How does forcing them to use a different communication medium stop them from spreading ideas you disagree with?
If all the newspapers and TV stations in the world refuse to run a news story, then it'll prevent the story from spreading. It doesn't entirely stop it, obviously. Even before the Internet, there would have still been word of mouth. Still, it prevents it from spreading to the extent that it would have otherwise.
It seems to me that giving them the allure of being the 'stuff THEY don't want you to see' only helps promote it, instead.
You're conflating two things. You're talking about something like the Streisand Effect, where trying to hide information paradoxically causes it to spread. That can happen, although if reputable sources of information refuse to acknowledge it, it might still be relegated to the status of rumor. I'm talking about a different thing, which is more about whether credence and credibility are given to speech. Racism, for example, isn't a secret that people are curious about. No one is sitting at home thinking, "I heard something about this white supremacism. No one has ever been willing to advocate lynching, so the idea is so much more alluring now!"
It's more like, there are various people who are racist to varying degrees and in different ways. That's already in their lives. If the people around you who are credible members of the group you perceive as belonging to are all lynching people, talking about lynching, and advocating lynching, then there's a much greater chance that you'll end up lynching someone. If the suggestion of lynching elicits a response of "Hell no. That's fucked up. What's wrong with you?!" then you're less likely to lynch anyone. That's just how people work. If services like Twitter promote and amplify hate-speech, you're going to end up with more people thinking it's a normal and acceptable thing. If Twitter bans it and sends the message that it's unacceptable, then its prevalence lessens.
And yes, I know there will still be some backlash. There are white supremacists who are going to be irate any time you imply that white supremacy is not acceptable. There are some occasional assholes who will say the exact thing that that they think will be most offensive and get them the most attention. However, ultimately most people will generally adopt the social mores of whatever group they perceive themselves to be a part of. A responsible member of society tries to avoid and discourage horrible behavior and speech in order to encourage better social mores.
It's more like, if a speculative philosopher imagines that the an invisible tree that isn't made of matter falls in a forest, and it's completely impossible to detect the presence or location of the tree, then did it even really fall?
Until there is scientific evidence, it's a philosophic question and not a scientific one. From many philosophic standpoints, it's a bit of a nonsense question.
The basic problem that you're likely to run into philosophically is that, regardless of whether the universe is a simulation, it is our universe. There's no reason to think that it being a simulation would have any consequence for us, or that it would be detectable. Even if you were to find some artifact of the simulation, it would be indistinguishable from a weird quirk in physics. You could argue, for example, that the reason quantum mechanics is indeterminate is that the simulation doesn't actually calculate the location at particles at the smallest level until that level of accuracy is needed. It's a neat idea, but indistinguishable from "That's just the way physics works."
If this were a simulation, we have no access out to the larger "real" world outside of it, including the "computer" running the simulation, and therefore would have no grounds to make assertions about what that world would look like or how the simulation should work. We have no reason to think this supposed "real world" contains people, or creatures anything like what we've imagined. This supposed world might have entirely different rules of physics. The simulation might run on a "computer" that is not a computer, and is unlike anything we understand. Not only do we not know about these things, but we have no reason to believe the tiniest scrap of information about the supposed world is discoverable.
If we were to assume that our universe is a simulation of a sort that we know about, we should guess that the only way we would discover this deeper truth would be a revelation made by its creator. For example, there's no possibility of a character in Grand Theft Auto to learn that he's in a video game unless the developer programs the character to know it. Without the intervention of the developer to make this information available, the GTA character would have no way of figuring out whether the game is running on an AMD processor or Intel.
So given that, even if we assume for the sake of argument that we are in a simulation, we have every reason to believe that we can never discover evidence of it, and our existence in the simulation is indistinguishable from what our existence would be if we existed in reality. It's a distinction without a difference. Our simulated universe is still as real to us as the real universe would be to us if we were real. The whole thing turns into a broader philosophic question of, "What if the nature of the universe is actually unlike anything we understand, or are capable of understanding, and everything we think we understand is illusory?" It's a somewhat interesting question to ponder for a few moments, but it makes no sense to try to answer it. If it's the case that we're incapable of understanding reality, then there's no further use for inquiry.
The people inside a fully autonomous cars are passengers, not drivers.
Actually I put it into quotes in that instance because I was referring to the AI as the "driver". But an AI can't be fined or arrested, so someone else will need to be held responsible.
I don't think manufacturers will sell fully autonomous cars.
I agree that fewer people will buy cars, and that it may eventually become relatively rare for an individual to buy a car for their own personal use. Still, presumably someone will own the cars, and it may not be the manufacturer. You may have services like Uber buying cars from a company like Tesla. There may be companies that purchase vehicles for specific use, e.g. a shipping company may buy a fleet of autonomous trucks, or... I don't know... a hotel may want to buy a vehicle for their shuttle service. Though maybe you're right, and those will still be leased. I'm not sure how the economic and legal issues will play out.
Depends on what you mean by "censorship". If I don't post your views on my blog, am I censoring you? I suppose you could argue that I'm inhibiting your speech, but it's kind of a stretch.
But me refusing to endorse your views does "work", at least a little tiny bit, in terms of preventing your views from spreading. If enough people, or more specifically enough people who are influential enough, refuse to endorse views, and in fact oppose those views, then yes, it does "work" in terms of preventing those views from being enforced.
Twitter is not the only means of communication.
That's... kind of entirely my point. Twitter is a private company running what is essentially a blogging platform. They aren't responsible for stopping all violence, but they may be responsible (morally, if not legally) for the behavior their site enables. They are totally within their rights to say, "We don't want this kind of thing on our site," and it's not really censorship. It won't stop violence, but if they do a good job at it, it might stop Twitter from being a tool used to incite violence. If you don't like Twitter's terms of service, then use a different means of communication. As you note, it's not the only one.
Someone could say "I know who you are, and I will kill you." It's a threat of violence, it's extreme, and they still have 100 characters left to elaborate.
