jozo

In Sweden you can vote for whatever you want. It's quite humorous to read the results of these votes after the election, when they are published online. Normally this would be used by new parties who can't afford distributing printed ballots. Being Sweden someone of course had the xkcd-inspired(?) idea to try XSS and SQL-injection.

http://alicebobandmallory.com/articles/2010/09/23/did-little...

You must understand that other people don't necessarily share your idea of what's important. To me it seems you are saying that people shouldn't vote unless they know these subjects from this particular viewpoint and in extension therefor also share your view of what's important.

If you made the argument that no one should vote because no one can fully understand all different viewpoints and you yourself won't be voting, then I would at least understand the argument. But I don't think that is what you are saying.

I think you should vote, even if you don't seem to understand what representation[1] means. You also seem to only refer to liberals, but at the same time you say people shouldn't vote? I thought individual freedom and equal rights was a core principle in liberalism, but I guess you are only counting positive freedom.

If you really believe that people shouldn't have a say in elections based on your criteria, you should at least ask them to actively do so by casting a blank vote. Otherwise your motives might be misinterpreted as trying to demoralize people who don't share your views from voting.

And as someone once said: "It ain’t so much the things we don’t know that get us into trouble. It’s the things we know that just ain’t so"

Not necessarily true just because someone said so, but I do agree with the point being made.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representation_(politics)

I'm sorry but I frankly don't get what you are saying. Democracies are generally based on representation, where you elect someone to represent your values and what's important to you. I don't know how you would do this without taking your previous experiences into account. I also don't get where you got bias from group or political party from. The group I referred to wasn't an actual group, but a representation of people with similar experiences. I'm not saying these people will come to the same conclusion based on those experience, but they still represent a shared part of what is going on in society.

I would understand if you said that people should stay informed, but asking people not to vote seems undemocratic to me. Democracies are still supposed to be a reflection of the people. Not a reflection of those who had the opportunity to evaluate every issue without consideration of previous experiences. It seems to me you're blaming voters for something that is the responsibility of politicians. As a voter you have the right to vote even if you're wrong. I can't really make my point any clearer than this without seeming condescending, so this will be my last post in this exchange.

I clarified a bit what I meant in my post before I realized you had replied. I'm not talking about asking your friends what they want, but representing your perspective based on your situation, education, background etc. As an example, most people here have a unique perspective on technology based on those factors. I'm not very familiar with how elections work in the US, but if possible I would rather people here voted for someone technology friendly than not at all.

Your vote rarely matter from an individual perspective, but there are still reasons for voting.

1. You vote out of solidarity to the people in a similar situation as you are and to represent that perspective on issues. If you feel strongly about something you would want others with the same perspective to also take part.

2. You vote as a role model for your friends and family and to give them a fair chance to cast their vote. If you don't set a good example for others, e.g. your kids, they're not going to have a fair chance to choose if they want to vote or not.

3. You vote to show support for a system where people have the right to vote, even if it's flawed. It's also out of respect to those who fought and those who continue to fight for the right to vote.

4. You vote to consistently show that you cannot be manipulated to not express your opinion. For instance moving election dates, changing locations of polling stations, saying that you shouldn't vote if you not informed etc.

5. You vote to question your own motives not to vote. If you have the conviction not to vote, then there shouldn't be a reason not to go through the voting process and casting either a blank/invalid vote or choosing not to vote at the absolute last moment. If you can't do this it's more likely that you are abstaining from voting out of convenience, not conviction.

What I find strange is that people generally don't seem to have a problem with offering their opinion outside of elections, not least on the Internet. I guess it has to do with having higher expectations when it comes to elections.

Democracy is based on people stepping up, coming together and making their voice heard. Voting was never meant to reflect the opinions of an individual, but rather the opinions of a movement.

I'm not surprised he makes that argument. A higher voter turnout generally benefits the left, as the poor are less frequent voters. Everyone has the right to vote, informed or not, and I don't think anyone should undermine that right. There's always going to be someone making the argument that they are more informed.

