671–680 of 1001 posts
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communism has killed more people than any other ideology or regime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Declaration_on_European...
I simply said they were not the same. You and another commenter have incorrectly inferred that I was talking about their victims. Says a lot more about you than it does about me.
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Actually it's super-easy; barely an inconvenience. Most Western customers really do not care. Like, really-really. The default attitude is "Well, China has its rules and the Western nations have theirs. They can get along." Leaks between rulesets are relatively rare in the sea of regular day-to-day operations. And honestly, I don't think the CCP's goals are as far different from the goals of, say, the US government's…
> Most Western customers really do not care. Like, really-really. I think this is starting to change and it gives me a lot of hope. The fallout from the NBA and Blizzard incidents was pretty significant and the HK protests received far more attention than any others in recent years.
Hope for what exactly? Honest question.
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Sure, but then we're back to "What mental gymnastics do techies do to justify buying hardware they know is made in sweatshop conditions in China?" Take that template and apply it to Googlers. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism; everyone has compromised a rigid belief structure somewhere.
I don't think it has to be mental gymnastics, but you are right that it is a real challenge. I think people (especially those in privileged positions like engs in the bay area) should feel empowered to think and decide their line as to what they want to support and contribute to the world.
A lot of engineers are wage slaves as much as anyone else. It's not like everyone wants to do this stuff.
EDIT: On a more personal note - I hope your name is actually "Bradly" and you're not "Bradley". And that you actually go by that in real life instead of "Brad". As I know there's some "Brad"s out there that like to buy up Bradly variations without actually going by it. It's killing me.
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The solution is to realize "hate speech" is mostly subjective and revert back to the clear rules that we had last decade before the current political climate of gratuitous outrage.
What if moderation of hate speech is part of the product?
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Ah yes, the idea that profit driven management is a better juror of freedom than our democratic society. Whatever they decide, they owe you no explanation or recourse. After all, these people are 'accountable' to wall street. To them 2008 and Boeing 737 were an unforceable turn of fortune, and they should bear no harm from it.
Please remember that democracy is a way to control a shared resource by the opinion of the majority, and it makes the minority submit to the decision of the majority. A democracy is more free than a tyranny, but it's not freedom incarnate. If 1.5B Chinese people totally democratically voted to ban particular words from usage worldwide, and were very serious at enforcing their decision, would you conform? I'd very muc…
I appreciate that corporate platforms are different than public spaces when it comes to free speech, but we've got a long way to go before US society broadly tolerates censorship by foreign entities (at least, I hope).
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I think that attitude of customers is changing as we speak. Before, sure, it was easy to ignore the ramblings of how the CCP was upset at something and a western company just gives into them. Now, anti-CCP sentiment is growing. I think western people are starting to realize how different we actually are. The CCP will be blamed for the pandemic (which is mostly correct), and you will see a massive decoupling here in t…
Hopefully not where the last anti-globalization movement did (isolationism, fascism, and a world war).
What we need to be worried about is if any of these powers start to sliding towards a major decline, right now things are good people have a lot to lose if there is a war; however if the balance of power is too lopsided and one of the sides is at real risk of losing, that's when nations get desperate and start to do things that are dangerous.
World War 1 would've never happened if the the Russian Empire wasn't on the brink of collapse, but Russia felt it had to act because it would slip out of the ranks of influential nations. That is when the tinderbox exploded.
What I fear is that in the next World War, the US is currently looking like Germany, with their fancy tech, their super "intellectual" military doctrine, and their entrenched bureaucracy.
Russia is keeping their armies battle ready and tested in the Ukraine and Crimea, the CCP isn't as battle ready but as Vietnam and Korea proved they still can beat the US. Things are going to be interesting over the next 20 years...
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Here are some numbers to keep you up at night, they are very scary: Google controls 91.89% of the search market [1] G controls 68% of the browser market [2] G's android is on 84% of phones operating systems [3] G has 73% of the search advertising market [4] [1] https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/544400/market-share-of-i... [3] https://beta.trimread.com/articl…
At risk of nitpicking, why do say "controls" rather than e.g. "services" or "handles"? When you say "controls" it's like you're saying Google has some kind of monopoly power that makes it hard to switch. And yet anyone can easily switch to e.g. DuckDuckGo. If that's a monopoly, it's not quite the kind of a monopoly we should generally be worried about. Browsers would be a different issue. In that case, there are netw…
Usually I consider terms like “control” to be hotheaded but if you substitute “is in control of Which results are returned” you can see the consequence could be nefarious. This understanding informed antitrust theory up to the 1980s.
I don’t use Google for anything myself except for communicating with my gf’s kids’ scout troop. That doesn’t mean I think they have a bunch of evil geniuses cackling and rubbing their hands in building 42. The rehetoric makes me think some people do think this.
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Are we playing "what censorship is OK censorship" now? No. It's a game that was played out long ago by responsible organizations. It's just that the tech industry is stumbling upon it these days. For example, responsible media outlets don't publish information about rape victims or suicides unless there is a compelling public interest.
And it even varies by culture. US media reporting on crimes in Germany tend to get confused (to the point that at least once they suspected some public cover up attempt) that they won't get the names of arrested suspects - that's part of our approach to privacy here, while apparently having the names out is considered a mechanism against misconduct by the police in the US (at least that's how it was explained to me w…
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>>The Founding Fathers could not have predicted this.>> Sure they could. They had the East India Tea Company. I'm not a legal expert but it seems like the fundamentals are pretty simple and timeless. If they have a monopoly, then their private get-out-jail-free card no longer applies.
As I read it, "this" refers to "a monopoly on communication/speech", not "a monopoly [of any kind]".
but fairly certain that a monopoly on permissible communication/speech was and is still held (in title at least) by the Crown
this is pretty much precisely what the 1nd amendment is about and why it was so radical at the time.
I think a more fundamental problem is a single private company having a near-monopoly on various public communication channels, and having financial interests in various global dictatorships. The Founding Fathers could not have predicted this. Google's "We're a private company" get-out-jail-free card cannot continue to apply.
Here are some numbers to keep you up at night, they are very scary: Google controls 91.89% of the search market [1] G controls 68% of the browser market [2] G's android is on 84% of phones operating systems [3] G has 73% of the search advertising market [4] [1] https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/544400/market-share-of-i... [3] https://beta.trimread.com/articl…
DuckDuckGo - search
Brave - browser
Android - you've got me there; but I might switch to Apple next year.
Gmail - ditto, but I'm hoping to switch to proton or similar
Youtube - alternatives like Bitchute exist for banned videos
Fortunately, although the GOOG does have a lot of best-in-class products out there, competition is rising. Consumers benefit from lots of choices.