Meta-comment follows: Would you have replied if comment scores were displayed?
In this specific case, I don't know. Meta answer: Though there are certainly times that I reply these days when I would have only upvoted if comment scores showed.
I agree that this is an issue with the lack of comment scores. If I see something I strongly agree with, I'm more inclined to reply with a "Yeah I totally agree" if I don't know what the score is than if I see it already has 100 points.
For what it's worth, my original comment to which you replied has 25 points.
Is anyone else tired of the fact that on the internet you can't say "Hey, look at this sucky thing in Random Country X" without having someone pipe up and say "Yeah, but what about this vaguely-similar thing in the USA? Huh? Huh?"
How are the Chinese and American situations vaguely similar? Just because one involves computers and the other doesn't? If these counterexamples are not made up, what would it take for you to go from being tired to seriously revising your beliefs on the US system?
Well honestly, I don't have a problem with prisoners being made to work under certain reasonable conditions. Heck, I'm from Australia, a country which wouldn't even exist if it weren't for prisoners being made to work. And I think a prison where everybody is kept occupied is probably a better place than a prison where nobody has anything to do except work out and gossip.
Making 'em farm gold in a MMORPG, on the other hand, comes across as silly.
Actually, Arizona still has real chain gangs and other states had them as recently as the mid-90's.
I've seen prisoners, or perhaps folks sentenced to community service, picking up trash along country roads in orange vests under supervision. Is there any difference between that and a chain gang apart from the chain?
Is anyone else tired of the fact that on the internet you can't say "Hey, look at this sucky thing in Random Country X" without having someone pipe up and say "Yeah, but what about this vaguely-similar thing in the USA? Huh? Huh?"
The difference between many of the corruptions in China vs the USA is that in the USA it's legalized corruption with lobbies that pay congresspeople, legally. So the corruption is out in the open, the average person just doesn't have a chance in hell of changing anything. In China the corruption is actually illegal but hidden and therefore the abuses even worse because thy are undocumented and unprovable without grea…
Forced prison labor is somehow perceived as "okay" in the USA because it's documented and in the light and some people can say "OH THE PRISONERS DESERVE IT, THEY SHOULD PAY US".
Well I think it is okay and... a
Aw fuck, why the hell am I arguing about politics on the internet again?
Seriously? We should give a damn about this? You've got to be kidding me. Lots of money gets spent every year on inmates in the U.S. Is your complaint that you think people are being incarcerated when they've committed no crimes in order to have cheap labor? I find this notion pretty ridiculous considering you need a trial and jurors to convict someone. Is your complaint that you think the laws are being created to s…
This judge was convicted of jailing youths for kickback money. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html There are Hacker News threads that discuss the hundreds of DNA exonerations in the U.S. This hints at the huge problem of lying and frame-ups by the police and judicial system. Juries are instructed to give a verdict on guilt or innocence not decide on sentencing. The U.S. has the highest per capita prison…
And once you're convicted there is even more additional lying and frame-ups while in prison:
In this specific case, I don't know. Meta answer: Though there are certainly times that I reply these days when I would have only upvoted if comment scores showed.
I agree that this is an issue with the lack of comment scores. If I see something I strongly agree with, I'm more inclined to reply with a "Yeah I totally agree" if I don't know what the score is than if I see it already has 100 points. For what it's worth, my original comment to which you replied has 25 points.
Thanks, though I wasn't specifically suggesting it was an issue. I was only answering the question asked of me factually and the fact is that, yes, it does change my behavior in some ways to not have comment scores visible. However, I do not feel I have sufficient information at this point in time to draw conclusions or make value judgments in terms of "this is a good thing" or "this is a bad thing" or even "this is what is good about it and this is what is bad about it". (I personally like engaging people in conversation. Although I am aware that concerns about signal-to-noise are very valid concerns, I have long been baffled by people who join discussion lists/forums and then loudly complain about people talking too much. So I am not yet ready to say, yea, verily, stating agreement in place of or in addition to upvoting is inherently a bad thing.)