You're right. Ultimately, this is not a new problem. The question boils down to, "Who is responsible when a product malfunctions?"
However, there is a relevant shift in liability that needs to happen. Basically there are certain things where the manufacturer is only responsible for the product being able to operate safely, but the operator of the product is also partially responsible.
For example, Toyota may have legal liability for a manufacturing defect that causes the breaks to stop working, but Toyota isn't responsible for a car crash caused by an unsafe driver. Once you have self-driving cars, that needs to change because the "driver" cannot be held responsible. Obviously the manufacturer needs to take on greater liability, but there also may be situations where that's not really practical either. There may still be things that the car's owner or passenger could do to cause an accident. For example, if the owner modifies the car or fails to perform maintenance, and that causes the AI to malfunction, the owner should probably still be held responsible. Or there will certainly be some accidents that just happen, and aren't really anyone's fault.
And the particulars of all that need to be codified into law. We have hundreds of years of laws dealing with carriages and cars, but some of those may shift when the car is autonomous. What, exactly, is the car's manufacturer responsible for, and what is the owner responsible for? How do we determine whether an AI is adequate to make the necessary decisions, and how will inspections be carried out? These are things that need to be thought about.
Unfortunately no-one can verify if this is true in any given case...
Do their terms of service provide that you have some kind of right of review? Or do those terms specify that they can suspend your account?
Try this thought experiment out for size: if Twitter's workforce were to try and unionize, do you think Twitter would permit them the use of their own platform?
If they were smart they would permit it. I don't know that they have an obligation to. Does NBC have an obligation to run a reality TV show about people who hate NBC?
But as usual, it's the pro-censorship side (i.e. you) who's brought up the First Amendment first, as a strawman so you can dismiss it.
This is perhaps the stupidest sentence I've read all day. It doesn't make sense to dismiss whatever statements are made first.
It doesn't get much better after that. From the thing you yourself quoted:
In contrast, when private individuals or groups organize boycotts against stores that sell magazines of which they disapprove, their actions are protected by the First Amendment...
Yes, there are instances where shutting down a conversation can be dangerous, in much the same way that exercising any of your rights can become dangerous. Still, boycotts and protests are protected by the First Amendment. When you say something stupid, your freedom of speech protects your right to say it. My freedom of speech protects my right to say your speech is stupid, an even to tell you to shut up.
But we're not even talking about that. The issue here is not Twitter taking action to try to suppress your speech, but they are only refusing to provide a platform. You probably won't get the difference right away, so I'll attempt a somewhat clumsy metaphor. Let's say you're a musician, and you want to play a show at a local venue. Obviously you have the right to play your music. In the same sense, I have the right to not attend the show. I can even tell you and everyone else that I hate your music, and that no one should go to the show. If I wanted to be a real dick about it, I could even mount a protest to discourage people from going to the show. I have the right to do that, though perhaps that's not a good thing for people to be doing.
However, none of that is what we're talking about with Twitter. In the case that we're talking about, Twitter is the guy who owns the local venue that you want to play in. Twitter is saying, "You can play your music if you want, and I'll do nothing to stop it. But no, I'm not going to let you play here." Twitter owns the place, and has every right to do that. The alternative would be that every venue has to host every musician that wants to play in it, which is ridiculous.
Because shutting down extremist accounts ends violent extremism... how exactly?
Maybe I'm missing something, but where does it say that they intended to end violent extremism? It said they're trying to "tackle 'violent extremism' on its microblogging platform," but I think a more reasonable interpretation of that is that they're not trying to deal with violent extremism itself, but with its presence on their platform.
And actually, to deal with your question more directly, denying extremists a platform does help prevent the spread of that extremism. It doesn't really matter if it's ISIS or the KKK, if you help people spread their propaganda, you're deepening the problem. Twitter has simply taken the position that they don't want to assist in spreading that kind of propaganda. And before you start harping on the First Amendment, no, the First Amendment does not require that private parties assist you in spreading your speech. It only disallows the government from making your speech illegal.
First, you're just talking about the CPU. IT says nothing about the other components. But let's set that aside for a second.
When you actually look at the numbers, the iPhone SE has the same CPU and the same basic functionality as the new iPad. It appears to have a nicer camera, and can also make phone calls. It's about a quarter of the size and weight, which can be good or bad, depending on your needs. When you compare the 32GB iPhone SE with the 32GB iPad with cellular, the iPad is actually $60 more expensive.
It doesn't seem to me to support the idea that the iPhone's price is artificially inflated by carrier subsidies.
Sometimes it costs more to get similar performance into a smaller package. A high-end ultrabook might be more expensive than a big clunky laptop with similar computing power, even if the big clunky laptop has a bigger screen.
And when that happens, I'll consider changing my opinion.
It's already happened. Microsoft keeps changing their options with every update, removing options to opt-out of their abusive behavior. They'll do it again.
OK, so lets use Safari on OSX. Hmm. There's still ads on Youtube.
Ok, so let me go back and quote what I said before:
Well first, a fair amount of that can be gotten rid of with a good ad-blocker. I also don't watch TV that has ads, for whatever that's worth. But that's entirely beside the fucking point.
The point here isn't that ads are unacceptable under any circumstance. The point is that forced advertisements in your computer operating system is completely over the line.
So you install an adblocker. And don't use sites that block adblocker. And don't use software that includes ads. And don't watch TV channels that have commercials. And don't get on buses that have ad placards.
At least those are options. If you want to avoid ads, you have the option of installing ad-blockers, avoiding sites with forced ads, etc. If you're using Windows these days, you're accepting that Microsoft will force ads down your throat.
I'm sorry, did you just tell me to stop using MS to reduce the ad problem and then suggest Google as a better alternative?
Yes, and ChromeOS is definitely a better option in that regard. For whatever problems you might suggest Google has, at least their OS isn't designed to spam you. Even if they start including ads, it's open-source and can be forked.
