I'm not a lawyer, but it strikes me as weird that police can use illegally obtained information as evidence in investigations. Isn't that fruit from a poisoned tree?
One of the more genius (and nefarious) moves American industry has made is to switch the narrative on environmentalism from large organizations (corporations, the government, etc.) as polluters to individuals.[1]
Can individuals impact the environmental crisis? Sure, in aggregate. But the biggest gains come from focusing on the largest groups. They have the biggest proportional impact on the environment.
Did the steak I ate last night contribute to global warming? Sure did.
Did that steak contribute more pollution than the entire fleets of naval ships we keep deployed across the globe to 'project power'? Hardly.
Did my steak contribute more pollution than the tanks and next generation fighters the US keeps ordering and building (and which have little place in today's environment of asymmetric warfare)? Nope.
We can talk about personal responsibility and organizational responsibility for pollution at the same time. And solving the issue of organizational pollution will have a much quicker and longer-lasting effect on the environment than pushing people to stop eating so much meat.
I totally get what you are saying. But it still doesn't mean picking out a very polarizing industry, or any industry in particular, is going to help your cause.
> And solving the issue of organizational pollution will have a much quicker and longer-lasting effect on the environment than pushing people to stop eating so much meat.
You may have a quick effect, but certainly not a lasting one, or a big one. I couldn't count how many vanilla families and teenagers I know that are concerned about straws and plastic bags, but have a pool and fly on a vacation twice a year. The seat on that airplane is probably worth a millions lifetimes of "straw pollution".
You could eradicate all military pollution and it would probably be a rounding error. Jack up an airline ticket prices by 250% and you'll actually see something real. Jack up gas prices in the US by 200% and you'll actually see something.
Industry will happily throw anything under the bus as long as individual consumption isn't talked about.
Your comment actually strikes me as less about environmentalism and more about jealousy or some type of use of inequality as a guise for just wanting others to have less.
For example, I think it borders on possibly immoral / unethical to vaguely associate or connote that leisure airplane travel or pool ownership for generic working class people is somehow responsible for climate change and needs to be radically adjusted away from social expectations.
The reason I have no choice but to suspect an ulterior motive is that there simply is zero basis in fact to claim that certain patterns of consumption are problems like this. It’s purely a value judgment, and in this case largely disconnected from any citable statistics that expose wide impact for the class involved.
My opinion is that working class people should fly to foreign destinations for vacation if they prefer to, and making this access cheaper is an amazingly enriching and productive aspect of humanity.
It reminds me of a cliche quote from Dead Poets Society:
> Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
We shouldn’t seek to ban the pursuit of beautiful memories and experiences of travel, nor criticize that as a selfish goal. That’s ridiculous. We should acknowledge how obviously desirable it is and develop ways to do it that don’t have the negative environmental side effects.
I had somewhat of existential crisis after watching "Cowspiracy" and immediately gave up all meat for a few years for what I anxiously decided was for ethical and environmental reasons.
I did it because I felt guilty, then I watched more documentaries like it and made myself feel more responsible and guilty for everything.
One day I just "woke up" and started eating some fish and chicken. It felt good, not at all because I ate animals (I don't love the ethics of this), but because I no longer felt guilty for eating food.
There are some behaviors and activities I think as individuals we should maybe feel guilty for being involved in, but I don't like the way people are made to feel guilty for just doing the basics.
Totally agree with you. I'm not a vegan.
Here is what I would like people to feel guilty about to start with:
Waste food in general, in particular meat. Waste water. Waste electricity. Waste gas.
If you throw out a pound of beef because you didn't get around to cooking it in time, I want people to have gut wrenching feeling in their stomach when that pound drops into your trash bin. Getting to that place will save more pollution than 100 times what the military produces.
> "That's an argument for banning swastikas, not banning anyone who displays a swastika."
If you don't ban the person displaying the swastika, how can you possibly enforce banning swastikas? There must be a consequence for displaying the offending symbol, otherwise the rule is toothless.
You remove the swastika, and the person just replaces it. What then? Just keep removing it and hoping the Nazi/edgelord/'troll' will get tired of replacing the swastika? Trying to win a battle of attrition with a bad-faith actor is not an effective way to enforce rules.
