Oppose the Earn IT Act • Hacker News Board

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#221

Post by ocdtrekkie » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:00 PM UTC

manuelabeledo wrote: post #206

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to challenge you to find me a company selling malware on CBS or NBC, but then I remembered Google runs TV ads, so fair point. /s And importantly, broadcast television doesn't get Section 230 protections, and does just fine. A great example of why tech companies don't need immunity. Broadcast TV ads are sold on a smaller scale, such that humans are involved in the process and bad actors are caught early. >…

This doesn't address my question though: is it true that a significant percentage of Google's Adsense revenue comes from such ads? I'm not denying that Google profits from these, that would be silly. My point is that broadcast companies run morally questionable ads all the time, yet it seems that we should be holding Google for a higher level of accountability. Take for example drug commercials. If you are concerned…

> This doesn't address my question though

I did address it, though the answer is disappointing: Only Google (or someone with Google's private business data) could give you that number. But it's absolutely much higher than they'd like you to believe. I just can't tell you if it's 30%, 60%, or 90% of their revenue, the public doesn't have access to that information. I'm confident that how ever much you believe it is, it's higher.

> yet it seems that we should be holding Google for a higher level of accountability

On the contrary, repealing Section 230 would place Google on the same level of accountability as broadcast companies. Section 230 carves out a special immunity to prosecution and lawsuit that only applies to online platforms. Broadcast companies are already held to all of the laws and risks that Section 230 is protecting Google and Facebook from.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#222

Post by godelski » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:01 PM UTC

elihu wrote: post #197

godelski wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with Fair Vote and the CGP Grey videos, while I like them for an introduction to the subject, both have two very misleading points. 1) When they say RCV they specifically mean Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). There are many other, and better, RCV methods. 2) They overclaim IRV's ability to solve the spoiler effect (see my other comment for links). While other RCV methods have strong resistance to spoiler effe…

I think when people talk about RCV (in the context of single-winner elections), they're almost always talking about the same thing as IRV. "Ranked voting" is the more general term. > Ranked voting is any election voting system in which voters use a ranked (or preferential) ballot to rank choices in a sequence on the ordinal scale: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. There are multiple ways in which the rankings can be counted to det…

I'm basically agreeing with literally everything you are saying, I just want to expand on certain things.

> RV vs RCV

These terms are too similar and really just confuse people, which is why I push back against it. I try to use "ordinal" a lot, but it is best for places like HN but not when I'm discussing with family. RCV makes people think that this is the only way you can rank people.

> STAR

Anyone who is advocating for STAR has my approval. It is the preferred system in my mind. I want to plug my longer post that has a lot of links and expands on all the topics you described

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23705413

> Fair Vote frustration

I think this is a style of argument that is increasingly becoming more common and is destructive. Pushing the your argument past the point of validity in an effort to make it stronger. Their use of broad classes is a gross mischaracterization. When they discuss Condorcet methods they discuss several types, lumping together the worst features from different ones. But they ignore the good methods like RP and Schulze. The comparisons are unfair. But then again, they aren't trying to appeal to people that are informed on the subject, they are trying to appeal to the masses which are completely unfamiliar with the subjects. But I do not think this justifies the outright lying and mischaracterizations.

> Spoilers and Strategy

In my other post I actually link an example of where IRV fails, and it is the specific type of spoiling that we are about: when similar candidates spoil (e.g. Bernie and Biden, not Stein and Biden). IRV doesn't solve this (but FV claims otherwise).

For strategy, this is the argument that I get into with the Condorcet camp (though we're clearly on the same side and these are nuanced friendly arguments not hostile). To me STAR is good because its range of VSE is more compact (i.e. resistant to strategies). The Condorcet camp claims that there is enough dis-incentivization to not vote strategically therefore just maximize VSE (VSE is only slightly different between STAR05 and RP). So for anyone listening on the sidelines, this is really what we're arguing, minutia. I'm certain everyone in the Condorcet camp would vote for STAR and everyone in the STAR/Score/Approval camp would vote for Condorcet (specifically RP) if given the chance.

> Center For Election Science

I'd also like to mention Equal Vote, which advocates for STAR. https://www.equal.vote/starvoting

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#223

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #220

apeace wrote: post #208

If you want to convince your friends they should support encryption, here's how I like to get past the "nothing to hide" argument. Imagine we're sitting at a bar, chatting. None of us have anything to hide. Then the government passes a law that all conversations must be streamed on Youtube Live, so an agent comes in, sets up a camera at our table, and starts streaming. We still don't "have anything to hide". We're ju…

I'm stealing your analogy but I'm also ready for people to smugly proclaim that they would have no issue with livestreaming their entire life since they have nothing to hide.

[deleted]

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#224

Post by newfeatureok » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:09 PM UTC

apeace wrote: post #208

If you want to convince your friends they should support encryption, here's how I like to get past the "nothing to hide" argument. Imagine we're sitting at a bar, chatting. None of us have anything to hide. Then the government passes a law that all conversations must be streamed on Youtube Live, so an agent comes in, sets up a camera at our table, and starts streaming. We still don't "have anything to hide". We're ju…

I'm not really sure this is a good argument at all. In your scenario, if the two people have nothing to hide why would they care?

You're better of appealing to things that they normally might want to hide, like an embarrassing act or things that are said that are questionable out of context, etc.

