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

And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway

shkspr.mobi

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 447 posts

Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway

#41

Post by cwmoore »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #36
jameskilton wrote: post #3

A good article, but missing one very important word: trust. Civil society only exists when there is a collective general trust that most people are trying to do the right thing. Said society also finds it incredibly important to remove or nullify those who aren't trustworthy because "a rotten apple spoils the whole bunch ". Trust is hard to earn, and easy to lose, and it only takes one person exploiting the trustwort…

Trust is a Continuum. I have relatives who grew up in places where you didn't need to lock the door at night and those who have to lock the door at night but that's enough and those for who that is not enough. I am reminded of a story I read lately of a woman who was shocked when her passport and purse were stolen from the beach while she was swimming. Somehow she had the perception that she was in a high trust worth…

Sounds very binary, I don’t see the continuum. More like a steep cliff of shocking betrayal.

Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway

#42

Post by anthony_d »

ryandrake wrote: post #25
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beautifully said. I feel as if the society that we are living in does have a lot of implicit trust and if I may, I would like to add onto it with a few things. Trust works in a society when incentives are aligned with trust ie. you trust the society, the society trusts you back and you do the work with these principles and you are rewarded. Even this belief is something that you must trust that the society is fair. T…

People have given up on the very concept of society. Everyone is racing to shred the Social Contract and revert society back to Do What You Can Get Away With lawlessness. We're replacing institutions with individualism. We're replacing "We're all in it together" with "We're in it for ourselves." We're replacing collective stewardship of shared resources with "I got mine, fuck everyone else!" One's Community has stopp…

The part I think people have given up on is the contract. There are no rights without obligations and there are no obligations with repercussions.

Side rant… every time I’ve heard "We're all in it together" it’s been from someone who believes the opposite. That phrase just grates now.

Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway

#43

Post by coldtea »

californical wrote: post #26
HWR_14 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously the ideal number of jails is not zero, but why wouldn't the ideal number of homeless people be zero?

I’m guessing there’s a bit of breathing room at the lower end of the system - there will be people who become drug addicts or have major mental health breaks and lose everything. And ideally we have good safety nets that find these people and give them resources and treatment, but some people will refuse everything and end up in bad situations of homelessness due to their drug and/or mental health crises. And even in…

>I’m guessing there’s a bit of breathing room at the lower end of the system - there will be people who become drug addicts or have major mental health breaks and lose everything

So? Why can't a 21st century country provide them with some at-least pod-like homes, so they are not fucking homeless?

Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway

#44

Post by raffael_de »

cwmoore wrote: post #37
cjs_ac wrote: post #17

Technology cannot solve social problems. Societies can solve social problems using technology, just as they can without using technology, but ultimately it is the society that solves the problem.

Hmm... technology sure seems to create, or at least to expose, a lot of societal problems, and does solve a lot of problems in exchange for a lot of money. Not sure the true rule is as stated.

care to provide examples?

Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway

#46

Post by cwmoore »

raffael_de wrote: post #44
cwmoore wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm... technology sure seems to create, or at least to expose, a lot of societal problems, and does solve a lot of problems in exchange for a lot of money. Not sure the true rule is as stated.

care to provide examples?

No, not really. I’m just questioning the axiomatic statement.

Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway

#47

Post by like_any_other »

jMyles wrote: post #8

> How would you design a system that simultaneously achieved all these goals: There is an obvious solution that achieves all of these, that, on 1000 year timescales, seems inevitable: deprecation of the nation-state. The internet solves every problem the nation-state purports to. For example, the very real problem of coordination, eloquently and convincingly outlined in the federalist papers (tldr: we need a central…

> The internet solves every problem the nation-state purports to.

Nations organize themselves into states to protect and promote their interests, including their existence as cultural and ethnic groups, from competing states (and other dangers, e.g. natural disasters). A.k.a. politics.

I was not aware politics has been solved by the internet.

Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway

#48

Post by ezfe »

rglover wrote: post #30
esseph wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few days ago I submitted what may have been the largest data breach in history. It got 1 upvote and vanished. I haven't even seen people MENTION the breach here.

What's the breach/link you tried to share?

You can click their profile and see it

Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway

#49

Post by 9x39 »

raffael_de wrote: post #44
cwmoore wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm... technology sure seems to create, or at least to expose, a lot of societal problems, and does solve a lot of problems in exchange for a lot of money. Not sure the true rule is as stated.

care to provide examples?

Social media exposes weakpoints in human nature - mob mentalities, comparisons of global norms over local ones. People died and many more are likely disturbed and divided.

India comes to mind as some of the earliest worst-case examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_WhatsApp_lynchings

I buy into teen mental health tanking correlating with the rise of mobile social media in 2012: https://archive.is/frHnA

I think there's probably far more powerful but hard to describe and prove effects out there in play by connecting to a global async awareness network, but I'll leave it there.

Re: And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway

#50

Post by [deleted] »

djoldman wrote: post #15

> How would you design a system that simultaneously achieved all these goals: > Rapid sending of messages > Careful checking of the content of messages > Ability to quickly target a specific geographic area > Inability to mistakenly send a test message > Requiring strong proof that the message is authentic before sending > Resilient enough to work after significant damage to infrastructure > That networks have the ab…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN