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The quality of the comments on YouTube? They are really so bad I wanted to puke. They believe Woz is so rich so that he could get over with "illegal tender", ev

by fsniper 12y ago

The quality of the comments on YouTube? They are really so bad I wanted to puke. They believe Woz is so rich so that he could get over with "illegal tender", even secret service approves "his own printed tender". Is this really the US general public's comprehension level?

hueving 12y ago
No, someone posted a comment about the abysmal rating system on youtube that promotes crap. There are no downvotes. This imbalance promotes one-sided views because people like to upvote stuff they agree with. The comment section becomes a nightmare of extreme opposites arguing and every sane person is driven out.
- fsniper 12y ago
  But this "people upvote stuff they agree with" is also leads to, upvoted and visible ones (which are over the fold) are mostly agreed with stuff. So general public mostly agrees with that.
  - Ensorceled 12y ago
    Moderate views tend to get a "agreeable nod" and not an upvote.
tajen 12y ago
I mostly read HN, but my understanding is in some counties of the US, it's a regular occurrence that poker games at home with money involved are considered contraband and a SWAT team comes and kills the dog (Don't make fun of the detail - The dog story is here because it's the only way to get public emotion about it, therefore newspapers report dog stories first). The SWAT team could even mistake the address and there are no reimbursements for damages, even if no illegal activity was carried. Obviously we only hear about the few worst cases. Therefore would it be a stretch to imagine that any non-high-profile citizen carrying a pad of $2 bills could be suspected of illegal activities? To avoid a "SWAT inspection" don't you have to be either Steve Wozniak or in the right neighborhoods of US?
- fsniper 12y ago
  Insanity to the extreme. US is really insane on some accounts.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  It depends on what you mean by avoid. There probably aren't more than 100,000 SWAT raids a year (statistics are thin, but Balko is a loud voice of opposition to them): http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/02/17/shedding-light-on-the-use-of-swat-teams/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/02/17/s... And there are about 120 million households. So even if you assume that all SWAT raids are illegitimate, that 100,000 is wrong by 10X, and that they spread the SWATs around on the bottom 1/2 of households, you are still looking at 60 years between them. I'm not intending that to be dismissive of the situation, I mean to point out that it gets a lot of attention because many people think it is a significant problem regardless of the frequency, not because it is a pervasive fact of life in the US.
- percept 12y ago
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/01/27/fairfax-swat-team-raids-high-stakes-great-falls-poker-game-seizes-cash-terrifies-players/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/01/27/fairf...
yodsanklai 12y ago
> Is this really the US general public's comprehension level? US certainly don't have a monopoly on stupid comments! I believe the more people have access to a platform, and the dumber the comments are. Actually, I've been using internet for 20 years and I can see how its democratization has also affected the quality of certain services (for the better and the worse).

by fsniper 12y ago

hueving 12y ago

No, someone posted a comment about the abysmal rating system on youtube that promotes crap. There are no downvotes. This imbalance promotes one-sided views because people like to upvote stuff they agree with. The comment section becomes a nightmare of extreme opposites arguing and every sane person is driven out.

fsniper 12y ago
But this "people upvote stuff they agree with" is also leads to, upvoted and visible ones (which are over the fold) are mostly agreed with stuff. So general public mostly agrees with that.
- Ensorceled 12y ago
  Moderate views tend to get a "agreeable nod" and not an upvote.

tajen 12y ago

I mostly read HN, but my understanding is in some counties of the US, it's a regular occurrence that poker games at home with money involved are considered contraband and a SWAT team comes and kills the dog (Don't make fun of the detail - The dog story is here because it's the only way to get public emotion about it, therefore newspapers report dog stories first). The SWAT team could even mistake the address and there are no reimbursements for damages, even if no illegal activity was carried. Obviously we only hear about the few worst cases. Therefore would it be a stretch to imagine that any non-high-profile citizen carrying a pad of $2 bills could be suspected of illegal activities? To avoid a "SWAT inspection" don't you have to be either Steve Wozniak or in the right neighborhoods of US?

fsniper 12y ago
Insanity to the extreme. US is really insane on some accounts.
maxerickson 12y ago
It depends on what you mean by avoid. There probably aren't more than 100,000 SWAT raids a year (statistics are thin, but Balko is a loud voice of opposition to them): http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/02/17/shedding-light-on-the-use-of-swat-teams/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/02/17/s... And there are about 120 million households. So even if you assume that all SWAT raids are illegitimate, that 100,000 is wrong by 10X, and that they spread the SWATs around on the bottom 1/2 of households, you are still looking at 60 years between them. I'm not intending that to be dismissive of the situation, I mean to point out that it gets a lot of attention because many people think it is a significant problem regardless of the frequency, not because it is a pervasive fact of life in the US.
percept 12y ago
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/01/27/fairfax-swat-team-raids-high-stakes-great-falls-poker-game-seizes-cash-terrifies-players/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/01/27/fairf...

yodsanklai 12y ago

> Is this really the US general public's comprehension level? US certainly don't have a monopoly on stupid comments! I believe the more people have access to a platform, and the dumber the comments are. Actually, I've been using internet for 20 years and I can see how its democratization has also affected the quality of certain services (for the better and the worse).