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In no way do the benefits outlined by OP even come close to outweighing the systemic risks posed by omnipresent surveillance coupled with precise targeting of individualized persuasive messaging with the intent of behavioral change.

The way targeted advertising is currently implemented is a mass violation of privacy and autonomy, a clear and present threat to democracy and liberty, and an indicator of the complete ethical collapse of the US tech sector.

Not just private prisons. The prison guards union has been one of the most potent political forces in California over the last 20-30 years.

https://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/07/us/political-gains-by-pri...

The converse is also true -- a wide range of drugs are subject to metabolism by gut microbes. This can throw off plasma concentrations and reduce effectiveness, or cause unwanted side effects or unexpected toxicity in the worst cases.

Sorry I don't quite follow your comment. What does free speech have to do with unregulated, unconsented mass surveillance and violation of end user privacy?

That "new" social network already exists. It's called Snapchat. I think it's an open question whether social networks will even continue to exist in their current form. There was a time when people connected over Yahoo Chat and AIM...

Seems perfectly in line with restrictions on other dual use technologies, such as biological pathogens, nuclear fuels, etc.

Possibly naive question from a non-physicist... does this not follow from relativity as a natural a consequence of the effect gravity/mass has on spacetime?

By that I mean that the edges of galaxies experience a "reference" spacetime (e.g. constant period), while the interiors experience a stretched out version spacetime (i.e. inverse time dilation and length constriction)?

Not sure I agree. Inheritance refers to flow of influence on properties from parent to child. I think anything beyond that high level definition requires additional qualifiers (e.g. genetic heritability). Inheritance is typically not deterministic, even in the case of genetic heritability.

For example, the statement that tall parents will always have tall children is incorrect, though there is a strong bias. I would be curious to see how the probabilistic linkage between parent and child height compares to that for language. My guess is that parent language has a stronger effect than 99.9% of SNPs identified in GWAS.

If you really think about the difference between the two inheritance scenarios you outlined, it's that one mechanism of influence occurs at a scale that readily admits direct observation and perturbation while the other doesn't.

I don't think we (humans) know anywhere near enough about how genes compare and interact with other factors to support an argument either for or against your final statement.

What is this "free speech" on the net people that speak of? Has it ever existed?

With few exceptions the right to post in a forum has always been at the pleasure of the mods/sysop. In fact, the quality of discussion is usually proportional to how effectively the mods cull the off topic content and wield the ban hammer against the trolls. It has been this way since the days of the dial in BBS.

If the people who believe in X are unwelcome in a particular forum, then no one is stopping them from building their own. Maybe they don't benefit from the network effects of a Reddit, but a Reddit derives zero or even negative benefits from hosting them, so fair deal.

I don't see why this should be very surprising to people. It's not difficult to think of heritable traits that have nothing to do with genetics such as: social status, money/property, spoken language, etc. Biological phenomena exist on molecular, cellular, organismal, population, and planetary scales. The assumption that genetics would be the only mode of entanglement would seem to be overly reductionist.

A better term to use would be ancestry. There is a very strong social component to race and ethnicity. Case in point, I know a number of people who "pass" - meaning 99.9% of people incorrectly guess their race/ethnicity and they don't bother to correct anyone. Perhaps you have interacted with some of these types without ever knowing.

A manager can't follow each individual employee every moment of the day.

To be a little more abstract, I'm talking about the degree of privacy and autonomy that workers are afforded. The reason people find the idea of wristband tracking objectionable is because it provides a means to reduce the autonomy of large numbers of workers beyond what was previously feasible.

There are qualitative and quantitative differences between requiring weekly progress meetings, daily updates, and microchipping employees.

Because economy exists to sustain and enrich the lives of humans, not the other way around.

I think the underlying assumption that the "amazing transparency" enabled by crypto currencies will necessarily lead to a fairer more humane world is dangerously naive.

Does it not occur to people how an immutable, publicly inspectable ledger that records all your transactions might be abused by criminals and/or corrupt authoritarian governments?

Maybe HN is the wrong place to quote 90s rap songs, but these guys knew a thing or two about criminality and human nature.

"Rule Number Uno, never let no one know

How much dough you hold, cause you know

The cheddar breed jealousy, 'specially

If that man f---ed up, get yo' a-- stuck up" -Biggie Smalls (10 Crack Commandments)

> Touting the amazing evolutionary benefits of CF isn't really helping your case. Sure you (maybe) can't get cholera but you will likely die by 40!

Only if an antibiotic resistant cholera epidemic doesn't wipe you out first! (;

Not leave things up to chance?! Is the universe not inherently probabilistic? I'm guessing you mean make things a little more deterministic than they are now in terms of human evolution? Maybe, but I think its important to ask whether or not we already exist in some sort of thermodynamic equilibrium with the rest of the universe (on an evolutionary spacetime scale).

I also think it's not totally accurate to say that most species have gone extinct vs have evolved into something else.

Unrestricted gene editing in humans is probably a bad idea. (1) Evolution has been pretty effective to this point, (2) decreasing genetic variability will make humans as a species more susceptible to extinction from a single event, and (3) it will probably backfire as humans do not possess the foresight to know what the world will be in 1-3 generations and what traits might predispose their descendants to success.

Hell what we think of as genetic "diseases" give an evolutionary advantage under the right circumstances (ex. sickle cell anemia + malaria, cystic fibrosis + cholera).

