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MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

media.mit.edu

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Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#161

Post by am_i_down »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #136
geofft wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sam Altman agrees: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/business/how-trump-became... > “Trump is the Silicon Valley candidate in every way except that the ideology is flipped,” said Sam Altman, a prominent technology leader, chief executive of Y Combinator and a major Hillary Clinton donor. “He’s an outsider. He took on a system he thought was broken and then disregarded the rules, he got to know his users well and tes…

> Sam Altman has also built a tool for holding Trump to his campaign promises. More about this would be much appreciated. Is it general purpose (could it work on arbitrary politicians)?

The poster is likely referring to track-trump.com.

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#162

Post by SexyCyborg »

severine wrote: post #152
SexyCyborg wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. I submitted my application based on the FashionTech wearable I designed, built and wore to protest the lack of inclusion of any local women at a Western tech event here in Shenzhen. http://i.imgur.com/2D8dESV.jpg I ended up stomping around a mainland Chinese tourist attraction half-naked in it, giving speeches to massive Chinese crowds about an inclusion issue. http://i.imgur.com/9Dz9M9N.jpg Anyone who knows any…

Hey, I'm going through your Pastebin ( http://pastebin.com/u/SexyCyborg ) and it's really interesting, informative, and eye-opening. Keep it up, that's some voice!

Thanks:)

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#164

Post by lambdadmitry »

rwallace wrote: post #154
lambdadmitry wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've already wrote about that on HN, but I believe it's worth reiterating. Alexandra Elbakyan is not an example of disobedience. In fact, she is very obedient to the rules of society she lives in (she is an avid Putin's supporter), it's just those rules are different from the West. Her risks over SciHub project is negligible while she lives in Russia, and given her views, I think it's unlikely she want to live somewh…

Alexandra Elbakyan is staying in Russia, yes. That's why she's still alive while Aaron Swartz unfortunately isn't and given that the award has to go to a live political activist and champion of human rights, that's why I've nominated her. Demanding our heroes die to prove their sincerity is, let's just say, not a helpful position to take.

You are over-dramatizing things. EFF members or the judge who overturned Trump's travel ban are alive. It's not like people are routinely killed in US over copyright infringement or political protest as your comment implies.

>a live political activist and champion of human rights

You emphasized "live" there, but I would rather emphasize

> political activist

> champion of human rights

Alexandra Elbakyan is neither. It's just an opportunistical breaking of rules that are not enforced in Russia, and nothing I've read from her (except her interviews to Western media) implies her "political activism" or "championship of human rights".

However, if you still thing that she is worthy of the prize, I would also suggest nominating the owners of pornolab.net. It's one of the largest porn trackers out there, and it's online for a dozen years at least. It's in Russian, which I believe is one of the main reasons it's still online.

On the more general note: the enemy of your enemy is not your friend, it's a tactical ally.

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#165

Post by Chris2048 »

komali2 wrote: post #126
glomek wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aaron Swartz being dead is becoming annoying.

Aaron Swartz is mostly dead because of untreated mental illness. The things that happened to him were bad, but it's not MIT's fault he was suicidal.

It's not at all MIT's fault, blame lies with the prosecutor. In fact, blame also lies with the prosecutor when the defendant didn't end up committing suicide; and by extension, the various societal institutions that one way or another have allowed such overzealous legal harassment to be accepted.

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#166

Post by erinniehaus »

I nominate Fiskkit.com A new site which is a BS filter for news/online content and lets there be a discussion of an article or text that favors facts and logic. Kinda cool. Anyone can tag news article for true/false/bias and nine other things...democratizing civic engagement and disobedience by putting BS filter into hands of anyone. I know they are looking for help to try and root out the crap that passes for news and discourse online and get people more engaged.

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#167

Post by komali2 »

am_i_down wrote: post #128
komali2 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal industry is dead, pretending otherwise is not healthy or helpful. Attacking the media is not healthy or helpful. His most egregious crime is destabilizing public trust in climate change facts. The world climate is changing because of human actions, and drastic action must be taken by world leaders to prevent catastrophic damage (aka, human extinction events). Leaders like Trump that deny the facts contribute to…

There is no human organization that should be free from scrutiny. Actions taken by members of the media and academia have significantly contributed to public distrust, long before Trump entered the political arena. He is simply capitalizing quite effectively on those, and other, sentiments. If coal is dead, so are millions of humans. It remains a significant source of global energy, especially in developing countries…

Hillary and Bernie hasn't used a bully-pulpit to attack climate change facts.

If we don't do something about climate change right now, it will kill our species. We were doing something, and those efforts are already being reversed via anti-environmental (and anti-human) EPA appointments.

Your arguments about racism are irrelevant to me considering the context.

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#168

Post by natch »

natch wrote: post #148
bloaf wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Engaged in" makes it sound like they're more interested in ongoing disobedience, e.g. the folks at sci-hub.

Not sure where you are drawing your implied conclusion that Snowdon is not engaged in ongoing disobedience, but I would say Snowdon has remained pretty darn engaged with the issues he brought to light. And his disobedience is certainly ongoing, in that he isn't obeying the call from authorities to turn himself in to a system which is virtually guaranteed to deny him fair treatment.

Snowden* sigh, can't edit any longer.

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#169

Post by Chris2048 »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #130

I see a lot of support for nominating Aaron Swartz on this page. Why not Chelsea Manning instead? Consider this: her actions parallel Swartz's actions (she liberated information), except that they could potentially benefit many, many more people the world over; Swartz's disobedience would primarily benefit academics (though of course the benefits would sort of trickle down to the rest of the population, eventually).…

Manning isn't in a position to do much now, though?

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#170

Post by Chris2048 »

coldtea wrote: post #57
kzrdude wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your logical leap there is not sound.

Not much of a leap. At some point you either take a stand, even if it's against the official stance of the organization you work with, or you are branded with its decisions. "I was just following orders" and/or "I disagreed, but I was in the minority" is not an excuse.

> "I was just following orders" and/or "I disagreed, but I was in the minority" is not an excuse.

Yes is is, both are valid.

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