A person who truly has nothing to hide, by definition, would not care about privacy. The entire point of privacy is that there are things that we do not want to share, for whatever reason.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#225

Post by lkxijlewlf » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:09 PM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #220

apeace wrote: post #208

If you want to convince your friends they should support encryption, here's how I like to get past the "nothing to hide" argument. Imagine we're sitting at a bar, chatting. None of us have anything to hide. Then the government passes a law that all conversations must be streamed on Youtube Live, so an agent comes in, sets up a camera at our table, and starts streaming. We still don't "have anything to hide". We're ju…

I'm stealing your analogy but I'm also ready for people to smugly proclaim that they would have no issue with livestreaming their entire life since they have nothing to hide.

Or worse, the one's who smugly say you have no expectation of privacy while in public anyway.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#226

Post by apeace » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:09 PM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #220

apeace wrote: post #208

If you want to convince your friends they should support encryption, here's how I like to get past the "nothing to hide" argument. Imagine we're sitting at a bar, chatting. None of us have anything to hide. Then the government passes a law that all conversations must be streamed on Youtube Live, so an agent comes in, sets up a camera at our table, and starts streaming. We still don't "have anything to hide". We're ju…

I'm stealing your analogy but I'm also ready for people to smugly proclaim that they would have no issue with livestreaming their entire life since they have nothing to hide.

That’s the best part. Remind them that it’s not about you. It’s about whistleblowers and journalists who need to protect their sources, and lawyers who need to communicate with their clients. That tends to bring the ego down a peg ;)

But honestly, it’s best not to be aggressive. Some people don’t care much, and you won’t convince them.

FWIW, all my non-technical friends use Signal with me, and they know about verifying safety numbers! It can be done.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#227

Post by lkxijlewlf » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:10 PM UTC

apeace wrote: post #226

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm stealing your analogy but I'm also ready for people to smugly proclaim that they would have no issue with livestreaming their entire life since they have nothing to hide.

That’s the best part. Remind them that it’s not about you . It’s about whistleblowers and journalists who need to protect their sources, and lawyers who need to communicate with their clients. That tends to bring the ego down a peg ;) But honestly, it’s best not to be aggressive. Some people don’t care much, and you won’t convince them. FWIW, all my non-technical friends use Signal with me, and they know about verify…

> ... It’s about whistleblowers and journalists

They'll say the media is the enemy and whistleblowers are traitors who should be shot on site. I'm not even kidding; they'll say this.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#228

Post by Dahoon » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:13 PM UTC

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #205

treis wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>as horrible as this is do you think that banning encryption will put an end to the abuse itself? No, but there's a huge excluded middle between the level of abuse with easy E2E encryption and no abuse. >prevent the greater evil which is that of normalization of mass-surveillance within society (any more than it is already) which will ultimately destroy more lives. Facebook has been around for 15 years now without E2…

> No, but there's a huge excluded middle between the level of abuse with easy E2E encryption and no abuse. call me old fashioned but every time I look at porn (which is very rare these days) I am disgusted by the meta-data that is added to these videos. It shows that people love to click on videos that read "stepdad and stepdaughter ..." and similar taglines. America has a problem with the whole "call me daddy" fetis…

> America has a problem with the whole "call me daddy" fetish. I never understood what this is about. It's deeply pedophelic imho

It is impossible to have a discussion on this topic when some people use the word Pedophilia to cover "babies and small children" and others are using it to cover zero to eighteen year olds. While it might be immoral or illegal if a 55 year old is having sex with a 16 year old it isn't pedophilia. A Daddy kink is incest, again not pedophilia. Please use the correct terms. Otherwise it muddies the discussion until no one can discuss it at all.

>why do they have to strangle each other during sex?

Okay, now it smells like SJW and white-knighting. Many women fantasize about being raped, dominated and strangled. There's nothing bad or wrong in living out those fantasies. It doesn't normalize violence or cause rape.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#229

Post by zelly » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

This is the consequence of companies like Discord letting child predators run rampant on their platform and doing nothing about it. There are two sides to every story. You can imagine how the government would react after seeing hundreds and hundreds of cases coming out of Discord, Snap, even FB.

Reading the actual bill[1] rather than sensational headlines, you can see this is mostly about creating a tip line and bureauracy for reporting CP. Ctrl+F "encrypt" 0 results. Me no care. Deal with it Discord. Pass it.

[1] https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/s3398/BILLS-116s3398is.pd...

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#230

Post by NineStarPoint » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #213

lukifer wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's probably the case. Nonetheless, I would claim "lesser evilism" would be greatly reduced due to RCV (and Approval) being better at capturing preferences: you get to vote for your favorite option, and against your least favorite option. I think there's a strong argument that RCV/Approval would shift the incentives and game-theoretic landscape away from polarization and turnout, and towards big-tent coali…

> would be greatly reduced due to RCV (and Approval) being better at capturing preferences The problem is that IRV/RCV doesn't capture your preferences, because it ignores all your preferences except your top choice, until your top choice is eliminated. IRV is reasonably good at making sure that third-parties can't prevent first-parties from being elected, but very bad at actually allowing third parties to actually b…

While I’d take approval voting over FPTP, to me it exacerbates the issue of voting being highly tactical. Checking approve on someone I believe to be more popular than my favorite candidate lowers the chance my favorite candidate wins. If there’s someone I believe to be an existential threat to the country on the ballot, my best choice might be to check everyone other than them even if that means checking the box of someone I dislike. Essentially, you again have to choose how much you care about voting for your favorite option vs voting against your least favorite option. If I truly did check the box for anyone I was okay with being President then approval voting would be okay, but that would never be the right way to vote on the ballot given my preferences. In this way I prefer IRV, despite it’s shortcomings.

That all said, full ranking systems are definitely the superior option, and I’d certainly take approval over our current state.