palmfacehn

You've chosen a poor example to illustrate your case.

The Dutch East India Company was a state granted monopoly. Obviously in this case, the regulations (state charter) empowered the abuses you feel so strongly about.

More generally, I'd caution against applying the present day norms around human rights to a distant historical case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(historical_analysi...

I always found it strange that I needed to:

1) Provide a phone number

2) Install a mobile app

3) Activate Google Play Services

...All to create an account for this "private" messaging service. After which I needed to disable location sharing and public display of a phone number I used. A recent change now gives the country of the sim I used when registering if I DM someone new.

Other than that, his message does speak to valid concerns. However, I'm not sure why Telegram needed so much personal data for sending private messages.

Even more so when it is a summary.

I don't think it is that extreme. The problem with the poster's assertion is that one individual's "free-market" as the poster defines it, is another's state capitalism.

If the above poster feels that there is a pragmatic need for regulation, fine. However the underlying principles of laissez-faire remain clearly defined. By appealing to a pragmatic need for regulation, the poster opens the door for centralized capture of the market. Long term this trend creates malign incentives.

Historically those who couldn't achieve monopoly conditions by appealing to consumers on the market, used the power of the state instead. So there's a mixed bag at best here. Others contend that the truly toxic monopolies are created exclusively by this process. You can take you pick, we're free to disagree here, but denying the hazards of the regulatory state would be unreasonable. Maybe that's an acceptable trade off and I think that's a fair discussion.

However, all of that is a far way off from an appeal to special circumstances, "because AI", "markets bad" and therefore neo-luddite doom. It isn't something we have observed with other tech innovations, nor is it grounded in axiomatic reasoning.

It isn't necessarily a mistake if you can scare people into clicking, or perhaps granting you special regulatory privileges. It may be unethical.

It isn't enough to observe empirically how laissez-faire has increased living standards to the extent that it is permitted. It is also necessary to describe the impossibility of central planning due to the Economic Calculation Problem.

We must also observe that opponents to laissez-faire liberalizations are by definition proponents of illiberal central planning.

Yes, vaguely liberalized economies have had problems. It doesn't follow that the problems of these vaguely liberalized economies are exclusively the result of liberalization. HN will harp on cherry picked citations. A common theme will be judging events in the distant past by the standards of the present.

The alternative is not a utopia, it is a relatively less free and more centrally planned economy. The failure mode of these centralized systems is more catastrophic, results in less opportunity and less productivity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

AI is a technology to be used to improve the human condition. The laissez-faire system, to the extent that we allow it, is the decentralized way to allocate resources to serve humanity.

The poster provided an example of poor abstraction. HTML for display, JS for client side logic. Combining them is part of the problem with other popular frameworks.

More than 90% of the comments are partisan attacks on Trump. I'm happy for her win, but the topic doesn't stimulate a high quality discussion.

Norway is a net exporter of petroleum.

Here is a related tangent:

>Norway walks back US Navy fuel supply boycott

https://www.bairdmaritime.com/security/naval/naval-ships/nor...

I projected my distaste for rampant partisanship into the comment. So far I've only seen one comment which is informative and on topic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45537006

Yes, many partisans are asserting that it is unprecedented. The selective omissions advance their narrative. They are acting in self-interest. The out-party hate is downstream and symptomatic.

A less partisan view might find that it the actions of the political classes are not unprecedented. It is a progression of the form. Both poles represent false alternatives in this regard. The malign incentives are systemic.

410 removed

This is a second order effect of Google weighting Reddit heavily in Search.

You're stepping into a distinct issue where you specify politicians or the political classes. Thus far I took the discussion to be about individuals engaging in informal political discussions. The poll itself wasn't limited to politicians.

There are well known malign incentives for politicians and the political classes. Generally speaking these involve the expansion of the purview of the state and the time preferences dictated by electoral cycles. These are realist views around the incentives political actors find themselves subjected to. The extent of how much these incentives are perceived to dictate outcomes might correlate with the observer's cynicism. However, presuming that these incentives would only apply to one political party would be naive at best. At worst it would be divisive partisan tilting. The suggestion that it is specific to Republicans and the devolution of this thread is illustrative of the polling data.

That is a good example of a bad faith presupposition. It assumes intent. You may passionately believe this and it may even be a popular view here at HN. However, it isn't a starting point for a dialogue.

Specifically, it feels like the lack of discernment goes off the rails and falls into the chasm of derangement where people assume that their opponents do not have that common goal. Anti-natalists and population control advocates excluded, most of us do share that goal. The differences are in the proposed approaches.

There are legitimate discussions which can be had about those approaches to achieving that common goal. The discussion is no longer in good faith where partisans deny that common goal or assume evil intent.

I would hope that some would have the good sense to stop paying for bad services, but here we are.

The privacy implications are only one of the off-putting elements of the new norm of constant filming. There's something vapid and self-absorbed about everything being filmed and shared. Existing in the moment isn't enough anymore. For many, each moment needs to be preempted for a contrived video or pic.

