4 ms·

This is a perfect example of the disconnect between "hackers" and the real world. I consider myself part of the HN community because I hope for a society shaped

by swombat 13y ago

This is a perfect example of the disconnect between "hackers" and the real world. I consider myself part of the HN community because I hope for a society shaped by its ideals, but the real world is so far removed that time spent here becomes more of a therapeutic escape than anything else. You say that, but this ideal world is the world I live in, and have lived in all my life. You should consider moving to Europe (UK and Switzerland in my case).

mherdeg 13y ago
Western Europe has its own problems. The U.K. has "superinjunctions" and aggressively punitive libel laws and press restrictions. In some places in Switzerland, relationships with non-Swiss residents are so strained that local authorities have sometimes sought to ban "asylum-seekers" from public places because they are seen as dangerous criminals ( http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/26/swiss-segregation-asylum-seekers http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/26/swiss-segregati... ). In Ireland, police seized a baby girl from her family because she was blonde and did not look like her parents, who are from Romania; they returned her after performing a DNA test ( http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/blonde-girl-roma-parents-returned-dna http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/blonde-girl-rom... ).
- vidarh 13y ago
  A bit of a nitpick: Maybe you have their nationality from another source (though I googled the case and didn't find any articles stating their nationality), but this article does not state the nationality of the Roma girl or her parents. Roma or Romani refers to the ethnicity of a people that emigrated from India as a group, and does not in itself have anything at all to do with Romania. While Romania has one of the largest Romani concentrations, and there certainly are Roma that are also of Romanian nationality, many other countries - including Ireland - have populations of Roma that may have lived there for generations and whose ancestors may very well never have lived in Romania at all. (The mother of the boy that was taken in a separate incident is mentioned in the article as being Romanian, on the other hand)
  - mherdeg 13y ago
    Oops, sorry, you're right — I had misread the Guardian's reference to a different case in which the parents were in fact from Bucharest and their son was taken from them. No, I don't have any special knowledge about the nationality of the folks in Ireland whose daughter was taken from them. But yeah, I am a little uneasy about the casual way the word "Roma" is used today to refer to people who were formerly referred to as "Gypsies". It's particularly confusing to see this particular word ("Roma") used to refer interchangeably to three different, differently sized groups of people ("Roma", "Romani", "Romanichal"). I'm used to hearing "Roma" to mean a very particular sub-group of the Romani people who live in Central and Eastern Europe. But in today's usage, the word also seems to be used to other folks from various subgroups of the overarching "Romani people" group. Many of the Romani people living in the UK come from a subgroup traditionally called "Romanichal", which is very much different from the "Roma" group — but in conversation today the distinction does not come up and we often see news stories use "Roma" instead of "Romani". How that happened, I dunno; maybe the words just all sound the same?
- swombat 13y ago
  The big difference is that the cases you mentioned are exceptional and typically make the news. From the looks of this thread, the situation with the Police in the US is an everyday, normal, expected thing... That's very bad. Abuses will always occur. It's when they start to be normal that you should worry.
fuckpig 13y ago
Europe is declining even faster than the USA. The worst part is that Europe is emulating the USA. Although I did find the recent Swiss immigration decision to be interesting.
- swombat 13y ago
  That recent immigration vote has been a major point of discussion with every Swiss person I've spoken to since the weekend. It's not business as usual, it's very concerning, and people in the more populated parts of Switzerland are very much opposed to it. I strongly suspect that something will happen in the three years that it will take to implement this nonsense that will invalidate it.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- pessimizer 13y ago
  The UK seemed like a strange example.
FD3SA 13y ago
As a realist, I wholeheartedly believe this to be the rational choice (and I've made it). As an idealist, I stubbornly have hope that like-minded intellectuals will affect change, not just for the US but globally. Moreover, fixing US domestic and foreign policies will have massive benefits worldwide (end of wars, arms exports, military occupations, arms races, etc.), such that I believe it to be a worthwhile cause. I honestly wonder what a society would look like if we got a group of experienced system engineers with a deep understanding of human society to construct it from the ground up. Working incentives, set goals (science and technological progress), and, above all, a rational understanding of poor incentives and abuse of power. Unfortunately, Startfleet has yet to be founded. Edit: For those who want more information on the nature of power in the US, I would just like to honor Aaron Swartz's memory by referring to this excellent piece [1]. 1. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/epiphany http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/epiphany
madaxe_again 13y ago
I too live in airstrip one, the most heavily surveilled non-constitutional democracy on the planet! Great, innit?! Remember to hate the bulgmanians. We have always hated the bulgmanians.

