I've often heard suggestions that fines be specified in law as percentages of revenue. IANAL and don't know how feasible that is, but it makes more sense to me than raw dollar amounts which, by their nature, make crime more affordable over time due to inflation and more affordable in proportion to income.
I.e. a $5 fine is a harsher punishment in 1990 than in 2020, and is a greater deterrent to someone with $50 in their pocket than someone with $50,000. But a fine of 1% of yearly revenue is the same effect across time and class.
I agree that the original comment was not overtly _un_friendly. I also think that the reply represents a better way.
> If the only way some one can give usable problem analysis and criticism is by including suggested fixes,
I think we can all agree that the inclusion of suggested fixes does make feedback more helpful in general.
> and delicately toning down the criticism, then far fewer people are going to be willing to expend enough effort to interact
It does require a little additional effort to write kinder feedback, to take the moment to address the human being behind an Internet comment in a similar way to how we might address a person face to face. I'm as guilty as any of failing in that way.
But if criticism's aim is to improve, it will be more successful if it's more easily digested by its audience. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar and all that.
And really the reply above isn't that big a difference. In my view, it's a sign of intelligence, learning how to communicate effectively. If raising the bar only this high results in "far fewer people" interacting, maybe that's a good thing. I don't really need to hear from people unable to tame their own words when they have no time limit on typing them, and I'd rather belong to a community with fewer responses but a higher proportion of politeness and shared humanity than an array of comments expressing the kind of gruff emphasis on failure that bookends the original comment, "Your gif doesn't convey your idea __at all__," and "i'm confused as to why this project even exists."
Informing all consumers in the market is not a legitimately accomplishable solution to the problem. As long as there are 350 consumers unaware that these people have done this before, and they never have a day in court over it, this story can repeat itself forever.
> But it's a risk you're taking buying a product from a fledgling internet-based startup.
This is my problem. It is not reasonable to expect a purchase of a product online to be a gamble, a risk that you will get nothing in exchange for your money. No matter whether they're internet based, no matter how old they are, if a company offers a product for sale, it should not be "risky" to purchase it.
The comment I replied to said we shouldn't burden the courts with taking the people behind such companies to task. But if we don't, there's nothing stopping them from doing it again and again.
> If you gave $700 to a company who promised to deliver you a scooter a few years down the line if all of the dominoes fell exactly as planned... I would argue that you got what you paid for even if it amounts to nothing tangible in the long run.
Is that what happened with this company? That's the model of kickstarters and the like, but this story sounds like it was a real company offering a product for sale. If a company can form, offer a product, sell 350 units, pay employees & expenses, then fold without delivering product or refund, nor facing any legal repercussions, what's to stop the same employees and founders from following that method ad infinitum? Form company #2, offer a different vapor, take in money from sales of the never-to-be product, spend it on salaries, declare that the product won't be delivered nor refunds given, and move on to company #3. If that's what this company has done, and the court systems are never burdened with tackling such an issue, it is a viable if entirely unethical model for the people involved.
> the only way it may have become not that is if we have allowed our complacencies to kick in
Just wanted to observe that this belief presupposes the US ever lived up to the principles you outline. US history shows that the country has never quite lived up to its touted values.
The rational approach to all peer review is to assume there's a flaw and look for it. Quite a few commenters seem bothered by this reflexive reaction to published research, when the entire point of publishing research is to have it picked apart by critical thinkers everywhere.
From the paper's abstract, though, "The results suggest that a 10% reduction in daily PM2.5 and ozone could save $1.4 billion in crime costs per year, a previously overlooked cost associated with pollution." This statement sounds like it's implying a causal relationship to me.
> their results only show a strong correlative relationship
The paper's abstract says "The results suggest that a 10% reduction in daily PM2.5 and ozone could save $1.4 billion in crime costs per year, a previously overlooked cost associated with pollution." In my opinion this is a statement of a causal relationship, not merely a correlation.
I wonder why they didn't reverse that relationship, too, and propose that violent crime increases pollution.
I would love to read the actual paper, but it's only available to people with money.
Also the statement presumes the superintelligent entity will be capable of taking all possible steps to prevent this. Imagining a machine capable of such steps quickly devolves into imagining a machine already in total control of the planet, which is begging the question.
I will read it, sounds very interesting. But the Wikipedia entry for the book says the book "argues that if machine brains surpass human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could replace humans as the dominant lifeform on Earth."
That is a humongous "if". Can you provide something from the book (or otherwise) that provides compelling evidence that "machine brains" will be invented? So far I've seen no evidence that mathematical models and/or Turing machines can be used to replicate a mind.
Social media promised to connect people. It connected avatars instead.
People are physical. We have bodies and brains. We have thoughts and opinions. We have friends.
Avatars are conceptual. They have representations, not bodies; "profile pics" that are edited and changed constantly, never bearing much resemblance to the human it claims to represent.
Avatars have agendas, not opinions or thoughts. They seek to convince you of something. To buy, to vote, to protest, or simply that the anonymized human behind the avatar has a life full of wonders and happiness. Agenda.
An avatar has followers, fans, not friends. Social media avatars have little to no interest in you as a human being. Your body's eyeballs are an avatar's currency. It wants your them to see its agenda so it can win.
A social network that brought humans together would fulfill the promise of social media. Meetup.com might be the closest thing to that. For now, social media does not connect people, it connects avatars--personifications of agendas which are built, almost always, to serve its master without regard for others.
I make prophecies. I write them down and seal them in envelopes, then I wait. When one is proven false, I just throw it away. When it comes true, I put the still-sealed envelope into an old shoebox.
My posthumous autobiography is going to be filled to the brim with stories of receiving messages from beyond, writing down what the voices say, and putting the notes in sealed envelopes inside a shoebox.
> They control close to 50% of e-commerce which itself represents less than 12% of total retail sales.
Both of these numbers are surprising to me, can you source them? Particularly the first one, which I assume is a global measure, and I'd be interested to know what % of North American e-commerce Amazon controls. I wager I could walk outside my home and ask 100 people on the sidewalk to name one e-commerce site and far more than 50% would name Amazon first.
I.e. a $5 fine is a harsher punishment in 1990 than in 2020, and is a greater deterrent to someone with $50 in their pocket than someone with $50,000. But a fine of 1% of yearly revenue is the same effect across time and class.