More performant? Maybe - at least multithreading, fork/join, ... would be easier.
Smaller binaries? No, probably even larger, since the chromium embedded framework (CEF) is biiig. But it would probably be possible to add other HTML renderers later (i.e. CEF during development b/c of the excellent debugging features, JavaFX WebView later).
It would make most sense when you either need multi-threading or have existing Java libraries/code you want to re-use or have mostly Java developers...
I think the biggest difference is that I am using the chromium embedded framework (java-cef), so you get e.g. the chrome debugger for debugging your HTML/CSS/JavaScript.
My goal was to use java-cef, but hide all the weirdness.
Also, there's no pre-defined data binding, so a bit less opinionated in this case.
This is exactly the reason why I usually prefer a 6-hour train ride to a 1-hour flight (at least in Germany, Austria, Switzerland).
Train: Go to the station (near city center), arrive 10 mins before train departs, get on the train, read/work/eat/drink for 6 hours, get off the train. And then you are already at the city center of your destination!
The total time spent when flying might be shorter (4.5-5 hours), but that is not worth the hassle.
So much this. Not to mention the reduced environmental impact. Flying is absolutely catastrophic in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, and the Paris accord doesn't cover even a fraction of it! (because flying occurs in "international space" and so it doesn't appear on any country's "balance sheet"... atrocious.)
> Flying is absolutely catastrophic in terms of greenhouse gas emissions
Uhm, flying is OK in terms of emissions per passenger mile. Not as great as train, but better than driving solo in a gasoline car.
The problem is transcontinental flights. While they're OK in terms of efficiency per mile, the number of miles is staggering.
The problem is, those trips can't be made by train.
So in terms of flying, I think the main focus should be not to fly long distance if it can be avoided. Sure, it's much better to take the train if possible, but if you fly between countries within europe a dozen times a year, that's not a catastrophe.
I know Boeing proposed Methane turbofans, and they were estimated to have 60% less carbon emissions and cheaper than jet fuel - after eating the large development and infrastructure costs. You could take this even further, producing Hydrogen from clean electric energy is about three times more expensive than methane for the same energy content, leading to a moderate increase in the cost of even a low cost ticket.
But as with all radically new technology, there needs to be a strong industry, government and consumer push. The program that produced the Methane turbofan concept (SUGAR Freeze) has lost any political appeal.
Costs aside, wouldn't replacing carbon emissions with methane be drastically worse? Doing a casual search says that methane is 2000-3000% more potent as a GHG.
Pure methane is a bunch of molecules with just one carbon, which simplifies things a bit vs. a cracked and heterogeneous mix of longer chain (10+) molecules.
You can incompletely combust a 10-carbon molecule and wind up with other hydrocarbons but if you burn up CH4, you're definitely just getting one CO2.
You're being pedantic. One can travel from New York to San Francisco (well, Emeryville) by train but it's going to take multiple days and, even if you handwave the existence of high-speed rail through two continental divides among other things, it's a very long trip. That's never going to be a mainstream replacement for even a subsonic 5 to 6 hour flight between a multitude of east coast-west coast city pairs.
If there were high-speed trains that could make cross-US trips in, say, 15 hours, and at comparable or cheaper cost vs. airplanes, I can imagine there might be demand. I would be willing to take those overnight.
But even if we could replace most <500 mile flights along the most popular routes (starting by connecting cities up and down the coasts), it would be a huge win as far as fuel economy is concerned.
> The problem is, those trips can't be made by train.
They can't now, but they could be. All that is required is a level of capital investment that can't ever be recovered while in competition with air and sea-surface travel...
The transatlantic tunnel has been a sci-fi fantasy since 1895. It could cost as little as $500 billion today.
> Not as great as train, but better than driving solo in a gasoline car.
It was my understanding that driving is better for shorter trips, because the overhead of taking off and landing is significant. I don't have a source. IIRC I read this in "Doing Good Better."
I'll point out that although it's indeed atrocious compared to a train ride, flying is still more efficient than driving a car. So if traveling is required and you're debating between driving vs. flying (say SF <-> LA), you should prefer flying unless you can carpool. I don't know the exact numbers since it depends on where you're going and what plane/airline you fly, but I would expect around 50-75 MPG for a reasonably full airplane [1], whereas your car might be more like 25-30 MPG on the highway, so you'd want at least 2-3 (ideally 4) people in the car to make it more efficient.
However the thing about flying is of course that it burns fuel at a much, much faster rate, so if it means the difference between you driving to workplace A vs. flying to workplace B regularly, then you'll be burning one hell of a lot more fuel by flying.
Interestingly, the efficiency ratio you suggest appears to be reflected in the ratio between the overall cost (including ground transportation at the other end) of flying SFBA-SoCal and driving.
Whenever I've spot-checked, the break-even is at 2 people, which tends to make flying more attractive for time/fatigue reasons (only barely, at some points in history) even for 2, and sometimes worth the cost premium for 3. For a family of 4 or more, even with the increased fuel cost (but generally not other operating costs) of something like a minivan, driving saves too much money to pass up.
That’s true today. But in the coming years and decades, ground transport will be largely electrified and it’s per-mile emissions greatly reduced.