Like I said you're welcome to hate MS if you want, but using "I don't like that specific company" as your sole argument is showing some glaring holes against the backdrop of just so much other shit that's out there.
You know, I really can't figure out if you're a Microsoft shill, an argumentative moron, or a dog that's been beaten so many times that he's started to like it. Regardless, the argument is not "I don't like that specific company", but "That specific company has crossed a line by turning basic computing into an advertising platform. If you can't use a computer without being spammed by the OS vendor's ads, then it's time to find a new OS vendor." And that's my response to all of the advertising. If you think that broadcast TV has crossed a line with their advertising, don't watch broadcast TV. If you think Youtube has gone too far, then install an ad-blocker that rectifies that and/or stop using Youtube. Microsoft has certainly crossed a line, so it's time to stop using Microsoft.
It just doesn't make any sense to respond, "Well even if you do that, there will still be ads in the world somewhere, so no, you have to keep using Microsoft products and subjecting yourself to their ads."
And if you can't or won't understand that, then there's no point in arguing with you further.
... Oh! Except my mom (or someone else) will probably just keep texting my cell phone's phone number, which means that instead of solving my problem of "too many different services", you've just added another service to it.
I'll take an opposing position here. I see a problem. Right now, I have to maintain several different IM/messaging/chat services.
1) SMS because it came with my phone, and it's what a lot of people use. Honestly this is probably the most ubiquitous and useful, except that it's kind of bound to my phone.
2) iMessage sort of serves the purpose of SMS. It also basically came with my phone and lets me do SMS and not have it bound to my phone. Except... the thing that makes regular SMS messages also go to my computer randomly stops working, so I still need SMS for talking to Android users.
3) Slack for work. I don't like it, but it's what people use at work, so I have to use it.
4) XMPP for work. We use a VoIP solution that has a SIP client that also automatically sets up XMPP chat. Sometimes work people send messages through that.
5) Google talk/hangouts/whatever-it's-called-now because I have Google obsessed friends who like it.
6) Facebook Messenger, which I've finally deleted because it keeps getting worse. But now I have to log into the Facebook website to chat with my Facebook friends, because I have some Facebook friends that I'm *only* in contact with through Facebook.
I feel like there a few others that I'm not thinking of, to say nothing of all the accounts that I've had to sign up for over the years (MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, AOL, etc.). I'm also not including my multiple email addresses. Even though I think email could use an overhaul, I think that email is rightfully a different format.
So here's why I think that's a problem: I need to have a bunch of different apps using a bunch of different accounts, running on multiple different platforms, just to keep track of text messages. I can't consolidate them into one app because the services aren't compatible with different clients (e.g. I can't use pidgin to use all of them). I also can't talk with people across services (e.g. I can't use my iMessage account to talk to Facebook contacts). I don't even have a choice in client apps (I basically have to use Facebook's Messenger to talk to Facebook contacts).
It locks us all into inefficient communication platforms that are outside of our control. Imagine if phones worked this way, if every six months there was a new phone app that could only call other users of that phone app, and none of them were capable of calling each other. Or email-- what if you had to sign up for a new email account on every email host in order to email other users on that host. Like imagine there were no SMTP communication between servers, and if you wanted to email someone who had used an Outlook.com email account, you had to sign up for your own Outlook.com account.
The whole thing is actually really stupid and unnecessary. Having to have all those apps and so many accounts increases your attack surface, decreasing your security. Plus a lot of the apps are awful, unstable, and needlessly complicated for the simple purpose of text messaging. You say, "We just have a robust constellation of competing systems, serving different communities," but the systems don't really compete. They're each little monopolies of their own little walled gardens. There's also no reason why open systems couldn't serve different communities. The only reason there aren't standards is that the Internet has completely abandoned the idea of openness and interoperability in favor of locking users into proprietary advertising platforms that drive engagement.
I never said it did. In fact I said exactly the opposite.
Stil, the nature of your post is an excuse. It like, "Listen guys, I don't condone this behavior, but it's a fact of life, so we all better get used to it."
Your options are being careful or getting plastered with ads. You don't have a choice of middle ground (or at least not much of one.)
I'm not looking for a "middle ground", I'm looking for an alternative. Refusing to use Microsoft products is a good start.
But it will stop the ad ticker in Win10's start menu, which is what I was talking about specifically.
Until Microsoft issues an update that doesn't respect your choice.
In terms of ads, that means you've managed to avoid a couple small (and easy-to-disable) ads in Windows and a handful of less-easy-to-disable ads in Skype and a few other places.
Then don't use Microsoft. No Windows, no Skype, no Microsoft Store, no Microsoft Edge. Like I said, don't use Microsoft.
Now you just have television, newspapers, buses and much of the internet to avoid!
Well first, a fair amount of that can be gotten rid of with a good ad-blocker. I also don't watch TV that has ads, for whatever that's worth. But that's entirely beside the fucking point. I'm not saying that I'm some poor little withering flower who can't deal with exposure to a single advertisement. I'm saying that it's possible for a company to cross the line into unacceptable behavior, and when that happens, unlike you, I don't think it's a good idea to shrug and say, "Oh well, I guess I'm stuck with this."
So stop using Microsoft. Use Linux. Get a Mac. Get a Chromebook. Whatever. Because if you just accept this kind of thing, then you're just going to keep getting more and more of it.
I would agree if you said that we shouldn't need so many messenger apps or that we don't need gimmicky. You basically need one, and it needs to be able to send text messages.
But "we don't need text messages" is a little bit of a silly response to all of this. I mean, no, we don't "need" it in the hunter/gatherer sense of the word, just like we don't need email, telephones, computers, or any number of other things. But culturally, modern communication is almost entirely face-to-face, over email, or in some kind of text messaging (or instant messaging, which is the same thing). And if I had to guess, I'd say that more of it is happening over text messaging than any other medium.
