erdevs

I agree they aren't opposing forces. And I also don't take Franklin's quote that way. Indeed, in the historical context, another way to put what he is saying is "don't trade short-term security for long-term security."

I think that is where the quote applies in this debate. Is accepting curtailing of encryption really an increase in security. If so, is it only short-term? What are the trade-offs to liberty and freedom further out? We should indeed be very cautious about any trade-off between short-term security vs long-term security and liberty.

I completely disagree with Wittes' take that there is any misappropriation of this quote or that it's meaning as commonly used in this discussion today differs greatly from it's original meaning. And please see comments above wherein Wittes' potential bias is highlighted, given his stated positions on these matters.

In the historical case, Franklin was making a simple argument: don't take the Penn's offer of a short-term increase in security at the cost of long-term liberty.

This reconciles perfectly well with the usage in this debate today: don't take the FBI's offer of a (supposed) increase in security (by weakening strong encryption) in exchange for a decrease in long-term liberty.

> Please note, I am not trying to take a position other than public awareness and conversation about these things is always good; whereas, quotes about not deserving liberty or safety only serve censor an open conversation from a position of moral authority.

I agree with you fully, there. And I'm not a personal advocate of such quotes per se (though I note their power, as you do as well). I was simply arguing that it may be a false dichotomy to claim that the original meaning of the quote is "nearer the opposite" of it's current usage. Oversimplifying matters and creating false dichotomies also "serve [to] censor an open conversation" through logical fallacy and through historical authority, in this case.

I think Franklin's quote is bombastic for dramatic effect, and that has its pluses and minuses. I think the real meaning is fairly simple and worthy of consideration, though: be very careful about trading short-term security at the cost of long-term freedom/liberty.

In consideration of that point, there is a meaningful debate here. We should examine whether backdoors or other means of foiling encryption would actually provide a net increase to security in practice, or whether they might have no real effect or even decrease security. If we believe means of foiling encryption actually increase security overall in practice, then we would have to debate the tradeoffs to freedom/liberty, the potential for governmental abuse, etc.

Given the government's track record of dramatic overreaching in the name of "security", I'm personally hesitant to take any of this lightly.

While we are discussing context, it is also good to consider your sources. The person quoted by NPR may have an agenda; consider the below.

It should well be noted that Benjamin Wittes, the person quoted in parent by NPR, is a noted proponent of increased national security at the cost of encryption.[1][2][3] While he is a Fellow at the Brookings Institute, which is generally considered non-partisan but liberal-leaning, Wittes and Brookings' stance on matters of national security have been quite pro-government / pro-"security", and he is also a member of the Hoover Institution's Task Force on National Security and Law. The Hoover Institution is generally regarded as right-leaning[4][5]. His positions are consistently in line with the FBI's, believing that end-to-end encryption with no backdoor is bad for national security and worth the tradeoff.

[1]: https://www.lawfareblog.com/encryption-living-will-think-you... , [2]: https://www.lawfareblog.com/quick-question-apple-hr [3]: https://www.lawfareblog.com/very-definition-digital-age-chut... [4]: http://www.csmonitor.com/1980/0327/032756.html , [5]: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hoover-Institution-on-War-R...

I have never taken this quote to mean that "personal liberty and government force were mutually opposed", per se.

Instead, it's meaning seems clear to me as such: don't trade short-term security/safety in exchange for a long-term decrease in liberty.

That seems to align with both the original meaning and the modern usage (despite NPR's reporting, which perhaps presents a false dichotomy).

Thanks for the information and it's always good to have context.

I was going to say that the original meaning doesn't take anything away from the quote as currently used and the power of that meaning. But Wittes already said that too, in the article you linked:

> "... maybe it doesn't matter so much what Franklin was actually trying to say because the quotation means so much to us in terms of the tension between government power and individual liberties."

I also disagree with Wittes that this means "not quite the opposite... but closer to the opposite [than the usual usage today]."

Franklin was arguing that the state ought to have the right to tax in order to defend the territory on the public's behalf. The Penns were trying to offer a one-time fee in exchange for not being taxed going forward.

Thus, Franklin's implication seems to be: do not trade temporary security in exchange for long-term liberty.

