thringsaround

Things have calmed down a bit, so I'll just double down on this before I go:

Do you even hear yourself when you talk? "What could be more regressive?"

Um, how about deporting children? How about mandatory minimums in drug sentencing? How about forced pregnancy to death? How about racial gerrymandering?

How about, jesus, any actually regressive policy? No, when it starts interrupting low-fi YouTube debates about hypothetical public transit infrastructure, that is when the tyranny of the majority has gone too far!

Wow. Honestly, I don't even care if you or anyone wants to use HN to score a few points in Gatorade's famously unpopular ARG. But you know, people do read this stuff, and the public already has a very low opinion of technical folks' political aptitude, so when you say something outright absurd like that it reflects poorly on all of us.

Anyway, there's my "politics", hope you like them <3

No political objection to that video that I am aware of.

Nothing to explain.

Just what I said the first time. Sorry to be such a boring adversary.

am I debating an ELIZA upgrade

Sorry, can you clarify from elsewhere-- am I trying to discredit the topic at hand, or do I have no interest in it?

I know it doesn't really make a big difference to your narrative, but you really need to pick one or the other of "political non-sequitur" and "interested well-poisoning". They just don't go together.

Yes, politics is a reason one might prefer to avoid consuming some piece of media, including this one.

In fact I think you have, for the first time, identified the entire content of my original comment :)

So where's the part with the cow, again?

:D

So y'all are doubling down on the idea that simply suggesting folks look at the context of the content they consume is some toxic bias?

If I'd suggested actually reading some content, what would that be, the Jedi Mind Trick?

See, this is why I'm not particularly worried about my politics. Even without expressing a viewpoint, your argument is utterly self-immolating.

You're getting out of bounds. If you think my comments here are irrelevant or abusive, please report them to a moderator and desist replying.

Otherwise, I'm here to talk if you are.

I have made, and am still making, no such argument, at considerable length, in this very thread.

You are more than encouraged to join other commenters in vigorously protesting and debating my non-argument :)

And yet for some reason, while I've barely so much as mentioned politics, you can't seem to stop talking about it.

If you think I am projecting bias in my comments, you're more than welcome to note it. Unless... is it possible I am not the only one with a sacred cow?

So? I'm not asking anyone to adopt my politics.

Don't you want everyone to form their own opinion, without my bias?

Do you actually believe that?

I mean, do you actually believe that I think the Hyperloop is extremely important, criticism of it must be quashed at any cost, and this YouTuber will just have to be one of the broken eggs?

I'm serious. Is that... is there a part of your brain that what you just said actually makes sense to?

Is it possible in your universe that I've just expressed my actual feelings? And now we're having a big argument about my actual feelings? Even though at this point I doubt you even know what my actual feelings are?

So? I've said a few times I don't care about the claims.

They could be right, they could be wrong, better engineers than me will tell in the end. So what? Saying something true doesn't create an obligation to listen.

In fact, if you say enough true things loudly enough, they'll cart you off to jail. It's really not a great argument.

Respectfully (because your writing looks fine) but in all honesty, is English your first language?

You ended your quotation on the preposition "without", which alone should tell you that the meaning of the sentence is contingent on what follows. That sentence could end "...without putting on your PPE" or "...without grabbing a popcorn and soda first", completely opposite meanings.

And you called it the "important" part.

I realize it was a strange question. It was a strange quote.

No. Just go to the channel, read the titles of some of the other videos, and then either walk away, or not, for your own reasons, or not. Or don't, if that really seems so hard.

Again, weirded out that this is such a burdensome ask for some of you. Like, I'm not even talking about my politics, just pointing out that my politics exist.

> but in your own words you "encourage folks not to watch that video at least without..."

Trying really hard not to get back on snark here, but... did you literally just stop reading there? Just finish my sentence: I "encourage folks not to watch that video, at least without [...] making an informed decision."

So, do you think folks shouldn't make an informed decision, or do you think my decision is wrong?

Just my impression, but it appears that you might be arguing one as a proxy for another.

Snarky reply replaced: I'm sincerely curious if that's really all you're taking away from my comment, including the explicit disclaimer. My advice was to pay closer attention to the material, not to ignore it, so I'm perplexed as to how you managed to get the complete opposite message.

This seems exceptionally straightforward to me, so I'll make it as un-political as I can: There are lifetimes of new content available for your consumption every single day.

Maybe it's not all worthwhile. Maybe not 1% of it is. It doesn't matter-- you'll never get to see an infinitesimal fraction of it, even just the good, true, accurate stuff.

So how do you decide what to pay attention to with your mortal lifespan? Just as a first pass, I like to use filters like "is this notably excellent" or "does this make me want to throw up at all, even just a little".

Then if it's not excellent, or if the speaker doesn't agree with my politics, or especially both, I don't feel any remorse whatsoever about skipping it.

This isn't about shutting myself off. I think it's very important to expose myself to perspectives that differ from my own, to broaden my own frame of reference. I also think that feces play a critically important role in my metabolism, but that doesn't mean I'm excited to open a box of donuts and discover a frosted turd.

And I'll accept exactly 0 concern trolling around my publicly saying, just, hey... look in the box.

If it's a turd in there, you don't still have to eat it.

Except that if you are Larry Page but you would rather live as a poor islander you can do that, but if you are a poor islander and you would rather live as Larry Page you are still forced to live as a poor islander.

This is nowhere close to difficult to score. Larry Page 1, poor islander 0, won in regulation.

Depends whether you like weird board games based on formal logic, I guess :)

Fair point, it's not "the open web" or whatever. But they do, practically speaking, do everything you need-- and it speaks to other comments about whether "the open web" is really offering something people want. (I certainly do expect any service I'm likely to use to import .vcf or .mbox files without much grief.)

? I did exactly this with an entire Google account the other day: https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout

It's all standard formats. Not sure what else you could want aside from a literal Gmail clone.

I have a friend who's a Philosophy of Science PhD candidate. The department is part of the school of Social Sciences, but they mostly hang out with physicists, mathematicians and logicians.

It's awkward.