6 ms·

Gab's domain registrar gives 5 days to transfer domain or they will seize it

37 points by DanAndersen 9y ago

ryanx435 9y ago
Richard Stallman has been way undervalued, as a whole, in the last couple of decades. He has predicted this and other similar situations and worked his entire career to try to prevent the "tyranny of software companies", or however he phrases it. If you don't know who he is, or haven't read up on him recently, please check him out. He gave a talk at my college back in 2007/2008 that I went to, talking about quants and investment algorithms, and how they had directly contributed to the economic collapse. He made the point that, because all of the algorithms were closed source and not open to public review, they were dependent on the market understanding of the individuals who wrote the algorithms. Given the nature of humanity, many of those individuals likely had faulty or incomplete understanding of the markets, and therefore the algorithms also misunderstood the markets. Free (open sourced) code could have prevented that. Well, i'm not sure I agree with his conclusions about that. I asked him about his thoughts on the recursive effect the algorithms would have on the market (the algorithms were so prevalent that they basically were the market makers, thus changing the market itself to reflect their faulty assumptions about the market before their existence). He said it was an excellent question, didn't have an answer, and offered me an internship to work on that problem under his direction. I declined for various reasons. anyways, he was correct about a lot of things. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman) (https://stallman.org/ https://stallman.org/)
- cheez 9y ago
  Disclaimer: I wrote some of those algorithms. I used to believe that as well: the algorithms are gobbledygook, but once I got into it and really understood, I realized it's use of the algorithms that was problematic. The first time I priced mortgage-backed "bonds", I was honestly aghast as to how it was possible to perpetrate such a structure. After a lot of testing, I realized that the models were fine, but the politics behind choosing the parameters were to blame (hint: the ones that gave the best bonuses). Just my 2c. Stallman is smart, and correctly called a lot of the stuff that is happening now, but I don't think he is right there.
thatonechad 9y ago
When you can't defeat someone in a debate, silence them.
- zichy 9y ago
  I should stop reading HN comments.
  - thatonechad 9y ago
    I would probably because this site isn't the safe space you were hoping for. People have differing opinions.
- ivraatiems 9y ago
  Is a company morally obligated to serve all customers, and not permitted to exercise discretion about who they provide services to? Even if those people are using the company's services to break the laws of the country the company operates in?
  - thatonechad 9y ago
    Im assuming you are an adult. And as adults we both know exactly what they are doing. Regardless gab should find somewhere else to host their registry and move on.
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    It's really a judge's responsibility to decide if they're breaking the law in this case. DNS registries can't possibly decide if Gab.ai is actually guilty of what they claim given the incredibly vague wording of the requirements. Surely Twitter and the Guardian could be argued to also meet such a vague standard to be banned. It's quite obvious what's going on here. There's an organised effort to erase people with right wing views off the internet by people with extremist left wing views, who simply describe anything they don't like as "hate speech".
    - thatonechad 9y ago
neo4sure 9y ago
well done. Apluade this measure...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Overtonwindow 9y ago
This is getting out of hand. Domain registrars should not have the power to silence speech they disagree with. Not everything is hate speech, and not every platform promotes it.

37 points by DanAndersen 9y ago

Richard Stallman has been way undervalued, as a whole, in the last couple of decades. He has predicted this and other similar situations and worked his entire career to try to prevent the "tyranny of software companies", or however he phrases it. If you don't know who he is, or haven't read up on him recently, please check him out. He gave a talk at my college back in 2007/2008 that I went to, talking about quants and investment algorithms, and how they had directly contributed to the economic collapse. He made the point that, because all of the algorithms were closed source and not open to public review, they were dependent on the market understanding of the individuals who wrote the algorithms. Given the nature of humanity, many of those individuals likely had faulty or incomplete understanding of the markets, and therefore the algorithms also misunderstood the markets. Free (open sourced) code could have prevented that. Well, i'm not sure I agree with his conclusions about that. I asked him about his thoughts on the recursive effect the algorithms would have on the market (the algorithms were so prevalent that they basically were the market makers, thus changing the market itself to reflect their faulty assumptions about the market before their existence). He said it was an excellent question, didn't have an answer, and offered me an internship to work on that problem under his direction. I declined for various reasons. anyways, he was correct about a lot of things. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman) (https://stallman.org/ https://stallman.org/)

cheez 9y ago
Disclaimer: I wrote some of those algorithms. I used to believe that as well: the algorithms are gobbledygook, but once I got into it and really understood, I realized it's use of the algorithms that was problematic. The first time I priced mortgage-backed "bonds", I was honestly aghast as to how it was possible to perpetrate such a structure. After a lot of testing, I realized that the models were fine, but the politics behind choosing the parameters were to blame (hint: the ones that gave the best bonuses). Just my 2c. Stallman is smart, and correctly called a lot of the stuff that is happening now, but I don't think he is right there.

thatonechad 9y ago

When you can't defeat someone in a debate, silence them.

zichy 9y ago
I should stop reading HN comments.
- thatonechad 9y ago
  I would probably because this site isn't the safe space you were hoping for. People have differing opinions.
ivraatiems 9y ago
Is a company morally obligated to serve all customers, and not permitted to exercise discretion about who they provide services to? Even if those people are using the company's services to break the laws of the country the company operates in?
- thatonechad 9y ago
  Im assuming you are an adult. And as adults we both know exactly what they are doing. Regardless gab should find somewhere else to host their registry and move on.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  It's really a judge's responsibility to decide if they're breaking the law in this case. DNS registries can't possibly decide if Gab.ai is actually guilty of what they claim given the incredibly vague wording of the requirements. Surely Twitter and the Guardian could be argued to also meet such a vague standard to be banned. It's quite obvious what's going on here. There's an organised effort to erase people with right wing views off the internet by people with extremist left wing views, who simply describe anything they don't like as "hate speech".
  - thatonechad 9y ago

neo4sure 9y ago

well done. Apluade this measure...

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

Overtonwindow 9y ago

This is getting out of hand. Domain registrars should not have the power to silence speech they disagree with. Not everything is hate speech, and not every platform promotes it.