391–400 of 486 posts
Twice it was mentioned that the cause of WWII was boredom. Is this actually a real theory?
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I think they are being genuine when they say their plan is to combat fake news with AI; their business is built around AI. It is one of their core competencies. I think they are going to fail, and quietly increase the human involvement once they realize that their AI isn't good enough. Then they will slowly scale back the humans as their AI improves, until the next controversy when they realize that they still need h…
That's a tragic view. How did we get to the state where the "truth" is such an elusive concept? Is it so hard to determine whether basic statements are true or false? And to build larger, higher constructs out of those building blocks? That's basically what science has been and is. It seems comically easy to identify fake news in most cases. Was this inauguration crowd larger than that one? That's a simple question t…
That, in essence, is how we got here. There are plenty of loud, vocal defenders of "truth" out there, it's just that the loudest and most vocal of them define "truth" to mean "what our side believes".
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"There's no reason anyone has to respect ethno-nationalist views against immigrants." There are plenty of reasons to be against the current immigration regime that don't involve ethno-nationalism but it's nearly impossible to forward any such arguments without being accused of being an ethno-nationalist.
It sure doesn't help when our President says Mexican immigrants are "drug dealers and rapists", and wants to cut off immigration from "shithole countries".
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Just because there’s a semi-uniform political bend doesn’t mean they’re biased in product. The ACLU backed the KKK’s right to March, but clearly doesn’t stand with the KKK’s values. That’s something the Breitbart audience can’t wrap their mind around, as they’d never do the same.
> That’s something the Breitbart audience can’t wrap their mind around, as they’d never do the same. Which clearly reveals _your_ bias. Well done. You can't compare Google to the ACLU. The ACLU has a track record defending free speech and freedom of expression. As long as the speech and expression does not contravene any laws the ACLU will defend it – it's irrelevant to them what values the speech and expression they…
Google has been very consistent in showing its bias for an open, connected, free world where quality information is accessible. It was formed by immigrants, and has been vocal in their importance. The Trump campaign was the exact opposite of all of these things... a closed world busting traditional order apart, kicking out those “rapist criminal” immigrants, equating any quality information that disagreed as “fake news” despite the election has an unprecedented amount of actually fake and totally fabricated news spreading like wildfire to sell online ads. AdWords got caught up in it, and that had very real world consequences.
That’s what the reaction was, and it feels appropriate to me. That was a very somber day, and to many of us who believed in a free and open world it felt like a day of mourning.
All that said, doesn’t mean Google hasn’t been and can’t be neutral to data. If they aren’t, then they lose business and open themselves up to lawsuits as a monopoly abusing their power. Nothing you’ve said points to the fact that they’ve actually silenced “non-left” news. And having worked there twice, the culture I observed is such that they’d never want to do such things. It’s antithetical to their world view to silence political viewpoints (as opposed to genuinely made up clickbait garbage for the soul purpose of ads).
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the open source technologies they have created, Map/Reduce, Tensorflow... they essentially invented large scale cheap computing. This has had massive effect on the technology industry and the world.
Do you feel that Map/Reduce or Tensorflow are somehow tools of some sort of convoluted leftist, rightist or centerist agenda? Do the communists have an ideological position on large scale cheap computing? Those technologies do not require Google to be politically active in any way. Saying they are inherently political is like saying a supermarket is inherently political. Might be true in some technical sense, but pra…
> happy to call it a public good
Some supermarkets cut prices in half in advance of Hurricane Florence that is expected to make landfall today.
Other supermarkets maximize profitability and eliminated sale prices and discounts in advance of the hurricane.
Some supermarkets have large, prominent displays of unhealthy foods. Others emphasize healthy alternatives.
Sometimes merchandising decisions are purely profit-maximizing, other times they're trying to do good for their community while simultaneously making a profit.
If even a supermarket is political, how do you expect internet giants to be somehow non-political?
Virtually everything that they do involves tradeoffs that some people like and others don't.