> "remember the moral panic we just went through when 4chan trolls convinced people that the OK hand sign was a "one-sided version ofna White Power" sign and got people fired from their jobs for making the sign."
"Remember when 4chan 'trolls' said the OK hand sign was a white power sign and then white supremacists started using the OK hand sign as a white power sign?" --- There, I fixed it for you.
The comment provided a list removing more and more capabilities from the game. That's exactly what a gradual process of banning someone would be. Sure, you can give them time to correct their behavior, but eventually you might have to ban them.
The other capabilities would only be removed if they broke other rules. That's not a gradual process toward banning. That's a completely unrelated disciplinary measure.
So basically, if someone murders another person we should ban them from murdering people but not put them in jail. They should only go to jail if they commit multiple unrelated crimes.
>if someone murders another person we should ban them from murdering people but not put them in jail.
If conflating the act of violently taking someone's life away irreversibly to displaying an offensive custom skin in a videogame sounds like a reasonable and genuine argument to you, I don't think there is anything anyone can say to convince you otherwise.
I agree with the parent comment that restricting customization for the offending users in the game is a reasonable punishment. They can still play the game AND have zero actual possibility of committing the same offense. The desired outcome of the user not using offensive imagery in custom skins is achieved.
So, you are confirming that you believe that the act of displaying the Confederate flag is equivalent to taking away someone's life irreversibly. Displaying that flag is literally exactly the same as a murder in your eyes.
Case closed, I don't think there is much left to say here then.
When your parents buy you a Hot Wheels set for your 18th birthday, and say, "What are you waiting for? Hit the road, [freehunter]!" you'll be fine. It symbolizes transportation.
When your brother aims down the sights at you in Call of Duty and - gulp - pulls the trigger, you'll necessarily have him sent to jail.
That's okay, though - when you're counting on your fingers and get to three, and... hey.. are your thumb and index kinda.. touching? you'll be right there with him.
That seems like a lot of effort to address the symptoms, not the disease. The root issue is the user. Get rid of the user and you don't have to worry about all these half-measures.
Depends who you ask. Some might say toxic expressions. Others might say people who declaim toxic expressions. Clearly MS has the latter goal in mind.
I can imagine a very reasonable argument for this. Someone who puts a Confederate flag on their car seems highly likely to engage in other toxic behaviors. Just like someone who calls someone a nigger once is likely to do it again. So we use the behaviors as a signal of underlying tendency. We don't want people who have this tendency on the platform because they will tend to make life worse for other users, and the loss of their business hurts us less than we gain from other people feeling more comfortable. Therefore we ban them.
This explanation really creeps me out, if major corps can just do about anything, based on any arbitrary rule ie. RND() or even own biases and legal discrimination.
On the other hand, too many on gaming platforms are engaging in clearly racist behaviour, ie. choosing offensive nicks, spamming chat, and need correction.
I'm sorry it creeps you out, but as a general rule company managers are free to do what they please with their company, as long as it is not illegal. Banning racists isn't illegal so ...
Some may say it’s not a significant problem and it’s cheaper for MS to make a PR statement about doing something than spending effort in moderation software changes.
> "No, the criminal in the above is absolutely on the wrong side of the law. That's the assumption after all."
In America at least, the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty. So the assumption should be that the defendant is on the right side of the law. It's the prosecutor or complainant's job to prove the defendant is in fact on the wrong side of the law.
To call a defendant 'the criminal' (and saying the defendant is in the wrong) is putting the cart before the horse.
You're nitpicking the language in a hypothetical here. Of course the court can't assume the defendant is guilty, but the purpose of the word criminal here is to say that in the hypothetical the defendant did actually commit the crime they are accused of.
No, it isn't. By saying the EFF is on the wrong side of the law you are implying that they are acting badly, this is simply not the case and needs correcting.
There is a reason why falsley accusing someone of a crime is libel in and of itself and is actionable under the law regardless of damages, I don't think this quite reaches that standard, but it is damn close.