Hopefully, aviation can be electrified too one day (or it’s emissions reduced with hybrid technology), but unlike ground transport, the technology is not quite here yet.
Hybrid tech doesn't help at all with with planes. There is no braking energy to be regained and batteries are too heavy. It has no place there until battery energy density approaches that of fuel, which would require a huuge breakthrough of some kind.
The idea behind a hybrid aircraft is that eFans (electric fans) are more energy efficient than a turbofan, so you can burn less fuel for a given journey.
Companies including Airbus, Siemens, and Rolls Royce are actively working on this technology with a view to have working prototypes in the early 2020s.
Besides that, there is some "braking" energy to be recaptured during descent or when slowing the aircraft. This technology already exists today: The Pipistrel Electro can regen it's battery during descent. This is similar in principle to the ram air turbine (RAT) in conventional aircraft.
Well thanks for the pertinent info. I was pretty sure of myself that the cost benefit ratio wasn't there but if there are engineering efforts towards it there's at least potentially some merit.
I wonder, does the efficiency gain from efans and a generator apply to a single engine setup as well as it does to multi engine setups?
With battery capacities being what they are you'll also have to hang tight for the moment when they stretch long enough to allow you to even have the choice of driving to the same place you can fly. (Or swap batteries on the way somehow... not sure how well that would work.)
This is already solved in technology terms. Battery capacities and charging speeds are already good enough for almost all long-distance travel scenarios.
It’s now just a case of getting costs down and infrastructure built out. But that’s the easy part.
> his is already solved in technology terms. Battery capacities and charging speeds are already good enough for almost all long-distance travel scenarios.
Really? It seems to me that decent EV ranges are around 150mi right now, with the best ones going to 300mi... meaning they generally might get you halfway from (say) SF to LA, and you can bet that none of them will get you all the way. And that's not even that long of a distance, depending on what your standards are. Now charging times run into multiple hours, right? How is that even remotely close to gasoline?
Charging times are around 45 minutes today for 250-300 miles of travel. Most people want to take a break after 4-5 hours of driving anyway, so it’s just a case of having chargers in the right locations.
The new generation of 350kW / 800V chargers will bring that down into the 15-20 minute range.
> Most people want to take a break after 4-5 hours of driving anyway
I realize I'm not most people (I love to drive), but this seems like it's bordering on extraordinary-claim territory. I don't actually expect evidence, since this would be the kind that's particularly difficult to gather (you could ask people, but what people say doesn't necessarily translate to what they do).
Regardless, it seems unlikely to me that anyone would want to be forced to take a break at the 4 hour mark rather than waiting for their destination at the 5 hours mark (e.g. SJ-LA).
I realize, of course, that it's just a matter of (not that great a) degree between 20 minutes every 300 miles for charging versus 10 minutes every 400 miles for fueling. However, because we're not even there yet for a comparably-priced/affordable electric car, it may be premature to think that way.
I agree it was a little harder to swallow but it wasn't really "extraordinary". It's pretty normal to take breaks to stretch, eat, use the restroom, etc. during a 5+-hour ride. On top of that, given how doctors say you should get up and walk around in an airplane every few hours at least, I imagine it's not healthy to drive 5+ hours nonstop on the road either, in which case you arguably should be taking a break if you're one of those who doesn't.
Turning that around, the requirement to have to stop or make a special trip to fill up with gas every time they get empty is a disincentive to purchase combustion vehicles.
Considering that the vast majority of trips are within the 200-300 mile range of a modern electric vehicle, the fact that it's already "full" and ready to go every morning can be seen as a major advantage.
> the requirement to have to stop or make a special trip to fill up with gas every time they get empty is a disincentive to purchase combustion vehicles
Not really, since this is a requirement of electric vehicles, too.
> the fact that it's already "full" and ready to go every morning can be seen as a major advantage.
That's not a fact but a speculation. It requires infrastructure at every vehicle owner's home (including adjacent, dedicated parking for every such vehicle!) that does not yet exist, for this to be true. (Substitute/add "workplace" for "home" may be slightly more likely but not for any specific vehicle).
A combustion vehicle owner could have similar infrastructure installed for liquid fuel, or hire a service to top vehicles off at night. It's too expensive, so "nobody" does it.
Is there even data that shows what proportion of commuters actually park in their garage, carport, or somewhere similarly electricity-adjacent?]
The point is that most EV owners typically charge at home, or in some cases work, rather than take time out of their day to refuel (not to mention money out of their wallets!)
It's easy and inexpensive to install EV chargers at any home with a garage or parking space where electrical wiring can be installed. (In fact you don't even need to install a dedicated charger: you can charge an EV from any electrical outlet, if you don't mind slower charging speeds)
The vast majority of "typical suburban commuters" fit into that category, and they are the majority of car owners in North America and Europe.
OK, it's more of a challenge if you're an apartment dweller or live in a dense urban environment with only on-street parking.
But these are being solved, too: cities are installing kerbside chargers (including the ones built into lamp-posts that take advantage of existing wiring), and building regulations require new housing developments to include EV charging. Worst case, you can always make a trip to a nearby fast charger, but of course it's most convenient if you can charge at the location where you normally park anyway.
