165 karma · joined December 14, 2020
Yes. Exactly.
What's the problem with that?
Yes, you have the right to do what you want, but No, you should not do the wrong things.
Have you the right to drive?
Yes.
Have you the right to run over pedestrians?
No.
It's simply how societies work.
freedom starts where ignorance ends
the freedom of one ends where the right of another begins.
and hundreds other similar quotes...
I swear I have nothing to do with anything you are implying, why should I reply with a different account when I could have used this one? and BTW my comment had positive upvotes!
that's not me, why in the hell I am being punished for something I haven't done and had no reason to do????
please reverse your decision, you're making a big mistake here.
I have no idea why you assumed that's me, I haven't used my HN account after that comment and looked at it again only today.
> A total of 100 million Petros will be sold, with an initial value set at $60, based on the price of a barrel of Venezuelan crude in mid-January.
Unfortunately we know that its purpose is raise cash because they can't repay their huge national debt.
Which is why every dictator loves cryptos if they can control them as they control state currencies.
The narrative can be shifted to we are all in this together, we live and die together.
If they'd allow bitcoins for the general population (they love them only for themselves) some would become richer, but the country as a whole would not benefit a bit from it.
And failing at that is something no politician can survive.
alcohol sold to minors.
unlicensed doctors.
guns.
hard drugs.
tanks as private vehicles.
old polluting cars.
the list is endless.
In Venezuela they haven't banned cryptos, they banned mining, especially if it's done on state funded electricity (for obvious reasons)/and because other cryptos compete with the state backed crypto, the Petro.
Dictators love cryptos, especially bitcoins.
If they didn't, criminals wouldn't use them.
that's not the same thing.
torrenting illegal material was already illegal, before Netflix.
and France is not Turkey, but no Germany either where the ban on illegal downloads actually works, because they will get you.
In my opinion cause and effect are reversed here: Netflix is going strong because there is a ban on torrents and sharing copyrighted material in general and it worked.
If it was the other way around, Netflix would earn peanuts.
Also, people get around a ban on torrents because there is no risk, the worse thing that can happen is that you won't watch a movie illegally.
Now think about using illegal money and the consequences...
> HADOPI is slowly dying.
again, wrong comparison.
How many people watch YouTube videos in China and how many would if it was not banned?
That's your benchmark.
Look at the ban on guns, where the ban exists the number of guns in people hands is very low.
If it worked as you said, where arms are banned people would use them illegally.
But instead they do not (again: generally speaking).
Think about prostitution, it's legal in Germany where the government estimates the real number may be as high as 400,000 almost 0.5% of the population.
In Italy, where it's practically illegal (it's complicated, but we can safely assume it is not legal as in Germany) the number is estimated at 100,000 or 0,15% of the population.
Bans do work, the fact that not all bans work the same way, doesn't mean that they don't work.
because people don't like to go to jail
> "oh it's banned, I guess I'll stop using it then"
that's exactly what's gonna happen in Turkey though. But even if it wasn't Turkey which is ruled by an autocrat, a ban would steer away casual users that usually means the thing banned won't succeed in the long run.
imagine if YouTube was banned in some country and the ban would stay even after public protests (admitting that public protests were allowed)
YouTube usage would immediately drop to a number very close to zero.
> Is Europe about to ban E2E Encryption?
> No.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2020/11/09/whats...
are we still talking about criminals?
I don't think something that make it worth optimizing for but is intended to optimize criminals activities is really desirable.
