acobster

I feel you. The "stories" feature especially felt like "throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks." Given that they're a nonprofit founded by an anarchist, I assume their goals are just different from the typical product-focused company? Which I'm fine with, the app does what it's supposed to do. It would be lovely to have an SDK though.

When paper was invented, it was expensive to make, and very few people had access to it. It was basically confined to a small priesthood and most people were illiterate. Paper remained quite expensive for centuries.

So it would've been pretty rich for someone to say, "talking to these illiterate peasants to their faces is on its way out. Don't they know that writing is the new medium?"

I'm not arguing against using the models per se. It's just that this is a social problem, to which there's no good technical solution. The hard road of social change is the only real alternative.

> having seperately models tuned to different factors.

Sure. Separate but equal, presumably.

Specialization in what though? Do you really think VCs are going to drive innovation on equitable outcomes? Where is the money in that? I have a hunch that oppression will continue to be profitable.

Perhaps the coolest way I've ever seen someone say "I'd love to see you try."

That still doesn't mean he shot first.

> but they have produced no evidence for the claim

The only anarchistic definition of The State I've ever heard is some kind of body with a legal monopoly on violence. If you're going off that definition, you'd have a hard time justifying it to anyone, as it's pretty much fundamentally counter to self-determination. It's true that the state (and capitalism in general) are fundamentally technological, so successful anti-state victories (say, making it harder for the state to manufacture consent and bypassing the propaganda filter) would be significant. But that's only "certain forms," as you put it. At the end of the day, the state will at some point resort to its go-to tactic of violence. If crypto tools restrict or redirect state action, that doesn't mean the state is suddenly okay, it just means anarchists are winning.

You're right. I wasn't really trying to give a broad definition - I was making a narrower argument - and I agree that Chomsky's is a better definition. I guess my "whole premise" phrasing was a bit overly broad.

More visible to whom? To the well-functioning state? I don't follow. The whole premise of anarchism is that a truly free society is one without a state. The presumed benefit of the kind of visibility you're talking about also rests on the assumption that the state is aligned with the interests of the wider population, whereas anarchism proposes that the state is fundamentally misaligned with collective and personal freedom.

Maybe your point is that because crypto-anarchism appears to rest on this state-friendly assumption, it isn't "real" anarchism. I don't know too much about crypto-anarchism and haven't formed an opinion either way, but if it's as cozy with anarcho-capitalism as the quotes at the end make it out to be, I'd probably agree with you.

(edited for formatting)

"We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings."

- Ursula K. Le Guin

You seem to think that violence is the only option. You obviously think it's justified, but you still haven't stated a reason why being naked in public justifies bodily harm, maybe because you think the need to physically subdue this person was self-evident, by whatever means necessary? I disagree with that premise. This is why one of the central demands of the movement for black lives is "counselors not cops."

I'm 100% serious. Your mistake is in thinking it's a few bad apples. Certainly there are varying degrees of prejudice operating on the police force, but that's not the same thing as racism. The more you learn about the police force as it exists in America, the more you come to find that its roots are embedded in systemic racism. Cops may not realize it, but that doesn't mean it's not on them to decide to what degree they support the system. "Common sense" isn't enough because the system doesn't reward common sense, it rewards blind loyalty to the force. This is America's banality of evil.

You're welcome!

> If you disagree that nakedness should be illegal that's a different story and has nothing to do with the police

I do question the logic of nakedness being illegal (in many cases anyway), but I agree that's a different story. :)

> Are you suggesting every person to decide what's allowed and what's not to the best of their judgment?

I'm assuming the case you mentioned at Harvard was this one: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/cambridge-police...

So who gets to decide what "reasonable force required to arrest someone who is refusing arrest" is? You really think that repeatedly punching someone for being naked and on drugs is reasonable? Why? Why not just detain him and work on getting him to a safe place? Why does the situation warrant violence at all? Just because it's common in this country does not mean it's justified or ethical.

What if they had shot him, or knelt on his neck and killed him? Would that be "reasonable"? Where, then, is the line?

Right now, cops basically have 100% discretion to decide where that line is. Because they are not actually accountable to anyone but themselves, they just act and draw the line after the fact. The only difference between this and the murder of George Floyd is degree. That's what I meant.