Dense cities like London and Amsterdam have exactly these issues, and it hasn't stopped an ever-increasing number of people from buying EVs.
> The point is that most EV owners typically charge at home
Maybe today. Those are the early adopters. You're still speculating about a future that doesn't exist yet.
> It's easy and inexpensive to install EV chargers at any home with a garage or parking space where electrical wiring can be installed.
Are you a brochure for an EV/charger? :) The "where electrical wiring can be installed" implies installing electrical wiring, which is neither easy nor inexpensive (not in the US, as it will, for most people, involve an electrician and always, AFAIK, require permitting/inspection).
> if you don't mind slower charging speeds
It's not a question of minding but of whether it gets the job done of obviating the need for the separate fillup. If a Leaf needs 17 kWh for 50 miles, it would need 13 hours drawing 12A (max continuous for a 15A circuit) at 110V, which is doable but not exactly a long commute. 70 miles? Nope.
> The vast majority of "typical suburban commuters" fit into that category, and they are the majority of car owners in North America and Europe.
Which category, exactly, though? The one where they live in a neighborhood that merely has garages and carports? Or the one where they actually park every single car in a garage or carport space? (I live in a suburb, and the streets and driveways are pretty full at night.) Also, a majority of a majority can easily be a minority.
I still think you're speculating, and maybe wishfully thinking, without firm numbers.
> Worst case, you can always make a trip to a nearby fast charger
And again you return to the situation where an EV is no different than an ICE vehicle going to a fueling station.
> hasn't stopped an ever-increasing number of people from buying EVs
Without looking at (and showing us here) the actual numbers, from at least the whole of North American and Europe, "ever-increasing" is meaningless, especially when used in support of your original thesis that ground trasport will be largely electrified in the coming years (vanishingly unlikely) and decades (far more likely since you never specified how many).
Global car production, excluding China, is on the order of 70 million. I don't think non-hybrid EVs are even 1% of that, and the production growth has been closer to linear than geometric.
Even if 50% of new cars this year were EVs, I can't imagine that even in 10 years half the cars out there would be EVs. Assuming the current trend, though, for the Western world, it could be another 20 years before that 50% production mark, which means over 30 years before half the cars are electric. There's my speculation.
It's not speculation: there are already markets (Norway) where close to 50% of all new cars sold are EVs.
Other countries (China, Netherlands, France, UK) will follow as governments set mandates for electrification.
The US is likely be some years behind Europe and China on uptake for various reasons - there's not quite the same environmental imperative (air pollution) driving government policy, there's less tax on fossil fuels, and geography/demographics are not quite as favourable due to longer commutes and longer distances between cities.
But I do think we'll see significant electrification in many markets during the 2020s, with double-digit market share globally for BEVs by 2030 and >50% share in some markets (China, parts of Europe).
(btw: You do not need a garage or carport for EV charging. Chargers can be, and very often are in my experience, installed outdoors.)
> It's not speculation: there are already markets (Norway) where close to 50% of all new cars sold are EVs.
The latter fails to support the former. A country whose entire population is less than the size of a large city can't be extrapolated, especially since so many other conditions (e.g. economic ones) don't hold.
> as governments set mandates for electrification.
This reads as future tense, so a speculation (upon which you're basing your speculation).
> But I do think we'll see significant electrification in many markets during the 2020s, with double-digit market share globally for BEVs by 2030
"Significant" electrification is still a far cry from your speculation of "largely electrified" ground transportation. 10% is enough for "double-digit", and that still corresponds to getting to 50% around the 50 year mark (assuming "market share" means cars on the road, not just new production).
> and >50% share in some markets (China, parts of Europe).
You really need to exclude China, or at least consider it completely separately, considering how the market is skewed in favor of centralized decision making versus consumer choices and freedoms. It may be interesting for any discussion of emissions, environment, availability of technology, EV competition on the global market, or anything like that, but not for consumer adoption elsewhere.
> (btw: You do not need a garage or carport for EV charging. Chargers can be, and very often are in my experience, installed outdoors.)
Again, "very often" fails to provide any actual numbers. Did you cleverly omit the qualifier "residential" from the above, just to make it true? Were they installed by (i.e. at the individual behest of) the residents themselves, without non-scalable subsidies/support? A government pilot program to spur the 1% early adopters by making it convenient to charge at home can have a politically bad smell if scaled to 10x.
As I said, in my experience, the vast majority of cars in my neighborhood are actually parked where installing a dedicated circuit (let alone a fast charger) is currently impractical, if not impossible. You can continue to speculate all you want about regulations changing or cities installing chargers in the middle of sidewalks, but, today, it's still fantasy.
Bottom line, today, BEVs are 1%, and ICE isn't going away, in large part, any time soon. Consumers who wish to make decisions based on emissions impact would do well not to just to buy into the marketing and wishful thinking of EV proponents and discount the impact of choosing driving (when there is a choice). Fortunately, the impact difference is also typically closely reflected in the price difference, at least for low-margin, high-competition markets (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17578591).
"it seems unlikely to me that anyone would want to be forced to take a break at the 4 hour mark rather than waiting for their destination at the 5 hours mark (e.g. SJ-LA)."
