Americans may be shocked to discover that given the downward trajectory of the US at the moment, for many international travellers this is yet one more reason to choose somewhere else over the US. It's hardly extreme to avoid a country that keeps providing reason after reason to avoid it.
Especially for people who have been outspoken about the US' illegal wars and various war crimes.
It's rather extreme to refuse to visit the US because of just that. However, refusing to visit countries that do things you don't agree with is a rational decision. I have a friend who declared he would totally refuse to visit North Korea -- why do you want to spend your money to enrich a shitty country and government? More practically, why do you want to spend vacation time being pissed off if you have literally hundreds of other choices?
This is why I hate HN. Someone here has an opinion that doesn't toe the line and instead of asking about the opinion, instead of considering he might be right in at least some way, we downvote to oblivion.
Having a different opinion isn't trolling. But that's not what you're doing here, and most members of this board are intelligent enough to see through your petty screeds about illegal immigrants.
Average national response time is 10 minutes, even in cities the median is 5min, but can be as high as 30min for some remote areas.
In certain situations there may be no police response at all, as was the case in 1992 Los Angeles riots or practically any major natural disaster.
The ‘let the police do it’ argument would only logically work with incredibly pervasive and invasive surveillance technology and/or police robots (https://goo.gl/wpMV8).
Even so, 2nd amendment would be even more relevant to balance the killer robots.
That might be a good argument in theory, if it wasn't for the part where US police don't have to protect citizens and all the population that are outside of effective police coverage. It's not the argument gun control campaigners seem to be making right now. They mainly seem to have gone for the approach of supporting police officers standing by and doing nothing as kids are murdered one by one. Given that, I suspect you're going to have a hard time convincing people who don't already agree with you that they should give up their guns and let the police take care of everything.
This isn't like organizing roles at a startup company. We're talking about an individual's right to defend themselves against someone bigger and stronger, someone with a weapon who wants to take your shit or fuck you or just fuck you up.
You put much faith in the Government, and I put it in the individual.
What happens when your police force is turned against you, becomes incompetent, gets lazy, or just doesn't show up?
It's idealistic. Life is a struggle for the individual, no matter how much we'd like to forget it or offload our worries.
Guns also equalizes the power disparity between a man and a woman. I see gun ownership as female empowerment, but the left never seems to mention that.
So ask the threat to wait a 5+ minutes while you call the cops?
Should we DRM 3D printers (DMLS@home is coming) to a walled garden of things? The 2nd Amendment is not separable from general purpose computing. Who needs "assult crypto" anyway?
It's a valid question. If we had something like phasers instead of firearms, I'd be more than happy to use those exclusively. The problem is we don't really have a good alternative. Tasers that shoot tend to be one shot solutions, and even then they don't always bring down targets, or they might prove as lethal. Rubber bullets you can fire multiple of, but they could cause serious damage too, especially if shot in succession, and there is no guarantee of taking the target down. There just isn't a solid alternative right now.
You would have probably been against the American Revolutionary War then? Meh, let's let the British tax us. They're big and powerful. They're the Government.
And what about something like Vietnam? Who won that one?
And even if you're right, that the US government is just that big and bad. What if half the military defects and joins the revolt?
People have the right to defend themselves, and must be trusted to do so. Otherwise you get something like England. Say the wrong thing and you go to jail. The 2nd Amendment keeps the government in check. Eventually, given enough time, it will need checking.
Generally I am against loss of human life, be it in war or gun violence, but I'm not sure how I would have felt at the time of the Revolution, and I'm not sure you do either.
But really, that is just a weak strawman. The US government/military is MANY orders of magnitude more powerful than the British vs the colonists. The US military could nuke every single state capital in a few minutes, for example. If you take the argument to it's logical conclusion, we should have legal access to weapons equivalent to that of the military, which we already definitely do not.
I am just pointing out that an untrained populace armed with even military-style assault weapons is really just laughable if your enemy is the largest military that has ever existed with technology and weapons that could annihilate humanity. I just don't agree that it is productive to use that as an excuse against thoughtful regulation in the face of the actual, currently occuring epidemic of gun violence (accidents, suicides, school shootings, domestic violence, gang violence, etc) where people are really losing their lives.
You missed the part where I mentioned Vietnam, and the part where I asked what if half the military defects?
I'm against loss of human life too, that's why I'm pro-2nd Amendment. People can defend themselves. People can fight off tyranny. Given enough time, people will need to do that again.
