Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, I really hate so say this, but this has hardly been the first time the US has gone into an unnecessary war. While you have also entered necessary wars, for which we, the other western countries, are truly grateful, you simply cannot say that with the Bush administration this is the first time something like this happens. For me, an anonymous person living in the Netherlands, it feels like these things happen when…
Making this a R vs D thing is silly. Vietnam was Democrat president. Obama has extended our current wars. Most of our wars have had public support at the beginning, and lost them over time. And as you noted, we've also been instrumental in necessary wars to everyone's benefit. Hindsight is great and all, but sometimes whether or not a war is necessary can't be seen at the outset. If Saddam had a nuke (and believe me…
Drop Dropbox
781–790 of 1001 posts
Re: Drop Dropbox
#782Earlier quoted context omitted.
No one is proposing laws about who can hold given positions. There is no free speech angle here. What's happening on HN is exactly what our system wants to happen: answer speech you don't like with more speech! There's a lot at stake here, which is why people are reacting so forcefully. What kind of values does the SV community have? What kind of values do Y Combinator and HN have? People are coming here because HN a…
> No one is proposing laws about who can hold given positions. There is no free speech angle here. This is a total straw man. The comment you are responding to does not mention "free speech" once. The point is: you are part of a significant, vocal group that is enjoying using its clout to blackball public figures from the tech industry over certain political views that are only held by a minority in tech. Should any…
Re: Drop Dropbox
#783Earlier quoted context omitted.
Making this a R vs D thing is silly. Vietnam was Democrat president. Obama has extended our current wars. Most of our wars have had public support at the beginning, and lost them over time. And as you noted, we've also been instrumental in necessary wars to everyone's benefit. Hindsight is great and all, but sometimes whether or not a war is necessary can't be seen at the outset. If Saddam had a nuke (and believe me…
You are correct that this shouldn't be made a R vs D thing, since that completely besides the point. I agree with all other points you
Re: Drop Dropbox
#784Earlier quoted context omitted.
The bush admin asserted that it could detain anyone without a trial and torture them. You know, they were trying to do good. We should just let that slide.
Let's see, is that better or worse than a drone strike? I guess President Obama is trying to keep you alive so it's okay if he takes out a few miscreant citizens with drone strikes, right? (And this is why these discussions belong somewhere else, not on Hacker News)
Re: Drop Dropbox
#785Think about what it means to the HN culture to have a subject that normally would have been flagged out of existence as overtly political suddenly be featured front and center in the apparent belief that ideological purity is now a litmus test for who can serve on a board of directors in the startup world. In a free society, people can unite in their business ventures even though they might be far apart in how they v…
You have to draw the line somewhere. Instructing your minions to torture a prisoner is way, way over the line for a lot of people, myself included. Sure, the Iraq war was a trillion dollar mistake, but that's just money. Live by the sword die by the sword and all that. A lot of Americans have a Christian upbringing, whether or not they ultimately believe in God. Torture is what Satan does -- that's the Satan, the per…
Re: Drop Dropbox
#786sudo apt-get remove dropbox; rm -rvf ~/.dropbox ~/.dropbox-dist done!
Re: Drop Dropbox
#787dd if=/dev/random of=~/Dropbox/junkFile bs=1024 count=1000000 Adjusting the count according to the account size (obviously).
If you do it again a few minutes later they will even help you out and store both copies!
Re: Drop Dropbox
#788Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, I really hate so say this, but this has hardly been the first time the US has gone into an unnecessary war. While you have also entered necessary wars, for which we, the other western countries, are truly grateful, you simply cannot say that with the Bush administration this is the first time something like this happens. For me, an anonymous person living in the Netherlands, it feels like these things happen when…
Making this a R vs D thing is silly. Vietnam was Democrat president. Obama has extended our current wars. Most of our wars have had public support at the beginning, and lost them over time. And as you noted, we've also been instrumental in necessary wars to everyone's benefit. Hindsight is great and all, but sometimes whether or not a war is necessary can't be seen at the outset. If Saddam had a nuke (and believe me…
To me it seems that there is not clear pattern, the most I can get out of it "if there is a president, then we might go to war"
Re: Drop Dropbox
#789Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That's growth. Exactly right. Everything we build has a political dimension. Every dollar or euro we spend is a vote. We have the knowledge, we have the skills, we have the power. But as long as we compartmentalize life and work, others use our talents for evil. The HN community has always held strong beliefs about political issues, but what did we do about it? It's time to exercise our power and ensure our money a…
> The HN community has always held strong beliefs about political issues, but what did we do about it? The problem is that "the HN community" doesn't have unified beliefs about nearly anything. There are people who are violently for and against: higher taxes, lower taxes, affirmative action, race-neutrality, abortion choice, life, fracking, nuclear power, wind power, birds, etc. If we declared that we couldn't work t…
Its the bane and blessing of all social groups. As they get larger, people get exposed to / interact with lots of viewpoints that might not have originally been part of the core. To some level this is good, as it broadens horizons and enhances discussion. At the extreme, it all becomes bland, vaguely funny photos of animals (mostly cats).
Its why community generated sub-forums / sub-reddits are kind of genius / kind of crap, as they let folks go off and sub-fracture as far as they want until the discussion matches whatever their internal worldview is. Of course, then nothing challenges their internal worldview.
Re: Drop Dropbox
#790Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd like like to redirect you back to adnam's comment. > Unlike Eich, Rice went far beyond simply holding beliefs and making donations. She held real power and used it in unconscionable ways. All I can say is that personally I find Eich and Condoleezza to be worlds apart. Nor do I think it is hypocritical to feel stronger about the Iraq War than about gay marriage. People will have different priorities.
The argument could be made that she was mislead by the CIA, just like Colin Powell was. I do agree that the Iraq War was a crime against humanity. Personally, I admire Rice, and don't think I would personally boycott Dropbox because of that choice. But I understand why some/many people would boycott Dropbox, and I don't think they're wrong to want to do so. The hypocrisy isn't in that the OP feels stronger about the…
Also Eich's donation was $1000, Rice's War was several billions and massively haemorrhaged US Economy.