If your destination is only 1 hour further away, then you're only going to need about a 10 minute charge, not the full 45 minutes. And you can stop pretty much anywhere en route where there are chargers available, it doesn't have to be at the 4 hour mark. Plenty of flexibility there.
"we're not even there yet for a comparably-priced/affordable electric car"
I agree, but they're getting close already when you consider lifetime costs including fuel and maintenance. And the more driving you do, the more financial sense an EV makes. That's why we're seeing taxi operators embracing EVs enthusiastically.
This is speculative and doesn't affect the emotional purchase decision today.
> Plenty of flexibility there.
Perhaps by some objective measure, but, again, that ignores the emotional component.
> but they're getting close already when you consider lifetime costs including fuel and maintenance
That's as may be, but lifetime costs are irrelevant if the barrier to entry (practical or emotional) is too high in the form of purchase cost.
It's not even necessarily irrational to decide to pay what appears to be a higher lifetime cost if ones personal "interest" rate in the TVM calculation exceeds the standard/average one, due to a high opportunity cost or just a high borrowing cost.
Right. But where Tesla is today, the rest of the industry is heading. That sort of range and charge speed should be typical for mid-range electrics by the early 2020s or so.
I traveled with the French TGV a couple times and it is absolutely astounding how amazing it is. Large comfy chairs, quiet train, you can walk around, plenty of room for activities. There's even a bar where you can hang out with fellow passengers!
Plus first class tickets are like $20 more expensive than normal tickets and totally worth it.
Although I almost missed it because I'm used to all the buffer time you get with airplanes. Train leaves at 10:45, you better be there at 10:40 or you're gonna miss the darn thing.
Although I like our (maybe not for long) nationalized train system, I still have to mitigate your praises a bit :) .
One of my main issue is that train ticket are really expensive. Regional train are okayish, but TGV cost often way more than any other equivalent (plane/bus/car/...) and are sometimes not faster.
The second thing is that the network is historically completely centered around Paris. That lead to some very weird situation where, to go from the north-west to the south-west, you need to go all around France. And because of this, it is again faster and cheaper to just take a plane.
Finally, there is often delay or train being canceled, which is normal because lot more problem happen on the ground and such that when you are several thousand feet in the air, but they tend to communicate about it really badly.
When your train have a problem, it is often really hard to know when you will have a new train, how much delay will you have, ...
On the other end, I agree with you. The train are so much comfortable. I really enjoy traveling in train way more than with any other form of transportation. I assume they are also a bit more ecological than cars and planes. The application of the SCNF to book ticket is also very good nowadays, never had a problem with it.
I'm totally with you, but it is truly annoying the amount of subsidies the flight industry get. I've often taken trains across Europe due to my preference, but when the plane ticket is €20 and the train ticket is €400 it seems I'm fighting against the system.
> Aviation is currently undertaxed, according to economists from the IMF and World Bank, compared to other forms of transport. Airlines pay no fuel duty and VAT is zero rated meaning that no tax is charged on sales and tax charged on inputs is refunded.
> ...
> CE Delft calculated in 2013 that the shortfall as a result of these two anomalies amounted to around €27 billion annually in Europe.
> ...
> At a global level, the World Bank and IMF favour a relatively low tax universally applied per tonne of CO2, which could then raise money for climate change mitigation.
> In the UK, the Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition considered in 2010 replacing APD with a per plane tax to include freight aircraft and provide an additional incentive to airlines to fill empty seats. However, this was dropped following concerns, the Government claimed, about concerns that it could be challenged legally as representing a proxy fuel tax (contrary to bilateral air service provisions with other countries).
> Another alternative would be a form of taxation that discouraged frequent fliers.
1. International airlines pay no tax on aviation fuel, despite their significant contribution to air pollution and climate change. In say, Europe, this represents a huge subsidy compared to ground transport, where fuel is heavily taxed.
2. Airports, particularly regional ones, are often owned by local governments and receive subsidies in order to encourage tourism and commerce in their region. In some cases, airlines receive direct subsidies from those airports in order to fly there.
3. Internationally, some airlines themselves are state-owned or state-subsidised. Gulf airlines such as Emirates and Qatar have been criticised for being significant beneficiaries of state subsidies.
This isn’t to say that rail isn’t subsidised too, of course. Even in countries where rail operates on a commercial basis, the physical infrastructure is usually government owned or financed in some way.
However, if airlines had to account for (and pay for) their environmental externalities, the costs of airline vs rail travel would work out very differently!
That's the exact same reason why nobody sane takes a train in France for anything that matters. Schedules violated every day, strikes, poor maintenance, and moreover, they killed almost all of the night trains, that were the cheapest option especially if you account for one night you save on accommodation.
To be frank about it, trains are a much softer target, since they can be derailed with an explosion on the track, or even a bit of welding.
Blowing up an airplane requires either bringing an explosive on board, or the use of a rocket-propelled grenade or full-on missile. Quite aside from the risks of hijacking mentioned in a sibling comment.
However, blowing up a bomb on a cruising plane will probably kill everyone. Blowing up a bomb on a cruising train will probably not - many people will be far from the blast and derailing trains are more survivable than planes breaking up at altitude.
