It won't be free, so the entire thought experiment is pointless. To make the public transportation no charge at time of use, that means somebody else is going to be taxed to provide that. Since I'm always one of the people being taxed for this sort of thing, the real question would be, "If your taxes were raised substantially in order to get rid of fares for public transportation, would you use public transportation in order get some of your tax money back, even though you will lose the convenience, flexibility, speed, and independence that comes with driving?"
I live in the close-in burbs of a major metro area. There are buses, metro rail, some light rail... and yet any attempt to use it in order run any sort of errand or outing means lengthy walks and waits outdoors, a dirty and smelly ride, almost without fail some rowdy and threatening teenagers, and a price tag that's roughly the same as typically expensed driving mile. So here in this area we spend literally billions on public transportation, but it's used by only a narrow group of people who happen to have residential and work proximity to the perfect route.
I live about 12 miles, as the crow flies, from a datacenter I use. It's normally about a 25 minute drive. There's a metro rail stop just two blocks from that destination, and one (with no parking, and little bus access) about two miles from where I live... but that rail ride costs about $12 (or $20, if you can park), and takes about 70 minutes one way. If somebody's taxes were raised to make that trip "free," it would still be grotesquely expensive in terms of time and flexibility.
The USA (and allies) stripped Germany of science and technology and patents worth billions. The Apolo space program was only possible because of that theft.
Theft? THEFT?
Germany spent years roaming Europe quite literally stealing anything and everything they wanted to put their hands on. They were the aggressors, and owed a huge debt everyone who had to spend blood and treasure to stop them. The Germans waived their right to complain about such things when they made it their policy to deny others that right. Since then, they appear to have their heads screwed on right, and look! - nobody is any longer subjecting them to that well deserved post-war treatment. They reaped what they sowed. That's not theft, and you know it.
What? They got exactly what they voted for. The EU offered them a deal, and said that if they didn't take it, the eventual deal they would have to take would be a worse one. And they voted not to take the deal. They got exactly what they voted for, as promised: they still had to take a deal of some sort, and now they've got a worse one, just like they asked for.
And as if that weren't enough evidence that Democracy works in Greece, keep in mind that they are in the position they're in because the position they're in is exactly the one they've been voting for all these years to obtain: they wanted more stuff than they could be bothered to pay for, and wanted to continue to elect socialist politicians who would promise them it would all be OK, and they'd always be able to get other Europeans to go to work each day in order to buy them the lifestyle they wanted. Democracy in Greece has worked perfectly. The problem is that the voters in Greece are fools.
Really? Cost of living in places like that is sky-high compared to almost any other setting, unless you want to live a fairly primitive existence. But we're talking about access to high-speed internet connectivity. People whose lifestyles demand fiber connectivity are not trapped on an island with no way off. You're either trollish or not even bothering to try to think this through. Still, you're right - this would make an excellent new piece of Outrage Fuel for the Daily Social Justice Warrior marching orders. Unfair! Unfair! The Man is keeping small island locations from having multiple, geographically diverse fiber pipes in the middle of the ocean! The people trapped on those islands by Evil One Percenters should be getting service subsidized by some middle class guy who loads trucks for a living in New Jersey! Social justice demands it!
Please. If the compromises that come with living in a very remote place don't appeal, don't live there. We're talking about interrupted fiber optic service to the middle of the ocean, and you're treating it like a sign that the people who are choosing to live there and open banks and other operations are being forced to.
That's pretty much my point. We're talking about a small population that chooses to live on a very remote island. They have a primary pipe, and a backup (down for weather damage at the moment). The article is implying that we're supposed to learn a lesson from this... but they've got it backwards. The lesson isn't "MOAR BACKUPZ!"... it's, "If you want to live an exotic, remote lifestyle, there are some trade-offs that come with that."
I think it's a prime example of why choosing to live on a remote island served by only one cable and one fragile microwave link is just part of the bargain when you choose to live on a remote island. The whole "having more backups" thing is actually pretty well covered in most continental locations.
BTW, is it just me? Am I the only one that, while using Chrome to view/. these days, is getting a periodic, hands-off lurching scroll/navigation to the top of the page while either writing or passively reading? I have been too lazy to figure out which script/object is offending. But it's astoundingly obnoxious.