Well, that would be why we have an amendment to the constitution that says 'the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.' As long as we follow that, guns won't be whites only.
what kind of magical thinking is that, that what the constitution says determines who has guns? anyway, it isn't the point. the point is that the majority are if anything more likely to support a tyrant than not, so the idea that gun nuts will save us from a tyrant they have at least a 50/50 shot of supporting is silly, and that's without considering the possibility that they'll save us from a tyrant who actually isn't a tyrant at all.
Pretty much anyone can get a gun, right? Because of the Constitution, right? Where's the magic thinking?
You say most people would support a tyrant, which may not be true but let's go with that. Given that, why wouldn't you want the opposition to that tyrrany to have guns? Your take seems defeatist. You want to just try to live peacefully as tyranny spreads?
One doesn't need a Constitutional right to keep and bear arms in order to keep and bear arms, only to do so legally. Expecting a tyrannical US regime to respect the 2nd Amendment in order to legitimize the means of its own demise seems shortsighted, and other countries manage to have revolutions and coups without a legal firearms market.
> I am just pointing out that an untrained populace armed with even military-style assault weapons is really just laughable if your enemy is the largest military that has ever existed with technology and weapons that could annihilate humanity.
Tell that to the Nazis. They were the military superpower of their time.
Except for the nuclear option every armed enemy can tie up >10 soldiers if they are going to try to keep people alive for slave labour/selective genocide/etc.
Edit: my point is that the Nazis had a giant technological advantage as well as a giant army and even powerful allies and still they were vulnerable to all kinds of sting operations.
Third reich army was trained. It was army. This is not an example of "untrained populace". This is example of well trained army from country with great military tradition.
The fight against nazi was ultimately won by armies, not by "untrained populace".
> Third reich army was trained. It was army. This is not an example of "untrained populace".
Yep. That is my point.
> The fight against nazi was ultimately won by armies, not by "untrained populace".
Also true. But local groups (and of course SOE operations) helped tying up their resources so they couldn't help on the eastern front or start the invasion of Britain.
From Wikipedia[0]: The following afternoon, on 8 May, ... At this time there were no fewer than 400,000 German troops in Norway, which had a population of barely three million.
The Brits weren't actually that far ahead of the civs in the ARWar, it was mostly a numbers issue, not a tech issue.
Vietnam wasn't on US soil, home-base would be infinitely cheaper.
> And even if you're right, that the US government is just that big and bad. What if half the military defects and joins the revolt?
The higher up they are the more nonexistant that chance gets, and the higher up you are the more likely it is that you have a kill-switch to any devices that can be used against the nation.
> People have the right to defend themselves, and must be trusted to do so. Otherwise you get something like England. Say the wrong thing and you go to jail. The 2nd Amendment keeps the government in check. Eventually, given enough time, it will need checking.
Actually, you have the US. People have been arrested for bible burning, [1] promoting Communistic views, [2] Japanese Internment Camps, [3] and more. It's absolutely anti-democratic, but the 2A supporters never will speak against these practices.
I don't think it's fair or accurate to say folks wouldn't speak out against those things.
Your argument is that people shouldn't have guns because we probably couldn't beat the government. I'll take my fighting chance. It's better to die free.
Not one negative comment in this whole thread. Everyone is enamoured with Hawking, huh? Ask the women in his life what they thought of him. Ask the scientists, including Peter Higgs, who complained about his undue credibility and attention given to him.
Disagree with me? Think I'm speaking negative about the dead? If you call yourself inspired by a scientist, admiring a scientist, then you should seek the truth. Emotion based on truth I can stand, but the outpouring in this thread is ridiculous.
An important part of science is exposing it to the public. Concepts about the big bang aren't really relatable, which means little coverage, little funding, and the next generation of would-be scientists not being enthused by the possibilities. Hawking brought those concepts to the masses, which is a very important goal.
Hawking, in a large part due to his success in the face of his disability, attracted media attention that people like Peter Higgs just can't, and he did this while continuing to be a theoretical scientist (unlike people like Neill DeGrasse Tyson, Brian Cox etc, who are all very good at bringing concepts to the public, but don't practice themselves)
Someone like Harvey Weinstein has brought much inspiration and joy to the world too. I'm not arguing against the positive so much as just mentioning some of the ugly negatives.
First, dismissing the subjective appropriateness of commenting immediately upon his passing, while your points on Hawking's personal failings may be completely valid, highlighting them without the context of his successes seems misleading.