And so, I think the quote's modern usage and its originally intended meaning are very much in alignment. Just as the Penns offered a short-term benefit to security in exchange for a longer-term loss to prospective liberty, the FBI here is offering a short-term benefit (of debatable potential) to security by disallowing encryption or having master keys/backdoors, in exchange for a longer-term loss to prospective liberty.

It seems to me Wittes (and the NPR reporting) just isn't thinking about it deeply enough. It's not as simple as "oh, Franklin was original discussing a security matter and arguing for the state to provide security"... in fact, it is more nuanced and Franklin was saying that the state (and the public) should not accept, let alone advocate for, short-term security at the cost of long-term liberty and security.

I wonder if this will impact offerings like Pepperdata and Cloudera's cluster utilization tools.

> Take your comment for example..

This is not analogous. If parent had begun the comment with a personal history of experience in reading verbose articles with clickbait-y headlines that then meander to the actual meat of the bait, then it'd be similar.

The parent comment is instead succinctly presenting evidence /observations which build to a conclusion. Not the same thing.

Unfortunately, I think OS X has made it clear that many users are willing to compromise control and flexibility in exchange for a simplified or more polished user experience.

Interesting that this $30B valuation is only 25% higher than last year's reported valuation of $24B, whereas the year before their valuation leaped up from $10B.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-secret-math-of-airbnbs-24-bi...

I wonder how revenue growth has been this year. Perhaps it has slowed down further, given the relatively modest increase in valuation.

Some commenters on the article discussed condensed matter physics as a potentially more viable path of inquiry for understanding underlying physics theory than high energy particle collision experiments.

I'm no expert here and don't understand the dichotomy, such as it were, here. Also, how are condensed matter physics contributing to fundamental theories of the universe today? I've heard a lot more of condensed matter physics in specific areas (eg superconductivity), but not often heard it discussed in relation to fundamental physics. But I'm pretty uninformed here, overall.

Does anyone with more expertise here have a quick breakdown of what these commenters mean?

Well, this ended on quite the cliffhanger. Incredibly curious what is next discovered about this "sandman" ion channel and what it interacts with and responds to.

Additional links:

Oxford write-up which sticks more prosaicLly to the science (I imply no pejorative connotation to "prosaic", I simply mean there are fewer flourishes and asides): http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2016-08-03-researchers-discover-san...

Paper in Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...

Many nocturnal animals have eyes and utilize vision of light. Also, many animals who wake during the day and utilize vision of light also frequently hunt at night (eg see lions during hotter seasons).

It may well be that specializing systems such that they perform well during daylight only could lead to greater advantage than maintaining additional mechanisms for performing well at night also (or vice versa), and that sleeping during the downtime in order to conserve energy might confer supplemental advantage in this scheme. But we don't know if this explains all sleep, in all species.

Even if we did, then sleep in animals which perform reasonably well at any time of day would still be unexplained. Common ancestry wherein sleep evolved earlier may explain that, but we don't have that evidence as far as I know.

As such, it doesn't seem this is quite so easy to conclude about, let alone obviously so.

Has this study been heavily replicated?

I'm replying here again as the chain got too long, and as you made a point below which re-frames the entire ensuing discussion.

> [From further down in this chain:] I'm arguing against the ideas proposed by certain groups of people. People who (in my experience) typically argue that "that culture is misogynistic" means "all men have it better than all women".

Ah. Okay. Thank you for explaining and admitting this.

I do NOT subscribe to the line of thinking you are apparently disputing at all. Saying that "culture is misogynistic" means "all men have it better than all women" is absolutely idiotic, in my view. Reference the statements I made regarding patriarchal societies that also had male slavery. Many, many (probably most?) ancient civilizations included class-based socioeconomic systems. In many, the women in higher classes were much better off than the men in lower classes, on average

I'm not making any of the arguments or statements which you are arguing against. Thank you for clarifying that what you were actually reacting to and arguing against was something other than my statements, as I found your leaps in logic very surprising based on what I actually said/claimed/argued.

> I've run into many of these people online and in daily life.

I understand. Unfortunately, extremism and poor logic are all too common in discussions of important matters today. It's disappointing and frustrating.

I hope you can reflect here, though, and realize you are adding to this problem, in this example. You made an assumption about my worldview which wasn't based on any particular statement I made, and which absolutely does not represent my thoughts whatsoever. You then argued, and were even incendiary, based on that flawed presumption. This is the sort of thing that spins debates online and offline into bad places, which partially happened here as well.

