rvdavis

> legal distinctions are pointless to this discussion

Legal distinctions are absolutely material to this discussion. You can't pretend they don't exist; you need to persuade representatives and their constituents that the current legal framework is outdated and is in need of revision.

Why on God's green Earth would you pollute Arch with KDE?! :)

I agree to an extent, but part of ownership is having the ability to rent it out. Without the incentive to extract rent, there would be no motive to accrue the large amount of infrastructure which has given us such incredibly low costs and high efficiency. This has reduced barriers to entry for the average individual to operate blogs, personal pages, online businesses, and more. I can't think of a better time for free speech.

"Real life" is not as different as you think from what's going on right now. There's a reason that you see the exercise of free speech (peaceful, lawful demonstrations) in public spaces: private individuals should be secure in their private property from the intrusions of others into their otherwise private affairs. You can't just violate someone's private property against their will or you'll face legal consequences. Corporations are legally recognized persons (like it or not, established law in US), and are entitled to similar property rights, including the same right that I use to lawfully rent out my residential property when I'd otherwise be taking a loss on it while not living there.

Specifically, though, you seem focused on the rent aspect of the property issue, and (if I'm reading your argument correctly) are concerned that large corporations seeking rent are a threat to free speech. It's strange that you contrast "Real Life" to the one in which corporations don't have similar property rights. You're making an unnecessary distinction between "online" and "real life"; ownership rights extend to everything digital, and a corporation has no less a right to own infrastructure (servers, cables, routers, etc.) or software than an individual.

And why should they? Individuals can't deliver the scale and efficiency that large corporations regularly do. Corporations such as AWS have brought us into an unprecedented time in which there is no shortage of ways for individuals to exercise their free speech--due entirely to their desire as a corporation to make profit from seeking rent.

The endgame of your argument is nationalization. It hinges on some cabal of powerful people doing powerful things to powerless people, which of course we need the government to protect us from. Some well-meaning, but onerous regulations are enacted to appease an irrational fear, and smaller competitors are pushed out while large corporations increase their market share. While you recognize that there is a "huge number of other parties" in the market, you fail to see that you are proposing a self-fulfilling prophecy in that even smaller numbers of "powerful people" will control vast swaths of infrastructure. Of course, it logically follows for the government to protect us again from the "powerful people" when they inevitable suffer the back-end of the business cycle, either by nationalizing the infrastructure outright or seizing ownership of large portions of it through. Or you could consider a bailout of some sort, but we are pretty far from the healthy market conditions that exist if we're discussing bailing out tech companies.

While well-meaning, your argument would result in the exact opposite of its stated purpose of protecting free speech. I can't imagine that allowing the US--not exactly considered a bastion of civil liberties by the crowd on here--to nationalize infrastructure would result in a net positive for free speech around the world.

If he's a 3 year old floundering idiot, what does that make his political opponents who he continues to trounce?

I am on my third month as a paying subscriber, and it is worth it to me. I am lower-middle class, so my budget is pretty tight. I wouldn't mind a discount!

Veteran here. Most of us are a humble bunch, but I've met some incredibly gifted individuals while serving... and I served in the US Army Infantry. I would encourage you to rethink your uninformed opinions of us.

Awesome! I didn't realize how many contributors were involved in the project. Exciting milestone.

I would disagree on this point, being a "right"-libertarian from a low-income family, but I will happily concede that this differs from person to person, situation to situation. Libertarianism promotes and empowers the individual over the collective, and most libertarians derive their values from this ideological position. I'm not sure if you are familiar with any libertarians in your personal life, but many are deeply caring, rational individuals who have a consistent framework of ideals and strongly held beliefs against the use or threat of violence toward others. I would encourage you to engage with us more before you dismiss us, and I think you'd be pleasantly surprised :)

Hardly. He stated that there is a difference between illegal and legal immigration, and that right now, somehow, that distinction is being lost in the hyperbole. One side of the argument is being unfairly portrayed as a horde of white supremacists/nationalists/racists/etc, because they make this distinction. At the same time, amnesty for illegal immigrants is being pushed by the other side as a humanitarian concern. Both sides are right to feel as they do, but good luck trying to find common ground in this current political environment.

Are we pretending that the source you cited is not a biased opinion piece?

1. His point was that the Manning leaks revealed one war crime, not a trend.

2. Clapper is/was not a military official.

3. Being a former US Army infantryman, I have no clue what you are referencing with regard to an "explicit double tap strategy." However, you did describe a well-used TTP of insurgents in Afghanistan.

6. A "clear war crime" GITMO is not; it is an artifact of civilian policies in a legal grey area. Personally, I think it does more harm than good and should be shut down, but there are real questions (i.e. where do the prisoners go?) that CIVILIANS in Congress can't answer yet.

7. That sounds lovely, but lacks any real substance.

> When that something is a "think tank", adults understand that what it produces...

> That indisputable fact alone means you have no business invoking science -- all you're doing is literally standing up to defend the world's most entrenched, powerful interests. Someone actually interested in science, unlike yourself, would, on principle, be skeptical toward purveyors of "science" that never comes to different conclusions no matter the problem domain.

I think you could have made your point without the ad hominem.

Great explanation, thanks!

Can you expand on what your mentor defined as a "product shop" vs "professional services shop"?

> Charity follows trends and whims, not needs.

You imply government policy does not follow trends and whims, which is observably false.

Except for all the times that they aren't "cowardly".

I was sponsored through the Udacity Intro to Java course by my employer as a condition of employment when I first got recruited. I found that it was a great course on learning the language.

https://www.udacity.com/course/intro-to-java-programming--cs...

Did you just make me doubt myself? :)

The author of the article doubted his faculties enough to mention his hesitation to act due to impairment. My familiarity with the effects of ingesting the substance is irrelevant.

Did nobody else notice the author claimed to be on acid at the time? That is an awfully vivid recollection of events for someone out of their mind on LSD. I highly doubt he remembers the event as clearly as he presents it, and it really begs the question as to how much of this story he fabricated. I don't see the purpose to publishing this story other than as an exercise in virtue signalling.

I think the commenter who stated that it is likely should cite their source. If you make an assertion like that, you should back it up.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. When I first started learning Rails, I found that a lot of the automagical stuff hindered my understanding of how Rails actually worked. After building a few projects in Sinatra, it was easier to see how much of the heavy lifting Rails does for you behind the scenes.

I'm glad that there are alternatives to Rails still being developed. I have looked at both projects independently before, and it makes sense for Hanami to adopt ROM as it's ORM.

  When the most powerful demographic in the United States came together to assert that making America great again meant asserting their supremacy, they were asserting my supremacy.

I find this rhetoric troubling; I know many Trump supporters and none would explain their vote in terms of asserting "supremacy" for their demographic. Given the author's background, I see how he could reach that conclusion, but his assertion stands in opposition to other parts of his article in which he states that engagement is the key to changing minds. I'm not too sure why he thinks that smearing the millions of voters who supported Trump as white supremacists is a positive step toward engaging them in civil discussion.