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You can run people over with cars, electrocute them with electricity. This doesn't mean we should never have built cars or generators. The more powerful and im

You can run people over with cars, electrocute them with electricity. This doesn't mean we should never have built cars or generators. The more powerful and impactful something is, the greater the potential for abuse. You don't even need that something to be abused - bad people benefited from electricity just as much as good people. This doesn't mean we should stop building powerful and impactful things, or think of ways to restrict them such that only the "good guys" can benefit.

Sebguer 6y ago
You absolutely should think about the ways the things you create can be used to harm other people, and take steps to mitigate that.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
  So you only buy foam bats and rubber mallets since they have less potential to hurt people?
  - Sebguer 6y ago
    I mean, I do own a rubber mallet - it's quite good for what it does! But, no, I would buy a tool that fits my purpose. If my purpose is to hit a baseball, or hammer in a nail, I'd buy a real bat, or a real hammer, because that's the purpose of the tool. If my goal was to swing it at a friend, though, I'd probably go for the foam bat. Just like, if my purpose was to build a piece of software to archive emails, I would build it so as that it is clearly its purpose, and it would be engineered in a way to make it challenging if not impossible to be used to secretly abscond with someone else's conversations. You seem to be interpreting my response as "people shouldn't build tools that can be used for dangerous purposes", when instead I am saying, "you should understand, and take steps to ensure, that the tools you create are used for their intended purpose." Hopefully that purpose isn't spying on people, but if it is, be up-front about it!
    - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
      > and it would be engineered in a way to make it challenging if not impossible to be used to secretly abscond with someone else's conversations. ... Thereby ensuring that it is more difficult or inconvenient for legitimate users (access prompts and notifications are cheap, not free). It's a potentially legitimate tradeoff, but it is a trade; the question is whether it's closer to enforcing sane password requirements online (probably necessary), or aliasing rm to rm -i (helpful right up until you actually need to delete 300 files at once).
  - PowerBar 6y ago
    No, but if I were a bat designer, I would be hesitant to sell a baseball bat full of nails under the guise of "meat tenderizer". Even though it may actual work as intended (tenderizing steaks), the way it is most likely to actually be used the majority of the time so obviously overshadows it that the product probably shouldn't be created, let alone sold.
  - trickstra 6y ago
    We put age restriction labels on toys and require licenses to drive a car.
    - alacombe 6y ago
      There is no licensing requirement what-so-ever to drive on private property, nor any form of registration required. As for "age-restriction" labels, they are merely at the parents' discretion. I don't think a toy store would ask for ID and refuse a sell if age indications were not met.
- sneak 6y ago
  I would prefer my knives have sharp points on them, despite the fact that they can be used to stab. I do not want general purpose tools "mitigated" because some people could use them to harm other people. I want my tools to be sharp, pointy, and effective. Blunt your own tools, but don't tell me what I can do with mine, please.
- h_anna_h 6y ago
  I agree, the authors of cron and wget/curl should have taken steps to protect people from having their privacy invaded by others who use these tools.
  - paulryanrogers 6y ago
    In guessing this is sarcasm given these tools predate modern social networks and serve such a fundamental feature as "Save Page" within browsers already.
    - h_anna_h 6y ago
      cron doesn't do that. As for curl/wget, both can be used to do all kinds of things other than just "Save Page". Consider combining cron and curl to upload a file to a server every hour, or to download and execute some sort of backdoor script. Whether they predate modern social networks or not is irrelevant.
  - Sebguer 6y ago
    I don't really understand why three separate people have decided to attack the exact same strawman of my argument. Read my response to the other person's?
    - h_anna_h 6y ago
      Attack? I said that I agree.
tehjoker 6y ago
Electricity is definitely good, but cars certainly have alternatives with various tradeoffs. Electricity is also especially amusing in the US because we picked the frequency of AC current that requires the least juice to stop your heart. Other countries picked slightly different frequencies....
peterkelly 6y ago
Both cars and electrical infrastructure have a ton of safety mechanisms built in to them to reduce the potential for harm, many required by law. For cars we have seatbelts, airbags, traffic lights, speed limits, guard rails on mountain roads, and you have to undergo training or certification before you're allowed to get a license. All cars have numberplates for tracking, and identifying these in CCTV and dashcam footage can be useful in identifying those who have caused accidents or other damage. Vehicle manufactures have a lot of regulations that they have to comply with. For electrical distribution networks and equipment there are also many safety mechanisms in place, such as insulation, circuit breakers, surge protectors, and lots of regulations covering the installation of electrical wiring in buildings. While growing up, everyone learns of the potential dangers of electricity, e.g. don't stick a fork in a socket and keep that hairdryer away from the bath tub. Similarly everyone knows the damage and trauma that can result from car accidents. The same is not currently true of social media. I don't know what the right answer is regarding regulation - I'm wary of unforseen negative consequences it may have and the potential for it to be poorly thought out. But I think education on how to use social media responsibly is important. Things like be careful about how much information you share about yourself, don't believe everything you read (check to see if the source of news is reliable), learn how to identify fake news and propaganda, and even how to decide whether to opt out of using certain services altogether. I agree with your main argument, but it's overly simplistic - we should think about how to achieve the benefits of new technologies while minimising the costs.
- imperfect_blue 6y ago
  All of these safety measures are developed through trials and iterative improvements, not something that was foreseen by the inventors. That's because its difficult if not impossible to accurately predict the impact of a revolutionary product at the onset. Its hard enough predicting whether something will be revolutionary, much less its impact. This iterative process is working fine for social media. The platforms are changing, how the users use them is changing, it just needs more time to mature.
swirepe 6y ago
>You can run people over with cars, electrocute them with electricity. This doesn't mean we should never have built cars or generators. You should still think about how a car or a generator could hurt someone when you're building one, right? That's how we got crosswalks and fuses.

