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Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

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Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#181

Post by pookeh »

jondubois wrote: post #178
josefresco wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I like and respect who Aaron was and what he did for us all, I cringed when reading "I Hate the News" because it came across as very naive. It's the same logic young people use to justify not voting, also the same logic my fellow parents use as reason for not attending town meeting. Find new sources, find your news. While today's news doesn't effect you directly, it might tomorrow, or it might effect your frien…

>> It's the same logic young people use to justify not voting What's wrong with not voting? If you're a regular person, it takes a lot of time and energy and you get nothing out of it. One vote never made a difference. I don't buy the argument that "If everyone thought like that, then it would make a terrible difference"... This statement is bullshit because the premise is false to begin with; most people will not th…

> If you're a regular person, it takes a lot of time and energy and you get nothing out of it. One vote never made a difference.

Except when you start preaching that idea, then you are part of the masses that think that way, and hence the minority of people who do vote, and who do not represent the majority opinion, are the ones that influence the outcome.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#182

Post by reaperducer »

choxi wrote: post #125
josefresco wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I like and respect who Aaron was and what he did for us all, I cringed when reading "I Hate the News" because it came across as very naive. It's the same logic young people use to justify not voting, also the same logic my fellow parents use as reason for not attending town meeting. Find new sources, find your news. While today's news doesn't effect you directly, it might tomorrow, or it might effect your frien…

> It's the same logic young people use to justify not voting He provides some pretty good reasoning that ignoring the news and doing candidate research might be make you a more informed voter. Could you give an example of something you learned or read in the news that had a practical effect on your life?

Could you give an example of something you learned or read in the news that had a practical effect on your life?

Today the news told me that a particular road I use to get to work is closed.

Yesterday the news told me that a charity I usually contribute to, but forgot to this year, is falling short of its annual fundraising goal.

Last week the news told me that a product I use has been recalled for safety reasons.

The only people who say that the news is irrelevant to their lives are people who don't actually consume the news, and choose to imagine that the reality is identical to the parody in their minds.

There are more news sources today than ever. If you don't like the one in front of you, there are others.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#183

Post by mdpopescu »

Vraxx wrote: post #126
dhimes wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With apologies to Pascal[1] You assume your vote doesn't matter. Then If you are correct and you vote, nothing happens. If you are correct and you don't vote, nothing happens. If you are wrong but you vote, you help make change. If you are wrong and you don't vote, you enable bad things to come about. Game theory says to vote. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

Not to mention with all of the recent events in the US related to voter suppression, my question to people who espouse the opinion of "my vote doesn't matter", my question is this. Then why are those in power actively seeking to undermine this ability that is "useless". If it truly was useless I doubt they'd be scared enough to act against it.

It's a well-known scam. You make something difficult to get in order to make it look more important than it is.

"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." Emma Goldman

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#184

Post by reaperducer »

jondubois wrote: post #180
reaperducer wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One vote never made a difference. ...is the sort of thing said by people who don't watch the news and because of that are unaware of the number of manual re-counts that are done each election.

Getting an accurate count is not the issue; that's part of the show. The issue is that you only have one single vote out of hundreds of millions and the pool of candidates is ridiculously, ridiculously limited. In a fair system with over 300 million potential candidates, how likely would it be that a father and his son would both be elected as president (as was the case for George Bush junior/senior)? What about the…

how likely would it be that a father and his son would both be elected as president

If all 300 million people lived identical lives and had identical histories, then the chances are about one in 300 million.

In the real world, people who take specific life paths, get specific degrees, and acquire specific skills are more likely than others to end up in a particular place. Especially when the other 299,999,999 people get to weigh in on the decision.

Just as not every one of those 300 million people has an equal chance of becoming a database administrator at Google, and not every one of those 300 million people has an equal chance of becoming a barista.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#185

Post by __d »

e40 wrote: post #90
soneca wrote: post #20

His post "I hate the news" (0) was(is) very influential for me personally. It was seminal in what become a rather significant change in my habits and view of the world. I am now very conscious that news are entertainment, purely and simply. With the goods and bads of any other entertainment form. From time to time, while explaining my position to others (often seen as kind of radical), I refer this post. I hope it co…

Perhaps this will be of interest: https://thecorrespondent.com/ I donated to them on the weekend, after watching The Daily Show interview with a founder.

