blackrose

But seriously, what are your motives in defending Facebook so much?

Right, and it's echoed in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [0] and elsewhere.

[0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ayn-rand/#Intr

It's not that she's evil, just that her "philosophy" is what you said: one person's view (i.e. opinion). She couldn't reconcile many critiques of Objectivism and didn't do much self-analysis on it. So despite how good many of her individual ideas sound, together they're thin and don't really make up a coherent theory that many people can take seriously. Unless you're a jerk using her name to justify being self-centered :) (just kidding)

Yep, nailed it. For those of us who still read despite all that, here's the browser extension you've been looking for (Make Medium Readable Again): https://github.com/thebaer/MMRA

> Mr. Trump, who is known to watch Fox News while he is tweeting, posted his tweet shortly after a Fox News legal analyst appealed directly to the president during a Thursday morning segment about the coming House vote. The analyst, Andrew Napolitano, turned to television cameras and said, “Mr. President, this is not the way to go.” He added that Mr. Trump’s “woes” began with surveillance.

lol.

But seriously we need someone in the oval office who feels strongly about protecting the privacy of Americans (and everyone else!). Trump is just another one in the line to rubber-stamp this. Not holding my breath though...

Nope. A lot revolves around them, but there are plenty of ultra-rich ideologues pushing their agenda this way. You can find some good investigative research on this in "Dark Money" by Jane Mayer, which details a lot of the history behind dark money influencing politics, and the ideals these guys are trying to advance.

The Mercers are another influential family she's written about [0]

[0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-reclusive-...

The formula works! If it can get that guy in the White House, it can sell anything.

Also, I think it's kind of delicious when a variant like this is used to actually describe a previously "Y/Great" thing (Medium was readable at some point). Kinda hijacks the meaning from the original phrase and makes it less shitty.

> ... but they returned money when they stopped.

After they took a couple mil for themselves :) [0]

[0]: http://www.businessinsider.com/secret-founders-pocket-6-mill...

Isn't greed self-centeredness?

> society at large is unquestionably a cesspit of low consciousness, and self-centered thinking

That's a heck of a personal projection :)

And pg disagrees with that last sentiment in the footnotes:

> Many think successful startup founders are driven by money. In fact the secret weapon of the most successful founders is that they aren't. If they were, they'd have taken one of the acquisition offers that every fast-growing startup gets on the way up. What drives the most successful founders is the same thing that drives most people who make things: the company is their project.

Yes, it literally is. You just needed to scroll down the page a little more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich#Conspiracy...

This is a seriously debunked conspiracy theory [0][1] that damages us all when people continually spread it.

[0] http://www.snopes.com/seth-conrad-rich/

[1] http://www.npr.org/2017/08/01/540783715/lawsuit-alleges-fox-...

People in the intelligence community consider Snowden a Russian asset now. Russia could've flipped or co-opted Assange since the Bush years, or maybe it's only now coming out. Either way much of this stuff is classified, so we can't really know details one way or the other. But if you keep up with folks in the IC and look into how Russia does warfare, you see they've been doing this forever, and they're pros at it.

That's the point -- the CIA, FBI, and NSA determined with "high confidence" [0] that Russia worked to influence us through (among other outlets) the media -- especially social media. It worked, and because of it our votes weren't free.

> Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or “trolls.”

[0] https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf

From the intelligence community assessment [0]:

> The Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet RT (formerly Russia Today) has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks. RT’s editor-in-chief visited WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in August 2013, where they discussed renewing his broadcast contract with RT, according to Russian and Western media. Russian media subsequently announced that RT had become "the only Russian media company" to partner with WikiLeaks and had received access to "new leaks of secret information." RT routinely gives Assange sympathetic coverage and provides him a platform to denounce the United States.

[0] https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf

It could be you or your family having connections to powerful people. Being famous. But what's important as it pertains to our conversation: being in an authoritative position, e.g. a teacher, law enforcement officer, manager, or company executive. All of these people can have an influence, or "power," over others -- including, but not limited to, women.

As your question doesn't really have anything to do with our debate, I respectfully decline to answer. It was nice talking.

> You honestly come off as hostile and even childish. You're fabricating complete strawmen and attacking them.

> You also seem to be extremely self-loathing, and you want to project that onto others.

These are funny sequences of statements.