It is still true; Holding a train full of passengers hostage is foolish because there's no possibility that a train driver could disengage the rails.
Holding a plane full of passengers hostage is less foolish because the pilots/flight attendants can be bribed and bartered- it's not a technical impossibility to do certain actions, so there is more of an incentive.
Buses, maybe. Trains: Nope. Doors are locked from the inside, usually aren't accessible while moving and even someone would get inside, well, you can't get off the tracks. You'll get a red signal and a forced braking shortly afterwards. It's really, REALLY hard (by design) to wreck something on purpose with a modern high speed train.
Which wasn't a hostage situation or a hijacking to get elsewhere, and it has nothing to do with the passenger security theater which is what this thread is about...
Lol, try living in California. 6-12 hour plane ride to anywhere. Trains? We have them. But why would you when it takes literally days to cross the country.
That's not a problem of trains it's a problem of the US train infrastructure. As you can see in Europe or Japan trains can be very fast and very efficient.
Sure, but the distances between cities in a huge country like the USA tend to be much greater than in Europe or Japan. Even if you had high speed rail it’d still take a very long time to cross the continent!
High speed trains do exist, or are being built, in more densely populated US regions (eg Northeast corridor, California).
The distances between cities in California or the upper East coast isn't. Both places have a high enough population density to support a good train network.
No one is suggesting that you take train from New York to LA but rather that you take a train from LA to San Francisco or Boston to New York. Similarly in Europe most people don't take a train from London to Rome but people will often take a train from London to Paris or Barcelona to Madrid. Any flight of 3 hours or less is usually faster and more comfortable as a train ride.
For those who don't know, people take trains between cities in the US Northeast Corridor all the time. In fact, that's pretty much Amtrak's only profitable region (money that it then loses in the rest of the country). And Amtrak actually has significant modernization plans in part because some routes are at capacity during busy times.
There would be even higher usage if Amtrak service in the region was actually good instead of just passable. The fastest service between New York and DC averages only 82 mph and it's even slower if you go past either of those cities. The allegedly "high-speed" service between New York and Boston averages only 66 mph. That's not even hitting the upper end of highway speeds.
There is very low population density between the LA and SF metro areas, which are roughly 350 miles apart (400 miles from city center to city center). This is one of the reasons that a HSR has been such a hard sell.
Big cities with nothing in-between is a good sell for HSR. Europe's two largest countries that have that population distribution pattern (France, Spain) rely heavily on very fast HSR (300-350km/h). The countries with more distributed, but also more dense population (UK, Germany) rely more on fast networks with more stops, but less maximum speed (200-250km/h).
It takes around 4-5 days to cross the US by train.
The problem is, the regular seats are shoulder to shoulder, there's no showers, and everyone shares a bathroom. Plus, they gouge you relentlessly with food rates.
It doesn't seem like it would be a fun experience at all due to those conditions (but would be fun otherwise).
Of course you could spend $1,000+ each way to get a "sleeper seat" which comes with a shower and meals but then it's like you're essentially paying $700 for a shower and a touch of privacy. It's just off putting to me based on principle.
Yep. I almost stopped reading (but read on) after this sentence:
The coverage, all from Blue-aligned media, largely presented Mastodon as a cool new alternative to Twitter that would be free of "harassment," which is a Blue code word for the mere existence of the Red side.
This is clearly not from a neutral person. He very clearly picked a side.
Yes, some people on the Blue side can be overly sensitive. No, I do not think that "a significantly noisy subset" of the Blue side finds a dissenting opinion to be harassment. Do you imagine these people responding to "I don't agree with that" with claims that they are being harassed? I burst out laughing reading that sentence in the article, it's such an obviously preposterous statement.
It's really quite comical that the author, in order:
1) Claimed that they were being objective and presenting the situation free of bias.
2) Claimed that any person on the Blue side who learns that anyone with a dissenting opinion is on the same site as them will feel that they are being harassed.
3) Claimed that the arrival of Blue users would ruin mastodon.
I skimmed over the rest of the article and it appears to include an "Actually It's Not Technically CP" argument, so I think I probably made the right choice here.
> Do you imagine these people responding to "I don't agree with that" with claims that they are being harassed?
Sadly yes. The logic works as follows:
If you don't agree with me (let's say on gay marriage), you're saying my belief is invalid. The things I believe constitute my identity; therefore you are attacking my identity and thus existentially threatening me.
On some forums this kind of disagreement is grounds for banning, no matter how politely expressed or well reasoned.
Okay, but you've now moved the goal posts from "mere dissent is harassment" to "people suggesting that I deserve fewer human rights than them is harassment" which, well, yeah.
Arguments containing a premise that the other side is a lesser human generally don't go well. I don't think that is unique to this situation.
To be clear: my company offers a maternity benefit that's more generous than their paternity benefit. I want to change that. If you offer any disagreement, then you are imputing I deserve fewer human rights, saying I am a "lesser human" than you, and thus you are harassing me. Correct? Nevermind which side is right: mere disagreement is harassment.
You provided a specific example of a topic with existential importance. I responded to it.
I do not think you can make an argument against gay marriage which treats all sexualities equally, by very definition.
