cassalian

There's been a lot of question about the motivation for this feature. Am I the only one that thinks this could be related to things like the EARN IT (or something similar).

Here's an article from a year ago on EARN IT:

> Theoretically, a system that uses client-side scanning could still send messages encrypted end to end, and so the Leahy amendment would not offer any protection, but many of the same confidentiality concerns with backdoored “e2ee” systems would continue to apply.

Source: https://cdt.org/insights/the-new-earn-it-act-still-threatens...

cassalian

5년 전discuss

I'm doubtful of the harms of misinformation and the role it plays in persuading people's opinions (I believe people are fairly intelligent rather than undiscerning parrots of thought). However, if I were to accept the claim misinformation is rampant and that it is persuading large numbers of people, then I would think the solution would be to better educate people on how to "not believe everything you read" by checking sources, questioning what motives the author might have, checking who the author is, finding a related article from a different source, etc. IMO this would prevent the need for platforms to remove misinformation (something that can be easily abused to remove content that doesn't fit a certain political agenda or similar) since the public would capable of filtering out misinformation themselves.

The war on misinformation seems to be driven by the democrats today; however, it could easily be driven by the republicans in the future. Regardless of who is pushing the war, IMO a war on misinformation will always lead to polarization. After all, your opponents aren't rational, rather, they've been brainwashed. As such, there is no need to engage with your opponents views, conveniently leaving your own views completely unopposed (and thus obviously correct and good).

cassalian

5년 전discuss

Thanks for the link!

cassalian

5년 전discuss

Could you provide the source for the supreme court agreement? It seems to me that forcing someone to get a vaccine would just as much violate their individual liberties so I'm rather curious what issue the supreme court was specifically addressing

cassalian

5년 전discuss

Yes it does - I do not believe in the "rules for thee, but not for me" type of thinking

cassalian

5년 전discuss

Why should society be concerned with rehabilitating the most violent of offenders? To be a bit more specific, assume we are talking about a parent that has brutally beaten their child to death, or someone who has knelt on someone else's neck until death was inevitable. This person has killed someone, an action that is absolutely irreversible. Why should that person be allowed back in society? I don't want society spending time and money rehabilitating this person. In my opinion, this person has forfeited their right to live in society when they chose to take someone else's life.

To be clear, I'm not talking about non-violent crime or even most types of violent crimes - I'm referring to the most violent of offenders. There are 7 billion people in this world, I think society will carry on just fine if we remove the tiny fraction of people from society that commit the most heinous of violent crimes (i.e wanton murder).

So what's society get out of rehabilitating this person? Let's assume this person can add moderate value to society, such as being capable of working an average job decently well (thus bringing value to their employer, the customers they help, and greater society through taxes). Now weigh that value added against the fact that their victim will never re-enter society again. Is that value added worth it, and is it fair to their victim?

I am open to having my opinion changed on this topic so if you have a good argument for why we should be concerned with the most violent offenders, please do share and I will weigh what you say carefully. However, please make sure you are addressing the case of deliberate, unprovoked murder since my response is only addressing this form of crime.

cassalian

5년 전discuss

8th graders are typically 12-13 years old, not 10 - 10 year olds are typically in the 6th and 7th grade.

cassalian

5년 전discuss

My sister is still in school and the anti-cheating software gives her a lot of anxiety - not that she's a cheater or anything, but because it is well known that this software flags non-cheaters as cheaters. For example, she is not allowed to look around or talk to herself while working on a problem, both of which help her to demonstrate her knowledge effectively. If the goal is for testing to demonstrate a student's knowledge, then employing techniques that hinder a student's ability to do so in the hopes of catching cheaters is counter productive to the original goal. After all, you want to know if she can apply fundamental techniques and skills - not whether she can apply these fundamental techniques and skills while behaving under a very strict set of rules.