If you were actually proud of how they've trashed the health care system with a hyper-partisan piece of monstrous legislation, you'd actually attach your/. handle to your post. But you didn't, because you know that whole thing is a disaster.
And why do you think they'll out compete people taught to be flexible and open minded?
Because in practice, that default position morphs into "incapable of critical thinking about objective reality and causality, and spending your life trying to make sense of the world while being poisoned with a crippling case of mixed premises and moral relativism" - that's why. Being open to new facts is important and wonderful. But being an intellectual invertebrate is unfortunately what's generally being indoctrinated.
fracking consumes more freshwater than humans use domestically
Sure, if you look at water use by comparing it locally where intensive fracking operations are in remote areas that are essentially unpopulated. Otherwise that's utter nonsense.
Or it's almost like the GP is pointing out that the behavior he mentions was (and still is) completely benign, and neither he nor the people around him are any the worse for it.
People apologize when they, or the things they sell, make mistakes. Even if it was unforeseeable.
No, they don't. When everybody involved knows that they're looking at the spurious output of a young image recognition process, apologies don't, and don't need to happen.
To cite one example, ACORN staffer Clifton Mitchell was arrested and convicted (and did time) for creating fictional voters through thousands of bogus voter registrations. ACORN as an entity was fined $25k for its supervisory role in just his conduct alone. The entire organization dissolved itself while it was undergoing investigation for identical behavior in multiple states.
Over here we live in reality, and the reality I that getting one of those IDs requires taking time off from work that we frequently either don't get or can't afford to take
Really. What sort of job do you have that didn't involve showing ID in order to submit the required federal tax forms as you were hired? What sort of paycheck are you getting that doesn't involve you using an ID in order to open a bank account or cash a check? Please be specific about the people who are working full time, so hard, that not once in their entire life can they be bothered to get a form of ID. And, out of curiosity, how on earth did they find time to go register to vote, or find time TO vote? You're saying that these are people who will have their routine trips to the polling place, year after year throughout their entire lives, thwarted because they couldn't take five minutes to stop once for a free ID?
Voter fraud is a literal non issue, a nonthreat to the integrity of the election process
So, you're asserting that there are no elections that turn on a matter of just a handful of votes? You're actually going to say that the many local and state elections (which do things like put congressional and senate representatives into power) don't sometimes get decided by only dozens of votes? And then you're going to assert that papers like the Washington Post, who have reported on elections as recently as 2012 where in just one local review there were instances of local voters fraudulently voting twice... that, what, the Washington Post is lying? Is that because you think the WP is part of some vast, racists, right-wing conspiracy, and manufactured the records that were produced by the election officials, showing the felony-offense fraud?
Your anxious need to trot out the ad hominem shows how much you're aware that you're BS-ing, so I don't really need to go on. You know you're looking to defend fraudulent practices that primarily favor the one party whose activists have been caught red-handed generating tens of thousands of bogus voter registrations. And you're complaining about the person who suggests it's a good ID to make fraud harder to commit. Your opening comments about how difficult it is for full time workers to stop and get an ID that the already have to have was hilarious, though, so thanks for the entertainment.
Which part? The part where left-leaning activist groups generate enormous numbers of bogus voter registrations? Among others, ACORN did just that (getting busted doing it was why they re-organized and changed their name so nobody would keep bringing it up... and you're probably hoping nobody will remember actual criminal prosecution for those actions). Or are you saying that the coordinated efforts to talk out-of-state college students into double-voting haven't, despite extensive reporting of exactly that, occurred?
Or you could look to no less a bastion of right-wing win nuttery than the Washington Post, which reported on a review showing thousands of people registered to vote in multiple states, and in one local review, caught over 150 people crossing state boundaries just in the DC area to vote more than once on the same day.
One of the county election supervisors who took time to review information in that instance found an example of where someone had been crossing state lines and voting more than once on the same day in local and national elections for over a decade. He said that in a dozen cases he'd reviewed, the purposefulness of the election fraud was plain, and the actions were class 6 felonies.