> If you don't believe this, I'm sorry for insinuating you do.

Thank you, truly, very much for saying this. I feel a lot better now knowing what was actually happening here, as it made no sense to me previously. I think it's big of you to step back and reflect here.

> I was reacting to the normal use of that terminology, which, in my experience, does have the meaning I said.

I can see what you're saying, but again note that this doesn't apply to any argument I made. Thank you for clearing this up.

Your opening line was incendiary. The first line of logic you used to backup that incendiary claim was completely specious, as I took time and care to explain. With limited time in a day, opening this way leaves little motivation to take the rest point-by-point. And since your entire "ethical" position and the arguments that flowed forth from it depend on that opening foundation, all that's required is to point out the flaws in the foundation.

How about you address, point by point, the obviously flawed logic I called out. If you either demonstrate how my rebuttal is incorrect or accept that maybe you were being illogical and/or unfair there, it might enable a more reasonable discussion of the remainder. If you can't even address the first part of your own statements though, then what is the point?

> > You make these stark, extreme claims and assertions

> Such as claiming that the Biblical story of Esther shows that women were not powerless.

Read carefully. Think logically. Did I say all your claims and assertions were extreme? What statements did I specifically address in my reply? Why would you then point to only your statement about Esther. If that single statement of yours was not extreme, would that somehow necessarily mean no statement of yours was extreme? How is this any kind of logical counterpoint to what I actually, specifucally said? Logic.

But related to your comment on Esther, it is indeed an example of the extreme (eg reducing my statements to absurdity) and flawed logic I was discussing. Nowhere did I say that all women in all ancient civs (or even all women in any particular ancient civ) were powerless. I didn't say women were "powerless" at all. You are creating a straw man and then arguing against it.

I simply said that, in the ancient civs which we're aware of today, it seems many were patriarchal and/or misogynistic. By definition, women are less likely to have official functions/jobs (eg government officials, accountants, merchants, scholars) which involved frequent writing and conferred power in a patriarchal or misogynistic government and civilization.

You are not arguing any of my points. You're making up entirely different points (which are also extreme to the point of absurdity) and then making arguments against those separate, made-up, extremist points.

Stop strawmanning. Read carefully. Use clear logic. It will engender a better discussion.

Does anyone have a quick backgrounder on what is going on here?

This is long overdue. And adding an "#ad" tag or the like isn't cumbersome.

> > That's because most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic.

> ...[This] implies that all women terribly oppressed, while all men had lives of unrelenting leisure. That's simply not true.

No. The preceding statement does not imply either of those things. At all.

Let's take patriarchal societies which also had male slavery of hard labor, since hard labor slavery is nearly the antithesis of a "life of unrelenting leisure". Do you think that US society in the 1700s was at all patriarchal or misogynistic? Yes? So then would you deny that US society had male slaves at that time, or claim somehow that being a slave then implied a "life of unrelenting leisure"? Does having slavery including male slavery somehow make a society non-misogynistic or non-patriarchal? Do you think perhaps these are different dimensions and you are making wholly faulty logical leaps?

Or, let's be less extreme. Would you say that US society in, say, the 1920s or 1950s was at all patriarchal? Would you then claim that in the US in either decade "all men had lives of unrelenting leisure?"

Your logic is unsound to the extreme. Your entire line of reasoning is specious at best and employs reduction to absurdity throughout. You make these stark, extreme claims and assertions (like the quoted text above) with no logic justifying them whatsoever. Are you simply making bombastic statements for the sake of controversy?

> Isn't the better question who invented those things? I mean we are looking for the first one, which is likely to be the person who invented it.

So... you're assuming that the earliest example we can find will literally be the first creation. The instance where it was invented.

I'm afraid you have an incredibly unrealistic view of the archaeological record.

The odds are infinitesimally low that we will ever find the actual first example of human writing, or that it has even survived.

Do you have evidence it was more likely a female name?

You think it is exactly 50/50 odds?

You don't think it's possible to reason and make educated estimates?

Of all known ancient societies which are considered contenders for having left the earliest example of writing, how many seem to have been more patriarchal than totally fair or matriarchal? Let's think about it...

Yes, of course, these roles could be viewed as low-status in a patriarchy. And they might have been held by women even in a patriarchy regardless of whether they were considered low-class.