EFF IS on the wrong side of the law. Yes everyone deserves a defense but you yourself admitted IA was in the wrong and EFF is choosing to go to bat for them.
And as I said - EFF isn’t acting as blind legal council - they are tying themselves to IA even saying they are proud to stand with them and pledging financial support for them. This is totally different from a public defender being elected for a citizen. I didn’t say it was illegal for EFF to do this or that they were breaking the law, I said they were on the wrong side of the law.
Exercising their first amendment rights to support an organization that broke the law is unequivocally legal, a healthy part of society, and not on the wrong side of the law.
Fwiw I think everything you're saying makes perfect sense. Regardless of the plaintiff and defendant's cases, the lawyers are there to ensure the judicial system is fair to the best of their ability. IA might be wrong, but EFF and their legal team are there to make sure they are fairly represented.
A defense attorney defending a guilty criminal doesn’t typically pledge financial and moral support and state publically that they are proud to stand with them (not for, with). EFF is tying themselves to IA far beyond just acting purely as a legal representative.
Taking a political stance that the existing law is bad is not only not illegal, but it is one of the few things that is very explicitly legal. Doing so does not put you on the wrong side of the law. This includes when your political actions involve making statements in support of, defending and funding the legal defense of those who have broken the law.
> Is this true for civil cases? I presume no one is being charged with a crime here...
Yes. The publishers are saying 'the Internet Archive violated my rights and has caused monetary damages. They owe us for those damages.' It's up to the publishers to provide that the Internet Archive violated those rights.
Now civil trials and criminal trials have different standards for evidence and determining guilt. In criminal trials, the prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone committed a criminal offense.
In civil cases, the complainant (plaintiff) just has to prove via a 'preponderance of the evidence' that their rights were violated. Meaning, it's more likely than not their rights were violated.
Definitely get what you're saying, but knowing things unfortunately doesn't mean putting that knowledge into use.
I don't know if the guy whose dog ate his homework actually did the homework.
But I know that as a system administrator/security analyst I've had to push back HARD against some really stupid the things the development team wanted to do. And I'm sure the development team thought I was stupid for requiring things like auditable artifacts, limited permissions for developers, and daily backups. They wanted to push out code as quickly and easily as possible.
Knowing tech doesn't necessarily mean adhering to the platonic ideal of 'computer best practices.' This is actually the root cause of most security breaches.
...plus, the family pictures you had on your personal laptop are probably worth a lot more than a lot of the code out there that isn't being backed up. ;)
I too am shocked that Wikileaks would publish tabloidish material with little public value.
Next thing you know, I'll hear that Wikileaks posted private emails of a government official talking about pizza. Emails which spawned ridiculous conspiracies about satanic child abuse cults headquartered in the basement of a pizza shop that doesn't have a basement.
That would never happen. Not at an august, hard-hitting journalistic outlet like Wikileaks. /s
Yeah, the conspiracy theory is just insane. Almost as insane as the conspiracy theory that one of the world's largest religious organizations was engaging in something similar, except at a scale spanning every continent except Antarctica and having done so for at least as long as living memory.
For another conspiracy theory, what about the idea that if a conspiracy was uncovered, instead of denying it those with something to lose would double down on the most exaggerated parts of the conspiracy to down out the less insane and more likely parts. Get the public to focus on the pizza shop and not on the (since deceased) billionaire.
> Yeah, the conspiracy theory is just insane. Almost as insane as the conspiracy theory that one of the world's largest religious organizations was engaging in something similar, except at a scale spanning every continent except Antarctica and having done so for at least as long as living memory.
One is a conspiracy about a pedophile ring in a pizzaria basement when no such basement exists. The other is a conspiracy that has dozens if not hundreds of convictions and at least a tacit admission from the institution that it's a problem.
> For another conspiracy theory, what about the idea that if a conspiracy was uncovered, instead of denying it those with something to lose would double down on the most exaggerated parts of the conspiracy to down out the less insane and more likely parts. Get the public to focus on the pizza shop and not on the (since deceased) billionaire.