In cases where congressional seats or governorships can turn on a mere handful of votes, it's no "pile of bull" to point out that people are deliberately, systematically taking advantage of weak ID requirements and a weak registration system in order to fraudulently corrupt elections.
That said it is pretty obvious that the main proponents of voter laws are Republicans because they know it will benefit them in elections, and the main opponents of voter laws are democrats because they know it will not benefit them in elections.
Backwards. The Republicans know that the biggest source of bogus voter registrations, and the areas with the largest number of actively dead registered voters and turnout at polling places where the number of votes exceeds the eligible population, are in places where Democrat activists work the hardest to hold on to power. It's not that knowing people who vote are voting legally and only once isn't going to benefit Democrats, it's that such a process is counter to what liberal activist groups work so hard to put in place. Like huge efforts to get college students to register to vote where they go to school, but to also vote absentee in their home state. Stuff like that. When they pour so much work into it that it starts to show (like the thousands of bogus registrations routinely created by the former ACORN), you know they won't like having that work undone by basic truth-telling at the polling place.
If you're worried about people not knowing there's an election coming up, and not bothering to get an ID (really? you can't go to the doctor, fill a prescription, collect a welfare check, or much of ANYTHING else with already having an ID), then why not encourage the Democrats to apply the same level of effort they put into the shady practices described above, and focus it instead on getting that rare person who never sees a doctor, never gets a prescription, collects no government benefits of any kind, doesn't work (but whom you seem to suggest none the less are a large voting block) and, with YEARS to work with between elections... just getting them an ID?
I wouldn't go as far as to say they are saying that black people aren't smart enough to understand the situation
Sure they are. Because the only people who could possibly take actual offense at this would be those who, having it explained to them, still can't understand it. Those who are insisting that black people be offended by this are insisting that black people can't handle the simple information that would remove any perception of malice from the narrative.
It's called an "apology" - did you skip that day in kindergarten?
When the apology is a completely over-wrought bit of silly nonsense rendered in response to gleeful press releases from the Big SJW industry (who desperately NEED there to be events like this, whipped hugely out of proportion, in order to have things to get sound angry about), then it's not an apology. It's a forced sacrifice on the alter of Political Correctness gone (ever more) insane. There's nothing to apologize for here, because nobody at Google sat down to create a racist process or racist results. People who can't mentally untangle the difference between intent and coincidence should just shut up... except, they're all media darlings now, because it's fashionable to be completely irrational on that front, now.
If Google tagged me as "albino ape" or "yeti" or "Stay-Pufft Marshmallow Man" I'd think it was hilarious. Those manufacturing faux offense at this bit of completely benign nonsense are the real racists. They are the ones who are saying that black people aren't smart enough to understand the situation. As usual, the racist SJW condescension is the most actually offensive thing in the room.
It isn't a racist outcome. It is the outcome of a flawed algorithm.
You're not paying attention. These days, outcomes that have nothing to do with intention, purpose, or simple transparent standards, but which happen to lean statistically towards results not in perfect balance with skin color as a function of population (though, only in one direction)... the process must be considered racist. The whole "disparate impact" line of thinking is based on this. If you apply a standard (say, physical strength or attention to detail or quick problem solving, whatever) to people applying to work as, say, firefighters... if (REGARDLESS of the mix of people who apply) you get more white people getting the jobs, then the standards must surely be racist, even if nobody can point to a single feature of those standards that can be identified as such. Outcomes now retro-actively re-invent the character of whoever sets a standard, and finds them to be a racist. Never mind that holding some particular group, based on their skin color, to some LOWER standard is actually racist, and incredibly condescending. But too bad: outcomes dictate racist-ness now, not policies, actions, purpose, motivation, or objective standards.
So, yeah. The algorithm, without having a single "racist" feature to it, can still be considered racist. Because that pleases the Big SJW industry.
It's the same thinking that says black people aren't smart enough to get a free photo ID from their state, and so laws requiring people to prove who they are when they're casting votes for the people who will govern all of us are, of course, labeled as racist by SJW's sitting in their Outrage Seminar meetings. It's hard to believe things have come that far, but they have.
