Turn your 404s into lost children alerts • Hacker News Board

Re: Turn your 404s into lost children alerts

#171

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Sep 26, 2012, 6:42 PM UTC

watty wrote: post #167

anigbrowl wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't. This kind of argument is commonly advanced, but it neglects the opportunity cost of over-saturation causing people not to pay attention or care. This is the lesson of the fable about the boy who cried wolf. Noise ends up swamping the signal. When I notice the 'missing kids' thing on the weekly coupons that show up in my mailbox, as often as not it's some kid that disappeared 10, 15, 25 years ago. That's…

Are you claiming that over saturation is worse than zero saturation? To be honest, I can't remember the last "missing child" face I saw. If I visited Reddit today and saw a face of a kid in my state that was missing, I'd be more likely to pick them out. This program isn't getting forced by anyone but claiming it would do worse than "no good" is ignorant.

We do not have zero saturation. There are many other channels besides the 404 one suggested above.

To be honest, I can't remember the last "missing child" face I saw.

That may be because you have subconsciously stopped looking.

Re: Turn your 404s into lost children alerts

#172

Post by darkarmani » Thu, Sep 27, 2012, 2:14 AM UTC

fusiongyro wrote: post #49

zmj wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please read this: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=psychology-... > When people are asked to trade their sacred values for values considered to be secular—what psychologist Philip Tetlock refers to as a “taboo tradeoff”—they exhibit moral outrage, express anger and disgust, become increasingly inflexible in negotiations, and display an insensitivity to a strict cost-benefit analysis of the exchange. W…

An interesting article about human behavior. How nice. However, I don't see a categorical disproof in there of the idea that saving lives is something worth spending time and money on, so could you take a minute and connect the dots for us plebs? Thanks.

Why don't we make the speed limit 5 MPH and save a large number of the 45k deaths a year in the US? We could save thousands of lives, but it won't happen.

Re: Turn your 404s into lost children alerts

#173

Post by fusiongyro » Thu, Sep 27, 2012, 4:22 PM UTC

darkarmani wrote: post #172

fusiongyro wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting article about human behavior. How nice. However, I don't see a categorical disproof in there of the idea that saving lives is something worth spending time and money on, so could you take a minute and connect the dots for us plebs? Thanks.

Why don't we make the speed limit 5 MPH and save a large number of the 45k deaths a year in the US? We could save thousands of lives, but it won't happen.

So, in your mind, a nearly zero cost repurposing of the 404 page is equivalent to reducing the speed limit by 75-95%? Not saying it's a good idea to apply this, but the detractors are blowing the cost way out of proportion.