has nothing to do with LD50, it's specifically about cancer.
Everything isn't labeled as cancer causing. It's just that certain carcinogens, like sodium benzoate, are effective and really cheap. So manufacturers put them in (almost) everything. This fact is what creates a market for small, health-focused brands.
The FCC very obviously falls under the interstate commerce clause. Are you seriously trying to claim that a simplistic reading of the constitution is enough to invalidate their authority? An argument that eighty years of extremely litigious broadcasters and telcos and ISPs have never been able to sell in a courtroom, with judges who actually know something about constitutional law?
Where does this constitution-thumping bullshit come from anyway? This stuff is complicated, and thoroughly examined. Is some laymen really going to come along and say, "Hey, I read the constitution once. Did you know that everything I don't like is illegal?"
Acrylamide is not harmful unless it's in amounts equal to a river of coffee.
The problem is that this is not established. This assumes the threshold model, while California has decided to play it safe and go with the no-threshold model. We don't know which is correct.
I applaud California for sticking to their guns on their labeling law, in the face of all the guff they get. The no-threshold model makes things easier, and a whole lot more profitable, but disguising a potential health hazard for those reasons is not well justified. Californians can still drink all of the possibly-carcinogenic coffee they want, the coffee-pushers just can't pretend that it's all perfectly safe.
I'm not seeing your point here. Yes the information is on Wikileaks, plus whatever other websites which have also published it. Because it's compromised information and that's how that works. How are you tying that fact to blaming your loss of $200 on Wikileaks? Are you saying that you wouldn't have needed a new card if Wikileaks hadn't published your compromised information? That is not true.
Er... Wikileaks just publishes what other people send them. If they published your information, it means that your information was already compromised.
When I used Mint (last week and the four years previous) I didn't have any problems with Kmail specifically, but Kmail's back-end, Akonadi, would periodically just stop working. That was annoying. I've recently switched to Neon and... had some trouble getting Akonadi working. But, now that it's running everything seems to be fine.
That might not be very reassuring, but I think Kmail is worth the extra trouble. And, again, everything seems to be running fine now.
Kmail. Although, back when I used Windows I really liked The Bat. Among other things, it uninstalled cleanly - very few Windows programs like that. I wonder if they're still around...
In airplane lingo that's how the term is used. They should have recognized that it's not how the term is used in the eye of the public, but they didn't know or didn't care. "Autopilot" certainly has more marketing potential than "Fancy Cruise Control."
It was, "Don't be evil." and it was never an official position, just something one of the founders said once.
Not to make excuses, but Google has been consistently more responsible with their data than their rivals (Facebook, most notably). So... if you'd like, you could turn it into a new motto: "Be the lessor evil."
This is not true. I don't think we should be talking about cakes, it seems like an off-topic distraction, but "being a baker" does not give anyone license to force you to bake cakes.
There are a couple of different ways that could come up I guess: one is if you are a baker employed at a bakery, and the bakery owner tells you to bake a cake or you'll be fired. If you have some problem with baking this particular cake, let's say it's for a gay wedding and you don't like that, then you have the option to refuse and be fired. You can also quit, but neither of these things are easy - you're constrained by your need to eat and live and so on. I.e.: you're a wage slave. It may feel like the bakery owner, your employer, is forcing you to bake a cake, as mentioned in your job description, rather than just sitting around doing nothing, but... for convenience, we've made a societal decision that wage slaves aren't real slaves. So this doesn't count as "forcing" you to do anything, since you can technically always choose to quit and then starve to death. Also: fuck you, peasant. Get back to work.
Another way it could come up is if you are a baker who owns your own bakery, in other words you've been granted a corporate charter by the state under the principle that your business provides some benefit to society. In this case the people telling you to bake cakes are your customers, and if one of them tells you to bake a cake, and you have some problem with baking this particular cake (let say it's for a gay wedding and you don't like that), then you have the option to refuse. In which case you'll be fired: your business will be fined for illegal discrimination until eventually you're out of a job. You can also quit, but neither of these things are easy - you're constrained by your need to eat and live and so on. I.e.: you're a wage slave. It may feel like you're being forced to bake a cake, as mentioned in your advertising, but... for convenience, we've made a societal decision that wage slaves aren't real slaves. So this doesn't count as "forcing" you to do anything, since you can technically always choose to quit and then starve to death. Also: fuck you, peasant. Get back to work.
So, as you can see, no one can force you to do anything in a free society based on free commerce and free enterprise freedom freedom.
That's... convoluted. Another way to read her position is: "I oppose pollution."
She is. Whew, glad she meets your approval. It'd be a shame if she did one thing to protect the people of her state without also doing every other thing you can think of first.
Most of the people here aren't seeing the positive angle here. This is complicated by the fact that this particular joke has a political aspect, but setting that aside most of the criticism boils down to: "It isn't professional."
... Come to think of it, does "professionalism" have any other meaning?
Okay. That is true, but that's also its virtue. Little bits of humanity like this in an otherwise incredibly dry and boring technical manual are a reminder that GNU isn't professional. That has value. It's not easily quantified, but GNU is a passion project that really needs people to care about it in order for it to go on. And professionalism is all about squashing passions.