My experience is that people who show up for a product or service (or pizza, whatever), get what they ordered and are content... do NOT generally stop what they're doing to run off and tell the world, "My $10 pizza was satisfactory." Anybody who has ever worked retail (and paid attention) can tell you that a hundred happy customers will simply return for more business when they want, but not take time out to communicate to the business or to anyone else that they're happy customers. Life's too short, they just carry on. People who are truly dismayed about their experience, however, will take to every communication method they can dream up to make sure the world knows of their displeasure. And some of the people who do that are just plain nuts, or have very poor judgement, or are either hobby-level or professional trolls. That's who we all hear from, well out of proportion to the real-world experiences of most people. And the internet echo-chamber tends to greatly amplify that effect.
Millions of drone operators? I think that's a little generous.
What? People have been flying remote control hobby aircraft for well over half a century. And between companies like Blade and DJI alone, people are buying over 200,000 of the devices per month.
There's a always a risk a drone will fall out of the sky conk someone on the head.
Yup, and indeed there have been a handful of minor injuries along those lines. Statistically what amounts to zero, of course, compared to the number of people who are actually killed attending motor sports events as spectators, or while skiing, or while commuting to work... or while flying as actual licensed pilots in vehicles excrutiatingly regulated in their form, maintenance, and use by the federal government.
I think the best way to handle the drone situation is to requirement to carry a light and transmitter as well as obey automated instructions to avoid areas (basically a flight unit with a GPS can be set to have "no-go" areas).
Or, people could simply follow existing laws, and stay under 400', away from airports, and use a simple app on their phone to be made aware of FAA NOTAMs so they no when specific areas are off limits. And people who don't care about laws and rules? You're not going to be able to do anything about them (unless you can catch them after the fact of having done something stupid) than you are about people who illegally parachute off of tall buildings, or illegally drive their ATV off-road in parks, or operate their boats too fast in a no-wake zone.
Slashdot Mirror
solely due to it being free
It's not free. Someone else is buying it for you. One way or another, they're passing that cost back to you and everyone else.
It won't be free, so the entire thought experiment is pointless. To make the public transportation no charge at time of use, that means somebody else is going to be taxed to provide that. Since I'm always one of the people being taxed for this sort of thing, the real question would be, "If your taxes were raised substantially in order to get rid of fares for public transportation, would you use public transportation in order get some of your tax money back, even though you will lose the convenience, flexibility, speed, and independence that comes with driving?"
... and yet any attempt to use it in order run any sort of errand or outing means lengthy walks and waits outdoors, a dirty and smelly ride, almost without fail some rowdy and threatening teenagers, and a price tag that's roughly the same as typically expensed driving mile. So here in this area we spend literally billions on public transportation, but it's used by only a narrow group of people who happen to have residential and work proximity to the perfect route.
I live in the close-in burbs of a major metro area. There are buses, metro rail, some light rail
I live about 12 miles, as the crow flies, from a datacenter I use. It's normally about a 25 minute drive. There's a metro rail stop just two blocks from that destination, and one (with no parking, and little bus access) about two miles from where I live... but that rail ride costs about $12 (or $20, if you can park), and takes about 70 minutes one way. If somebody's taxes were raised to make that trip "free," it would still be grotesquely expensive in terms of time and flexibility.
The USA (and allies) stripped Germany of science and technology and patents worth billions. The Apolo space program was only possible because of that theft.
Theft? THEFT?
Germany spent years roaming Europe quite literally stealing anything and everything they wanted to put their hands on. They were the aggressors, and owed a huge debt everyone who had to spend blood and treasure to stop them. The Germans waived their right to complain about such things when they made it their policy to deny others that right. Since then, they appear to have their heads screwed on right, and look! - nobody is any longer subjecting them to that well deserved post-war treatment. They reaped what they sowed. That's not theft, and you know it.
Silly Greeks you thought your vote mattered.
What? They got exactly what they voted for. The EU offered them a deal, and said that if they didn't take it, the eventual deal they would have to take would be a worse one. And they voted not to take the deal. They got exactly what they voted for, as promised: they still had to take a deal of some sort, and now they've got a worse one, just like they asked for.