And I'm not talking about some weirdo teenagers conducting ego-boosting "small talk". I'm talking about normal communications, from parents talking to children or coworkers conducting business, it's largely taking place over some kind of text/instant message. Sure, there are teenagers conducting ego-boosting small-talk, but if you go back a few decades, it was the same thing, they were just talking on the phone instead.
It asking for all those permissions is not their problem, it came bundled with the Marshmallow update, and you probably noticed it in all other apps that started targeting Android Marshmallow.
Nope. I have an iPhone. And honestly, a lot of apps request access to information like contact lists or location, and that in itself doesn't bother me. But somehow I got hit with about 7 prompts in the first 2 minutes of using the apps, sometimes asking for access to the same information multiple times, after I'd said "no".
At least, I'm pretty sure that's what happened. I wasn't exactly counting at the time, but I'm not intentionally exaggerating. I just remember being prompted over and over again for all kinds of information, and trying to hit "no" and "skip" only to be prompted with something else, and my general response was "Holy crap. I'm just exiting out of this and deleting it rather than dealing with all this crap."
Blame Google on that one...
Setting aside that this is Apple and not Google, I won't blame them either way. I want my phone OS to ask before giving apps access to information, and I can't think of another app that has so relentlessly harassed me about gaining access to private information.
Honestly, I was wondering what happened to Facebook Messenger. I hadn't realized that it was trying to compete with SnapChat, which I've never used and I don't think I ever will. I do know that Messenger was, for me, a somewhat unnecessary but tolerable text-messaging application that I used to keep in touch with some Facebook contacts, and it suddenly became an unusable mess. I deleted it after it launched, post-update, and suddenly started asking me for access to all kinds of things (access to location, address book, and other stuff) and kept asking repeatedly after I said "no". That was the 5-ton straw that broke the camel's back.
It seems like every time Facebook "fixes" or "improves" something, I hate the platform more.
I question what he means by "the good Internet" if it's going to be brought about by reddit, Google Hangouts, and iMessage. Maybe I'm just being an old fogey, but to me, when you say, "The good Internet will rise again," my mind jumps to a time of text-only email, Usenet, and IRC. Basically, a time when people were trying to create and use open protocols so that anyone could run a server, instead of a bunch of proprietary "social networking" sites and services controlling your experience.
It may seem like I'm changing the subject, but to me, it's highly relevant to what he's talking about. A lot of the prior civility came from people forming their own communities on services that they were able to run themselves. One services like Facebook and Twitter, those platforms control the experience, control which posts you see and what order they're displayed in, and make decisions based on increasing engagement in order to sell advertising. The services that he cites (reddit, iMessage, Hangouts) have something in common with the old-style Internet in that they allow you to form your own communities and control your own engagement with them. One of the big differences, however, is that when you can control the service, you can keep it that way. You're reliant on Apple, Conde Nast, and Google to keep iMessage, reddit, and Hangouts in their current format, and I wouldn't bet on them being the same in 5 years. However, you're able to set up your own email, IRC, or Usenet server, and nobody can really force you to turn it into something you don't want.
Now I'm not saying that we should all be using IRC and Usenet. Technology progresses, and we're always finding better ways of doing things. My point is, we shouldn't be relying on closed, proprietary, ad-supported apps and websites. We need new open protocols. In the same way that anyone can set up their own email service or even build their own email client and server software, we need to enable people to set up their own texting, IM, VoIP, video conferencing, social networking, and forum services. And I don't just mean, "You should be able to set up your own Slack clone," which you obviously can, but you should be able to build a Slack clone and set up a competing Slack service that then allows you to communicate with Slack users. And Facebook users. And Google users. Because they should all use the same protocol.
To me, that's a little like getting your wallet stolen and someone saying, "Yeah, there are thieves all over the place. Maybe if you put a chain on your wallet, you won't have that problem again." Which is to say:
A) The fact that it's "all over the place" doesn't excuse it.
B) Yes, obviously if you're more careful it will be less likely, but...
C) I'm not sure how careful I want to have to be, and...
D) Your advice won't keep it from happening in the future, so...
E) Maybe we should think of some other solutions here.
In the case of Microsoft, I avoid using them whenever possible. If they don't respect their role as an OS vendor, I'm not going to respect it either.
Well... the reality there is probably a little complicated. Yes, if the convention is too restrictive, then it could cut out a lot of potential passwords, and thereby make the passwords easier to hack. On the other hand, requiring longer passwords will improve security in most cases, as will some other simple rules (e.g. disallowing simple dictionary words).
In abstract, requiring a capital letter, lowercase letter, number, and symbol should improve the security, but unfortunately people will tend to follow certain patterns in choosing passwords when faced with those rules. For example, people will often then use a common dictionary word, or a name, with the first letter capitalized, followed by a number and exclamation mark. For example, "Joseph12!". Obviously not everyone will do that, but that's a common response. Sometimes people use common substitutions (e.g. "J0s3ph12!").
One of the examples I like to cite is that, early in my career, I dealt with a company that wanted to be very secure, so they required a password with at least 8 characters, including a capital, lowercase, number, and symbol. It also required that it be rotated once a month, and you couldn't repeat the last 10 passwords. The security guy who came up with these rules was very proud of himself. However, the employees had a lot of trouble remembering all their passwords, and they came up with a strategy to use the password "Password01!" Every month they would increment the number until they reached "Password10!", and then they'd start over. A few vocal users shared this trick with the entire company, and before you knew it, almost everyone was using this strategy.
Which brings me to one of the big reasons strict password rules can hurt security: It creates a false sense of security. I've known a lot of IT pros who believe that using some common letter substitutions makes a password secure. They think "password" is a terrible password, but "P@ssw0rd!" is a completely secure and uncrackable password.
Slashdot Mirror
How does forcing them to use a different communication medium stop them from spreading ideas you disagree with?