The mastermind (Ailes) behind the news network responsible for pushing the former conspiracy and distracting from the latter admitted to starting the network for the express purpose of running political interference. It's not really a conspiracy when the conspirators are blatantly open about it - at least not in the colloquial sense. Political interference they're running now against SDNY in order to obstruct the investigation.
The difference in circumstance should be apparent - it's the existence of actual evidence and reliable first hand accounts.
Leaking Podesta's email spawned a conspiracy theory that high-ranking Democrats were a part of a satanic child abuse and traffic ring. It was specifically partisan.
Meanwhile there are multiple layers to the Epstein case. Yes, Epstein was a nexus of child abuse. He was a terrible human being who got away with years of child abuse because of his money and powerful connections. Yes, he died under mysterious circumstances. And Epstein's close friends and confidants included both Democrats and Republicans.
Conflating Pizzagate with Epstein is just moving the goalposts to exonerate Wikileak's publishing of private emails. Are some of the people involved in the email dump known associates of Epstein? Yes. But that's not what Pizzagate is, nor was Epstein associated with the email dump.
Girlfriend's dad was a Big Deal with the Mossad. Like, awarded medals by the Israeli government Big Deal. Like, we can't talk about him in the UK unless we make it an official Parliament discussion -- that is, by law, on the record and can't be sued as libel or slander -- kind of Big Deal.
Imagine if there was something larger than just what that one billionaire was involved in. Kinda like how when stories about the Catholic Church broke there were just a few high level Bishops involved until much more work was done to pull back the curtains.
Now imagine some of that gets leaked in a partisan fashion. Maybe on purpose. Maybe by chance. A cover up could be attempted, but that might bring in more investigation. Maybe it would be better to forcefully corrupt it instead. Go from MK Ultra conspiracy theory to moon landings were faked and the earth is flat conspiracy theory. All you have to do is purposefully 'leak' even crazier stuff while making it hyper partisan so that our existing political divide feeds into it.
Not saying they are equal, but what if they are both views into a larger conspiracy, though one of those views was purposefully corrupted to try to make any similar conspiracy theory be viewed as utter nonsense. Make it so people think moon landings or flat earth instead of MK Ultra or Operation Northwoods.
It isn't meaningless anymore when we have found that there are multiple national level or greater conspiracies involving some of the most vile things known to mankind. We are 2 for 3 with these three cases and we have seen how corrupted the media and legal system is with handling those two cases (yes, the media eventually did report on them, but go back and look at how the media treated reports on the Catholic abuse before the main story broke and how many individual reports were silenced).
It is like if you catch someone gas lighting you twice, and now this time they are telling you they really didn't do it and are definitely not gas lighting you again. At some point their demand to prove their gas lighting becomes part of the attack itself.
There were 300,000 children stolen by the Catholic church in just Spain alone and sold for adoption.
My favourite conspiracy theory is the Out Of Africa conspiracy theory.
The Petrolonas Cave findings of Thessaloniki debunked it and suggest the Europeans diverged from Africa probably upto a million years ago. Cambridge University verified the findings and they're the most woke campus in town so it must be true.
Okay, I'll bite. I don't think John Podesta has officially commented on what the emails mean, but I think it's pretty safe to assume it is actually quite literal, and they were indeed talking about a handkerchief, a map, and pizza.
> Subject: You left something at the Field house
> Susan & Herb
> I just came from checking the Field house and I have a square cloth handkerchief (white w/ black) that was left on the kitchen island.
> Happy to send it via the mail if you let me know where I should send it.
> I also meant to inquire yesterday about the pillows you purchased. I can send them as well, if you let me know where they are in the house.
> Safe travels to all
> Kate
> Hi John,
> The realtor found a handkerchief (I think it has a map that seems pizza-related. Is it yorus? They can send it if you want. > I know you're busy, so feel free not to respond if it's not yours or you don't want it.
> Susaner
I mean, they're talking about a handkerchief with a pattern of a map, with various food items on it, like pizza. I have never seen such a handkerchief, but this is almost certainly some sort of a novelty handkerchief with a map of Italy, featuring various types of cuisine common to the region. Which kind of makes sense, since it's a napkin.
