curiousgeorgio

> The statement is only raised for the purpose of preventing action from being taken or change being made, in regard to investigation into and prevention of unnecessary deaths of black people.

Have you considered the possibility that a lot of people agree that action should be taken, and that statistically-speaking, that positive action will reduce unnecessary deaths for all people, regardless of their race or ethnicity?

If a software bug is reported to affect a certain subset of users more often than others, but upon investigation, it turns out the bug is a duplicate of another more fundamental bug that affects all users relatively equally, are we preventing action (or discrediting that subset of users who reported the bug) by marking it as a duplicate and giving priority to the fundamental issue so as to fix it for everyone?

Just as Black Lives Matter supporters often claim that the phrase is misunderstood by those who question it, All Lives Matter is misunderstood by many who think it takes something away from the black community. It's not a denial of anything, but rather a recognition that the problems actually do statistically affect everyone, and singling out one race (when all are affected) actually does more harm than good when it comes to ending racism.

Hannah Fry's book, "Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine" explores this topic in a balanced and thoughtful way. Of course algorithms aren't perfect, but they are definitely useful tools that should be combined with human expertise.

> humans do a far better job at real-world operations

The book points to several examples (specifically in law enforcement and criminal justice) where common sense tells us this is true ("humans do a far better job"), but statistics show otherwise. Human judgement is helpful to a degree, but without tools like these algorithms provide, it's actually far worse, and subject to all kinds of biases.

The question is, if a particular area statistically has more crime, does it really matter whether it's a human or an algorithm making the judgement to send officers there more often? I know it's taboo to talk about (at least in the past few weeks), but police presence overwhelmingly helps reduce crime, so lets be smart about how, when, and where to deploy more law enforcement. Let's use data-based tools to help inform our decisions, but let's also use human judgement to understand where those tools might fall short and act accordingly. In large part, that comes down to having data experts audit the tools and educate those who use them of their shortcomings.

That's one interpretation. Another is that a certain percentage of Americans live in areas where crime is not just more prevalent, but (unfortunately) it's also the only thing some people living there have ever known. Areas with higher crime rates also tend to have higher police involvement (and no, law enforcement doesn't solve crime, but it is necessary to respond and help victims of crime), and where you have more involvement, you'll have higher raw numbers of anything that follows a normal distribution (e.g., moral judgement of local law enforcement officers). We can do a lot to help skew that distribution toward better-trained, effective law enforcement, but it's still a distribution, and as much as it comes at the cost of real human lives, there will be outliers in every population.

As un-civilized and rotten as the news portrays things to be, for 99% of the rest of us Americans, this isn't really a common problem. That's not to say it isn't a problem for the few that do experience it (and that problem absolutely needs to be fixed), but just want to point out that what you see publicized is not representative of the country as a whole.

I'm not going to address your numerous disagreements with Trump's policies, but instead respond to the one quote you actually pointed to, which was this:

"We should be standing up straight and tall, ideally with a salute, or a hand on heart. There are other things you can protest, but not our Great American Flag - NO KNEELING!"

I agree (and Trump would agree) that people are well within their rights to kneel in protest of police brutality (or any issue for that matter), and Trump has actually been doing a lot to improve the quality of our police force (so he agrees on the principle behind it too).

That said, there's been plenty of publicity lately over our differences in these issues, and it sounds like the president is just asking people to at least unite behind the idea of living in a country that has so much to be proud of. When we show respect for the flag, we aren't saying that the country is perfect. We're honoring the men and women who gave and continue to give their lives for us to even have a place where we can debate these issues peacefully. We honor and have pride in a country where everyone (regardless of race or any other attribute) can be protected by the rule of law rather than oppressive leaders or the fear of anarchy.

If there's one thing we need as a nation now more than ever, it's to look for the good in each other and to find common ground. Respect for our country - and symbolically our flag - is perhaps the best place to start. Trump is telling us we can and should continue to protest those things that need improvement (he says so in the same sentence), but one thing that shouldn't divide any of us is our flag.

Now if that's his #1 most racist tweet, then I rest my case.

I'd love to see what you think is the #1 most racist, violent, and hateful tweet from president Trump. Really, go ahead and find it, then let me know what it is.

Note: I do not support racism, violence, or hateful actions. I don't seek for things of that nature (I denounce them), but I genuinely haven't seen those qualities in the words of our president, so I sincerely want to know what all the fuss is about with respect to Trump's so-called racist remarks. I have seen a lot of people ascribing those labels to various things he's said (but not intended), and I've seen him say and do a lot of anti-racist things, but apparently the coded racism in his language isn't as obvious to me as it is to so many other people.

I've seen a lot of copyrighted media shared by people on Twitter who are not the owners, and this is the first time I've seen the copyright notice as shown on the president's tweet. I've seen tweets taken down at the request of their authors (or retweets from their original authors), but not in this form - that's what makes it seem (to me) more suspect. If this were happening regularly with the millions of other daily instances (from celebrities to countless other regular users), it would be a little more defensible. The objection here isn't to DMCA takedown requests; it's the blatant (and politically-motivated) inconsistency in the application of their rules.