I have been on the waiting list since they announced the international edition a while back. I'm looking forward to seeing how it works out.

It's still a biased source, of course, but at least it's outside the advertising-driven bubble.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#186

Post by ptero »

sh33mp wrote: post #166
ptero wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We frequently need to update our mental model of the world (e.g., how are things in country X? what can I do there? is it reasonably safe to visit? what happened yesterday at place Y?). However, mainstream news usually gives me little information and whatever it gives is skewed by that channel/journalist political affiliation. I do not know of a general solution. Sometimes it is talking to neighbors; sometimes doing…

>I grew up in a place practicing one-candidate votes (i.e., you choose between "in favor" that in the end will show 95+% and "against" with no alternatives) so acquired immunity to "citizen votes solve all problems" mentality. I grew up in a place with effectively single party rule, and it was imbued into our culture that it's pointless to vote because you'll never unseat that party anyway. A big recent change was wh…

> This "don't vote for the lesser of two evils" business is nonsense.

I was talking literally, not figuratively: two options would be "yes" or "no" for a single candidate. There would not be an option for a second candidate, however unlikely to win. Thus, sorry, I am not buying "use your right to vote relentlessly" whatever the options. If the ballot box is rigged, the other three boxes of liberty (soap, jury or ammo) should be considered instead. My 2c.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#187

Post by jondubois »

pookeh wrote: post #181
jondubois wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It's the same logic young people use to justify not voting What's wrong with not voting? If you're a regular person, it takes a lot of time and energy and you get nothing out of it. One vote never made a difference. I don't buy the argument that "If everyone thought like that, then it would make a terrible difference"... This statement is bullshit because the premise is false to begin with; most people will not th…

> If you're a regular person, it takes a lot of time and energy and you get nothing out of it. One vote never made a difference. Except when you start preaching that idea, then you are part of the masses that think that way, and hence the minority of people who do vote, and who do not represent the majority opinion, are the ones that influence the outcome.

I'd rather be part of the masses who think rationally. If it were up to me, the system would look very different but it's not. I have 0 influence. The best I can do for myself is leave the country if it gets bad.

If everyone thought like me, then society would churn through governments like toilet paper and life would be better for people like me who only stand to benefit from change.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#188

Post by cabaalis »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #132
amyjess wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not banning "right wing thinkers". They're banning people who are violating Twitter's longstanding policy forbidding hate speech on account of "race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease". Every forum I've ever participated in has had rules against this kind of behavior. If you're not promoting hate speech, you're f…

Hate speech is subjective though. For example saying “men aren’t women” is hate speech and will get you banned from Twitter. https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/hilltv/rising/42003...

I've never understood the need to "ban" on twitter. The entire system is set up so that you see speech from people that you want to see.

Put up a disclaimer "This account is known to promote speech that is antithetical to the values of Twitter, and the values espoused here solely belong to the individual(s) posting these messages." Put a checkbox for the user if they want to see these results in search or not. Let people decide for themselves who they want to follow.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz's website is offline

#189

Post by claudiawerner »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #132
amyjess wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not banning "right wing thinkers". They're banning people who are violating Twitter's longstanding policy forbidding hate speech on account of "race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease". Every forum I've ever participated in has had rules against this kind of behavior. If you're not promoting hate speech, you're f…

Hate speech is subjective though. For example saying “men aren’t women” is hate speech and will get you banned from Twitter. https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/hilltv/rising/42003...

Many harms are very subjective, the application of the law depends on many subjective factors, for instance, as does almost any account of justice. To say something is subjective (and imply therefore be discarded, or it is invalid) is rubbish thinking. Just as with many other phrases, "men aren't women" isn't simply a clear expression of fact, it has an ideological message or meaning behind it, just as 4chan's famous "it's OK to be white" wasn't merely an affirmation of a fact very few (if anyone) doubted, it was designed to provoke a response: if challenged, the proponent could reply with "so you're saying it's not OK?".

To frame it as "look how silly these rules are!" without taking into account possible context(s) and intentions seems disingenuous - I have a very hard time believing that someone (even on HN) could make such a statement in good faith.

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