Anyway, there's no advantage with crypto, the smuggler didn't smuggle 1 million dollar worth of cocaine from Mexico, cocaine is moved in much larger volumes, if a few pounds are lost, it's part of the business risks, criminals understand it and sometimes facilitate it, so that police can make big splash announcements and everybody is happy.
money is another thing entirely.
that million dollar worth of cocaine has been cut in hundreds of smaller doses, that are being paid mostly in cash.
so now every corner dealer has a pile of cash that use to pay the bigger dealer and so on.
first of all, you can't buy crypto with cash. You should go through another person who already owns enough to sell them to you, which means another breadcrumb that could lead back to you in case that other person is caught.
also, cash has some disadvantages over a usb pendrive, but one big advantage is that it's harder to lose a briefcase than a usb drive and they don't break as easily.
so the smaller dealers have no incentive to do it.
the average dealer has no incentive on buying crypto to pay the larger dealer, because he gets rid of the cash pretty fast and keeps his cut that invests into criminal but legal activities so that the facade is clean.
the larger dealers have now a pile of cash that need to handle anyway, they can't ignore it and make it disappear just because it takes too much space.
let's go back to the smuggler (probably a cartel man) that moved cocaine from Mexico to Chicago
they have bank accounts in Panama and don't care about moving large sum of money anonymously or through perfectly clean American front men.
The system already works, there was an article the other day on front page titled "The war against money laundering is being lost" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26786810), so why change it for an asset that has not even a stable value?
I guess they tried at one point, but there's too much attention on them now, so criminals with capital C dropped them and let only their kids play with it so they can pay for their college expenses.
that's why you buy stuff in yuan and sell the stuff for dollars/euro or other currencies
BTW we are talking about criminal activities here (money laundering), of course there's a price to pay and that price usually is in the 20-40% range (I've checked CNY and CNH and they are being traded at very similar rates right now [1][2])
there's no need to buy hundreds of GPU to mine crypto to do what the OP intended to do
unless OP meant btc it's a cheaper and safer way to launder money, which is a good reason why people could think it's a scam
Now imagine I smuggled in from Mexico to Chicago this[1] but I don't know how to take back this[2]
What kind of genius/idiot criminal would I be?
[1] https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/6d0c827943b8dc8c2c7449974d0...
[2] https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/u6097/CBP-AMO%20-%20...
assuming you're able to buy them and have the money upfront and are able to hide the purchase.
"What this person could be doing with 90 3080, I wonder" asks the Chinese government employee that checks your bank transactions.
https://www.techradar.com/news/nvidia-rtx-3080-shortage-coul...
The easiest thing for China would be monitor crypto transactions and stop them from happening.
But suppose you are Chinese and have a good friend in UK who's going to report as legit income the result of your criminal activity in China (criminal as in simply hiding the money from the government, for whatever reason) on your behalf.
Why should you set this complex scheme up when you could simply fly to UK to visit your artist friend, buy one of his artwork with your yuan and you're done?
Or better yet, invite your UK friend to China and give him the money, that he can then deposit on his account.
Purchasing mining hardware or artworks with your money that can be trace back to you it's the exact same thing.
That could be true.
But 30 times less is hard to explain with that.
Remember that he majority of rapes are perpetrated against adult women and Japan is the country with the oldest population in the World, right before Italy.
I guess that living in a society where crime rates are generally low (Japan has one of the lowest rate in the World) helps a lot.
In Japan half of the people are not having sex, that makes it one of the countries with the lowest rate, hardly a country of rapers.
So what lesson can we learn?
That violence is key to injustice
The whole discussion about diversity and inclusivity in the States revolves around self segregation and punishment for those who do not abide, it is based on fear of the consequences not on a general understanding that conflict is an integral part of the society and inclusivity means to accept it, not to remove it.
Stallman is a non violent man, he doesn't adhere to the American standards, he's a weirdo, but never harmed anybody nor committed violent acts, let alone crimes.
I write an email to his address from time to time, have been doing it for the past 10 years, and I always receive the most polite replies (days later of course, he reads them offline).
Sometimes it's like talking to Sherlock Holmes, he's very logical, has strong opinions, lingers on the most miniscule detail and that can be unpleasant to some.
He can be confrontational, but not dangerous.
I would rather share the proverbial desert island with him than with those who attack him for not being "standard compliant"
I know I shouldn't have to feel frightened by him.