If you feel you have an argument about why the government should deny homosexuals the right to marriage, but that does not treat homosexuals as lesser than heterosexual people, I'm all ears!
> I do not think you can make an argument against gay marriage which treats all sexualities equally, by very definition.
How can I reasonably be expected share my argument, if by your own criteria I'll be guilty of harassment if you disagree?
That's the stifling effect of "disagreement is harassment".
Think about it. By your criteria, discussion can't even happen if anyone's rights are at stake. Yet any meaningful disagreement will involve someone's rights - what is the extent of a right, and under what conditions can it be circumscribed. All of this talk is now off limits.
Maybe you should try to make sure you can win these arguments instead of preemptively banning them.
PS: I'm really not interested in gay marriage. As I said it's just an example of suppressing debate. Compare to how Red evangelicals will invite atheists to publicly debate evolution, which I think is more constructive. I can give more examples of Blue debate-silencing through harassment claims but this seems sufficient illustrative.
I think a very narrow segment of speech is harassment, namely that people deserve less because of their religion, race, gender or sexuality. I'm surprised you view this as contentious.
I don't think that's well-defined enough to unilaterally shut down debate. What if my religion tells me I can't work 6 months out of the year, and I need the same job protection Christians get for not working on Christmas and Easter? What if I'm asexual and I'm denied the tax benefits married people get? You're saying not only are these claims automatically granted, but that just discussing them is a punishable offense.
Also why is "religion, race, gender or sexuality" the holy quartet? Why not ageism, ablism, lookism, or my rights as a short person? Why are those open to debate while the others aren't?
1. I don't believe that religious people should be treated differently than non-religious people.
2. Asexual people can marry. They don't force you to have sex before they give you the certificate of marriage.
I did not claim that discussing these things was a punishable offense. You can discuss anything that you please, you are protected from prosecution by the 1st Amendment.
My only contention was that it was valid for someone to feel harassed because someone said they deserve less because of their sexuality.
> My only contention was that it was valid for someone to feel harassed because someone said they deserve less because of their sexuality.
Ok. I agree people's feelings are valid. I believe if someone feels harassed because of my opinion, my opinions may be just as valid as their feeling of harassment, and society is better served by open discussion than sparing feelings at all costs.
I realize that some people may abuse this to hurt other's feelings without making a sincere and salient point, which is regrettable. I'd like to think all my points can be articulated without offending anyone, though that's probably unrealistic.
I appreciate that you respect the 1st Amendment. It's a common Blue trope that the 1st Amendment doesn't apply to speech involving supposed racism or sexism (which they refer to as "hate speech").
I'm all for open discussion. I'll discuss anything with anyone.
I was just responding in particular to the point about gay marriage because I think, as I said, by definition it's difficult to make that argument without a premise that you deserve more than the other side. Similarly, if you made the argument that someone does not deserve to vote because they use a wheelchair, I would think the same thing.
Perhaps in some Voltaire-ideal we should have an in-depth argument on the merits, but I don't particularly blame them for just saying "fuck this". It's not exactly a good faith argument that's conductive to a useful or productive conversation.
To use your parental leave example, contrast two arguments. One begins from "I think that both the mother and father deserve equal treatment" versus "Women are sinful, therefore they deserve fewer days off". You may earnestly believe both arguments and be attempting to make a reasoned, good faith argument, but one of them is more likely to result in "fuck this" and one of them is more likely to result in a useful discussion.
With regards to your point about a "common trope", you should consider talking to adults on the Left.
E: We've now reached the post column width that indicates that we both should have better things to do.
You're free to say "Fuck this, I don't want to argue anymore" if you like. The mistake is believing that makes anyone still talking a "harrasser" in the legally actionable sense.
>I skimmed over the rest of the article and it appears to include an "Actually It's Not Technically CP" argument, so I think I probably made the right choice here.
You'd do well to actually read the article then before making a comment like this. He goes briefly into that to show that you (english speaker) see it as a _very clear_ case of CP, whereas in japan it's not, that there's a distinction, and that they often won't understand why you'd confuse the two. And that difference in looking at it (regardless of picking a position on if it is or isn't cp) is what caused a bunch of issues.
This was an interesting read because it shows a culture clash and language barrier. Not so much red vs blue (if you believe such an abstract thing exists, and I find the distinction being made in this article completely and utterly wrong [1], pointless, irrelevant, a _terrible_ analogy, a distraction, and ultimately a _terrible_ element of an otherwise seemingly [I'm no expert on the topic] informative written text). Rather, it describes the difference in Japanese language/values vs English language and American-European values, as well as the difference between virtual and real-life, or what children should or should not be allowed to see. This is why there isn't "one" internet as well. We have different jurisdictions, values, enforcement, censorship, etc. Normally, you got a company behind the website who has local subsidiaries who ultimately listen to HQ; so FB is American culture, and that's the agenda it ultimately pushes forth. Which is, incidentally, the standard, but you can see all kind of local websites who don't have these values.
As for the first Japanese term (the "legal" one) I found it described here here: [2]
"Lolicon: Centered on prepubescent, pubescent, or post-pubescent underage girls, whether homosexual or heterosexual."
I didn't search for the other term because the description seemed telling enough.
