2112

> Under current law, Big Tech platforms have the final word on their services. They have the right to decide which thinkers, politicians, and businesses are allowed onto their platform and which they will expel. This seems reasonable until you consider Big Tech’s scale and how fundamental the internet is to modern-day life.

I think that's the heart of the matter. I've thought about this quite a bit, but when we say break them down, how does that work ?

Could there be legal thresholds such as what already exists with regards to ( actual ) hate speech and encouraging violence, based on publicly agreed upon standards ?

Platforms being legally accountable for enforcing arbitrary or biased deplatforming or shadowbanning ? They are a special kind of service ...

I guess you'd need a watchdog with teeth. Does anyone have a link to something that covers all this in depth ? Could well be a HN thread ( maybe this one .. )

I am considering offering my services for Bitcoin, at a custom rate, subject to regular review, for a part of my salary to be discussed. The main point is building an economy around that damn thing. Many people "believe" in it, but not many people put their Bitcoins where their mouth is. A bi-weekly salary is actually a good use case for the shitty transaction rate. I still have some details to iron-out, but it makes sense to me at this point. Anyone here who has experience in working / hiring for Bitcoin ? I do mean in the surface economy. Any authoritative resources on tax policies / issues and what not ? I haven't fully thought this through just yet, but I'm gonna.

Same here, as previously learned on HN :)

Personally, I find that this [0] doesn't break many sites at all, but messes with cookies to an appreciable extent. Combine this to an extensive use of that [1] and clearing your cache and cookies every day, and I think you're in decent shape while some heavy and heavily lobbied government body inches towards doing something about it.

[0] uBlock Origin

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin...

[1] Firefox Multi-Account Containers

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...

I was looking at this just a few days ago ;

"Careful writing about traumatic or uncertain events, past, present or future, appears to produce a variety of benefits, physiological and psychological. Written accounts of trauma positively influence health. Recent investigations have shown that the explicit written description of an ideal future produces similar results. A large body of research conducted in the industrial and business domains also demonstrates that future authoring or goal-setting results in improved productivity and performance." [0]

[0] https://www.selfauthoring.com/ -> "Writing Benefits" =

https://selfauthoring.blob.core.windows.net/media/Default/Pd... (PDF)

Have you managed to verify this or you're just assuming it ? I'm just assuming it, that's why I'm asking. Like have you made a request for your data from Facebook / data brokers and it looks straight ? I trust Mozilla to the fullest and have made no effort to investigate.

Related thread ;

Bitcoin now uses more electricity than Argentina [0]

751 points - 1292 comments and trending

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26088455

[0] https://cbeci.org/cbeci/comparisons

This (here) article is also very interesting.

> And the results are revealing: Sichuan, second only in the hashpower rankings to Xinjiang, is a province characterized by a massive overbuild of hydroelectric power in the last decade. Sichuan’s installed hydro capacity is double what its power grid can support, leading to lots of “curtailment” (or waste). Dams can only store so much potential energy in the form of water before they must let it out. It’s an open secret that this otherwise-wasted energy has been put to use mining Bitcoin. If your local energy cost is effectively zero but you cannot sell your energy anywhere, the existence of a global buyer for energy is a godsend.

> But to ambitious data scientists like Pocovi, who has worked with major political parties in Latin America in recent elections, Cambridge Analytica, which shut down in May, was behind the curve. Where it gauged people’s receptiveness to campaign messages by analyzing data they typed into Facebook, today’s “neuropolitical” consultants say they can peg voters’ feelings by observing their spontaneous responses: an electrical impulse from a key brain region, a split-­second grimace, or a moment’s hesitation as they ponder a question.

> "Proof of work" is just a synonym for "having wasted tons of energy." This is my main beef with these systems. Gaining fundamental value from the act of wasting energy [...] is not a sensible basis for a 21st century technology.

This is my main beef with the system we live in already.

See ; Bullshit Jobs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_jobs

"Bullshit Jobs: A Theory is a 2018 book by anthropologist David Graeber that argues for the existence and societal harm of meaningless jobs. He contends that over half of societal work is pointless, which becomes psychologically destructive when paired with a work ethic that associates work with self-worth."

I am not contesting the Bitcoin situation is ... interesting.

(edit = comment layout )

Related ( user-side ) :

Facebook Container

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-cont...

It applies to the process of taking the decision (to execute), not the executing itself. After the seventh breath, you don't go back to pondering on yes / no, you just proceed as decided.

I suppose one can figure out exactly how you're supposed to handle what you decided you were going to handle afterward.