Maybe we could learn a thing or two from him, once we go past the preposterous social indignation à la carte because he likes to walk barefoot.
p.s. In Sweden age of consent is 15 years and sexual assault (so not rape specifically) reports are very high, but under the Swedish laws half of the planet would be in prison (in Sweden not using a condom is considered rape).
Eurostat figures show that Sweden had 64 reported rapes per 100,000 residents in 2016, compared to 10 in Germany. When Sweden's figures were recalculated using the German definitions, the new figure was 15 reported rapes per 100,000 residents.
p.p.s. if in Japan they are "hiding" the real rape numbers, what makes you think the same thing is not happening elsewhere?
USA laws about rape are not stronger than those in Germany, that has a third of the rapes of US and where age of consent is 14.
What's the difference then?
In Germany violent crimes in general are a lot less than in USA.
- In 2019, the rate of forcible rapes in the United States stood at 29.9 per 100,000 inhabitants. it has decreased from 1990, when there were 41.2 forcible rapes per 100,000 inhabitants.
- In 2014, rape rate for Japan was 1 cases per 100,000 population. Rape rate of Japan fell gradually from 1.6 cases per 100,000 population in 2005 to 1 cases per 100,000 population in 2014
What lesson can we learn from this in your opinion?
For example: RMS did not believe in providing raises — prior cost of living adjustments were a battle and not annual. RMS believed that if a precedent was created for increasing wages, the logical conclusion would be that employees would be paid infinity dollars and the FSF would go bankrupt.
That's unlawful in Italy to avoid salary discrimination where people in poorer areas (the South) are paid less for the same job.
It's considered a great victory by Italian huge worker unions.
Or this other one
RMS created non-safe spaces at both MIT & the FSF. When I was at the FSF, RMS had little to no empathy for the staff. The FSF was not a healthy, functional workplace. We formed a union to help protect ourselves from RMS — he controlled our pay, benefits, and workplace conditions.
Again, this is totally subjective.
It's a work place not a kindergarten, you don't like the place you leave, we are talking about software engineers not cleaning staff, they'd have a chance anywhere else.
this is simply this guy personally holding a grudge against RMS, but there's nothing objectively bad here.
You know what's really bad? that it happens at Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple l, but you don't know because workers simply can't talk about it.
Low paid workers fear of losing their salary, high paid workers don't care about them and also don't want to lose their huge benefits and say screw them
What is terrifying is people thinking that knowing something is worse than not knowing because if you talk, it's bad for you.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/may/05/amazon-pr...
What is bad IMO is thinking that unions are inherently a bad thing, but I am glad they exist and I am member myself of one of them in Italy that has 5.5 million other members and I gladly pay monthly to be part of it,even though I rarely need them they offer free services and protection to all the workers.
If nobody has been fired, harrased or threatened for proposing to unionize, that's a great plus in my book that puts the FSF ahead of many other job places in the US.
Jocking aside, perfection is enemy of the good.
Nobody is all those things, all the time, consistently, over a life time.
Being a leader in the real World is mostly about being in the political position of influencing the decision of the entity you lead, being it a small team of developers, the local sports team or a corporation.
Look at Steve Jobs, he was capable of being a terrible human being, but was also able to put a lot of money in investors' pockets and so they kept him.
Also, having no technical skill has never stopped anybody from being involved in technical roles. They simply end up working where the bar is lower or were management doesn't care.
If what you say was true, posts like this would not exist.
https://allarsblog.com/2018/03/17/confessions-of-an-unreal-e...
Do you find Japanese people abhorrent?
What about Japan where age of consent is 13?
Or Switzerland were the age of consent is 16, although if the age gap between parties is three years or less – for example between a 13-year-old and a 15-year-old – no charges can be brought
He was arguing that he was wrongfully accused of rape, because according to the testimony the sex never happened and nobody has been able to prove otherwise (an eyewitness swears that Minsky refused her).