My tinfoil hat theory is that there is currently a giant transfer (or several transfers) of wealth going on outside of the purview of regulators (e.g. evasion of sanctions). The big uptick was the dark money moving into bitcoin and other cryptos. The bullish HODL propaganda is meant to pull in people to (a) provide camouflage, and (b) buttress/stabilize the price so the dark money can get out. And the suckers are the average Joes who are going to be left holding the bag once all the dark money moves out.

This is pure speculation, and I have absolutely no evidence to back this up.

I really don't like the authors shoehorning a linear model into this work. I perceive it as an attempt to give the article an undeserved veneer of statistical/mathematical rigor.[1]

I think their hypothesis would be much better supported by typical social science approaches, such as citation and quotation of primary sources and comparative study.

For example, how does the Sicilian Mafia compare with the Camorra (Naples) and 'Ndrangheta (Calabria)? Did these organizations undergo a similar expansion during the same time period? Were their origins and expansions rooted in similar phenomena?

[1] https://aeon.co/essays/how-economists-rode-maths-to-become-o...

Well change the words "music" to "conversation" and song to "person" (or phrase), and things start to get pretty scary.

> Now Playing, has a daily battery usage of less than 1% on average, respects user privacy by running entirely on-device and can passively recognize a wide range of music.

Maybe I am missing something, but this seems to be much less respectful of my privacy than an app that only listens to the ambient sound around me when I explicitly give my consent (by opening/activating the app).

I tend think of compassionate use more in the context of medical devices and biologics (e.g. synthetic antibodies) than small molecule drugs. And to reiterate FDA regulation has more to do with marketing (and prescription/reimbursement) than use.

For example, nutritional supplements are often recommended by doctors and incorporated in their practices, but are marketed as "promoting general health and wellness" and not treating a particular condition. Here you don't need any evidence of efficacy (or even safety), you only need to be able to show a "history of use". Many "structure-function" claims push the envelope (ex promotes liver health), but are still legal and FDA has been pretty consistent and clear about where they draw line.

The FDA specifically (and famously) does not regulate the practice of medicine. They regulate the marketing of drugs and medical devices - mainly that you cannot market something as an safe and effective treatment for a disease/condition without proof of (a) safety and (b) efficacy (or effectiveness), which is obtained through clinical trials.

Adherence to "evidence based" therapy guidelines is typically enforced via malpractice claims. Obamacare tried to introduce incentives for outcome measurement/tracking and evidence based care by either cutting or supplementing medicare reimbursements, but even that has been difficult to implement nationally across the 5-7 most frequent and costly conditions and procedures (e.g. acute myocardial infarction, COPD, knee replacement, etc).

While the FDA's regulatory approach does slow the pace of innovation, they exist for a reason -- I acknowledge that GP is not calling for any policy change. Snake oil salesmen were a real thing, and still abound in the valley albeit in different form.

Humans are social mammals. If you want the benefits of herd membership, then that requires some degree of conformity and surrender of autonomy. That is the price we all must pay. If you want to be independent and go another way then do so and don't cry about the consequences of your choice.

Don't show up to a high end night club wearing swimming trunks and crocs and expect the bouncer to let you in. Don't go to a klan rally preaching racial tolerance and expect to be invited back. Don't hang out in a diverse, multi-ethnic environment preaching white supremacy and expect people to pat you on the head.

Eyewitnesses can easily be confronted and cross examined. Questioning eyewitnesses is a relatively common skill among defense attorneys, and the arguments being made in such cross examinations are easily grasped by jurors.

The algorithm behind something like this might not even be made available to defense counsel. If it is, examination will require an expert witness (which costs $$$$), and it's doubtful that 12 average citizens would be able to assess the validity of or even comprehend the arguments.

This looks like something that is just begging to misinterpreted and abused by investigators and prosecutors.

>Opaque technology with an unknown error profile? Check.

>Broad search criteria that guarantee a high false positive rate? Check.

>Evidence that requires careful consideration of prior odds to properly assess? Check.

Imo, the main ingredients here were the low population density and the suspect's own sense of guilt/fear.

I have a problem with the term "dysgenic" -- mainly because the term is applying a value judgement to things (phenotypic traits) whose value is entirely contextual.

The main idea I'm getting at is that the world is dynamic and unpredictable. Today's advantage might be tomorrow's disadvantage and vice versa.

Seems like an easy fix might be to simply kill the engine if the key fob goes out of range. I can see this problematic if erroneously triggered on a highway or something, but it would limit the range the thieves could take the car to the range of their radio, and require radio proximity to the key for the duration of their travel.

Maybe this is already a thing?

Sure. However, I think the objective would to increase difficultly and the level sophistication required for exploitation rather than compete security. For instance, a physical lock on your front door can easily be defeated by someone with the requisite tools and expertise, but that doesn't make them useless as a security measure.

4chan -- pol in particular -- is an agitprop prototyping board, and about as unreliable a source of information as you can get.

Useful when you want to get a sneak peak at the propaganda campaigns, and internet brigade tactics and talking points that are about to be rolled out against the public (or A/B test some of your own), but not so much for serious debate.

Like 99% of the stuff you see on there is going to be deceptively worded or presented, or just factually incorrect. If you're letting 4chan influence your opinion, you're using it wrong.