Even in early level mathematics, there are plenty of opportunities to introduce word problems that can only be solved by applying the relevant techniques. As long as the teachers are defining these word problems themselves (rather than pulling them from an online resource), they stand as a pretty good guard against cheating since they require students to first recognize the technique that needs to be applied, and then to extract the relevant variables from the word problem to apply that technique.

Furthermore, in early level mathematics, you can still have students present solutions to problems and explain why the solution works. For instance, say you were interested in whether or not a student has grasped the basics of derivatives - simply get on a call with that student, give them a random function to solve the derivative for, and then have them do so in front of you.

These are all things I've quickly thought of that would have at least be partially effective in measuring knowledge. I imagine any person with a career dedicated to instructing students could come up with many more options that could be even more effective.

> Instead, they seem happy we're making their study possible, and accepting of what they're asked to do. They know it's important that they can demonstrate unequivocally that they have particular skills.

Students are happy to be able to study and know that it's important to demonstrate their skills - but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't be happier if they could demonstrate their skills without the invasive testing software. I argue this is setting up a false choice: "you can either learn nothing at all, or do so under this cheating software". But the reality of the situation is that they can still learn and demonstrate their skills without the cheating software.

cassalian

5년 전discuss

> I see it as a currently-necessary annoyance, as the least bad option... shutting down education until the pandemic's over is unfeasible.

Is it necessary though? Have you considered there are ways other than testing for a student to demonstrate their knowledge on a subject? Projects, presentations, and writing all come to mind as effective ways to measure knowledge on a subject and do not require treating all students like cheaters because a few choose to do so.

cassalian

5년 전discuss

This is a lie of omission:

> Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts... partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.

From wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie):

> Lying by omission, also known as a continuing misrepresentation or quote mining, occurs when an important fact is left out in order to foster a misconception. Lying by omission includes the failure to correct pre-existing misconceptions.

Dr. Fauci believed that the real range was somewhere between 70 to 90 percent as you pointed out; however, he gave lower estimates to the public because he didn't believe the public was "ready to hear what he really thinks". So not only was he failing to correct pre-existing misconceptions, but he was actively spreading misconceptions about how much of the population he believed needed to be vaccinated. As such, he was lying by omission.

cassalian

5년 전discuss

I tend to agree that the world generally is more dull than people like to believe. However, I'd say that mostly applies to people trying to make more ordinary events more extraordinary. But in the case of covid, we already have an extraordinary situation.

I don't have any evidence that the CDC was deliberately withholding information (not to say it doesn't exist), but I do have evidence that medical leaders have felt it okay to lie to the public with regards to covid.

> In the pandemic’s early days, Dr. Fauci tended to cite the same 60 to 70 percent... And last week, in an interview with CNBC News, he said “75, 80, 85 percent” and “75 to 80-plus percent.”

> In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.

> “When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” Dr. Fauci said. “Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-covi...

cassalian

5년 전discuss

So by your logic, it would be okay for a twitter employee to modify a tweet from of the president's account to declare war (or to any number of things that would have very real repercussions in the real world)

cassalian

5년 전discuss

It appears that reddit prefers that people believe it is the original author's words when they edit someone's post:

> "I messed with the “f*** u/spez” comments, replacing "spez" with r/the_donald mods for about an hour," Huffman said, indicating that the only thing he secretly altered was the target of the insults.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13739026/reddit-ceo-stev...

cassalian

5년 전discuss

Reddit's response can be found here: https://np.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/mbqgx2/a_clarifi...

> We’re seeing a number of good questions regarding where our policies around public information, personal information, and harassment intersect. While we’re unable to comment on specific employment details, we do want to address a few of these questions, especially around what is or isn’t allowed to be posted. A few answers:

    May we allow articles about an admin's personal and professional history?

Yes, articles are allowed to be posted on Reddit as long as they do not spread private information or invite harassment against others.

    May we allow proper names of admins?