Anyway I wasn't attacking you; I was arguing against the ideas presented, that we should "think about the men!" first when we're discussing women reporting sexual assault. The paragraph I deleted implied that anyone who holds this worldview either hasn't ever listened to a woman or is self-centered. I could've put it better, but frankly I was tired of arguing.

And I was fixing the record because you said "blackrose is exclusively thinking of rich and powerful men when framing his argument." Which is false, and I believe I offered good evidence for in my simple example.

I was mostly trying to point out how ridiculous camelite's argument sounded. I thought maybe we should instead have a serious conversation about the events leading up to Uber's current troubles, and how they reflect on our society and our own individual mindsets. But apparently this isn't the place for that.

Anyway, yeah, of course everyone has different circumstances. I didn't mean literally no men, just as the grandparent comment didn't mean literally believe all women. I was speaking generally in order to be comprehendible to a guy speaking generally and hypothetically.

Thanks dang. Removed.

I see what you're saying, but I've laid out many other, less aggressive points and remained open to any good counter-argument.

I'll take the downvotes for this, but I think certain stances people are spouting on this thread are aggressively perpetuating the poor societal values I've been arguing against. They're aggressively playing down the consequences of their sexist mentality and normalizations. And because I'm a not-impoverished white dude who doesn't worry about being persecuted for my opinions, I expressed them.

(Also, the "selfish dick" part isn't meant to be taken personally. Many people are selfish, and own up to it, and wear the badge proudly. That's great. But to argue for sexism under some pretense of a noble cause is bullshit.)

And trusting people to have free speech is definitely going to be abused by people who want to say controversial things. And trusting people to use encryption is definitely going to be abused by criminals who want to commit crimes. And trusting people to own kitchen knives is definitely going to be abused by people who want to stab others.

Yes, we can all make factually true, but totally irrelevant arguments that don't change anything.

> Parent comment said "believe women who..."

Luckily we have the power of inference and ability to understand what statements mean even when people use different words -- unless, of course, we have an axe to grind, which is what I'm seeing here in your comments.

Your counter arguments haven't convinced me. But it was nice discussing this. Hopefully others will see this thread and make their own decisions.

I'm neither rich nor powerful, and I don't feel pressure to do anything outside of ensure my own survival. I mean, I could get a girl pregnant and still have a hell of a lot less to worry about than she does.

[edit: removed paragraph]

Generally speaking, as a group, yes -- especially when compared to the social pressures put on women. Yes, that's changing, but we still have a way to go.

Happy to hear any difficult and unrealistic social pressures you think we regularly face today.

> then you are deliberately stacking the deck against the specific men who are accused of sexual harassment, some of whom will invariably be innocent.

This is really a stretch in logic, and the oxymoronic "some of whom will invariably be innocent" gives away your motives on this topic.

Parent comment was saying we should give a little more credibility to reports that women make about sexual harassment in the workplace. It's a pretty good idea that would make everyone's lives better (even ours, the men!). But if your reaction to that mild suggestion is hostility and misleading arguments, you're contributing to the problem and encouraging more "manly" behavior that necessitates women's blog posts and company culture course-correction.

Power is enacted through multifarious means, with wealth being one of them. Wealth isn't a requisite for power. Generally in the US, positions of power are held by men, because of (or in spite of) an interconnected system of laws, norms, and a history of (generally) men telling people what to do. And those gender-based ideas enacted in laws and norms and our culture have percolated through our society to affect everyone in ways we often can't detect.

The point is that yes, for these reasons and many others, we should "believe women when they report harassment in the workplace."

> or is this a one way deal?

FFS, dude. Men hold the vast majority of power in our society. No cards are stacked against them. No old fashioned norms are still levied on them everytime a woman speaks to them. They aren't constantly reminded by our culture to be gentlemen or look handsome or bring home the bacon or do anything they don't want to. To say "think of the men!" here is either willfully ignorant or just being a dick.

Shitting on Go for sport: a HN pastime.

It's called "batteries not included" and it's a shitty thing to do as a company when you're selling a several-hundred-dollar device.

Seriously? They can't include a $19 cord?

I'd imagine that's exactly what they're looking for. And if they can somehow find someone so passionate, they can only benefit. So why not look for that (from their perspective)?

Seriously. And it goes for pretty much all of these. Has this guy never taken a subway? Flown on an airplane? Left the city?