> If you use common sense then indeed you should try your best to avoid violence in illegal activities that don't put anyone in danger

I agree in the abstract, but unfortunately there's a racial element to this "common sense." In the US, black people especially must use a different kind of common sense, and must always remember that any kind of transgression - up to and including "looking suspicious" - is grounds for detention, which can escalate arbitrarily to execution on the spot. So there's really no "avoiding violence" when your mere existence is grounds for murder with no consequences.

And again, just because you can have a "reasonable" expectation of violence from the cops does not mean that violence is justified.

> the police has no choice

Well, they had a choice to not become cops in the first place, to not enter a system that lacks accountability. They have a choice to not enforce unjust laws, especially in situations where no one's in danger. They have a choice to challenge their colleagues to justify their actions, whether that's kneeling on someone's neck or punching them in the stomach. They have a choice between violence and deescalation.

But they choose violence and escalation with alarming frequency in this country. And the system protects them.

"Not an argument for this site I guess," hence the downvotes, heh. I agree though. And I'd take it a step further and say that the institution of policing in the US has historically always been on the side of systemic violence. Police forces literally started as night patrols to catch runaway slaves, which as about as racist as it gets. If there was a point in history where they somehow severed ties with their racist origins and underwent fundamental, institutional change, I've yet to learn about it.

How does nakedness justify escalating the situation to voilence? "The law is the law" is just an excuse.

When people talk about systemic racism they're talking about how the system operates as a whole. As I've commented elsewhere, people need to educate themselves about systemic racism in this country.

"So You Want to Talk about Race" by Ijeoma Oluo or "Me and White Supremacy" by Layla Saad are good places to start.

> still, does not make it racism

Depends on your definition of racism. If you just mean "atomized, individual prejudice," you might be correct.

But this is textbook systemic racism, even if the cops aren't acting on a conscious bias. Even if their chief gave them clear orders explaining why, and the reasons ostensibly had nothing to do with race, it is still systemic racism because it falls into a pattern of systematic, nationwide discrimination which is irrefutable and that disproportionately affects people of color.

Recommend you read "So You Want to Talk about Race" by Ijeoma Oluo or "Me and White Supremacy" by Layla Saad to learn more about racism as actual experts on the subject understand it.

(Edit: typo)

So, your defense of these actions is that the cops can't discern the difference between press and rioters, so best just arrest them all "one by one"? What part of that is reasonable? Just because it's "standard procedure" does not mean it's justified.

And that is a defense of the cops' actions how?

They're highly organized. I think perhaps a better word for their actions is "unjustified," or if you're feeling less charitable, "unjustifiable."

Hey, that's great! Even if the execution wasn't up to your standards, I'm looking forward to watching! I heard from someone at the conference (maybe it was you even?) about how Gary curated the talks. I'm really glad he did that, because all around it was my favorite tech conference I've been to and I'll definitely be back. :)

This. I was at Deconstruct too, and Nabil's talk got a standing ovation. It ran way over time, and I didn't notice. Tech people need to hear this. Tom's talk is also amazing in its own right.

Let's Program a Banjo Grammar was also one of my favorites. :D

https://www.deconstructconf.com/2018/ryan-herr-lets-program-...

Edit: I just looked at your username...that you, Ryan? :)

More of thws on hacker new's plz.

Seriously though, I love how lighthearted this is. As many folks here have said, we could use more old-school forums in our lives. And goats.

Welp. Guess that's the last little push I needed to go close my LinkedIn account. Good riddance.

Are you referring to the hardware attack against SuperMicro? If so, it's a pretty big leap to make from "we know about a single attack" to "fingers in all tech companies." Not that I trust Google and friends, but... that's a pretty big claim.

Wow, thanks for the recommendation. Harrowing.

This is exactly what a business is: offering people something they want in exchange for money.

If parent had said this was a sustainable or reliable business model, that'd be a different story.

It doesn't seem to me like they're suggesting that columns are "discontinuous" at all; On Intelligence, along with lectures Jeff Hawkins has given, describes in detail how columns are interconnected. What they describe sounds to me much more like "vertically aligned" and "closely connected" than "discontinuous."

I love the initiative and the execution. Nice job! I feel like I'm becoming a bigger fan of brutalist web design all the time. :)

I think part of parent's point is that you're probably in the minority. I don't have data to back this up, but I suspect that the users who make up the "long tail" of web traffic tend to visit a higher number of websites than the vast majority of users who mostly stick to the "walled gardens."