I was originally responding to the claim that "it's still 524 times higher than the effect of the moon's gravity which creates the tides" - that's why I mentioned tidal forces. If the ice creates that much direct, local gravitational attraction[1], then my point is we shouldn't be comparing it to the moon at all (because the forces involved are not the same as those involved with the moon and tides).

[1] Even the claim about the ice sheet (and its melting) contributing significantly (via gravity) to global sea level change seems dubious since, as noted elsewhere in this discussion, the Earth Gravitational Model appears to be affected much more by factors other than ice sheet thickness or surface features.

> The forces still apply, they're just not shifting daily.

No, the forces are completely different. If we have an object on the surface of the earth that has enough mass to roughly produce the same nearby gravitational acceleration as that felt by the moon (which is minuscule and undetectable by most instruments), that object would not produce changes in ocean levels as we see with the moon. Again, the oceans are not rising/falling due to the moon's gravity pulling on them. It only happens because the moon is far enough away that its tiny gravitational acceleration on the earth is (1) felt everywhere on earth, and (2) felt everywhere on earth in slightly different amounts.

For a smaller, closer object (even with similar nearby gravitational acceleration), the tidal forces will not be the same because that gravitational acceleration will fall off to near zero in a very short distance.

It's the gradient applied over the whole ocean that causes the tides. In other words, the forces are not enough to create any kind of local change in the depth of the ocean. It's not a gravitational "pulling" as we're accustomed to think about, but more of a global squeezing of water from that gradient applied to the entire ocean. I'll have to give some more thought to the idea of a gravity source on the surface of the earth, but I doubt it would work the same way (we're comparing a relatively small mass in a concentrated location on the earth with that same mass distributed mostly evenly over the earth).

Gotcha. I thought the article was referring to polar ice in general, not just specifically ice sheets (over land areas). Still, the gravity produced by that mass doesn't seem to be enough to make a real difference (see my other comment questioning the comparison with the moon/tides).

Not only that, but I think the whole idea here is just plain wrong. From the article:

> this gravitational attraction that the ice sheet exerts on the surrounding water diminishes. As a consequence, water migrates away from the ice sheet.

When an ice sheet melts, it doesn't create a void in its place. What was once ice becomes liquid water. That liquid water actually has a slightly higher density than it had when in ice form, but it will occupy slightly less volume in the ocean. Mass is conserved, and the net effect in terms of gravity is essentially zero.

If anything, you'd have slightly higher local gravity in that part of the ocean (due to a higher concentration of liquid water vs ice), but again, zero net change looking at the entire ocean.

> Doesn't sound like a lot but it's still 524 times higher than the effect of the moon's gravity which creates the tides.

Contrary to common belief, tides are not caused by the direct influence of the moon's gravity (it's far too weak to have any effect)[1]. The tidal forces are caused by the gravitational gradient from the moon (and the "centrifugal" forces from our path around the earth-moon barycenter), and I don't believe you'd get the same effects from a gravity source on the surface of the earth.

Even a lot of very respectable scientists and textbooks get this wrong.

[1] See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwChk4S99i4 for a pretty good explanation

> Most people have seen enough coverage of police officers doing unreasonable things in order to make a judgement call

Bingo! That's the problem. People are making "judgement calls" based on highly publicized, recent cases of police officers doing "unreasonable things". Those cases represent < 0.1% of the police officers in the country. Making judgement calls based on what others have done is called prejudice, and last I checked, people are still innocent until proven guilty in this country. That goes for the reporters and the officers involved.

As for the amount of context we have relative to the video that's been published, I think any reasonable judge would conclude that (1) the person operating the camera was almost certainly recording before what we've seen published, (2) the events on published video obviously seem to refer to events that happened before what we see, and (3) those events that happened before are not just circumstantial details - they could easily swing the case in either direction. So yes, more context in this situation is absolutely necessary. Make no confusion - I'm not asking about what they ate for breakfast.

I know this is meta, but... seriously people, what's with all the downvotes? How could more information/context around a current event be a bad thing?

I've been watching what happens, at they always come almost exactly 2 minutes after I post something - on this and another account I use. It's pretty clear that there's some downvote bot activity going on (in addition to the usual "haters").

> I don't think the bill of rights, nor the people that wrote it, gets to stand on its own laurels.

Agreed, but I'm talking specifically about free speech, not any other parts of the constitution or the people who wrote it. I'm not debating the need for a "living constitution".

> You're right, context is huge. The area had already been cleared of protesters. There was no imminent threat of any kind.

I'm asking if you or anyone else has video proof of that. Are national news organizations exempt from an order like this to move (I know in some cases they are, but again, the lack of contextual proof here makes me question what they were told prior to what we've seen).

