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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

#81

Post by l9k »

hopler wrote: post #49
l9k wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think the same a few years ago. But nowadays, with the state of politics, the spread of fake news and false narrative on social media... this is what we have. "they could have read an entire book about most subjects covered and thereby learned about it with far more detail and far more impact than the daily doses they get dribbled out by the paper" This is not what people do. This is applicable to 1% of the…

You are talking about some different. Aaron was talking about reading news to learn about the world. You are talking about political activism. For your activism goals, reading Twitter might help (although your time is likely better spent with algorithmic summarization than with reading garbage tweets one at a time)

Swarz was an activist himself. You might say, not a "political" activist, but today even acknowledging science is political...

I think reading Twitter is generally a terrible idea, unless you carefully select who you follow, but you risk staying in your bubble, and adventuring yourself outside of it is even worse.

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

#82

Post by chickenfries »

josefresco wrote: post #77
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…

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…

Yeah this post is literally the same argument as “my vote has never changed the outcome of an election so why vote?”

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

#83

Post by LoSboccacc »

jasonvorhe wrote: post #19
crunchlibrarian wrote: post #18

I doubt his kind of "dangerous" thinking will be allowed to be spread for much longer in our corporate dystopian internet. It's just a matter of time before speech daring to criticize the corporations will be considered a security threat or whatever and immediately deleted.

Based on which precedent did you arrive at this conclusion?

> Based on which precedent did you arrive at this conclusion?

we are already being classified, grouped and given tiered services according to whatever bucket we fit into today.

insurances are on top of that already with banks a close second. as their ability to mine large datasets increase and cost decrease, they will keep going deeper into profiling.

if you want a concrete precedent, there's this https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/02/admiral-t...

and this is what comes next: https://friendlyscore.com/about

in a more general way, the china social score is a preview of what's to come, even if it'll be less blatant in the western world.

this might not be yet a political issue, but it will have deep impact on self censorship, and that in turn will: http://www.schneier.com/essay-114.html

Lol, downvotes with actual primary sources. Hivemind News is becoming more and more an echo chamber instead of a place for actual discussion.

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

#84

Post by jacquesm »

bashmydotfiles wrote: post #68
the_clarence wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a good source of information? By that I mean: - not about daily information (which are usually as fast as possible and don’t take the time to really understand the situation) - not biased - not about juicy news, but world topics that are ~objectively important I feel like there should be a subreddit for that.

You should check out allsides[0]. It's a new aggregator that presents news from the left, right, and center. They're constantly reevaluating what side of the spectrum news sources land on. They post about their findings and explain why they consider a new source left, center, or right. [0]: https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news

You could possibly automate an aggregator that takes the various sources, see what at least all of them agree on and then spit that out as 'just the facts'.

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

#85

Post by rconti »

coolbeanboiii3 wrote: post #28
jasonvorhe wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on which precedent did you arrive at this conclusion?

Right now there is an addition to the next budget bill in the US senate that is about to outlaw the ability for federal or local government agencies doing business with any company or individual involved in the BDS movement. If you are going to penalize my freedom to NOT buy products the originate from a specific location, it is a slippery slope to see what other forms of protest might be curtailed in order to alter…

"BDS" stands for "Boycott, Divest, Sanction" according to a quick search.

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

#86

Post by Robotuxin »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #33
iseeyoubydesign wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

> Based on all the twitter banning of right wing thinkers. I did some Googling to see what "right wing thinkers" Twitter has banned lately, and you appear to be talking about Alex Jones and a bunch of literal Nazis. > When it was allowed for twitter to silence people from their platform "Free speech" does not and has never meant "guaranteed access to private businesses and websites." And I'd bet money that you wouldn…

It must be refreshing to be on the right side of history with the likes of Louis Farrakhan, who is anti-white and anti-Semitic. See his tweet about being anti-termite. In your last sentence, are you admitting that Twitter doesn't yet ban far-left groups for cause? If so, shouldn't it be you explaining why you aren't saying a word about a double standard?

Twitter claims to be a neutral platform, and eventually it may be equated to a town square, so legal questions will arise even if it is a private business. Also, once it starts editorializing its content, it may become responsible for the groups it seemingly endorses / condones.

Twitter is not only censoring extreme groups, so it isn't sufficient to say that a handful of people deserve to get banned. We know that people now generally, even on free-thinking college campuses, self-censor because saying anything controversial can get your life destroyed. We have set a dangerous precedent with "acceptable social commentary" because anyone can be vilified for their ideas even if they are polite and well-reasoned.

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

#87

Post by jacquesm »

bensw wrote: post #38
bensw wrote: post #23

I’ll try to figure this out today

It seems to be back up, but I didn't do anything. I'm still going to find out what happened and make sure it doesn't happen again. Thanks for posting this. I probably wouldn't have noticed until January. Edit: it turned out to be a problem with the server. Thanks again for the heads up and for everyone’s kind words.

Thank you!

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

#88

Post by capulate89 »

chickenfries wrote: post #82
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…

Yeah this post is literally the same argument as “my vote has never changed the outcome of an election so why vote?”

And what's wrong with that argument? Democracy and voting aren't unquestionable goods. Just look at what became of most of the non-democratic countries that the US decided to "liberate" via forcing them to adopt democracy over the years.

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

#90

Post by e40 »

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.

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