by swombat 13y ago

mherdeg 13y ago

Western Europe has its own problems. The U.K. has "superinjunctions" and aggressively punitive libel laws and press restrictions. In some places in Switzerland, relationships with non-Swiss residents are so strained that local authorities have sometimes sought to ban "asylum-seekers" from public places because they are seen as dangerous criminals ( http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/26/swiss-segregation-asylum-seekers http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/26/swiss-segregati... ). In Ireland, police seized a baby girl from her family because she was blonde and did not look like her parents, who are from Romania; they returned her after performing a DNA test ( http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/blonde-girl-roma-parents-returned-dna http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/blonde-girl-rom... ).

vidarh 13y ago
A bit of a nitpick: Maybe you have their nationality from another source (though I googled the case and didn't find any articles stating their nationality), but this article does not state the nationality of the Roma girl or her parents. Roma or Romani refers to the ethnicity of a people that emigrated from India as a group, and does not in itself have anything at all to do with Romania. While Romania has one of the largest Romani concentrations, and there certainly are Roma that are also of Romanian nationality, many other countries - including Ireland - have populations of Roma that may have lived there for generations and whose ancestors may very well never have lived in Romania at all. (The mother of the boy that was taken in a separate incident is mentioned in the article as being Romanian, on the other hand)
- mherdeg 13y ago
  Oops, sorry, you're right — I had misread the Guardian's reference to a different case in which the parents were in fact from Bucharest and their son was taken from them. No, I don't have any special knowledge about the nationality of the folks in Ireland whose daughter was taken from them. But yeah, I am a little uneasy about the casual way the word "Roma" is used today to refer to people who were formerly referred to as "Gypsies". It's particularly confusing to see this particular word ("Roma") used to refer interchangeably to three different, differently sized groups of people ("Roma", "Romani", "Romanichal"). I'm used to hearing "Roma" to mean a very particular sub-group of the Romani people who live in Central and Eastern Europe. But in today's usage, the word also seems to be used to other folks from various subgroups of the overarching "Romani people" group. Many of the Romani people living in the UK come from a subgroup traditionally called "Romanichal", which is very much different from the "Roma" group — but in conversation today the distinction does not come up and we often see news stories use "Roma" instead of "Romani". How that happened, I dunno; maybe the words just all sound the same?
swombat 13y ago
The big difference is that the cases you mentioned are exceptional and typically make the news. From the looks of this thread, the situation with the Police in the US is an everyday, normal, expected thing... That's very bad. Abuses will always occur. It's when they start to be normal that you should worry.

fuckpig 13y ago

Europe is declining even faster than the USA. The worst part is that Europe is emulating the USA. Although I did find the recent Swiss immigration decision to be interesting.

swombat 13y ago
That recent immigration vote has been a major point of discussion with every Swiss person I've spoken to since the weekend. It's not business as usual, it's very concerning, and people in the more populated parts of Switzerland are very much opposed to it. I strongly suspect that something will happen in the three years that it will take to implement this nonsense that will invalidate it.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

pessimizer 13y ago
The UK seemed like a strange example.

FD3SA 13y ago

As a realist, I wholeheartedly believe this to be the rational choice (and I've made it). As an idealist, I stubbornly have hope that like-minded intellectuals will affect change, not just for the US but globally. Moreover, fixing US domestic and foreign policies will have massive benefits worldwide (end of wars, arms exports, military occupations, arms races, etc.), such that I believe it to be a worthwhile cause. I honestly wonder what a society would look like if we got a group of experienced system engineers with a deep understanding of human society to construct it from the ground up. Working incentives, set goals (science and technological progress), and, above all, a rational understanding of poor incentives and abuse of power. Unfortunately, Startfleet has yet to be founded. Edit: For those who want more information on the nature of power in the US, I would just like to honor Aaron Swartz's memory by referring to this excellent piece [1]. 1. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/epiphany http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/epiphany

madaxe_again 13y ago

I too live in airstrip one, the most heavily surveilled non-constitutional democracy on the planet! Great, innit?! Remember to hate the bulgmanians. We have always hated the bulgmanians.