And as if that weren't enough evidence that Democracy works in Greece, keep in mind that they are in the position they're in because the position they're in is exactly the one they've been voting for all these years to obtain: they wanted more stuff than they could be bothered to pay for, and wanted to continue to elect socialist politicians who would promise them it would all be OK, and they'd always be able to get other Europeans to go to work each day in order to buy them the lifestyle they wanted. Democracy in Greece has worked perfectly. The problem is that the voters in Greece are fools.
That's just ignorant.
Really? Cost of living in places like that is sky-high compared to almost any other setting, unless you want to live a fairly primitive existence. But we're talking about access to high-speed internet connectivity. People whose lifestyles demand fiber connectivity are not trapped on an island with no way off. You're either trollish or not even bothering to try to think this through. Still, you're right - this would make an excellent new piece of Outrage Fuel for the Daily Social Justice Warrior marching orders. Unfair! Unfair! The Man is keeping small island locations from having multiple, geographically diverse fiber pipes in the middle of the ocean! The people trapped on those islands by Evil One Percenters should be getting service subsidized by some middle class guy who loads trucks for a living in New Jersey! Social justice demands it!
Please. If the compromises that come with living in a very remote place don't appeal, don't live there. We're talking about interrupted fiber optic service to the middle of the ocean, and you're treating it like a sign that the people who are choosing to live there and open banks and other operations are being forced to.
That's pretty much my point. We're talking about a small population that chooses to live on a very remote island. They have a primary pipe, and a backup (down for weather damage at the moment). The article is implying that we're supposed to learn a lesson from this ... but they've got it backwards. The lesson isn't "MOAR BACKUPZ!" ... it's, "If you want to live an exotic, remote lifestyle, there are some trade-offs that come with that."
I think it's a prime example of why choosing to live on a remote island served by only one cable and one fragile microwave link is just part of the bargain when you choose to live on a remote island. The whole "having more backups" thing is actually pretty well covered in most continental locations.
/. these days, is getting a periodic, hands-off lurching scroll/navigation to the top of the page while either writing or passively reading? I have been too lazy to figure out which script/object is offending. But it's astoundingly obnoxious.
BTW, is it just me? Am I the only one that, while using Chrome to view
Holy crap, we agree on something.
free like it is in the other 95% of the world
You don't even actually understand who pays for things, do you?
If you were actually proud of how they've trashed the health care system with a hyper-partisan piece of monstrous legislation, you'd actually attach your /. handle to your post. But you didn't, because you know that whole thing is a disaster.
And why do you think they'll out compete people taught to be flexible and open minded?
Because in practice, that default position morphs into "incapable of critical thinking about objective reality and causality, and spending your life trying to make sense of the world while being poisoned with a crippling case of mixed premises and moral relativism" - that's why. Being open to new facts is important and wonderful. But being an intellectual invertebrate is unfortunately what's generally being indoctrinated.
fracking consumes more freshwater than humans use domestically
Sure, if you look at water use by comparing it locally where intensive fracking operations are in remote areas that are essentially unpopulated. Otherwise that's utter nonsense.
Because golf, bowling, hunting, soccer, kayaking, and blackjack/hookers have had quite a lot of people drop dead on the fly.
Or it's almost like the GP is pointing out that the behavior he mentions was (and still is) completely benign, and neither he nor the people around him are any the worse for it.
People apologize when they, or the things they sell, make mistakes. Even if it was unforeseeable.
No, they don't. When everybody involved knows that they're looking at the spurious output of a young image recognition process, apologies don't, and don't need to happen.
To cite one example, ACORN staffer Clifton Mitchell was arrested and convicted (and did time) for creating fictional voters through thousands of bogus voter registrations. ACORN as an entity was fined $25k for its supervisory role in just his conduct alone. The entire organization dissolved itself while it was undergoing investigation for identical behavior in multiple states.
Over here we live in reality, and the reality I that getting one of those IDs requires taking time off from work that we frequently either don't get or can't afford to take
Really. What sort of job do you have that didn't involve showing ID in order to submit the required federal tax forms as you were hired? What sort of paycheck are you getting that doesn't involve you using an ID in order to open a bank account or cash a check? Please be specific about the people who are working full time, so hard, that not once in their entire life can they be bothered to get a form of ID. And, out of curiosity, how on earth did they find time to go register to vote, or find time TO vote? You're saying that these are people who will have their routine trips to the polling place, year after year throughout their entire lives, thwarted because they couldn't take five minutes to stop once for a free ID?