It depends on the context - posting of any personal information, including names, coupled with harassment of any sort may result in action by us. Some admins are public figures by virtue of their job, so those names are okay. Other employees may have chosen to explicitly link their usernames to their real life, that’s also okay. Some employees may have taken pains to not associate themselves with their specific usernames for safety reasons, in which case linking their names to their account is not ok.

    Can we allow wikipedia pages if they mention the names of admins?

As long as it’s not being posted in conjunction with other rule breaking content, nor as a springboard for harassment.

    If we approve this kind of content can we be banned?

We know mods make mistakes and it’s only a problem if we see it becoming a pattern. If we see that we will talk to you before further steps are taken. That said, we sometimes make mistakes too, as we did in this instance. When we do so, we will correct the situation as quickly as possible.

Nevertheless, there have been instances where mods have been removed from their positions or suspended over repeatedly ignoring site wide rules or encouraging others to break them.

    Given that this person is a public figure, why is this standard in place? They ran for public office and have been covered in the media.

Our intent was never to remove any and all mentions of this admin’s name. Just an overzealous automation when attempting to prevent doxxing and harassment.

    Ok, so why did you suspend the mod last night just for posting the name of an admin? (this is not a quoted question, but a sentiment we’re still seeing here so wish to address)

As we mentioned, this was an error on our part and quickly rectified with the mod team in question. We also communicated clearly with them while we were in the process of resolving this.

cassalian

5년 전discuss

The EU was hit especially hard too, is that somehow the US's right-wing's fault too? Maybe the fact that the virus is incredibly contagious is at fault for there being a global pandemic...?

cassalian

5년 전discuss

> are you implying that the act of deciding to have a long lockdown necessitates that the decision makers do not care about children

Not quite... I'm referring to the fact that society has often gotten quite worked up over "think of the children" arguments for perceived dangers, but when faced with a real threat to child welfare, the response has been rather mild in comparison.

cassalian

5년 전discuss

Anyone else find it strange that a country that has often fallen in line with "think of the children" arguments for hypothetical dangers appears to be completely uncaring about very real dangers of social isolation that are impacting our youth?

cassalian

5년 전discuss

It's nice that you have been able to deal well with the situation this last year, but try to remember that your experience is not necessarily representative of the whole:

> The districts, large and small, rural and urban, serve more than 2.2 million students across the United States. Of the 74 districts that responded, 74% reported multiple indicators of increased mental health stresses among students. More than half reported rises in mental health referrals and counseling. Nearly 90% of responding districts cited higher rates of absenteeism or disengagement, metrics commonly used to gauge student emotional health

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-c... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26532588)

cassalian

5년 전discuss

People seem to blame the people giving out loans or the people receiving them. However, isn't this all the colleges fault for dramatically increasing their tuition over the last 20ish years?

Student loan forgiveness would be nice for the people who currently have student loan debt, but tomorrow, a whole new group of young people will be signing these loans and so what then? If the cost of higher education is allowed to rise unchecked, we are just going to continue to have this problem, no matter how many times we forgive loan debt.

IMO we need policies similar to rent control on college tuition.

cassalian

5년 전discuss

> It may be something entirely different though, point is it is not hard to come up with a context where these slides are not criticizing the color of people’s skin.

I agree that your above scenarios could change the context.

However, given that I perceived the slides in a different manner, and several others did as well (if no one perceived this to mean white people, then there would have been no news). Would you agree that using "white" to mean something other than the race in a seminar titled 'Facing Racism' is less likely than 'white' being used to refer to race? If not, would you agree that the Robin's usage of 'white' was poorly thought out, considering that people ended up with the conclusion that she was referring to race?

I do believe that Robin was referring to 'white' in terms of race; however, I'm willing to explore the possibility that this wasn't the case.

In the event that my assumption is correct - that Robin is referring to race - would you then agree that Robin is a member of the left who believes that white culture should be viewed negatively based on the content of the slides within the seminar?

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