Unless being a "self-declared white supremacist" was the single issue that made enough people vote for the crook.
That's awfully twisted logic. I gave you a case where people considered a minimum of two factors, and obviously cared about both of those factors, and then made a decision.
As for your example: that's not the only reason why he lost, but it's the primary reason. However, it does nothing to support what you were suggesting above. Let me refresh your memory: You implied that people are all, or almost all, single issue voters. And since network neutrality is less important than other big issues, a voting record on network neutrality will have no / almost no impact at election time. I, disagreeing with you, said that I think a record on network neutrality will factor into how many people vote, even though it probably won't determine their decision by itself. And, therefore, this vote in the senate that we're talking about is not useless.
I did not make the claim that single-issue voters don't exist, nor do I make the claim now that big issues (like child molesting) can't potentially override smaller issues.
I believe that I exactly answered your question: single issue voting is irresponsible. Did you need me to also say that I strive to be responsible with my voting?
Of course I am saying that there is no single issue that would cause me not to vote for a person. There are some issues which would make it an unpleasant decision, but some elections are like that. There was an election in Louisiana not that long ago that came down to a choice between an individual who was obviously very corrupt, and another person who was a self-declared white supremacist.
The crook won that election, even though he was deeply unpopular. So not only am I not a single issue voter, but that election suggests that most other people (at least in Louisiana) are also not single issue voters - they knew about his corruption, and disliked it, but ultimately made their decision based on a combination of factors (at least one other factor) and not his corruption alone.
Whoops. Looks like I replied to myself there.
You may find it important, but I will almost guarantee that the only people who care about this are already voting democratic anyway
Your guarantee is unfounded, network neutrality enjoys broad bipartisan support among voters. Once again you repeat this odd comment about this being "politics as usual." It is politics, yes, but it's unusual (not unheard of) for congress to act against something which has such broad public support. And, yadda yadda... We already had that discussion. It didn't make sense when you said it before, it doesn't make sense now. It's an odd phrase to pull out here, there's nothing particularly common about this situation if not what I said above.
I believe that I exactly answered your question: single issue voting is irresponsible. Did you need me to say that I strive to be responsible with my voting?
Of course I am saying that there is no single issue that would cause me not to vote for a person. There are some issues which would make it an unpleasant decision, but some elections are like that. There was an election in Louisiana not that long ago that came down to a choice between an individual who was obviously very corrupt, and another person who was a self-declared white supremacist.
You keep wondering further and further off-topic. I'm here to discuss a vote on network neutrality, not answer rhetorical questions about nothing. You know the reasons for all this shit: Why Nazis? Trump. Why Trump? Because Republicans keep supporting him. Thus it goes: Republicans support Trump, Trump supports Nazis, hence Republicans support Nazis. It's a tenuous link, it certainly doesn't fully characterize Trump or Republicans or Nazis, but it's a thing that exists. So people talk about it.
Yes, of course it's the left bringing up the Nazis. Most of the people on the right would prefer that they didn't exist and that no-one talked about them. The Nazis are firmly right-wing, and so they're an embarrassment. Thus it's politically useful to remind people on the right that they are allied with Nazis, and the principle reason for why that has suddenly become relevant (Trump). This applies whether those people on the right want that alliance or not. This is true, of course, with any embarrassing group. The left has most of the anti-vaxxers, for example, and would prefer that people on the right didn't talk about them so much.
Again: this is all really obvious. You know all this shit, I shouldn't have to tell you this.
To make an attempt to bring this back on topic: I guess you're saying that you don't like the fact that politicians spend most of their time grandstanding? Speechifying? And you don't like this vote on net neutrality because that's what this is? Fine, you don't have to like anything you don't want to. All of this talking though, this is how democracy functions. You need to know how politicians are likely to act on issues that you care about in order to make an informed decision when it comes time to vote. Thus the function of this particular vote is not to preserve net neutrality directly because, as you say, this vote is likely to fail. The function of this vote is to inform you and everyone else about the character of this group of politicians. It's one more data point to consider when it comes time for voters to make their decision. For this reason, this vote may help to preserve network neutrality in the long term even though it won't accomplish that in the short term.
Single-issue voting is irresponsible. There are people who do that, it's true, but the fact that a politician's stance on network neutrality doesn't completely determine my vote doesn't mean that it doesn't factor into my vote. It is one issue, of many, that I care about and how a politician acts on this issue certainly effects how likely I am to vote for that politician.
There are many people who care about network neutrality, all of the protests and the news coverage should have convinced you of that. There are few people who care about network neutrality above all other issues, that is true, but this does not mean that people don't care and that this will have no effect on how they vote.
What do you mean by "it's too transparent"? This move isn't trying to be subtle, there's nothing to see through here. The point is to force congressmen to be on the record about whether they are for or against network neutrality. That's it. The democrats who are pushing for this haven't claimed it's anything else, it doesn't look like it's anything else. That is clearly what it is.