Voter fraud is a literal non issue, a nonthreat to the integrity of the election process
So, you're asserting that there are no elections that turn on a matter of just a handful of votes? You're actually going to say that the many local and state elections (which do things like put congressional and senate representatives into power) don't sometimes get decided by only dozens of votes? And then you're going to assert that papers like the Washington Post, who have reported on elections as recently as 2012 where in just one local review there were instances of local voters fraudulently voting twice ... that, what, the Washington Post is lying? Is that because you think the WP is part of some vast, racists, right-wing conspiracy, and manufactured the records that were produced by the election officials, showing the felony-offense fraud?
Your anxious need to trot out the ad hominem shows how much you're aware that you're BS-ing, so I don't really need to go on. You know you're looking to defend fraudulent practices that primarily favor the one party whose activists have been caught red-handed generating tens of thousands of bogus voter registrations. And you're complaining about the person who suggests it's a good ID to make fraud harder to commit. Your opening comments about how difficult it is for full time workers to stop and get an ID that the already have to have was hilarious, though, so thanks for the entertainment.
Which part? The part where left-leaning activist groups generate enormous numbers of bogus voter registrations? Among others, ACORN did just that (getting busted doing it was why they re-organized and changed their name so nobody would keep bringing it up ... and you're probably hoping nobody will remember actual criminal prosecution for those actions). Or are you saying that the coordinated efforts to talk out-of-state college students into double-voting haven't, despite extensive reporting of exactly that, occurred?
Or you could look to no less a bastion of right-wing win nuttery than the Washington Post, which reported on a review showing thousands of people registered to vote in multiple states, and in one local review, caught over 150 people crossing state boundaries just in the DC area to vote more than once on the same day.
One of the county election supervisors who took time to review information in that instance found an example of where someone had been crossing state lines and voting more than once on the same day in local and national elections for over a decade. He said that in a dozen cases he'd reviewed, the purposefulness of the election fraud was plain, and the actions were class 6 felonies.
In cases where congressional seats or governorships can turn on a mere handful of votes, it's no "pile of bull" to point out that people are deliberately, systematically taking advantage of weak ID requirements and a weak registration system in order to fraudulently corrupt elections.
That said it is pretty obvious that the main proponents of voter laws are Republicans because they know it will benefit them in elections, and the main opponents of voter laws are democrats because they know it will not benefit them in elections.
Backwards. The Republicans know that the biggest source of bogus voter registrations, and the areas with the largest number of actively dead registered voters and turnout at polling places where the number of votes exceeds the eligible population, are in places where Democrat activists work the hardest to hold on to power. It's not that knowing people who vote are voting legally and only once isn't going to benefit Democrats, it's that such a process is counter to what liberal activist groups work so hard to put in place. Like huge efforts to get college students to register to vote where they go to school, but to also vote absentee in their home state. Stuff like that. When they pour so much work into it that it starts to show (like the thousands of bogus registrations routinely created by the former ACORN), you know they won't like having that work undone by basic truth-telling at the polling place.
... just getting them an ID?
If you're worried about people not knowing there's an election coming up, and not bothering to get an ID (really? you can't go to the doctor, fill a prescription, collect a welfare check, or much of ANYTHING else with already having an ID), then why not encourage the Democrats to apply the same level of effort they put into the shady practices described above, and focus it instead on getting that rare person who never sees a doctor, never gets a prescription, collects no government benefits of any kind, doesn't work (but whom you seem to suggest none the less are a large voting block) and, with YEARS to work with between elections
I wouldn't go as far as to say they are saying that black people aren't smart enough to understand the situation
Sure they are. Because the only people who could possibly take actual offense at this would be those who, having it explained to them, still can't understand it. Those who are insisting that black people be offended by this are insisting that black people can't handle the simple information that would remove any perception of malice from the narrative.
It's called an "apology" - did you skip that day in kindergarten?
