> However, the staff that built our course revision system decided to make it so that every single change should go through all layers of approvals. So if I wan

> However, the staff that built our course revision system decided to make it so that every single change should go through all layers of approvals. So if I want to change the title of an assignment, according to this tool, I need the department to approve. I have to wonder if the rule wasn’t put in place a long time ago after someone (tenured) tried sneaking in something truly controversial in the curriculum he planned to teach. Dr. Lemire doesn’t teach a controversial subject -at least having an opinion on vectorized instruction sets won’t get you on the news- and sounds like the type of researcher that values teaching a lot so I assume he frequently updates his course material and must be annoyed by this. Keeping in mind that recently a university close by (lower caliber but still) fired a professor for saying the N-Word in a classroom as part of a required reading during a race and literature class [0]. Maybe it’s the king of backlash they want to avoid. > An actual policeman can be intimidating. However, it is a human being. If they ask something that does not make sense, you are likely to question them. You are also maybe more likely to think that a policeman could be mistaken. Software is like a deaf policeman. And people want software to be correct. It’s ironic because the Province he’s writing this from had policeman enforcing a mandatory curfew (because of Covid of course) and would slap fines on people being outside after the designated hours. No matter if they were simply walking alone or their dog. To anyone with high school level biology that should sound a little ridiculous. Walking alone you can’t really transmit or catch an airborne disease. Interacting with a policeman sure. > I think that there is great danger in some of the recent "digit ID" initiatives that various governments are pushing. Suppose, for example, that your driver's license is on your mobile phone. It seems reasonable, at first, for the government to be able to activate it and deactivate it remotely. You no longer need to go to a government office to get your new driver's license. However, it now makes it possible for a civil servant to decide that you cannot drive your car on Tuesdays. They do not need a new law, they do not need your consent, they can just switch a flag inside a server. Again, the author’s country just demonstrated the slippery slope by arbitrarily freezing assets and bank accounts on suspicion of being friendly to a group of (first amendment protected) protesters. Instead of following the legal pathway of demonstrating a reasonable reason to a (non-political) judge to get an account frozen, the government just gave themselves emergency powers to do as they please. No oversight. No reasonable doubt? Doesn’t matter. What’s next, someone has a black sounding name and too much money in his account? Freeze it, most likely crime money. [0] https://globalnews.ca/news/8450947/quebec-university-academic-freedom/ https://globalnews.ca/news/8450947/quebec-university-academi...