I can appreciate the potential utility of a HUD in daily scenarios. For myself, I'm content to go sans device when I'm out of the house. Don't I get enough here at my desk? Not everything needs to be computed, optimized or shared.

I thought Netflix was a paid service?

Enable "show dead" in your HN profile settings to observe this discrepancy:

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jacobin.com

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=mises.org

And you've yet to engage with the substance of the discussion. If you had bothered you'd have some appreciation of what I've expressed. Specifically, the futility of engaging in a partisan back and forth over perceptions of bias in specific articles. If you are interested in that kind of content, a simple Google search will suffice.

Even outside of the highly politicized articles, the tendency for editors to claim articles as their personal fiefdoms and engage in petty edit wars is illustrative. Even if you feel that Wikipedia's stance is normative in the partisan sense, reasonable people should be able to see how the aforementioned dynamic interacts with the highly charged partisan environment we find ourselves in.

Yes, the current administration has issues. However, when we look at the numerous issues around previous administrations, such as the Disinformation Governance Board or the WH's directing social media companies to censor users, they are hardly new or distinct. Disregard for individual liberty is the norm. In fact, the opposition frequently celebrates what they dictate as "collective good" over the remaining notions of individual rights.

Partisans choose to engage in selective outrage.

The current issues are continuations of the trend. We see this in the rationalizations of the current partisans. School yard favorites, such as "They started it" and end-justify-the-means, "If we don't abandon the principles of free speech, we are at a disadvantage to our unprincipled opponents" are used to rationalize this behavior. Meanwhile, the principled remnant are castigated as weak, anti-maga turncoats.

Finally, the assertion around "objectivity" is either a misuse of language or a misunderstanding of basic premises. Objective truth may exist in nature, but we experience it subjectively. Further down the chain, we are able to use our limited facilities to describe it. We frequently make mistakes in both perception and description. In the case of Wikipedia, the results are of an even lower tier, as we can only describe what other, frequently partisan sources have previously described. Then there is the contentious issue of which sources are acceptable for Wikipedia's "Reliable Sources".

I think it should be possible to disagree with some of Wikipedia's editorial outcomes, processes, aspects of this administration or any other politician. We shouldn't dismiss the possibility that Wikipedia has problems as well as partisan politics. We definitely shouldn't dismiss that combination with even more partisan generalization.

Regulation 1 mandates data collection, creating unintended consequences. Now, regulation 2 is required to counter the effects of regulation 1. Regulation 2's unintended consequences are similarly either unknown or ignored. This suggests that regulation 3 may be necessitated and that the trend may continue indefinitely.

In theory infinite regulations would suggest that no one would be permitted to do anything eventually. However, before we reach that point, the cost of compliance will be so high that publishing websites will become untenable.

An equilibrium of regulatory capture favoring large publishers will likely emerge before this point. Those large interests will have the resources to influence regulatory outcomes. Their incentives will include maintaining a sufficiently high barrier to entry while optimizing their own compliance costs.

>And the ultra-libertarians around it.

Here's a little perspective which might dispel you of that notion. If anything, the people you describe are willing to compromise any alleged libertarian principles they may hold for a seat at the table. It would arguably make them lesser-libertarians. They are commonly described as "Beltway Libertarians"

The distinction has been around for awhile now. As a rule, someone accepting state contracts probably isn't "ultra-libertarian". This probably won't make you more amenable to the cause of liberty, but the distinction is worth making. A little accuracy in your pejoratives goes a long way.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2005/07/lew-rockwell/regime-libe...

Thunberg is the poster-child for Globalist technocratic management of energy consumption.

Name.com has always been more professional with less trick billing stunts. Easy to reach a human and they're not set on upselling you into garbage. However, if you aren't monitoring your inbox for expiration notices, you're already in trouble.

It is a cute technique, but I would prefer if the fingerprint were used higher up in the stack. The fingerprint should be compared against the User-Agent. I'm more interested in blocking curl when it is specifically reporting itself as Chrome/x.y.z.

Most of the abusive scraping is much lower hanging fruit. It is easy to identify the bots and relate that back to ASNs. You can then block all of Huawei cloud and the other usual suspects. Many networks aren't worth allowing at this point.

For the rest, the standard advice about performant sites applies.

I've noticed that most reports fit the following format. 2-5 minutes of selective reporting of the headline issue. Then, "For more, we're joined by [credentialed think tank expert]". At this point the gloves come off and the rest of the session is editorializing.

I'm not watching to hear what happened anymore. Something happened, that much I can accept. What exactly happened is up for debate. I watch exclusively to see what they're trying to sell me. I'm more interested in the agenda and narrative the presenters are attempting to frame. After this is established I can consider the incentives of the factions or actors involved.

Billionaires often prefer the centralization which socialist narratives rationalize. It allows them to more easily capture wealth from the state. The central bank is a boon to Wall Street. The USDA is a boon to big agriculture. The central bank financing debt is a boon for the defense industry. The "Affordable Care Act" increased profits for health insurers. Regulations are often used to create artificial barriers to entry and prevent competition.