Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pakistan cuts off phone and internet services on election day

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 220 posts

Re: Pakistan cuts off phone and internet services on election day

#161

Post by jowea »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #114
The_Colonel wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iron Curtain was a political, not cultural border. Western civilization usually includes all European catholic countries, i. e. also Poland. (Huntington is a notorious example)

>Western civilization usually includes all European catholic countries, i. e. also Poland. (Huntington is a notorious example) What about European Orthodox countries? Does civilization only tie to catholic religion?

Only person I know to try to actually sit down and draw civilization borders was Huntington and put the Orthodox on a separate but linked civilization to the Western world, but even he admitted that's arguable.

Although even then Poland counts as West.

Re: Pakistan cuts off phone and internet services on election day

#162

Post by ken47 »

choilive wrote: post #157
ken47 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This test seems to control your trajectory in Korean society to a very high degree, which seems like overkill in my view, because a test can only be so reflective of real-life skills. I have a family member who did very well on the test and got into Seoul National University, which is reputed to be the best university in Korea. According to them, their IQ is "only" 120-130, but they have very good memory, and are abl…

Korea has a long history (along with China) on using tests to determine your place in society. Korea's version of the civil service examinations (known as the gwageo) have been around for like a milleniun, and it was pretty much your only way into the middle and upper class of society. The university entrance exams is just the modern cultural continuation of it.

Which is why Korea has historically spent an inordinate proportion of its intellectual capital trying to pass an exam rather than innovating. Modern Korea is much better than that, but there is still room for improvement.

Re: Pakistan cuts off phone and internet services on election day

#163

Post by ken47 »

numpad0 wrote: post #159
standardUser wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could divide it into 5-10 different test, administered over the course of several years. Anything but what they are doing now, which sounds like it was custom designed to encourage drug abuse and suicide.

Isn't SAT tests in US exactly the same as the Korean system?

The Korean test is significantly more difficult, if for no other reason, it takes significantly more time than the SAT to complete. Also, the maximum question difficulty is said to be much harder.

Re: Pakistan cuts off phone and internet services on election day

#164

Post by ken47 »

standardUser wrote: post #142
klassik wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree There's a simple statistical argument behind it: the variance drops as you increase the number of tests. Let's say your true ability is A and you have one measurement M1. The variance (or, let's put it in another way: the probability that your M1 is waaaay different from your A) goes down if you also get M2, M3, M4 and take an average. In other words: your measurements become more precise and the stress go…

One could say that grades are an even better metric! They measure all manner of academic topics over many years and across many different instructors.

Only if the grades are assigned in a standardized manner across all candidates, which they definitely are not.

Re: Pakistan cuts off phone and internet services on election day

#165

Post by hackerlight »

renewiltord wrote: post #81
vbezhenar wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctrine is just a paper. It's not even constitution. It could be changed in a minute if necessary (or even post-factum or some sketchy justifications could be made up). It surprises me sometimes, how much value people put in some documents, disregarding those who can change or ignore those documents.

Everything is just paper or words. The constitution? Words. Only power is power. Only shackles constrain. Even computer code is just code. But in my experience, documents count for something because of the result of violating the documents. If your experience is that nothing you've said or written holds water, then so be it. We will see, in time, whose approach leads whom to a better life.

The constitution holds power because the judiciary is independent from the executive and congress. This friendly adversarial tension creates belief in the constitution (similar to social belief in currency) which makes it harder to dislodge. That goes out the window in a dictatorship. It becomes more about the self interest of one person, and if the piece of paper is against that then they'll throw it out.

Re: Pakistan cuts off phone and internet services on election day

#166

Post by vuln »

londons_explore wrote: post #152
tmpz22 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if exam season is just a convenient excuse to test the system in case it needs to be deployed for civic unrest.

I wonder how long exam season is... If it's a 3 hour period it's quite different than a 3 month period.

People can just sleep off 3 hours. If it were three months people would be finding another way within the first 7 days most likely less.

Re: Pakistan cuts off phone and internet services on election day

#167

Post by [deleted] »

chrisjj wrote: post #146
muststopmyths wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intent isn't to block voice calls, but (probably) spreading of misinformation via social networks and group chat apps. Where the definition of "misinformation" is up to the government.

> The intent isn't to block voice calls Then I wonder why they are blocking voice calls.

[deleted]

Re: Pakistan cuts off phone and internet services on election day

#168

Post by nodogoto »

numpad0 wrote: post #159
standardUser wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could divide it into 5-10 different test, administered over the course of several years. Anything but what they are doing now, which sounds like it was custom designed to encourage drug abuse and suicide.

Isn't SAT tests in US exactly the same as the Korean system?

You can take the SAT as many times as you want and only submit your best score, so the pressure isn't the same.

Re: Pakistan cuts off phone and internet services on election day

#169

Post by anamax »

renewiltord wrote: post #81
vbezhenar wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctrine is just a paper. It's not even constitution. It could be changed in a minute if necessary (or even post-factum or some sketchy justifications could be made up). It surprises me sometimes, how much value people put in some documents, disregarding those who can change or ignore those documents.

Everything is just paper or words. The constitution? Words. Only power is power. Only shackles constrain. Even computer code is just code. But in my experience, documents count for something because of the result of violating the documents. If your experience is that nothing you've said or written holds water, then so be it. We will see, in time, whose approach leads whom to a better life.

> But in my experience, documents count for something because of the result of violating the documents.

I'll bite - what's the "result" of violating a "no first use of nuclear weapons" statement?

There are two cases. In one case, you got nuked back. In the other, the folks that you nuked aren't in much of a position to do anything, having been nuked and all.

What is the "result" in both cases? (If said result requires someone doing something, who is that said someone and why/how are they going to act against an entity that has used nukes recently?)

Post reply on HN