71–80 of 123 posts
> The MIT Pirate Certificate is for entertainment purposes only and does not give the recipient license to engage in piracy or any pirate activities. Jeez, what buzzkills.
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> As we all know, the US defense apparatus, particularly its clandestine branch, has never done anything illegal. A letter of marque is a specific legal instrument. If the US (or Russian) government is recruiting and employing private sector hacking groups as cyberwarfare agents (as both probably are), whehter or not they are doing so legally under domestic and/or international law, they aren’t issuing letters of mar…
If they're issuing "non-prosecution agreements" or "immunity agreements" (which is likely what they're actually doing) isn't that fundamentally the same thing? The difference is essentially just semantics. It's like how the US hasn't officially been to war since World War II.
Marque is "we'll take credit for you officially, such that other countries won't be allowed to hang you as pirates".
Big difference.
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That seems rather ableist. As a trivial example, what happens to quadriplegics? Do they not get to go to MIT?
There are obviously commonsense exceptions granted. Also, you can fulfill the swim requirement by taking 1 beginner swim class regardless of whether you actually learn to swim during that class or not.
Rather a lot of the history of disabled and otherwise 'unusual' people seems to disprove how 'obvious' and 'commonsense' that idea is in practice.
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That seems rather ableist. As a trivial example, what happens to quadriplegics? Do they not get to go to MIT?
There are obviously commonsense exceptions granted. Also, you can fulfill the swim requirement by taking 1 beginner swim class regardless of whether you actually learn to swim during that class or not.
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There are obviously commonsense exceptions granted. Also, you can fulfill the swim requirement by taking 1 beginner swim class regardless of whether you actually learn to swim during that class or not.
> There are obviously commonsense exceptions granted. Rather a lot of the history of disabled and otherwise 'unusual' people seems to disprove how 'obvious' and 'commonsense' that idea is in practice.
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Reportedly the Russian government has issued letters of marque to hacking and cybercrime groups. I can imagine the same has happened in the US.
> Reportedly the Russian government has issued letters of marque to hacking and cybercrime groups. Those would only be metaphorical (and even then not a particular apt metaphor) letters of marque and reprisal; a literal letter of marque and reprisal is to a private vessel to attack and seize property from enemy vessels, converting acts which would otherwise be piracy under international law into lawful armed combat.…
"If they ever come up with a swashbuckling school I think one of the courses should be laughing, then jumping off something." -- Jack Handey I tried to register for pistol every single term and never got in; I think this may be the most difficult obstacle in obtaining MIT's pirate cert.
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I don't know why universities think the best way to decide enrollment is smashing the register button. My undergrad university had the sense to let everyone pick their first preferences within 24 hours of enrollment starting. Then for over-selected courses, people were enrolled randomly [1]. This was repeated once more, iirc, and then in the third round enrollment was instantaneous. This, thankfully, prevented virtua…
I mean, in this case it is probably considered a net win, MIT is known for its culture of "hacks", and having to game your way into the required courses adds to the challenge!
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> There are obviously commonsense exceptions granted. Rather a lot of the history of disabled and otherwise 'unusual' people seems to disprove how 'obvious' and 'commonsense' that idea is in practice.
Disabled I can readily see and I would be surprised if exemptions weren't granted in some form. "Unusual" I'm far less sympathetic towards if it involves simply not getting into the water as a matter of principle or preference.
Furthermore, where is the line between disability, principle and preference? Do religious reasons count? What about cultural ones? A friend of mine who was a Navy officer told me that the Nepalese he trained were absolutely terrified of water - the rivers were so cold in Nepal that they had a deep-rooted cultural association of water with danger. They needed to persevere because they had enlisted as frogmen, but why should a student of astrophysics do so?
The opportunity to justify one's reasons doesn't absolve the issue entirely either, as that effectively makes skills of persuasion, rather than swimming, the requirement. Finally, if you allow arbitrary requirements, which ones are reasonable? Swimming might be as unreasonable to someone brought up in a desert as mountain hiking might be to someone born and bred in Massachusetts.