Sebguer 6y ago

You absolutely should think about the ways the things you create can be used to harm other people, and take steps to mitigate that.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
So you only buy foam bats and rubber mallets since they have less potential to hurt people?
- Sebguer 6y ago
  I mean, I do own a rubber mallet - it's quite good for what it does! But, no, I would buy a tool that fits my purpose. If my purpose is to hit a baseball, or hammer in a nail, I'd buy a real bat, or a real hammer, because that's the purpose of the tool. If my goal was to swing it at a friend, though, I'd probably go for the foam bat. Just like, if my purpose was to build a piece of software to archive emails, I would build it so as that it is clearly its purpose, and it would be engineered in a way to make it challenging if not impossible to be used to secretly abscond with someone else's conversations. You seem to be interpreting my response as "people shouldn't build tools that can be used for dangerous purposes", when instead I am saying, "you should understand, and take steps to ensure, that the tools you create are used for their intended purpose." Hopefully that purpose isn't spying on people, but if it is, be up-front about it!
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    > and it would be engineered in a way to make it challenging if not impossible to be used to secretly abscond with someone else's conversations. ... Thereby ensuring that it is more difficult or inconvenient for legitimate users (access prompts and notifications are cheap, not free). It's a potentially legitimate tradeoff, but it is a trade; the question is whether it's closer to enforcing sane password requirements online (probably necessary), or aliasing rm to rm -i (helpful right up until you actually need to delete 300 files at once).
- PowerBar 6y ago
  No, but if I were a bat designer, I would be hesitant to sell a baseball bat full of nails under the guise of "meat tenderizer". Even though it may actual work as intended (tenderizing steaks), the way it is most likely to actually be used the majority of the time so obviously overshadows it that the product probably shouldn't be created, let alone sold.
- trickstra 6y ago
  We put age restriction labels on toys and require licenses to drive a car.
  - alacombe 6y ago
    There is no licensing requirement what-so-ever to drive on private property, nor any form of registration required. As for "age-restriction" labels, they are merely at the parents' discretion. I don't think a toy store would ask for ID and refuse a sell if age indications were not met.
sneak 6y ago
I would prefer my knives have sharp points on them, despite the fact that they can be used to stab. I do not want general purpose tools "mitigated" because some people could use them to harm other people. I want my tools to be sharp, pointy, and effective. Blunt your own tools, but don't tell me what I can do with mine, please.
h_anna_h 6y ago
I agree, the authors of cron and wget/curl should have taken steps to protect people from having their privacy invaded by others who use these tools.
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  In guessing this is sarcasm given these tools predate modern social networks and serve such a fundamental feature as "Save Page" within browsers already.
  - h_anna_h 6y ago
    cron doesn't do that. As for curl/wget, both can be used to do all kinds of things other than just "Save Page". Consider combining cron and curl to upload a file to a server every hour, or to download and execute some sort of backdoor script. Whether they predate modern social networks or not is irrelevant.
- Sebguer 6y ago
  I don't really understand why three separate people have decided to attack the exact same strawman of my argument. Read my response to the other person's?
  - h_anna_h 6y ago
    Attack? I said that I agree.

tehjoker 6y ago

Electricity is definitely good, but cars certainly have alternatives with various tradeoffs. Electricity is also especially amusing in the US because we picked the frequency of AC current that requires the least juice to stop your heart. Other countries picked slightly different frequencies....

peterkelly 6y ago

Both cars and electrical infrastructure have a ton of safety mechanisms built in to them to reduce the potential for harm, many required by law. For cars we have seatbelts, airbags, traffic lights, speed limits, guard rails on mountain roads, and you have to undergo training or certification before you're allowed to get a license. All cars have numberplates for tracking, and identifying these in CCTV and dashcam footage can be useful in identifying those who have caused accidents or other damage. Vehicle manufactures have a lot of regulations that they have to comply with. For electrical distribution networks and equipment there are also many safety mechanisms in place, such as insulation, circuit breakers, surge protectors, and lots of regulations covering the installation of electrical wiring in buildings. While growing up, everyone learns of the potential dangers of electricity, e.g. don't stick a fork in a socket and keep that hairdryer away from the bath tub. Similarly everyone knows the damage and trauma that can result from car accidents. The same is not currently true of social media. I don't know what the right answer is regarding regulation - I'm wary of unforseen negative consequences it may have and the potential for it to be poorly thought out. But I think education on how to use social media responsibly is important. Things like be careful about how much information you share about yourself, don't believe everything you read (check to see if the source of news is reliable), learn how to identify fake news and propaganda, and even how to decide whether to opt out of using certain services altogether. I agree with your main argument, but it's overly simplistic - we should think about how to achieve the benefits of new technologies while minimising the costs.

imperfect_blue 6y ago
All of these safety measures are developed through trials and iterative improvements, not something that was foreseen by the inventors. That's because its difficult if not impossible to accurately predict the impact of a revolutionary product at the onset. Its hard enough predicting whether something will be revolutionary, much less its impact. This iterative process is working fine for social media. The platforms are changing, how the users use them is changing, it just needs more time to mature.

swirepe 6y ago

>You can run people over with cars, electrocute them with electricity. This doesn't mean we should never have built cars or generators. You should still think about how a car or a generator could hurt someone when you're building one, right? That's how we got crosswalks and fuses.