Also, the only acceptable way to show that you don't want to vote is to go and cast a blank or invalid vote.

Agree. This guy seem to have a bad case of confirmation bias (1). The question was "What role did the Internet campaign play _in convincing you_ to hold this rally? Don't pander" (2), not if it helped to make it possible.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias#Biased_interp... (2) http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1010/30/cnr.07.html

It seems to me that many of the 'bad' comments come from users who has a strong feeling on a subject and therefor posts many comments on story, where one might get upvoted early on. I think it could be a good idea to account for the consistency of scores on comments by a user within a story.

Edit: I also think that the effect of the first downvote on a new comment is (or was) to powerful. Especially when the leading comments have many replies.

I think a big problem with a "harsh debate climate" is that the people who can provide real value with experience, knowledge and insight will stay away. For different reasons like personal, professional or just disinterest. That will in turn attract more people who enjoy a harsher debate, which most (if not all) of the time are less enlightened.

Or as the saying goes "Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."

I've also gone to counseling and thought it was great. Tough situations affect people and makes it hard to think rational. All the social stigma is pretty much bullshit. People need to swallow some of their irrational pride and focus on what's important i.e. getting better.

I don't get why we need ten line Q&A simplifications on hacker news, other than using theories for justifying opinions. Economic theory is already generalized and simplified enough as is. There's plenty of better source for information like this e.g. http://www.google.se/search?tbs=bks:1&tbo=1&q=deadwe...

The situation in the US now and in Portugal then is very different. Everything from the culture and structure of society, to the motivations behind the reform and the actual reform itself are different. The decision by the socialist government in Portugal was based on pragmatism, born out necessity, rather then ideology. The idea was that, instead of further victimizing the addicts, they would be able to get help. As the law no longer would stand between those in need and the resources of the government. That's why it still isn't legal to sell drugs in Portugal and why you as an addict can be called to mandatory counseling. I'm not saying on reform or the other is better, but they are still very different.

Even if it requires work, I'd rather be in an environment where I don't perceive it as such. This is actually a continuous goal I have in life.

Some wise words from Max Levchin - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWDMaLgT7is#t=4m35s

The climbers are only a small part of an expedition. I would imagine this will benefit the locals, who works with the expeditions but can't afford much access to a satellite phone. The project is part of a larger one to provide mobile coverage to 90% of the population. The company also gets experience in deploying stand-alone cell sites in "harsh environments". The actual use on the mountain itself may just turn out as a public relations stunt and some extra bandwidth for media, but that's not the whole story.

Also readable online at http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/main.htm...

I would assume this is where the 70% came from: "[...] As global average temperature increase exceeds about 3.5°C, model projections suggest significant extinctions (40 to 70% of species assessed) around the globe." http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/mains3-4...

You should note that firesheep, besides sniffing packets, also lets you use other peoples sessions. Which probably has other legal implications.

While it's nice that this gets some attention and not very nice of facebook to automatically revert you back to an unencrypted connection, this is not a facebook specific problem. Anytime you use a wireless network, where you don't have control over the access point, you need to secure everything you want to keep private. This goes for everything from google searches and files transfers to instant messaging and e-mail. The proven solution is to use a VPN tunnel, which even many home routers support nowadays.

Of course there's still a bigger problem with arp spoofing and other attacks, which in the long term will need to be solved. Maybe with something like DNSSEC DKI.

I think you should weight his argument by the quality of the argument itself. While I respect John Carmack as a computer programmer, I also know that computer programming is very different from macroeconomics.

I personally don't think his reasoning is very good. He's saying that you shouldn't be forced to pay for something that's inefficient, but also that government can never be efficient enough. So the argument of an inefficient government merely becomes a justification for his ideological viewpoint that you shouldn't be forced to do something, in this case pay taxes. But as he indicated that his viewpoint was formed by experience, and not some sort of political commitment, it all seems very biased to me.