If all the newspapers and TV stations in the world refuse to run a news story, then it'll prevent the story from spreading. It doesn't entirely stop it, obviously. Even before the Internet, there would have still been word of mouth. Still, it prevents it from spreading to the extent that it would have otherwise.
It seems to me that giving them the allure of being the 'stuff THEY don't want you to see' only helps promote it, instead.
You're conflating two things. You're talking about something like the Streisand Effect, where trying to hide information paradoxically causes it to spread. That can happen, although if reputable sources of information refuse to acknowledge it, it might still be relegated to the status of rumor. I'm talking about a different thing, which is more about whether credence and credibility are given to speech. Racism, for example, isn't a secret that people are curious about. No one is sitting at home thinking, "I heard something about this white supremacism. No one has ever been willing to advocate lynching, so the idea is so much more alluring now!"
It's more like, there are various people who are racist to varying degrees and in different ways. That's already in their lives. If the people around you who are credible members of the group you perceive as belonging to are all lynching people, talking about lynching, and advocating lynching, then there's a much greater chance that you'll end up lynching someone. If the suggestion of lynching elicits a response of "Hell no. That's fucked up. What's wrong with you?!" then you're less likely to lynch anyone. That's just how people work. If services like Twitter promote and amplify hate-speech, you're going to end up with more people thinking it's a normal and acceptable thing. If Twitter bans it and sends the message that it's unacceptable, then its prevalence lessens.
And yes, I know there will still be some backlash. There are white supremacists who are going to be irate any time you imply that white supremacy is not acceptable. There are some occasional assholes who will say the exact thing that that they think will be most offensive and get them the most attention. However, ultimately most people will generally adopt the social mores of whatever group they perceive themselves to be a part of. A responsible member of society tries to avoid and discourage horrible behavior and speech in order to encourage better social mores.
It's more like, if a speculative philosopher imagines that the an invisible tree that isn't made of matter falls in a forest, and it's completely impossible to detect the presence or location of the tree, then did it even really fall?
Until there is scientific evidence, it's a philosophic question and not a scientific one. From many philosophic standpoints, it's a bit of a nonsense question.
The basic problem that you're likely to run into philosophically is that, regardless of whether the universe is a simulation, it is our universe. There's no reason to think that it being a simulation would have any consequence for us, or that it would be detectable. Even if you were to find some artifact of the simulation, it would be indistinguishable from a weird quirk in physics. You could argue, for example, that the reason quantum mechanics is indeterminate is that the simulation doesn't actually calculate the location at particles at the smallest level until that level of accuracy is needed. It's a neat idea, but indistinguishable from "That's just the way physics works."
If this were a simulation, we have no access out to the larger "real" world outside of it, including the "computer" running the simulation, and therefore would have no grounds to make assertions about what that world would look like or how the simulation should work. We have no reason to think this supposed "real world" contains people, or creatures anything like what we've imagined. This supposed world might have entirely different rules of physics. The simulation might run on a "computer" that is not a computer, and is unlike anything we understand. Not only do we not know about these things, but we have no reason to believe the tiniest scrap of information about the supposed world is discoverable.
If we were to assume that our universe is a simulation of a sort that we know about, we should guess that the only way we would discover this deeper truth would be a revelation made by its creator. For example, there's no possibility of a character in Grand Theft Auto to learn that he's in a video game unless the developer programs the character to know it. Without the intervention of the developer to make this information available, the GTA character would have no way of figuring out whether the game is running on an AMD processor or Intel.
So given that, even if we assume for the sake of argument that we are in a simulation, we have every reason to believe that we can never discover evidence of it, and our existence in the simulation is indistinguishable from what our existence would be if we existed in reality. It's a distinction without a difference. Our simulated universe is still as real to us as the real universe would be to us if we were real. The whole thing turns into a broader philosophic question of, "What if the nature of the universe is actually unlike anything we understand, or are capable of understanding, and everything we think we understand is illusory?" It's a somewhat interesting question to ponder for a few moments, but it makes no sense to try to answer it. If it's the case that we're incapable of understanding reality, then there's no further use for inquiry.
The people inside a fully autonomous cars are passengers, not drivers.
Actually I put it into quotes in that instance because I was referring to the AI as the "driver". But an AI can't be fined or arrested, so someone else will need to be held responsible.
I don't think manufacturers will sell fully autonomous cars.
I agree that fewer people will buy cars, and that it may eventually become relatively rare for an individual to buy a car for their own personal use. Still, presumably someone will own the cars, and it may not be the manufacturer. You may have services like Uber buying cars from a company like Tesla. There may be companies that purchase vehicles for specific use, e.g. a shipping company may buy a fleet of autonomous trucks, or... I don't know... a hotel may want to buy a vehicle for their shuttle service. Though maybe you're right, and those will still be leased. I'm not sure how the economic and legal issues will play out.
Who made you the arbiter of what constitutes "violent extremism"?
So, you're saying that censorship works?
Depends on what you mean by "censorship". If I don't post your views on my blog, am I censoring you? I suppose you could argue that I'm inhibiting your speech, but it's kind of a stretch.
But me refusing to endorse your views does "work", at least a little tiny bit, in terms of preventing your views from spreading. If enough people, or more specifically enough people who are influential enough, refuse to endorse views, and in fact oppose those views, then yes, it does "work" in terms of preventing those views from being enforced.
Twitter is not the only means of communication.
That's... kind of entirely my point. Twitter is a private company running what is essentially a blogging platform. They aren't responsible for stopping all violence, but they may be responsible (morally, if not legally) for the behavior their site enables. They are totally within their rights to say, "We don't want this kind of thing on our site," and it's not really censorship. It won't stop violence, but if they do a good job at it, it might stop Twitter from being a tool used to incite violence. If you don't like Twitter's terms of service, then use a different means of communication. As you note, it's not the only one.
Someone could say "I know who you are, and I will kill you." It's a threat of violence, it's extreme, and they still have 100 characters left to elaborate.