[1] Sexual freedom was fought for by human rights activists in the 2nd part of the 20th century. Feminism movement (e.g. pro-abortion, voting rights), anti war movement (specifically war in Vietnam though also the Cold War), anti child labor / pro education movement, LGBT and general sexual freedom movement (the latter being an ideal of the hippie movement), anti-racism movement (not sure if that's the right word), even recreational drug usage movement. All of these were inherently pro-equality and pro-freedom (in that order), going against the status quo of that time. If you call that "US-blue" (yeah, cause in the rest of the world blue doesn't necessarily have the same meaning and indeed it does not since generally red is seen as left-wing and blue as right-wing although I find those terms rather lacking content), what's the freedom of liking hentai which harms no adult directly just like playing a shoot-em up? "US-red"? Really??? Well then, how utterly conflicting with the human rights movement from the 20th century. Its easier to just see it as a culture clash. The article does mention this eventually:
"Monday the 17th: the terminology of "free speech" versus "safe speech" becomes popular in English-language discussions for describing the growing ideological divide on how instances ought to be run. I first encounter it in this item from Spacedragon but am not sure if that's the first (or only) place it came into use. Free speech instances are generally aligned with the Red Culture War faction (hence also with GNU Social and the older parts of the network) and safe speech instances with Blue (hence Mastodon proper). However, I think it's significant that when we had the same fight on Livejournal ten years earlier, it was the opposite way: fictional "child pornography" in the form of explicit Harry Potter fan art and therefore "free speech" was a Blue/Left/aGG/SJW thing, with the Red/Right/Gamergate/MRA side taking what we'd now call the "safe speech" position. For that reason I'm inclined to think that the link between Culture War sides and free/safe speech is more a matter of historical accident than anything naturally flowing from whatever defines these sides."
However it was for the better if that whole part (and the gamergate nonsense) wouldn't be included. I don't see how it is related.
OK, this is now totally off-topic WRT the original blog post, but... We had a very short code of conduct at SoCraTes Austria.
Then we thought about what might happen when we have a violation (endless discussions about whether that was actually a real violation and whether our response was justified, maybe even within the team).
So, we sat down and wrote a slightly longer version, which tries to spell out some unwanted behaviour and some guidlines for conference stuff ( http://socrates-conference.at/code-of-conduct/ ).
We also wanted to explain why we have the CoC in the first place and how we'd like people to behave. It surely is not perfect (probably too long and too short at the same time).
But if you think "don't be a dick to other people" would suffice as a CoC, imagine you are the organizer of an event, and then try to list all the things that might go wrong. Be creative - I'm sure you can imagine situations where it does not suffice.
Fair enough, but can you imagine a CoC that suffices in any situation? You will have situations where someone is acting out and at the same time you didn't think of it in your CoC and you will still be able to identify the behaviour as unacceptable, in most cases rather quickly.
So if I say "well actually..." on your conference I might get escorted out even if nobody took offense, but if I race around on my skates and make people uncomfortable because they are afraid I might run into them, that's fine because it doesn't really fall under any point mentioned in your CoC?
That's obviously nonsense. Just don't be a dick. And if you are, be a dick somewhere else.
They probably have personal data / personal identifiable information about you when they blocked you and still know about it... And you can ask them what data they have about you.
Doesn't need to be a database, a simple spreadsheet or text file would do as well.
And you would be surprised to know how frequent those are (not necessarily about Twitter but in general about customers/employees/visitors in shops etc.)
Or just an email message mentioning the person. That's why I brought up the GDPR in the first place. My wife knew someone who was complaining against his insurance company, they were blanking him. So he put in a subject access request and in all the stuff he got back was an instruction sent to all customer service staff via email telling them to block him if he ever tried to contact them via social media.
The above happened under the 1995 DPD regime, the GDPR would probably be even more useful.
Several European leaders have said publically (though in nicer words) that they don't trust America under this administration anymore.
e.g. Sebastian Kurz, a few days ago (1): "The American President is unconventional and American politics has become unpredictable. [...] This is a challenging geopolitical situation."
Why would that trust be necessary? It very clearly isn't. Which is not the same as arguing that trust can't be valuable or critical in international relationships depending on the context.
China has gone from a $1 trillion to a $13 trillion economy in 20 years, with vast barriers to trade (into their country) and extreme domestic protectionist policies (eg barring majority domestic business ownership, and most foreign acquisitions).
China is the greatest one-way mercantilist economic result in recorded history. There's very little trust in any relationship with China, they do literally whatever they decide fits their nationalist aims, whether that's annexing territory, stealing corporations (Ant Financial), forcing technology transfers, blockading foreign ownership, whatever it takes to buy time until China is impossible to resist. China is already buying up Eastern Europe, and buying votes within the EU (eg bribing Greece for favorable voting). Is that a premise of trust? Of course not, they're using their increasing might strategically wherever they can, and it's going to get a lot worse.
The fact is, all nations should pursue their self interest. When the US decides to act as everyone else does and pursue its economic self interest, it's denounced. And there's China parroting that they're in favor of free trade, while being aggressively against free trade in practice, and hardly being called out for the hypocrisy internationally.