But we should consider the logic and likelihoods here.

Take the monastic/priest role or class. Does it seem more likely this role or class would be considered low-class and hold little power in most ancient civilizations, or that it would hold considerable power? Well, we can reason about this. Consider, based on what we know today, did religion seem to intermingle with government quite frequently in early civilizations? It seems so. Then the monastic/religious class likely held considerable power. Then by definition, in a patriarchy, it is more likely men held these roles more often than women. It sucks, but it stands to reason that it's likely that in most early civilizations, men more frequently held these power roles than women.

Now, consider scholars. Ask: was the ability to write widespread in most early civs? If not, would knowing how to write be a form of power? In a patriarchy, which sex more often holds roles of power? We have an educated guess for scholars, scribes, etc now too.

Follow similar logic for government officials. Would participating in government, and especially being responsible for written records in government likely confer power? It would seem so.

Follow similar logic for finance roles. Were accounts and records important? Likely yes, else why were they meticulously kept in early civilization examples? If they were important, does being an official financial record keeper likely confer some form of power? In a patriarchy, which sex likely has those power roles?

We obviously can't say for sure. But we can reason and apply what knowledge we do have.

> Ancient Egypt was more liberal than US in 1950.

Right. With all of the slavery. And the emperor/pharaoh totalitarianism. And the state-sponsored religion. Very liberal.

> And do you have any concrete evidence that 'Kushim' is not a female name?

I did not say whether Kushim specifically was a male or female name, did I? Show me where. I suggest you read more carefully before jumping to conclusions and certainly before making inflammatory and insulting accusations to someone.

> I think it is sexist to assume it could not be a women.

Since I made no such assumption nor such comment, I have no idea why you wrote this. I didn't even weigh in on whether "Kushim" is likely to be a name at all. (It could be a title or a number of other possible monikers.)

You wouldn't need to ask questions in succession to the same user. If you have, say, 4 questions you can ask 1 of them to each of 4 users.

"Mastery can only be achieved through practice."

Try saying no to smaller things first.

Also, to get over the natural (for many people) social anxiety involved in saying no, try saying it a different way. Example: "Okay, I'd love to do this. Help me prioritize here, though. I've presently got to do X,Y, and Z. I can't do a good job with all 4 and stay on time. Should I cut X? Wait to tackle this? What do you think is best?"

Eventually you'll work up to speaking up and creating preventative measures. Eg "if we're going to frequently face interrupt-driven task priorities, we need to move to some Kanban-like and also give up on concrete milestones."

But yeah.. just start trying. Practice makes perfect. As long as your not a jerk about it and take care to explain yourself and not make a requester feel dismissed, nobody will hold saying no against you. (Unless you're just not as productive as others, or unless it's a crappy environment/culture, in which case you should bail if you can.)

Not a single data point. First principles and logical analysis.

Let me put it more simply:

Did hunter-gatherer societies invent more artifacts that survived until today or did agricultural societies? This is an objectively quantifiable actuality we could check.

Which societies that we know about today had developed writing surfaces that persist until today? This is something we can check.

Be reasonable. Clearly, based on everything we know today, we're talking about agricultural societies here, not hunter-gatherer societies.

I agree it would've been even more clear if I used "civilization" instead of "society". Fair point, as more precise language is usually preferable.

Are you saying the main point / logic of my post wasn't clear? It wasn't feasible to consider replacing this one word and evaluate the likely intent? This feels like you're being a bit nitpicky and pedantic.

Still, your point stands. I hope you can concede my point here too...

I think your work (and your promotion of that work!) is awesome! Please take heart in all the appreciation and encouragement in this thread (and elsewhere)!

Funny comment. :)

But actually this is unlikely to make a big difference on battery drain. Pokemon GO appears to be built on Unity and Unity is pretty notorious for having poor battery management. Whether you're pegging CPU or not, Unity burns lots of power. So, the incremental battery life hit is likely to be low in doing image processing on top of a frame.

> Some people wouldn't know what clickbait is

The term "clickbait" need never be used. One could describe the characteristics of clickbait and ask about them. "Do you feel this article was meaningful?" "Did you feel this article required to click too many times?" "Did you feel this article had a misleading headline?" Or whatever more refined version of these questions might make sense.