Disclaimer : I am not a Samurai.

I recently realized and talked about how HN has been my third place for a while ( young account but ( relatively ) old soul ). Thought I should submit the thing itself.

Turns out those are really important, and their destruction is one of the serious side-effects of the sanitary measures that is almost completely ignored, or at least not part of the equation of all the downsides to this non-sense ( referring mostly to lockdowns ). Anyway, I'm not in the mood for a Covid debate, just find it useful to delineate this concept.

tl;dr

> You may have heard of the Pomodoro Method. It is a tried-and-true practice among productivity nerds like me. My twist? I like to bring my team on board for coworking Pomodoro sessions rather than doing them myself. For someone with ADD—as I’m sure some of you reading this can relate to—that added accountability factor is exactly what we need to make the magic happen.

You might want to check that thread from 1 week ago or so ;

"Me and ADHD"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25992390

I'm not diagnosing you or anything but that thread put me on to the fact I might have that type of wiring too ... it would explain a lot ( for me ) and possibly some of that ^ ?

[ EDIT ] Anxiety is hands down my primary problem, but sometimes some issues can obfuscate others, and cause deductive fallacies by encouraging you to explain everything away under the umbrella of that first cause.

“In the words of the ancients, one should make his decisions within the space of seven breaths. Lord Takandobu said, “If discrimination is long, it will spoil.” Lord Naoshige said, “When matters are done leisurely, seven out of ten will turn out badly. A warrior is a person who does things quickly.

When your mind is going hither and thither, discrimination will never be brought to a conclusion. With an intense, fresh and undelaying spirit, one will make his judgments within the space of seven breaths. It is a matter of being determined and having the spirit to break right through to the other side.”

Initially from ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagakure

But taken from a site [0] I just found in the process that apparently has nothing to do with the OS and informs us that ;

"Ubuntu is a concept that we have in our Bantu languages at home. Ubuntu is the essence of being a person. It means that we are people through other people. We cannot be fully human alone. We are made for interdependence, we are made for family. When you have ubuntu, you embrace others. You are generous, compassionate. If the world had more ubuntu, we would not have war. We would not have this huge gap between the rich and the poor. You are rich so that you can make up what is lacking for others. You are powerful so that you can help the weak, just as a mother or father helps their children. This is God's dream.”

- Ubuntu, as explained by Bishop Desmond Tutu

[0] https://ubuntutheory.blogspot.com/2008/08/7-breaths.html

How about this on day 2 ;

Google Acquires YouTube For $1.6B

with : 12 points - 0 comments ...

Think about that when in the early days of a new project.

Yes. That was your submission from yesterday and that's how I found out about it ! See my other comment ^ in which I reposted about it. Thanks for that. Did you know about this ;

https://hnrss.github.io/ ?

That's pretty cool too and I just found out about it this week ( this account is young but my soul is old ... )

This was posted yesterday ;

HN homepage on the day it launched (Oct 9, 2006)

https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-9

I've been a power lurker for years and had a few accounts. I can't imagine my life without HN. I'm here almost everyday, at least once a day. What I'm getting at is this ; picture coming here and finding literally 0 submissions [0] ... This was a somewhat surreal and shocking experience, like seeing the completely deserted downtown at the beginning of the pandemic. If the site just went away it wouldn't be as bad as this. Picture showing up to the bar, work, or whatever and no one else is there. Like they're all dead or something. I don't usually feel lonely, but I would on that day. I could quite possibly cry or have a panic attack or something.

I came to realize HN is my third place [1] and it has become possibly even more important to me during this goddamn pandemic. Thank you all for coming here. I love you guys.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-11-10

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

Day 2 has this as one of 9 submissions on it ;

Google Acquires YouTube For $1.6B : 12 points - no comments

Right below ;

MySpace: Not a purely viral start : 9 points - no comments

Apparently the same ^ could be said of HN.

Think about that when starting a new venture. Puts things into perspective.

There might be only one way to find out ;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_mushrooms

My brain just threw an error.

I'm curious about what the combination of skills was ?

The scary-ier part is how many life-critical processes might end up ( or already are ) like this. That being said ; balls have zero to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to. But if you don't have access to that kind of technology, i i can i i i everything else . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [0]

[0] https://thenextweb.com/artificial-intelligence/2017/06/19/fa...

Most of the very real dynamics that affect all of our lives at a policy-making / systemic level are never official. If you think the official stuff is a reflection of reality ... I don't know how to finish this sentence. Safe from it being "official", it is very much the job of a prosecutor in the US to convict someone at all costs. This is common knowledge.