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

shkspr.mobi

231–240 of 447 posts

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

#231
I generally turn off all emergency alerts completely, because anything I'd ever like to hear about, I would see from other sources, and generally, anything people try to force me to know is something I'm not interested in. I've experienced this phenomenon countless times: people generally push harder when they already know I wouldn't care. Anything actually interesting to me is self-evident and doesn't need to be pushed.

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

#232
Paraphrasing from Plato's The Republic, when the rulers and their auxillaries raise children with proper balance in the body and soul, there will be no need to deliberate on what is the right legislation, for the legislators themselves will be just in their duties.

In the end of the day, we need proper education, not only in technical excellence, but also societal awareness, what it means to be good and how to uphold oneself to such a standard even if everyone around them does not. This is how you defend against the men with guns.

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

#233

”Perhaps you can think of a way to design an alerting system which cannot be abused…” Staged rollout with engagement metrics that cancel the alert if it’s not alerty enough. Stages: one town, then a city, then one county, then everyone. Can be complemented by picking a percentage nationally as well, or picking two different towns (Croydon vs Barnstaple.) Engagement: Poll at each stage as to whether the message was us…

That ignores the men with guns, who would probably say that their alert is very important.

Take a look at the article. The issue is more complex.

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

#234

> But it is easy to see why some people feel this might open the gateway to messages which, at best, are irrelevant If you're in South Korea, you can expect to get around half a dozen emergency notifications every day . Typical contents include "it's cold, so dress warmly", "roads are icy, so drive carefully", and "Mrs Kim, 79, suffers from dementia and was last seen in Seoul wearing a black coat". You can set your p…

In the UK a few years ago, they tested the government emergency alert system, which was basically your phone turning into an air raid siren, regardless of what SMS filters you had set.

I would imagine South Korea has a similar system?

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

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Civil society only exists when there is a collective general trust that most people are trying to do the right thing. I was taught as a child that most people deep down genuinely want to be "good people". If only I had known what an absolute lie that really truly was, I'd have chosen a very different path for my life. Going out of my way to be a "good person" to the best of my ability was a total waste of a life th…

No you were not lied to. and thank you for heeding the good advice to not be a jerk. Whether you see it or not, the vast majority of people /are/ generally good, and more importantly they want to be around other people who value being good, not being a jerk. Folks who are all about money and power hang in different circles; I can’t speak to their happiness levels, but regular folks steer clear of them and warn others…

> Whether you see it or not, the vast majority of people /are/ generally good

I've always found this sentiment to exist exclusively in privileged and overly educated, left wing, Western circles. It is an extension of the philosophy built around tabula rasa, and posits that individuals are not to blame for their actions, but rather society. When someone harms another, it wasn't because they wanted to harm another, but because society failed to instill the correct values.

Even a cursory inspection of history would disabuse one of this notion, but the myth persists. I suspect it's because it clashes with another fundamental privileged and overly educated, left wing, Western belief: that inequality is always caused by injustice. That it cannot be a normal and expected outcome of people making different decisions. This fanciful ideal suggests that we should all be equally successful, with the same possessions and jobs and homes and values.

Back here in the real world, with zero exceptions, we know that power inevitably corrupts even the most chaste and moral of people. Humans are both a product of their environment and possess free will. Both. At the same time. Many people choose to use their free will to harm others, and in places where the rule of law fails, this proportion explodes. This suggests that some very large proportion of society chooses to not hurt others not because of some innate morality, but because of the consequences.

Of course I understand all of this conflicts so deeply with your beliefs that you will choose to dismiss them out of hand. Feel free to consider my comment nothing more than some superficial thoughts.

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

#236
post #230

> But it is easy to see why some people feel this might open the gateway to messages which, at best, are irrelevant If you're in South Korea, you can expect to get around half a dozen emergency notifications every day . Typical contents include "it's cold, so dress warmly", "roads are icy, so drive carefully", and "Mrs Kim, 79, suffers from dementia and was last seen in Seoul wearing a black coat". You can set your p…

> You can set your phone to filter these out, but then you'll also miss the notification about North Korea commencing artillery bombardment. Considering most of SK's population is in Seoul, and Seoul is within range of NK artillery, wouldn't most people be aware before the notification came anyways?

South Korean Intelligence and it's allies presumably have agents in the NK military who would give them advance notice.

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

#237
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much like people being arrested for online statements in the UK, while violent crime is swept under the rug or otherwise downplayed.

Violent crime in the UK is in long-term decline and despite what you may have heard, London is now safer than any US state. Violent crime in most western countries seems to me to be the opposite of downplayed - it’s up-played to whip up fear and support for populists, using emotive language and pointing to the worst examples rather than overall figures. The figures generally show we’re all so much safer from violent…

No, we're in a vicious cycle where the police rarely do anything helpful about violent crime, so people have stopped reporting it.

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

#238

> But it is easy to see why some people feel this might open the gateway to messages which, at best, are irrelevant If you're in South Korea, you can expect to get around half a dozen emergency notifications every day . Typical contents include "it's cold, so dress warmly", "roads are icy, so drive carefully", and "Mrs Kim, 79, suffers from dementia and was last seen in Seoul wearing a black coat". You can set your p…

[deleted]

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

#239
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can set your phone to filter these out, but then you'll also miss the notification about North Korea commencing artillery bombardment. Considering most of SK's population is in Seoul, and Seoul is within range of NK artillery, wouldn't most people be aware before the notification came anyways?

South Korean Intelligence and it's allies presumably have agents in the NK military who would give them advance notice.

NK can just set up their own cell phone receiving SK alerts and know that they know and cancel the strike, making it into a boy that called wolf situation and possibly exposing agents.

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

#240

> But it is easy to see why some people feel this might open the gateway to messages which, at best, are irrelevant If you're in South Korea, you can expect to get around half a dozen emergency notifications every day . Typical contents include "it's cold, so dress warmly", "roads are icy, so drive carefully", and "Mrs Kim, 79, suffers from dementia and was last seen in Seoul wearing a black coat". You can set your p…

I saw a video about a fatal oil drilling accident where the resulting investigation found that an operator had ignored the alarm which indicated the underlying issue because there were other alarms sounding for things he'd been told to ignore because they were benign. This is apparently common enough cause of problems that there is a term for it (other than "crying wolf"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_fatigue…

On a finance level this is why correctly setting 'accidental trade limits' correctly is important. Otherwise traders see them so often they click through them.
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