The reason the US is denounced, is because the export gravy train is coming to an end, the easy exports into the US that many other large economies have enjoyed are going to get more expensive going forward. If that wasn't the case, all of these other nations wouldn't be upset about the US change in behavior: they all know the US is an immense global consumption engine that powers their domestic production.
Responding to psergeant's comment below:
> I wonder if you could help me understand Trump trying to rescue ZTE in terms of what you’ve just said?
The US got China to immediately sign off on the Qualcomm acquisition of NXP in exchange for the ZTE deal. That's an extremely valuable acquisition for the US tech industry.
Simultaneously the US has received $2.2 billion in fines from ZTE over time for their violations of US sanctions. Further on top of that, the US is getting even more compliance pledges from ZTE.
It's a substantial self interest win for the US. The US gets to eat one of Europe's valuable tech companies (of which they have relatively few), which then reduces Europe as a tech competitor over time. I'd call the ZTE deal a win, win, win, win arrangement.
>>> If that wasn't the case, all of these other nations wouldn't be upset about the US change in behavior... The fact is, all nations should pursue their self interest.
>> This leads to hugely destructive wars.
> Nonsense. Self-interest != hostility.
Right. Just because someone is looking out for their own self interest doesn't mean that they are constantly "winning" a zero-sum game with someone else. In fact, sometimes cooperating is the most self-interested move you can make...
Which is exactly why all of these other nations might be "upset about the US change in behavior" without necessarily prescribing any course of action that isn't also in the US's best interest.
If you do Scrum like that, you're doing it wrong (I know, no true Sctosman [1], and I know, there are actually dark patterns [2]).
I wrote a whole book about "Agile Anti-Patterns" [3]. Most of the book's content is about things that many companies get wrong when they start with agile or lean software development. Because it is very easy to get those things wrong.
Yes, those problems are extremely common. Not only with Scrum - Organizations also face those problems when they try Kanban or SAFe or whatever. Because, change in a traditional organization is hard. And to really implement Scrum, you'd probably need to change more about the organization than the org was willing to change.
But those problems are not Scrum's fault. If the team has no power, it is also not truly self-organized. And the Scrum Master is not doing their job.
You could start to improve by creating awareness about the problems. Blaming Scrum may or may not be a good idea to do that - Because, some people in your org may be invested in Scrum. Some mentoring or coaching for your Scrum Masters, Product Owners and developers and managers might be a better start.
And to really implement Scrum, you'd probably need to change more about the organization than the org was willing to change.
Bingo. That is the key point to me. Scrum, and other agile-family methodologies, are great when fully implemented. But what usually happens is that the higher-ups refuse to relinquish a bit of control, and stick tightly to their traditional command-and-control approach, and the dev teams are forced to do something that looks-kinda-like-scrum (or looks-kinda-like-XP or looks-kinda-like-AUP, etc.) while operating in a structure that isn't really compatible with the principles of Scrum, XP, AUP, etc.
Basically, we're forced to try and fit a round peg into a square hole because people higher up the org-chart either don't really understand agile-family methodologies or are actively opposed to truly implementing them.
Nail, meet head. I've worked in places where scrum has worked great. But most places I've worked at or heard about have exactly the problems you describe.
That sounds ridiculously similar to people hanging on to communism/socialism: "the principles are sound, it just hasn't been implemented as intended". Except, just like communism, Scrum has never and will never be implemented "as intended" because that's contrary to our collective evolutionary gifts, and against a developer's desire to find satisfaction in good craftsmanship. A project management methodology building on utopian altruistic ideals and delusions wrt people's motives is just propaganda.
Maybe what's missing in my original comment... What I'm trying to say is that there is a certain kind of organization (mostly traditional / old organizations) who would have these kinds of problems with any agile method.
And there are other organizations who can make any agile method work for them.
So, it's not really Scrum's fault when it fails (at least not always). And it's not really (or not only) Scrum's achievement when it succeeds.
As a friend of mine, Samir Talwar, once said: "To be good at software development, you need an organization that's optimized for software development. Most organizations are optimized for something else."
Anyway, if you implement a process, but ignore even the very short (22 pages) guide that summarizes the process, but instead cherry-pick what you think will work well in your org, then don't blame the process when it does not work.
As I wrote in my book: "But changing Scrum so it works within your company will not make you more agile – It will make Scrum less agile!"
Yes I've also been in SCRUM projects that worked well; however, these projects would have worked well under any organization, because of the particular people on the project.
Yes, when it's worked for me, the team has also been great. What I mean, though, is that scrum was an active benefit to us. The project would've gone well with or without scrum because the team was good, but scrum was helping us achieve our potential over using other approaches (that I know of).
That also sounds ridiculously similar to people hanging on to capitalism: "The free market is the best way to run an economy, it's just that there has never been a free market in the real world."
True. Scrum is mostly propaganda. I have yet to see it work right and it's been more than 3 different jobs now. The closest was at a big corporation where they sent us all the agile training, had buy-in from management, the PMs, everyone and that was great except that high profile project eventually had PMs whose entire jobs involved evaluating burn down charts to track progress within sprints. So yeah, they actually had people who looked across all the many dev teams doing a roll-up of burn downs for management. That was totally bizarre.