When the apology is a completely over-wrought bit of silly nonsense rendered in response to gleeful press releases from the Big SJW industry (who desperately NEED there to be events like this, whipped hugely out of proportion, in order to have things to get sound angry about), then it's not an apology. It's a forced sacrifice on the alter of Political Correctness gone (ever more) insane. There's nothing to apologize for here, because nobody at Google sat down to create a racist process or racist results. People who can't mentally untangle the difference between intent and coincidence should just shut up ... except, they're all media darlings now, because it's fashionable to be completely irrational on that front, now.
If Google tagged me as "albino ape" or "yeti" or "Stay-Pufft Marshmallow Man" I'd think it was hilarious. Those manufacturing faux offense at this bit of completely benign nonsense are the real racists. They are the ones who are saying that black people aren't smart enough to understand the situation. As usual, the racist SJW condescension is the most actually offensive thing in the room.
It isn't a racist outcome. It is the outcome of a flawed algorithm.
You're not paying attention. These days, outcomes that have nothing to do with intention, purpose, or simple transparent standards, but which happen to lean statistically towards results not in perfect balance with skin color as a function of population (though, only in one direction) ... the process must be considered racist. The whole "disparate impact" line of thinking is based on this. If you apply a standard (say, physical strength or attention to detail or quick problem solving, whatever) to people applying to work as, say, firefighters ... if (REGARDLESS of the mix of people who apply) you get more white people getting the jobs, then the standards must surely be racist, even if nobody can point to a single feature of those standards that can be identified as such. Outcomes now retro-actively re-invent the character of whoever sets a standard, and finds them to be a racist. Never mind that holding some particular group, based on their skin color, to some LOWER standard is actually racist, and incredibly condescending. But too bad: outcomes dictate racist-ness now, not policies, actions, purpose, motivation, or objective standards.
So, yeah. The algorithm, without having a single "racist" feature to it, can still be considered racist. Because that pleases the Big SJW industry.
It's the same thinking that says black people aren't smart enough to get a free photo ID from their state, and so laws requiring people to prove who they are when they're casting votes for the people who will govern all of us are, of course, labeled as racist by SJW's sitting in their Outrage Seminar meetings. It's hard to believe things have come that far, but they have.
Iran could care less about what the US thinks
So, they DO care? How much less could they care?
My experience is that people who show up for a product or service (or pizza, whatever), get what they ordered and are content ... do NOT generally stop what they're doing to run off and tell the world, "My $10 pizza was satisfactory." Anybody who has ever worked retail (and paid attention) can tell you that a hundred happy customers will simply return for more business when they want, but not take time out to communicate to the business or to anyone else that they're happy customers. Life's too short, they just carry on. People who are truly dismayed about their experience, however, will take to every communication method they can dream up to make sure the world knows of their displeasure. And some of the people who do that are just plain nuts, or have very poor judgement, or are either hobby-level or professional trolls. That's who we all hear from, well out of proportion to the real-world experiences of most people. And the internet echo-chamber tends to greatly amplify that effect.
Millions of drone operators? I think that's a little generous.
What? People have been flying remote control hobby aircraft for well over half a century. And between companies like Blade and DJI alone, people are buying over 200,000 of the devices per month.
There's a always a risk a drone will fall out of the sky conk someone on the head.
Yup, and indeed there have been a handful of minor injuries along those lines. Statistically what amounts to zero, of course, compared to the number of people who are actually killed attending motor sports events as spectators, or while skiing, or while commuting to work... or while flying as actual licensed pilots in vehicles excrutiatingly regulated in their form, maintenance, and use by the federal government.
I think the best way to handle the drone situation is to requirement to carry a light and transmitter as well as obey automated instructions to avoid areas (basically a flight unit with a GPS can be set to have "no-go" areas).
Or, people could simply follow existing laws, and stay under 400', away from airports, and use a simple app on their phone to be made aware of FAA NOTAMs so they no when specific areas are off limits. And people who don't care about laws and rules? You're not going to be able to do anything about them (unless you can catch them after the fact of having done something stupid) than you are about people who illegally parachute off of tall buildings, or illegally drive their ATV off-road in parks, or operate their boats too fast in a no-wake zone.