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door99

-15 karma · joined May 5, 2020

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door99··on Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/amazon-reportedly-downplayed...
door99··on Pimutils: The coreutils of personal information management
https://jrnl.sh/ ?
door99··on US Navy destroyer shoots down an ICBM in milestone test
I didn't say unilateral, although I support that as well. The United States is the only country ever to use nuclear weapons, and is also one that I reside in. If I lived in Russia or China, I would advocate for unilateral disarmament in those countries as well. Nuclear weapons are an absolute horror and should be completely eliminated from this planet. The United States (unlike China) does not even have a "No first use" policy -- it reserves the ability to use nuclear weapons aggressively or pre-emptively.
door99··on US Navy destroyer shoots down an ICBM in milestone test
There's a better solution that's free, and in fact saves money: complete nuclear disarmament, which the United States is the primary obstacle to.
door99··on FBI, DHS, HHS Warn of Imminent Ransomware Threat Against U.S. Hospitals
Horrifying mindset that led to the disastrous war on terror in the aftermath of 9/11. Our foreign policy should not be based on an animalistic thirst for blood.
door99··on How tech workers at Kickstarter formed one of the only unions in the industry
> Unions are the antithesis of a meritocracy. Try promoting based on seniority over merit in a tech.

Tech is absolutely not a meritocracy.

door99··on How tech workers at Kickstarter formed one of the only unions in the industry
Unions are not perfect and unionized workers often have a complicated relationship with their union, but fundamentally a Union is just a democratic organization representing workers. The policies are set by the union on behalf of the interests of workers, however imperfectly. Without a union, the policies are set by management and there is no institutional power that workers have collectively against policies they don’t like.
door99··on Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship
> Probably many undocumented due to the secretive nature of their government.

Are you saying the Chinese government could occupy a foreign country, commit war crimes against them, and kill over a million people without anyone knowing?

door99··on Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship
The current leadership in the CCP basically agrees with your analysis, so what’s your point?
door99··on Robinhood has lured young traders, sometimes with devastating results
Not necessarily. There aren't really that many frictionless ways to gamble hundreds of thousands of dollars on your phone. People, especially young people, may make stupid, reckless decisions, but those decisions are often harder to get into and limited in scope and damage.

And I have no defense for the "something else"s -- casino gambling exploits people in exactly the same way: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/12/losing-...

door99··on Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants
> I disagree with this move. Why should we force a cap rather than let market competition improve prices?

Because the demand for delivery services on behalf of restaurants is inelastic right now -- they are relying on delivery for their revenue, and it's difficult to manage that in-house. This leads to price gouging.

door99··on Robinhood has lured young traders, sometimes with devastating results
That's a pretty damn bad "worst case"
door99··on How Did Vim Become So Popular?
:vimtutor
door99··on Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development
Antifa is a decentralized organization of people fighting against fascism. They don’t have a positive ideology, literally the only thing that unifies them is anti fascism. Communists, anarchists, and liberals may all call themselves antifa
door99··on Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development
>I am anti-fascist

>That doesn't mean I stand with Antifa.

Do you know what antifa is short for

door99··on Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development
If you think antifa is targeting “normal everyday views” I’m concerned about what sort of views you think those are. Do you think that neonazi and alt right organizations hold “everyday normal views”? That’s what antifa targets
door99··on Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development
How on earth is being against fascism and being for fascism similar in any regards at all
door99··on Lawsuit over online book lending could bankrupt Internet Archive
Reward doesn’t have to take the form of intellectual property. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prizes_as_an_alternative_to_...

Intellectual property benefits publishers, not creators.

door99··on Lawsuit over online book lending could bankrupt Internet Archive
> The most valuable possession people have is time and attention. Producing works of knowledge and culture involves people giving up their time and attention to produce something. If they have done so, they deserve to have ownership of it.

They deserve to be paid (eg, by a University), but they do not deserve ownership in terms of exclusive rights to its use. Can you imagine how far back science would be held if any applications of Newton or Einstein’s work required royalties to their estate? Are suggesting that the fact that they aren’t is tyranny?

door99··on Lawsuit over online book lending could bankrupt Internet Archive
> That may be a great philosophical argument, but in the eyes of the law (which is what we're discussing here), IA was giving away someone else's property, so it really can't be considered a charitable act.

Internet Archive is a nonprofit with a philosophical mission. I don't agree with them all the time, but I view that their responsibility is to act primarily in accordance with their values. Unfortunately, they ended up taking on powers that they may not be able to handle, but I believe that they are in the right and the publishers are in the wrong, which is a more important conversation to me than whether their decision was strategically prudent (probably it was not).

> Even setting aside the law, there is a question of ethics. If I give you a license key to my software, and you give it away to 10 of your friends, would you consider your act charitable?

All software that I have worked on outside of my job is free and open source, so I would. I believe that it should be mandated by law that all non-trivial software be free and open source. To qualify this, I wouldn't do this on an individual level without your consent if, say, you were a small creator and you depended upon licenses for your livelihood. But small creators are not the plantiffs in this case, nor the people who primarily benefit from strict intellectual property laws -- massive publishing companies are.

door99··on Lawsuit over online book lending could bankrupt Internet Archive
> It is not charitable when you give away another persons property

Knowledge and culture is not anyone’s property. It is the collective work of all of humanity and ought to be treated as such.

door99··on James Damore and three others end Google suit
Not to mention the fact that most programmers used to be women!

The problem is that our community isn’t very friendly or welcoming to women. How can we make that cultural change?

door99··on We are complicit in our employer’s deeds
The answer to employer abuse is not isolated people refusing to work at big tech companies. You have very little power alone and while refusing to work for a company you find objectionable may ease your conscience, it does little to affect change (unless you’re in a position with a lot of power like Tim). The solution is organization —- forming a union, or banding together behind a political organization or political campaign to affect change. Both of these run very counter to many tech workers’ individualist mindsets but ate much more effective than individual refusal.