You're right. Ultimately, this is not a new problem. The question boils down to, "Who is responsible when a product malfunctions?"
However, there is a relevant shift in liability that needs to happen. Basically there are certain things where the manufacturer is only responsible for the product being able to operate safely, but the operator of the product is also partially responsible.
For example, Toyota may have legal liability for a manufacturing defect that causes the breaks to stop working, but Toyota isn't responsible for a car crash caused by an unsafe driver. Once you have self-driving cars, that needs to change because the "driver" cannot be held responsible. Obviously the manufacturer needs to take on greater liability, but there also may be situations where that's not really practical either. There may still be things that the car's owner or passenger could do to cause an accident. For example, if the owner modifies the car or fails to perform maintenance, and that causes the AI to malfunction, the owner should probably still be held responsible. Or there will certainly be some accidents that just happen, and aren't really anyone's fault.
And the particulars of all that need to be codified into law. We have hundreds of years of laws dealing with carriages and cars, but some of those may shift when the car is autonomous. What, exactly, is the car's manufacturer responsible for, and what is the owner responsible for? How do we determine whether an AI is adequate to make the necessary decisions, and how will inspections be carried out? These are things that need to be thought about.
Unfortunately no-one can verify if this is true in any given case...
Do their terms of service provide that you have some kind of right of review? Or do those terms specify that they can suspend your account?
Try this thought experiment out for size: if Twitter's workforce were to try and unionize, do you think Twitter would permit them the use of their own platform?
If they were smart they would permit it. I don't know that they have an obligation to. Does NBC have an obligation to run a reality TV show about people who hate NBC?
But as usual, it's the pro-censorship side (i.e. you) who's brought up the First Amendment first, as a strawman so you can dismiss it.
This is perhaps the stupidest sentence I've read all day. It doesn't make sense to dismiss whatever statements are made first.
It doesn't get much better after that. From the thing you yourself quoted:
In contrast, when private individuals or groups organize boycotts against stores that sell magazines of which they disapprove, their actions are protected by the First Amendment...
Yes, there are instances where shutting down a conversation can be dangerous, in much the same way that exercising any of your rights can become dangerous. Still, boycotts and protests are protected by the First Amendment. When you say something stupid, your freedom of speech protects your right to say it. My freedom of speech protects my right to say your speech is stupid, an even to tell you to shut up.
But we're not even talking about that. The issue here is not Twitter taking action to try to suppress your speech, but they are only refusing to provide a platform. You probably won't get the difference right away, so I'll attempt a somewhat clumsy metaphor. Let's say you're a musician, and you want to play a show at a local venue. Obviously you have the right to play your music. In the same sense, I have the right to not attend the show. I can even tell you and everyone else that I hate your music, and that no one should go to the show. If I wanted to be a real dick about it, I could even mount a protest to discourage people from going to the show. I have the right to do that, though perhaps that's not a good thing for people to be doing.
However, none of that is what we're talking about with Twitter. In the case that we're talking about, Twitter is the guy who owns the local venue that you want to play in. Twitter is saying, "You can play your music if you want, and I'll do nothing to stop it. But no, I'm not going to let you play here." Twitter owns the place, and has every right to do that. The alternative would be that every venue has to host every musician that wants to play in it, which is ridiculous.
Seems like you're just looking for a reason for the fact that your pants are in a twist.
Because shutting down extremist accounts ends violent extremism... how exactly?
Maybe I'm missing something, but where does it say that they intended to end violent extremism? It said they're trying to "tackle 'violent extremism' on its microblogging platform," but I think a more reasonable interpretation of that is that they're not trying to deal with violent extremism itself, but with its presence on their platform.
And actually, to deal with your question more directly, denying extremists a platform does help prevent the spread of that extremism. It doesn't really matter if it's ISIS or the KKK, if you help people spread their propaganda, you're deepening the problem. Twitter has simply taken the position that they don't want to assist in spreading that kind of propaganda. And before you start harping on the First Amendment, no, the First Amendment does not require that private parties assist you in spreading your speech. It only disallows the government from making your speech illegal.
First, you're just talking about the CPU. IT says nothing about the other components. But let's set that aside for a second.
When you actually look at the numbers, the iPhone SE has the same CPU and the same basic functionality as the new iPad. It appears to have a nicer camera, and can also make phone calls. It's about a quarter of the size and weight, which can be good or bad, depending on your needs. When you compare the 32GB iPhone SE with the 32GB iPad with cellular, the iPad is actually $60 more expensive.
It doesn't seem to me to support the idea that the iPhone's price is artificially inflated by carrier subsidies.
Sometimes it costs more to get similar performance into a smaller package. A high-end ultrabook might be more expensive than a big clunky laptop with similar computing power, even if the big clunky laptop has a bigger screen.
And when that happens, I'll consider changing my opinion.
It's already happened. Microsoft keeps changing their options with every update, removing options to opt-out of their abusive behavior. They'll do it again.
OK, so lets use Safari on OSX. Hmm. There's still ads on Youtube.
Ok, so let me go back and quote what I said before:
Well first, a fair amount of that can be gotten rid of with a good ad-blocker. I also don't watch TV that has ads, for whatever that's worth. But that's entirely beside the fucking point.
The point here isn't that ads are unacceptable under any circumstance. The point is that forced advertisements in your computer operating system is completely over the line.
So you install an adblocker. And don't use sites that block adblocker. And don't use software that includes ads. And don't watch TV channels that have commercials. And don't get on buses that have ad placards.
At least those are options. If you want to avoid ads, you have the option of installing ad-blockers, avoiding sites with forced ads, etc. If you're using Windows these days, you're accepting that Microsoft will force ads down your throat.
I'm sorry, did you just tell me to stop using MS to reduce the ad problem and then suggest Google as a better alternative?