Context is huge in cases like this, and I still haven't seen a video showing the beginning of the reporters' confrontation[1]. Does anyone have a link to a video that shows what happened prior to the videos that are being widely publicized?

[1] This one shows a bit more at the beginning, making it look like the crew had already been asked at least a few times to move: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvbXWAHad-4

> However, it's not "just speech." As I linked elsewhere, studies show that after every dogwhistle-ridden Trump speech, violence against minorities increase. We've strayed into Sticks and Stones territory.

Studies would show that a thousand other things are also followed by an increase in violence. In literature, movies, telephone calls – anywhere people communicate with other people, you will find that some people communicate offensive (to someone) ideas, and as a result, other people who are prone to violence will be pushed over the edge and do something harmful. Those who seek violent ideas will find them regardless of censorship. And those who seek positivity and love will find them.

It is absolutely "just speech". We haven't crossed any magical boundary today that we hadn't crossed 229 years ago when the bill of rights was ratified. If you want to fully prevent violence from ever occurring by censoring speech, you're welcome to live in a communist country. But of course, you won't find what you're looking for there either.

> But I think it's very important that the employees of companies are allowed to exercise their own value systems by denying users of hate speech a platform.

I completely agree. That doesn't mean I have to agree with their value systems or stay silent about my discontent (and I'm not implying that you claimed that either).

I'm just tired of hearing the phrase "hate speech" used whenever these discussions happen, as if there were some fundamental human law that we have to protect people from ideas that might offend them - either via regulation or private company policy. Illegal or not, I don't think it helps to talk about "hate speech" in the context of censorship and free speech. It's like having a debate about which curse words are the worst, when really that's missing the point.

> it can't even get started on a reasonable footing if some of the participants don't know enough history to be able to answer this question.

Perhaps you're conflating hate speech with hateful (and harmful) actions. History is full of examples of the latter, but it's also full of examples of the former where no one was actually hurt, minority groups included.

Speech can be a precursor to action, but that doesn't make it a crime in itself (unless you're living in "1984"). What's that old rhyme about "sticks and stones..."?

The same laws I described, along with pricing. While the laws don't directly prohibit private delivery to those areas, they greatly reduce the economic incentive to do so by (1) prohibiting delivery to regular mailboxes and, (2) allowing USPS to charge such low rates so as to lose money on every delivery (no one can compete with that).

Literal or not, it amounts to being the same for their bottom line, and we all pay for it through taxes.

> No one else does what the USPS does

They certainly could if it weren't for laws preventing them from delivering to people's mailboxes.

As an American, the freedom is mine (as it is for other US citizens) to do what I choose with the money I earn, regardless of the amount. Wealth is relative, after all.

> So Gates is not actually going to do anything to help with this pandemic?

Again, not what I said. Contributing resources and expertise is not an all-or-nothing scenario. Each dollar spent by Gates fighting COVID-19 will (in my opinion) be significantly more productive than each dollar spent by the US government. But that doesn't mean he's the only force participating in the fight, nor is his contribution insignificant.

If you have an argument to make, please make it, but I'd ask you politely to refrain from straw man arguments or insisting on false dichotomies.

> So you'd bet that the US is going to deal with the pandemic more effectively than China has?

No, that's not what I said.

Perhaps this should be viewed as just more evidence that in many cases, private enterprise tends to be more productive than government-sponsored initiatives.

Granted, that may not always be the case (China being a counterexample here), but one must also be aware of the costs (in terms of freedom) that are associated with government control of such a large portion of citizens' lives and the means of production. If that's what you happen to prefer, you're free to move to a nation that embraces communism. You might fare better in a pandemic, but you might also get locked up (or worse) for saying something that your government doesn't agree with.

As for me, I prefer capitalism and the freedom it gives us to either hoard wealth or (as Gates demonstrates) do tremendous good - not by force, but out of genuine altruism. I'd bet on the success of a Gates-sponsored healthcare solution over a government-sponsored one any day of the week.

> So they jacked up the prices from high (few people can buy) to infinity (nobody can buy).

If nobody can buy, the sellers don't sell any (and lose potential profits), so they'll be forced to sell for more reasonable prices. See - no heavy-handed intervention needed, and market prices naturally stabilize to a fair price accounting for what is available and how much of everything else a person is willing to sacrifice in return for the product of interest.

Yes, exactly! After reading through the replies here, I am dumbfounded by many people's lack of understanding of this basic concept of economics (especially given the usual level of intelligence among the HN crowd). "But the natural effects of supply and demand aren't fair in this situation because..."

Letting prices rise is the most fair and overall beneficial reaction in this situation. Even for those who can't afford the inflated prices in the very short-term (who wouldn't have access to them anyway due to limited supply), the rise in prices will help give them access to these goods at reasonable prices in the slightly-delayed short term and in the future when similar shortages occur.

I'm seriously blown away by the level of virtue signalling and mental gymnastics going on by those who don't get it, and it scares me that many of those same people hold positions of power to influence public policy.