Second, I believe Hawking's contributions and accomplishments hold greater relevance to the audience of Hacker News (and in my opinion humanity at large) than those of Harvey Weinstein.
Known for:
Hawking radiation
Penrose–Hawking theorems
Bekenstein–Hawking formula
Hawking energy
Gibbons–Hawking ansatz
Gibbons–Hawking effect
Gibbons–Hawking space
Gibbons–Hawking–York boundary term
Thorne–Hawking–Preskill bet
Awards:
Adams Prize (1966)
Eddington Medal (1975)
Maxwell Medal and Prize (1976)
Heineman Prize (1976)
Hughes Medal (1976)
Albert Einstein Award (1978)
RAS Gold Medal (1985)
Dirac Medal (1987)
Wolf Prize (1988)
Prince of Asturias Award (1989)
Andrew Gemant Award (1998)
Naylor Prize and Lectureship (1999)
Lilienfeld Prize (1999)
Albert Medal (Royal Society of Arts) (1999)
Copley Medal (2006)
Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009)
Fundamental Physics Prize (2012)
BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2015)
You prove the necessity by trying to shoehorn this into "nobody's perfect." This "tech & science literate" mob circle jerk enables bad science and bad behavior.
I doubt many here even know what Hawking really contributed. He simply embodies some need to worship a disabled genius.
No one wants to hear it from me. I get it, but I thought just one person should speak up.
As evidenced by this thread - he was inspirational, and I appreciate that so many people here got that from him. And, yeah, I've heard a number of stories about how he treated women and his first wife that are just disturbing and sadly completely unsurprising, given the norms of our society (that are thankfully being shaken and revisited at this stage of human development, it would seem). This made me lose a lot of respect for him.
It started when I was a grad student in physics at U.C. Berkeley, he came and gave a lecture. He ended it with a tasteless sexual joke / pun, the kind that you would hear from a clueless teenage boy. I was really thrown off by that.
Thank you for posting too. I have a tiny glimmer of hope because of it.
HN, you call yourself scientists? You pursue the truth? You have an open mind? I call bullshit on you HN visitors. Shame on you. I hope I never act as you have done here.
Ironically, the base definition of “Bigot” is simply intolerance of those who hold different opinions. This describes the social justice Left quite a bit more than it does the Right currently.
So, yes, people are indeed blindly calling folks “Bigot” without thinking through what doing so implies about their own tolerance toward others.
Why should one have tolerance for the intolerant? Why should a gay person have tolerance for someone saying that they basically don't deserve the same rights as other people?
Because otherwise you have to sit here and enumerate which things exactly are intolerable. Do you really think you or anyone possesses the moral authority or wisdom to do that? If a Catholic considers it wrong and immoral to condone Gay Marriage why do you get to claim authority over their conventions?
Because gay marriage quite literally has no effect on their life whatsoever. That's in addition to the whole "denial of fundamental rights" and "second class citizen" thing I mentioned above.
I’m curious to understand how you came to this conclusion, that it has “no effect” on their lives. It so obviously does. Should someone of the Catholic Faith wish to express such an opinion they risk social ostracism and, perhaps, their job. If you meant that two gay people getting married doesn’t have a material effect on someone regardless of their opinion on it, well, there’s a certain pastry chef who would disagree with you.
I don’t really have a dog in that fight one way or the other. What I’m trying to point out to you is that these things are most definitely not “settled” issues if you think about them for more than the fleeting moment it requires to let everyone know how progressive you are. They likely never will be settled - unless you get your way and the “wrong” opinions are banned.
I cant agree more. It's so frustrating when the communication device in my pocket fails at communication. Waiting 8 hours to get a push gmail notification is absurd.
There are actually networks of unrelated apps that listen for uninstalls. I was contacted by a company wanting to add their SDK to my apps, partly for this purpose. Uninstall activity is just another thing being monitored.
So that's why there are 999 versions of 'flashlight' app. Not because everyone wanted to develop it, but because we now have the equivalent of pre-packaged bloatware/malware for the desktop, now for the phone.
Thanks for chiming in. I didn't know this kind of company or business model existed, so now I will be more wary about installing seemingly benign apps. (I am not an app developer).
I was surprised myself. So much bloat and spying. I saved one of the emails I received:
Subject: Monetize Your Daily App Uninstalls!
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The [redacted] SDK, with one line of code, lets you earn the highest eCPM with today’s top global offers. When you sign up and integrate today, we’ll deposit $50.00 FREE into your account!
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If you are interested in learning more about app uninstall revenue or have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me via email or Skype.
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