Yes, and ChromeOS is definitely a better option in that regard. For whatever problems you might suggest Google has, at least their OS isn't designed to spam you. Even if they start including ads, it's open-source and can be forked.
Like I said you're welcome to hate MS if you want, but using "I don't like that specific company" as your sole argument is showing some glaring holes against the backdrop of just so much other shit that's out there.
You know, I really can't figure out if you're a Microsoft shill, an argumentative moron, or a dog that's been beaten so many times that he's started to like it. Regardless, the argument is not "I don't like that specific company", but "That specific company has crossed a line by turning basic computing into an advertising platform. If you can't use a computer without being spammed by the OS vendor's ads, then it's time to find a new OS vendor." And that's my response to all of the advertising. If you think that broadcast TV has crossed a line with their advertising, don't watch broadcast TV. If you think Youtube has gone too far, then install an ad-blocker that rectifies that and/or stop using Youtube. Microsoft has certainly crossed a line, so it's time to stop using Microsoft.
It just doesn't make any sense to respond, "Well even if you do that, there will still be ads in the world somewhere, so no, you have to keep using Microsoft products and subjecting yourself to their ads."
And if you can't or won't understand that, then there's no point in arguing with you further.
Yes, you've solved the problem!...
... for one of the examples I gave...
... Oh! Except my mom (or someone else) will probably just keep texting my cell phone's phone number, which means that instead of solving my problem of "too many different services", you've just added another service to it.
Yes, I know. And that's a problem.
I'll take an opposing position here. I see a problem. Right now, I have to maintain several different IM/messaging/chat services.
1) SMS because it came with my phone, and it's what a lot of people use. Honestly this is probably the most ubiquitous and useful, except that it's kind of bound to my phone.
2) iMessage sort of serves the purpose of SMS. It also basically came with my phone and lets me do SMS and not have it bound to my phone. Except... the thing that makes regular SMS messages also go to my computer randomly stops working, so I still need SMS for talking to Android users.
3) Slack for work. I don't like it, but it's what people use at work, so I have to use it.
4) XMPP for work. We use a VoIP solution that has a SIP client that also automatically sets up XMPP chat. Sometimes work people send messages through that.
5) Google talk/hangouts/whatever-it's-called-now because I have Google obsessed friends who like it.
6) Facebook Messenger, which I've finally deleted because it keeps getting worse. But now I have to log into the Facebook website to chat with my Facebook friends, because I have some Facebook friends that I'm *only* in contact with through Facebook.
I feel like there a few others that I'm not thinking of, to say nothing of all the accounts that I've had to sign up for over the years (MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, AOL, etc.). I'm also not including my multiple email addresses. Even though I think email could use an overhaul, I think that email is rightfully a different format.
So here's why I think that's a problem: I need to have a bunch of different apps using a bunch of different accounts, running on multiple different platforms, just to keep track of text messages. I can't consolidate them into one app because the services aren't compatible with different clients (e.g. I can't use pidgin to use all of them). I also can't talk with people across services (e.g. I can't use my iMessage account to talk to Facebook contacts). I don't even have a choice in client apps (I basically have to use Facebook's Messenger to talk to Facebook contacts).
It locks us all into inefficient communication platforms that are outside of our control. Imagine if phones worked this way, if every six months there was a new phone app that could only call other users of that phone app, and none of them were capable of calling each other. Or email-- what if you had to sign up for a new email account on every email host in order to email other users on that host. Like imagine there were no SMTP communication between servers, and if you wanted to email someone who had used an Outlook.com email account, you had to sign up for your own Outlook.com account.
The whole thing is actually really stupid and unnecessary. Having to have all those apps and so many accounts increases your attack surface, decreasing your security. Plus a lot of the apps are awful, unstable, and needlessly complicated for the simple purpose of text messaging. You say, "We just have a robust constellation of competing systems, serving different communities," but the systems don't really compete. They're each little monopolies of their own little walled gardens. There's also no reason why open systems couldn't serve different communities. The only reason there aren't standards is that the Internet has completely abandoned the idea of openness and interoperability in favor of locking users into proprietary advertising platforms that drive engagement.
I never said it did. In fact I said exactly the opposite.
Stil, the nature of your post is an excuse. It like, "Listen guys, I don't condone this behavior, but it's a fact of life, so we all better get used to it."
Your options are being careful or getting plastered with ads. You don't have a choice of middle ground (or at least not much of one.)
I'm not looking for a "middle ground", I'm looking for an alternative. Refusing to use Microsoft products is a good start.
But it will stop the ad ticker in Win10's start menu, which is what I was talking about specifically.
Until Microsoft issues an update that doesn't respect your choice.
In terms of ads, that means you've managed to avoid a couple small (and easy-to-disable) ads in Windows and a handful of less-easy-to-disable ads in Skype and a few other places.
Then don't use Microsoft. No Windows, no Skype, no Microsoft Store, no Microsoft Edge. Like I said, don't use Microsoft.
Now you just have television, newspapers, buses and much of the internet to avoid!
Well first, a fair amount of that can be gotten rid of with a good ad-blocker. I also don't watch TV that has ads, for whatever that's worth. But that's entirely beside the fucking point. I'm not saying that I'm some poor little withering flower who can't deal with exposure to a single advertisement. I'm saying that it's possible for a company to cross the line into unacceptable behavior, and when that happens, unlike you, I don't think it's a good idea to shrug and say, "Oh well, I guess I'm stuck with this."
So stop using Microsoft. Use Linux. Get a Mac. Get a Chromebook. Whatever. Because if you just accept this kind of thing, then you're just going to keep getting more and more of it.
I would agree if you said that we shouldn't need so many messenger apps or that we don't need gimmicky. You basically need one, and it needs to be able to send text messages.
But "we don't need text messages" is a little bit of a silly response to all of this. I mean, no, we don't "need" it in the hunter/gatherer sense of the word, just like we don't need email, telephones, computers, or any number of other things. But culturally, modern communication is almost entirely face-to-face, over email, or in some kind of text messaging (or instant messaging, which is the same thing). And if I had to guess, I'd say that more of it is happening over text messaging than any other medium.