He then added that even if the sex happened, and he had no doubt that it could be possible, the victim was sent to him to act as willing, so that would make it statutory rape, due to the age of the girl (unknown to Minsky at the time).
He was contesting the legal semantics, not the fact per se.
More importantly, he was talking about it on the mailing list of MIT in response to this
“deceased AI ‘pioneer’ Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting one of Epstein’s victims)”
In his own words Stallam said
The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X.
[...]
Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature of the criticism.
Hardly a defense, he was calling for better and more precise terms to describe what happened.
Something I would expect from someone of his age talking with young students, fueled by passion and rage
I’m writing this because I’m too angry to work. says Selam G. on her blog post.
Angry people that let their anger win never made the World a better place IMO.
Whatever is the truth, I think it takes courage to defend someone you know "only distantly" when you think he's been wrongfully accused (in your opinion) and to do it publicly even though that could cost you your career and you have nothing to gain.
Anyway Minsky's long been dead.
I believe Epstein did it, Stallam believes Epstein did it too (he wrote it in the thread), there's no doubt about it.
Another thing entirely is the other accusations, we can't assume that every accusation is true until proven otherwise by a court of the law (except for Minsky who's dead).
That's why I support Stallman reasoning, a chain of criminal events can't be assumed on someone's saying, it must be proven or we go back to inquisition, especially if one of the accused is dead, can't defend himslef and it's the smallest fish in the pond.
I get these are all powerful men and have the means to protect themselves, but they have the right to be presumed innocent nonetheless.
Having followed the case myself, I wonder why nobody is talking about Wexner, former CEO of the Victoria's secret empire that was built thanks to the close friendhsip with Epstein and who's still on an honorary president's chair.
> L Brands executives were reportedly made aware, in the mid-1990s, that Epstein was posing as a modeling recruiter for the company. Although they alerted Wexner, he seems to have taken no action
An why Boies talked to Wexner (they now say it was his lawyer) and forced the judge to remove him and after the court removed Boies and his team Giuffre hired his opponent in the gay marriage trial that made Boies popular?
> Boies and his entire team from Boies Schiller Flexner were removed from the New York case in October after judge Loretta Preska determined that he had become a witness in the suit and, as such, could no longer advocate on Giuffre’s behalf.
> Charles J. Cooper replaced David Boies, his opponent in a California gay marriage case argued before the Supreme Court, as a lawyer for Virginia Roberts Giuffre in her federal defamation lawsuit against Dershowitz.
The case is now an O.J. Simpson scale event, I think we will know more only after the next hearings.
I am simply being cautious, I am not dismissing Giuffre, in my opinion things are too complicated to throw judgements around, one way or the other (except, as we have established, for Epstein).
I also don't believe Wexner can be the only Epstein's client.
If we look at the case in its entirety, what Stallman did or didn't do it's meaningless.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article245017...
(sorry for the late answer, I was rate limited)
I don't think he did.
It has nothing to do with free software, you're right, they are his opinions on stuff.
but on the other hand some might think that the FSF is becoming one of those organizations were "social indignation" has more importance than "due process" and it might alienate old and new contributors that value that aspect.
Politics is always a trade off, you can't make everybody happy.
For example Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz has now sued the woman in federal court in New York, claiming that her allegations are “lies, disparagement, defamation, harassment” that are “beyond the bounds of decency and not tolerated in civilized society.” [...] Dershowitz repeated his previous claims that Virginia Roberts Giuffre was “pressured to falsely accuse Dershowitz” by her lawyers, namely the law firm headed by renowned attorney David Boies.
I can't honestly say who's right and who's lying.
Is Giuffre some kind of higher being whose words are to be taken as divine thruths, just because she's a victim of something completely unrelated?
Has Stallman ever did anything remotely similar to a crime?
BTW in my country sex at the age of consent would be considered statutory rape in USA (it's 14 years old here).
Does that make all of us rapers of children?
That was what Stallman was arguing about.
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Suburra is also the name of an area in ancient Rome of lower class criminals and prostitution.