Seems no one understands Popper's Paradox. Lots of talk about it being unfair that a workplace is intolerant of people who are intolerant. There are just some values that are not negotiable for a modern, civilized, homogeneous society. We're not talking about debates about the level of social welfare, or regulation, we're talking about common decency of treating people equally, regardless of gender, sexuality, or eth…
Except there are plenty of rational reasons one might want to restrict immigration by country, as even Gwern has gone over before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13859767 > immigrant outcomes differ by orders of magnitude by country and that this has considerable implications for the immigration debate and that many of the arguments made by the left for illegal immigration & open borders range from ignorant to…
Is your contention that the main thing about the election of Trump that upset the people in this video that he took a cooly rational stance against some forms of immigration?
Banning all Muslims -- including citizens and visa holders -- from entering the country does not seem to be aligned with this position.
Saying that a judge was unqualified to do his job because of where his parents were born does not seem to be aligned with this position.
Blasting the family of a soldier who died saving others on the basis of their race and religion does not seem to be aligned with this position.
If your point is that you're frustrated that Trump has lowered the standards of intellectual dialog in the country, well, join the club, friend.
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That's a tragic view. How did we get to the state where the "truth" is such an elusive concept? Is it so hard to determine whether basic statements are true or false? And to build larger, higher constructs out of those building blocks? That's basically what science has been and is. It seems comically easy to identify fake news in most cases. Was this inauguration crowd larger than that one? That's a simple question t…
Two days ago, partisan advocacy site ThinkProgress ran an article with the headline "Brett Kavanaught said he would kill Roe v. Wade last week and almost no-one noticed". The reason no-one noticed is because he said nothing of the sort and ThinkProgess knew as much. One of the fact checkers partnered with Facebook labelled it as false, they attached the usual warning, and this made ThinkProgress and a chunk of the le…
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I'm assuming you're totally against Asia then? Asian countries have been far more staunch against refugees. Japan for example accepted only 27 refugees in one year while rejecting 7,586 according to the Brookings Institute. South Korea accepted only 94 in one year. Refugees are pretty much shut off from Singapore and China and many other Asian countries. I'm curious why these countries don't receive the same flak for…
20, 30 years ago many of the same people clamoring for open borders now were speaking against globalization, corporate imperialism, cultural imperialism, but speaking for and on behalf of the cause of American workers who were being swapped out for offshoring, etc. But now the credo is open borders and strong companies which can stand against nation states and dictate values.... It’s as if the political magnetosphere…
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I find it reasonable, even somewhat logical, to label racists, sexists, homophobes, trans-phobes, immigrant-phobes, xenophobes, anti-semitists, islamophobes, etc. as monsters. Don't you? I'd be interested to hear why not? Personally, anyone who is actively seeking to enact hurtful policies against targeted individuals who have committed no crimes and shown no treat, in order to benefit themselves, could be logically…
Aaand that is just another example of what OP is talking about ;)
I guess I'm putting forward two points:
1) Being a hateful person with a desire to oppress innocents seems to aptly qualify for the label of monster.
2) Those who equate republicans with monsters do so because of the republicans' current active support and promotion of hateful people and their desire to oppress the innocents.
Nothing here seems unfair to me, or irrational. I feel it all simply follows. Oppressors are labeled as monsters, groups that are represented by oppressors and support oppression have their members labeled as monsters.
The logical follow up, is that if you yourself are not supportive of oppression, then disassociate yourself with the groups that are? Join another group that represents yourself more accurately? Form a new group which represents yourself more accurately? Or attempt to change the group so it becomes more accurately representative of yourself?
Why, if you are against the oppression, would you continue to support the group otherwise? There's only two reason I can think of. Because you're a partisan, and you just feel an irrational sense of belonging, like if it was a big family you are part of, and this is just the clan you belong too no matter what. Or because you are okay with the oppression put forward by the group if it means you also get X, Y, Z, etc. Where X, Y, Z are other policies like say banning abortion or maintaining gun rights.
Seems no one understands Popper's Paradox. Lots of talk about it being unfair that a workplace is intolerant of people who are intolerant. There are just some values that are not negotiable for a modern, civilized, homogeneous society. We're not talking about debates about the level of social welfare, or regulation, we're talking about common decency of treating people equally, regardless of gender, sexuality, or eth…
You cannot utter even the most platonic of right wing sentiments without the shrieks of frantic lunatics accusing you of being Hitler himself.
This idea of taboo subjects is exploited by nefarious far left activists, not for the cause of 'decency' or the preservation of western liberalism, but as a bludgeon to silence all thoughtcrime of the right.