wfo

104 ms·

721.
by wfo 11y ago
Honestly, the NSA will probably do a better job of securing it and I'd trust the NSA over someone who talks like that guy any day of the week. Claiming to respect privacy is the absolute bare minimum: the NSA does it, this guy doesn&#x
722.
by wfo 11y ago
It sounds like he asked the wrong question of experts and they were thoughtful about it (their mistake). Since thoughtfulness doesn't make easy arbitrary choices between two meaningless options he fired anyone who had thought more than
723.
by wfo 11y ago
I think you'll find pure mathematicians and CS theorists more amenable to that creativity and flexibility you're speaking of it's the applied ones who have strayed too close to engineering and had their minds burned into a pa
724.
by wfo 11y ago
Except that there's only so much bandwidth to go around. It's not that simple. More users (who don't run nodes themselves) means the same bandwidth among more users = slower for everyone = less usable for people who actually
725.
by wfo 11y ago
Of course they do, this is a meaningless libertarian platitude. There are kinds of force beyond a gun to your head, and most of them are far more effective and commonly used.
726.
by wfo 11y ago
Recognize that none of the arguments we make here are deductive logic, rather they are entirely persuasive. You fail to be persuasive because you express hate and disgust where it's not necessary or appropriate, hence your arguments fa
727.
by wfo 11y ago
Our left-wing presidents look like our right-wing presidents from 20 years ago in fact. If Reagan or Eisenhower were running they today would be considered extremist left wing communists far too liberal to ever be elected.
728.
by wfo 11y ago
I think your general critique of American political culture and the state of affairs is pretty spot on. As it turns out of course as in every case consent is a slippery concept to grasp but the point we are getting at here is that it simply
729.
by wfo 11y ago
Consent of the governed is a specific phrase that means something specific. Consent here doesn't refer to the individual libertarian definition of consent, but rather a broader use of the word. For society to function we need a governm
730.
by wfo 11y ago
While the 'how dare you consider those less fortunate than you, you don't belong in our tech paradise where only self-serving extremist libertarian thought is allowed' line of argument is particularly revealing about your att
731.
by wfo 11y ago
Criminality is defined by the law (i.e. government) so of course criminal pursuits are distinct from government ones: criminal pursuits are those pursuits the government doesn't approve of. This isn't a conservative or liberal wor
732.
by wfo 11y ago
I think you're excluding the abuse of prescription drugs (and for that matter alcohol) in your assessment with the 70% and 7.5% numbers, which are very important -- they are the drugs which haven't been the victims of a concerted
733.
by wfo 11y ago
Well of course: they prescribe an enormous laundry list of things you must do to be accepted and they accept the ones who restructure their entire lives and personalities (or their parents force them to do this) so they may obey. They selec
734.
by wfo 11y ago
A liberal education doesn't require that we tolerate intolerence; it doesn't require that when someone expresses disgust and acts above something they don't understand that we just throw our hands up and say "well all op
735.
by wfo 11y ago
Most of what we do is completely made-up and arbitrary. "Beautiful, clean code" is completely arbitrary, you're just doing what your software engineering instructor told you is correct. And I think you're completely miss
736.
by wfo 11y ago
The most recent two sitting US presidents used cocaine. They certainly wanted illicit drugs and drug use -- and harder drugs than marijuana, which an overwhelming majority of Americans have tried -- in their communities at some point in the
737.
by wfo 11y ago
I agree with you about the quality of this article, but I find it odd that for many people here and in SV culture, the moment anything in any industry behaves in a way which you don't approve of or don't understand it's immed
738.
by wfo 11y ago
I think that many, many scientists and engineers are not really interested in curiosity and exploration at all -- they are interested in solving well-specified problems using previously trained and learned techniques. They are interested in
739.
by wfo 11y ago
Okay, if you define a required short limited period of service for public good as slavery then sure most civilized and uncivilized countries implement it and many people support it. I'll concede this point, though I don't think th
740.
by wfo 11y ago
He's not talking about the current status of the law. The law has absolutely zero to do with right and wrong. He's talking about morality. He seems to believe that if you agree to help someone with their mental problems, that you
741.
by wfo 11y ago
I think the point here is that in no reasonable definition of the words we are using does capitalism optimize (or even attempt at) giving people what they want. The only way to claim that is to redefine "what people want" as &quot
742.
by wfo 11y ago
I think the ways we are using the phrase 'economically efficient' are different, and that's where much of the disagreement lies. In fact I'd reject the notion of the existence of a universal objective welfare function. I
743.
by wfo 11y ago
I think you misunderstand the article, the term comes from Carlyle rejecting the free market as a philosophical principle, not some efficiency analysis. And in fact his essay was a defense of plantation owners whose businesses were failing
744.
by wfo 11y ago
You're right, we should just move our businesses to whichever countries currently allow the most exploitation and abuse of workers and race to the bottom. Why not just cut to the chase and implement slavery already? It's the most
745.
by wfo 11y ago
This isn't people in the south who believe this, it's most people across the US who are involved in the non-defense side of the CJ system. And they believe it doesn't rehabilitate because it's a fact that it doesn't
746.
by wfo 11y ago
Except that prison doesn't rehabilitate at all: it does the opposite and makes people worse. The rehabilitative theory of justice is essentially nonexistent in the US, nobody even pretends. Instead it's about punishment/retri
747.
by wfo 11y ago
It's not about the way it's taught, it's about the way it is. Mathematics is designed with the purpose of being the simplest way for humans to understand particular abstract concepts, some of which are necessary to understand
748.
by wfo 11y ago
Except that companies generally reserve the right to modify their privacy policies at any time without your permission, only notification, and that's if they even follow them in the first place.
749.
by wfo 11y ago
The sciences ARE easy. You don't have to learn how to write. (many, MANY science/engineering students end up picking this path because they cannot write). You don't have to read ANYTHING complicated. Every single thing you re
750.
by wfo 11y ago
I did double major in the humanities and I would never go back and do it differently for any reason. I think the value I got out of my humanities major eclipses my technical major in what it's done for me in general. I think technical

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