iliketosleep

No, you've misconstrued what I've said. I am not implying that the payment being declined by a merchant is anything related to the government. Nor am I implying that the government shared my information with any company. Nor I am on any kind of blacklist (at least that I'm aware of). Read my original post, they are two separate issues.

The type of monitoring used was disclosed as was the "likely cause" of me being flagged. This wasn't a secretive kind of thing. Of course one can't "know" anything as it's a black-box. But it's not a stretch to see how such systems may conclude, from automated profiling, that users of privacy-centric services are more likely to be associated with fraud and hence flagged. This also represents a more general issue with the application of machine learning.

I am being monitored for using a privacy focused email address when signing up for services operated by a government entity. Yep, it happens. Their AI determined that people using particular email providers need to be watched. Not only that, I have had payments mysteriously fail with big online merchants, and after following it up through multiple layers of support I was told that particular email services are automatically flagged. You can guess which ones.

Now what do I do? Avoid privacy-focused email addresses for anything in daily life. It seems to be a battle that cannot be won.

Under the thin veneer of civilized society it's still the law of the jungle; while our civilization may have become advanced, our DNA hasn't caught up. We are programmed to blindly accumulate as much as possible, because for most of our evolutionary history scarcity and disaster was always just around the corner. In modern times, it translates into those who already hold positions of wealth and power going for even more, at the expensive of everyone else. This has in turn been amplified by technology and globalization.

Having said that, historically we're still at a "high point". It's a cold comfort, but still..

You make a good point. It's interesting how people seem to automatically equate hard work as automatically being a positive (or even as some kind of morality). In reality, without fully understanding an individual's true motivations, it's hard to make any kind of proper judgement.

> What industry?

There are many examples in the manufacturing industry, though unions aren't the only factor.

> Maybe we need to open a gigantic can of worms that “runs counter to globalization” if we’re talking about sending those jobs to countries with unethical working conditions.

I couldn't agree more, the problem is there are powerful interests that will keep trying to sweep this issue under the rug.

> The worst thing that people can say about unions is they are bureaucratic and inconvenient.

I disagree. Unions can lead to the death of entire industries - I have seen it with my own eyes. Inefficiencies created by unions lead to jobs going to places where such unions do not exist. Personally, I do believe the workers need to be protected, but if you protect workers then you also need to protect industries, and this opens a gigantic can of worms as it runs counter to globalization and free trade.

The article explains it perfectly: Understandably, male names still do not spot the “woman” radical (女, nü). 女 explicitly refers to women, whereas the “man” radical (亻, ren2) is more flexible, as it refers to humans.

This is also consistent with my understanding. On a cultural note, many ppl call Westerners with PC leanings “白左” and view the PC movement as a bit ridiculous. So definitely don’t apply modern PC standards to China.

> I feel my life outcome and success depends on emotional regulation more than anything else.

Indeed. It wouldn't surprise me that assuming a person is of at least average intelligence, emotional regulation is the greatest predictor of success. Not to be held back by one's own demons is a big step towards success.

That was an interesting read which shows the original intention behind it wasn't necessarily evil, and that the media code was designed to treat the symptoms of an underlying problem (which are of course the monopolies).

All I can find is that it was tabled by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission at the request of the federal government. But if I was to take a wild guess, I'd say that Murdoch was somehow behind it.

Because the media code set by the government should, in an overall sense, benefit the people of the nation. Clearly it's not the case, and the government deserves to be called out for it.

After reading the article, it appears that this deal favors large media companies who are able to negotiate a decent deal for themselves with Facebook. It seems like that the government will also use it as an excuse to cut finding to state-funded news sources. I cannot see how the deal favors the general public at all.

> Could one make the argument that entities with an interest in destabilizing our democracy should not be able to inject propaganda into our discourse because “free speech”?

One could also argue that censoring one side of politics deepens divisions and drives people to polical extremes. I would rephrase "democracy can’t survive without free speech" as "democracy can’t survive without free political speech"

I can't even understand why there's an ideological battle. If you take a perfectly healthy person and put them into solitary confinement, there's a good chance they'll become depressed. It's an extreme example, but my point is that for most people depression is very much circumstantial. If the circumstances can be corrected and no serious trauma was experienced, the depression will probably go away. When cirsumstances cannot be changed or there's lasting trauma, medications are an option but outcomes are mixed..

There's a minority of people whom regardless of their circumstances will be depressed. In this case, the argument that a person's monoamine neurotransmitters levels (e.g. serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine) are just naturally out of whack makes sense and medications might be the best option.

Your comment hits the nail on the head. It's anticompetitive behaviour, and in the end consumers don't have a choice because competitors have gone out of business. If it's a valuable product or service (e.g. lifetime memories), consumers are then held to ransom. It has been going on for years, and it will continue to get worse until we rearch some kind of tipping point where people start to really care.

> Not much of it actually helps me.

This is an excellent point. With the multitudes of content competing for our attention, it's important to be very selective and deliberate with usage. Otherwise, it can very easily turn into an addiction - you'll be mindlessly enjoying the dopamine hits of watching "interesting" videos whilst life passes by.

If it's an option for you, it is possible to downgrade most apps if you jailbreak your phone and install a downgrade tweak.

What it demonstrates is that people have already made up their mind on the topic and aren't genuinely interested in new perspectives. This helps explains the inflammatory nature of Internet debates in general.

If they are reporting their fellow students who criticize the gov. to authorities, are they not essentially agents?

Also competition for jobs. I know of one instance where a country fast-tracked permanent residency for those who study accounting. Guess what happened? There's now a glut of accountants and real wages have dropped.

Social media is addictive by design and it's easy to slip into these bad habits. Gloomy, sensational news/opinions is good for "engagement" metrics and that's what people inevitability find themselves drowning in if they don't create clear boundaries around usage.

At times, I've become so miserable from it that I've had to jump into a cold shower to snap out of the doom and gloom. Thankfully, the cold shower usually works and provides incentive not to fall into the habit again.

It's a beautiful dream, but I don't think it would work. Quotes from what is civil discourse about heated political topics would get taken out of context, posted on twitter, labeled as hate speech, picked up by the media, and probably end up getting the startup more or less canceled.

Posts that are critical of China's gov. will automatically get downvotes from a particular subset of people.

> New UIs are worse because of screenshot driven design.

Interesting observation. I've had this very situation with mobile apps, where users base their decision on whether to download an app largely on the basis of having a quick look at the screenshots. Adding the proper functionality and improving discoverability inevitably leads to a design which simply isn't as slick as the minimalist version. The only solution I can think of is to have an "advanced" version of the UI which users can enable.

That's a great list!! I hadn't heard of half these tweaks, nor did I realize there were so many that work on iOS 13. Maybe it's time to jailbreak again!

Ah the WPS reaver attack. It's one of the biggest jokes in security I've ever seen. It's like having two doors leading into the same "secure" room: one is a big iron door (WPA2), and the other is a flimsy wooden door (WPS) that can be pushed over with just a bit of force.

Best of all, WPS was enabled by default on most access points and there was no delay on retries.

What makes it even worse is this happened after the whole WEP debacle. You'd think the Wi-Fi Alliance would do some security auditing, but they were obviously more focused on collecting certification fees.

It goes far enough that your concern is valid. Since HN is not exactly mainstream and many Chinese people are posting similar kinds of videos, you're probably okay in this case. However, if you want to make honest comments about China online and still want to travel there, I highly recommend that you post anonymously.

Yes, but if you want to get a 30% discount on your upgrade, Sonos requires you to brick the device by putting it into "recycle" mode.

> A10 or older chips

Actually it's A11 or older, which is even better.