johnfactorial

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."

Edit: BTW today I learned "stet" thanks to you.

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.

Maybe informed lenders is a solution, though.

> 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.

This is probably the nuance I'm missing.

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.

My hero!

> 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.

The first sentence of this post strikes me as needlessly combative and the post would be better without it.

Mental *super illness ;)

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.

”We’re strongly dissatisfied and oppose Adam Silver’s claim to support Morey’s right to freedom of expression,” CCTV said in a statement. “We believe that any remarks that challenge national sovereignty and social stability are not within the scope of freedom of speech.”

Chinese state television clearly stating that the organization (and government that manages it) does not hold to the principles China agreed to when they voted in favor of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which reads:

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/10/8/20904593/nba-china-co...

https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

5> Vans removes innocuous custom shoe design https://www.cnn.com/style/article/vans-hong-kong-intl-hnk-sc...

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.

This is the little detail my dumb joke missed.

I can use this.

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.

Thanks very much. Some great other replies to my question in this thread as well.

> 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.

LOL I came here to see if someone else had noticed it's the worst mobile-first layout of all time. At least it's mobile-first I guess. :)

> Snowden distributed documents to the Guardian, Washington Post, and Der Spiegel - not Wikileaks.

That's an important distinction, thank you for making it.

Late May, Snowden fled to China. Days later, documents he stole were first published. Less than a month later, he and the Wikileaks legal team were moving him to Russia where he requested political asylum. Many people reasonably find it hard to believe that Snowden's introduction to Wikileaks personnel happened in that less-than-one-month timeframe. Like any journalist will tell you, though, the story is a very complex one.

> Could you provide some evidence of harm here?

I define lost value as harm, in the same way that if a person steals $1 from your pocket as you sleep, your body is unharmed, but you have lost $1 of value, and your trust has been violated, both harmful to you. I'm not privy to the specifics of how this loss has directly impacted the US, but it should go without saying that the loss of value is harmful to the secret holder.

> GPG has been around for a long time

GPG wouldn't have saved anyone from PRISM, though.

> The answer to your question is in the part of my post which you didn't quote, so I'm just going to quote myself: "There were a number of people who tried... the results of this were that they were silenced..."

This does not answer my question, "Did Snowden try any of these official channels?"

Please note: I am not a Snowden detractor. I recognize the multi-faceted nature of his story. My comment states the view against Snowden because I am able to express it, having engaged in good faith with some of his detractors. And I think there are some valid points there.

This, though, I think is not a good faith discussion. You seem to want a whipping boy to argue Snowden's heroism against.

I admit, strictly speaking, Snowden didn't flee directly to Assange, but to his trusted advisors & lawyers. Seems pedantic to me to require that kind of specificity, but perhaps that's what you needed to hear.

I am no liar. A lie requires intent to deceive. Late in my first comment begins an admission of ignorance and a question: "My knowledge is limited here, but..." Your response calls me a liar multiple times, dodges the question twice, literally calls shame onto my post, then shrinks from the charge that you're behaving disrespectfully. Your insults have been received and recognized as such. Have a nice day.

Pain was once considered a fact of life, and vital signs were those 4 signs which can indicate a patient is alive: body temp, pulse, respiratory rate, and blood pressure.

Then the notion of pain as the "fifth vital sign," came about. Some argue we resultantly now have an opioid epidemic.

There is a fascinating NPR show episode on this topic: https://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/701219878/the-fifth....

Edit: another source of info: https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/publichealth...

> and I'll point out that you're very much treating the American public as a geopolitical foe if you don't acknowledge that fact.

This does not follow, as the logical conclusion of your statement is that the American public either has a right to all state secrets, or is a foe of its own country. The value of secrets is in their secrecy, and when that value is lost, harm is done.

> Any serious threat to the US is sophisticated enough to get around surveillance with simple, freely-available tools.

That is a big claim, can you give an example of a serious threat to the US which is possible with simple & freely available tools? It sounds like you know an easy way to defeat the US in information warfare.

> Snowden did not "escap[e] to Julian Assange". This is just a lie.

What I know is that Snowden escaped to China with data he stole in less than 3 months on the job, and less 1 month afterward was on a flight with Wikileaks editor and Assange's closest advisor Sarah Harrison, seeking political asylum in the bastion of political freedom, Russia.

> There were a number of people...

My question was about Snowden's efforts, as the topic is valid reasons why some may consider him a traitor. I'll interpret your response as, like me, you also don't know the answer to my question.

> you should be ashamed that you repeated it... What on earth are you talking about?... This is just a lie.

I find this rather unnecessary. People who disagree with you aren't enemies to be shamed and insulted.

My use case was a prototype for an iOS app I had in beta testing. It had a tiny but globally distributed user base, and serverless was a fun thing to learn on top of being relatively quick to set up. I'm sure if I had wanted to, some dynamic DNS and a small machine in my house would've sufficed. But hey--that's future decreases in cost. :)

Thank you. There was too much left-of-dunning-kruger-peak anger in the thread to give me any sense that the tweeter knew what they were talking about.