And I'm not talking about some weirdo teenagers conducting ego-boosting "small talk". I'm talking about normal communications, from parents talking to children or coworkers conducting business, it's largely taking place over some kind of text/instant message. Sure, there are teenagers conducting ego-boosting small-talk, but if you go back a few decades, it was the same thing, they were just talking on the phone instead.
It asking for all those permissions is not their problem, it came bundled with the Marshmallow update, and you probably noticed it in all other apps that started targeting Android Marshmallow.
Nope. I have an iPhone. And honestly, a lot of apps request access to information like contact lists or location, and that in itself doesn't bother me. But somehow I got hit with about 7 prompts in the first 2 minutes of using the apps, sometimes asking for access to the same information multiple times, after I'd said "no".
At least, I'm pretty sure that's what happened. I wasn't exactly counting at the time, but I'm not intentionally exaggerating. I just remember being prompted over and over again for all kinds of information, and trying to hit "no" and "skip" only to be prompted with something else, and my general response was "Holy crap. I'm just exiting out of this and deleting it rather than dealing with all this crap."
Blame Google on that one...
Setting aside that this is Apple and not Google, I won't blame them either way. I want my phone OS to ask before giving apps access to information, and I can't think of another app that has so relentlessly harassed me about gaining access to private information.
Honestly, I was wondering what happened to Facebook Messenger. I hadn't realized that it was trying to compete with SnapChat, which I've never used and I don't think I ever will. I do know that Messenger was, for me, a somewhat unnecessary but tolerable text-messaging application that I used to keep in touch with some Facebook contacts, and it suddenly became an unusable mess. I deleted it after it launched, post-update, and suddenly started asking me for access to all kinds of things (access to location, address book, and other stuff) and kept asking repeatedly after I said "no". That was the 5-ton straw that broke the camel's back.
It seems like every time Facebook "fixes" or "improves" something, I hate the platform more.
I question what he means by "the good Internet" if it's going to be brought about by reddit, Google Hangouts, and iMessage. Maybe I'm just being an old fogey, but to me, when you say, "The good Internet will rise again," my mind jumps to a time of text-only email, Usenet, and IRC. Basically, a time when people were trying to create and use open protocols so that anyone could run a server, instead of a bunch of proprietary "social networking" sites and services controlling your experience.
It may seem like I'm changing the subject, but to me, it's highly relevant to what he's talking about. A lot of the prior civility came from people forming their own communities on services that they were able to run themselves. One services like Facebook and Twitter, those platforms control the experience, control which posts you see and what order they're displayed in, and make decisions based on increasing engagement in order to sell advertising. The services that he cites (reddit, iMessage, Hangouts) have something in common with the old-style Internet in that they allow you to form your own communities and control your own engagement with them. One of the big differences, however, is that when you can control the service, you can keep it that way. You're reliant on Apple, Conde Nast, and Google to keep iMessage, reddit, and Hangouts in their current format, and I wouldn't bet on them being the same in 5 years. However, you're able to set up your own email, IRC, or Usenet server, and nobody can really force you to turn it into something you don't want.
Now I'm not saying that we should all be using IRC and Usenet. Technology progresses, and we're always finding better ways of doing things. My point is, we shouldn't be relying on closed, proprietary, ad-supported apps and websites. We need new open protocols. In the same way that anyone can set up their own email service or even build their own email client and server software, we need to enable people to set up their own texting, IM, VoIP, video conferencing, social networking, and forum services. And I don't just mean, "You should be able to set up your own Slack clone," which you obviously can, but you should be able to build a Slack clone and set up a competing Slack service that then allows you to communicate with Slack users. And Facebook users. And Google users. Because they should all use the same protocol.
To me, that's a little like getting your wallet stolen and someone saying, "Yeah, there are thieves all over the place. Maybe if you put a chain on your wallet, you won't have that problem again." Which is to say:
A) The fact that it's "all over the place" doesn't excuse it.
B) Yes, obviously if you're more careful it will be less likely, but...
C) I'm not sure how careful I want to have to be, and...
D) Your advice won't keep it from happening in the future, so...
E) Maybe we should think of some other solutions here.
In the case of Microsoft, I avoid using them whenever possible. If they don't respect their role as an OS vendor, I'm not going to respect it either.
Well... the reality there is probably a little complicated. Yes, if the convention is too restrictive, then it could cut out a lot of potential passwords, and thereby make the passwords easier to hack. On the other hand, requiring longer passwords will improve security in most cases, as will some other simple rules (e.g. disallowing simple dictionary words).
In abstract, requiring a capital letter, lowercase letter, number, and symbol should improve the security, but unfortunately people will tend to follow certain patterns in choosing passwords when faced with those rules. For example, people will often then use a common dictionary word, or a name, with the first letter capitalized, followed by a number and exclamation mark. For example, "Joseph12!". Obviously not everyone will do that, but that's a common response. Sometimes people use common substitutions (e.g. "J0s3ph12!").
One of the examples I like to cite is that, early in my career, I dealt with a company that wanted to be very secure, so they required a password with at least 8 characters, including a capital, lowercase, number, and symbol. It also required that it be rotated once a month, and you couldn't repeat the last 10 passwords. The security guy who came up with these rules was very proud of himself. However, the employees had a lot of trouble remembering all their passwords, and they came up with a strategy to use the password "Password01!" Every month they would increment the number until they reached "Password10!", and then they'd start over. A few vocal users shared this trick with the entire company, and before you knew it, almost everyone was using this strategy.
Which brings me to one of the big reasons strict password rules can hurt security: It creates a false sense of security. I've known a lot of IT pros who believe that using some common letter substitutions makes a password secure. They think "password" is a terrible password, but "P@ssw0rd!" is a completely secure and uncrackable password.