Why would you assume it is coded? The realtor emails and says, hey, you forgot your handkerchief. Podesta's friend, who was with him, emails him and says, hey, I think that's your handkerchief, the one with the map and pizza and stuff.
And this is supposed to be unusual? This is just how people talk.
I somehow hope they were talking about light drugs. Given the amount of storm it caused, it's beyond me why there was no official examination, to say nothing about explanation.
Official examination of what? I mean, yeah, you're probably right. More likely than not they were talking about weed. Or plausibly sex workers. Something embarassing. Certainly not child trafficking in a literal pizza shop.
> Given the amount of storm it caused
It really didn't. Except for the lunatic who walked into the restaurant with a gun, almost none of this stuff penetrated mainstream media. FOX watchers got their fill, but they weren't swayable votes, by definition. To the eyeballs the Clinton campaign cared about, Pizzagate was a non-issue.
Lefties like me only like to talk about it because it was so crazy insane. This isn't what cost the election.
I don’t know what they’re talking about. Could literally be anything but they would only codify something they wanted to hide. It’s very weird but I’m not into speculating.
Cheese pizza is a common euphemism for child pornography online, which I believe originated from 4chan? Not sure on that part, but it's definitely a common slang for it. Now whether that's how they were using it in the emails or not, I have no idea, as I didn't look into the emails. I stopped digging into conspiracy theories around the time the whole Assange "proof-of-life" fiasco was frothing about. I've got better things I can be doing with my time.
that a government official is using *chan lingo is a stretch, and lends credence to Bannon's point about trying to appeal to the 4chan demographic aka disaffected male youth, who would get the "cp" connection.
What kind of fucking creep sees “cheese pizza” and immediately thinks of child porn? I’m fairly well convinced that the real conspiracy here is that the whole lot of you pizza-gaters are just projecting.
Would you even bother trying to confirm or deny emails about pizza? I'd consider it an even bigger waste of time than supplying the long form of a birth certificate after someone decided that the short form wasn’t good enough proof of nationality for someone who was by that point already the elected president.
It is so ridiculous to call the emails that WikiLeaks published "tabloid" just because a conspiracy theory sprung up around bizarre language which was used in a subset of them. Taken as a whole, they revealed absolutely rank corruption in the higher ranks of the DNC.
Python works for a large swath of issues, and is much easier to learn. That's the point of it. With Python, you can more easily move from a purely syntactical focus to actually programming.
If you need to go into lower level programming languages in the future, that's cool. You can go deeper into stuff like variable types, constant variables, block scope, garbage collection.. whatever you want. You already have a grasp what a string is, how to use a for loop, etc.
In reading the article, it seems like the author is saying essentially "Programming is supposed to be hard. Python makes it easier. So don't teach Python." But shouldn't we be teaching people the easy stuff first? That way they can get, y'know, programming?
The version split is about the only reasonable argument. And how you teach that is the following: Python 2 and Python 3 are different languages for all intents and purposes. Use Python 3.
It intentionally gamifies financial transactions (see the OP's comment about the colorful confetti that displays when user make trades). The app is designed to provide a dopamine hit when making trades, the only purpose of which is to compel the user to make additional trades.
Robinhood intentionally attempts to make financial transactions fun and desirable to the user. This is to drive more trade volume on their platform. The app is leveraging psychology to make users more active on the platform, which may not necessarily be in the user's longterm financial interest. If your financial app uses the same gamification tricks as a slot machine, that's a problem.
This person was 20 years old -- their brain isn't even fully developed yet. No responsible company would allow a 20-year-olds to dig themselves into a $700,000+ hole. That's a lifetime of debt for all but the highest income earners. Even banks, for all their issues, wouldn't allow that.
Yes, the person was legally an adult and make their own decisions. But no responsible company would facilitate a chain of decisions that would lead to $700,000 in debt. If only for self preservation, because the dead can't pay off that debt to the company.
But hey, Robinhood is playing with fake VC money so whatever... right? What's a couple of bodies when Robinhood is a disruptor and makes complex financial transactions fuuuuuuuuuun. Party on!
