The font issue is so challenging. Even Chinese developers (who obviously don’t think ASCII is fine) sometimes won’t understand why using a Chinese font to render kanji is an issue.
Mohammed bin Salman’s public position is that global warming is real and dangerous and he has pledged that Saudi Arabia will be carbon neutral by 2060. I think if you wanted to make a case that he’s a hypocrite, there’s ample evidence out there.
But then the real question is why hypocrisy is so bad. All of us are hypocrites in different ways, on different things. Why is being a hypocrite on climate change worse than being wilfully ignorant?
I think a better analogy is the internet. Or phones. By any measure, either of those technologies have unleashed a torrent of scams and fraud, especially in the areas where they are largely unregulated.
Of course, I’d say the benefits of cryptocurrencies are far smaller than the benefits of the internet (it’s pretty hard to compete with connecting almost the entire world into a single instant global network for the first time). But some benefits do exist, and I feel like you’re being wilfully blind if you disagree with that.
Of course, you might feel that the downsides (massively) outweigh the upsides. And that’s fine. Others will disagree.
One thing I think we can all agree on is that crypto is at least decentralized and permissionless enough to not go away any time soon, no matter who wants it gone.
I think Japan is my favourite country for road trips. So many stunning mountain and costal roads. And hotels and restaurants in rural areas often have amazing food. However, gasoline and toll roads are both quite expensive so that might be a consideration. I mostly avoid cities (if I want to go a city, I’ll go by train) so if you want to do that beware that parking can be a pain (and expensive).
Visas will be your challenge. Unless you’re married to a Japanese person, it will be hard for you to get a work visa without being employed by a Japanese company. Any way to try to get around that is gonna be a lot of work (and a bit of money too).
However, if you wanted to take a 1 year sabbatical, you could get a job as an engineer with a Japanese company, work for a year, apply for fast track permanent residency at the end of that year (you’ll need to meet some education/income requirements), then go back to your old job remotely. There are software jobs that hire people who don’t speak Japanese.
New tiktok challenge: going through my pantry to show the chinese government how much non-perishable food I have
New tiktok challenge: seeing how much of the interior of this building I can map
New tiktok challenge: demonstrating my physical fitness level
New tiktok challenge: how many different angles of the presidential motorcade can I film
Yes, China can gain intelligence from other sources like spy satellites. I would likewise describe chinese spy satellites as a potential us national security threat.
Ah, yeah, I know that type. I guess those stories just seem so 1990s to me. I haven't seen any in a long while. Must be because I lived in East Asia for 10 years, I'm out of that bias. :P x
If you can find an article about eating wasps, in such a well presented way, from another culture, then I would be interested. The place on the globe doesn’t interest me as much as the subject.
> How much that productivity has increased due to automatization of laborous tasks ?
For sure some of it. As well as education of the workforce and the changing nature of work.
Either way, the reality is that the benefits have largely gone to capital, rather than labor. And that’s just how the system works, which is why strong unions are important.
But because of a vague memory about something you read sometime (which looks like it was wrong), the presence of short-haired elves breaks your immersion and damages your enjoyment of the show?
Ok, well I'm just alluding that there's probably source material around certain differences. I wouldn't mind short-haired elves, but personally I'd want some justification that makes sense within the story since it deviates from what is previously established.
I think it’s interesting that so many people see the danger in a Twitter “mob” effectively running Kiwifarms off the public, visible internet, without recognising that Kiwifarms themselves were a mob, with the precise goal of running people (including the recently targeted streamer) off the public visible internet too. The tactics were different, but the goal is effectively the same.
The key differences are Kiwifarms is targeting individuals personally. And that they’re doing it kind of randomly, for the lulz. Whereas their main opponents here are targeting a company/community, and acting in self-defence.
It's not about who is more worthy of protection. And viewing it that way is incredibly dangerous. It's about what cost you are willing to pay for that protection.
Ex: we have a pretty clear innocent until proven guilty justice system. This means there will always be people who are guilty who will not be punished. We can make that less likely by just throwing every suspect into jail. This protects the general public better then the current system. But most will agree that the cost of this is too high. So we don't do it. That doesn't mean we don't want the protect the public from criminals.
The people who are against cloudflare banning kiwifarms aren't debating for who to protect. They are debating about the cost of that protection.
> Ex: we have a pretty clear innocent until proven guilty justice system.
The high bar of "innocent until proven guilty" (and "beyond a reasonable doubt") only applies to criminal cases, though, and not to civil ones. The present situation is much more analogous to a civil case where you have to weigh the interests of two parties (i.e., Kiwifarms and their victims) against each other.
It was an example to show it's way too simplistic to view the situation as only "kiwifarms bad". The example cannot be mapped to the situation as you are trying to do. And it wasn't intented as an analogy.
Besides the two parties are not kiwifarms and their victims. The people who are against it make arguments about free speech and whether platforms should be responsible for the content hosted on them. If it was as simple as just kiwifarms vs the victims it would be an open and shut case.
> without recognising that Kiwifarms themselves were a mob
That's seems like a false equivalence to me. They don't have nearly as much as power and influence as the Twitter mobs. Which entire major websites do you think the KF "mob" can get off the internet by political/social pressure?
Also, if there's no avoiding the existence of mobs in the current political climate, it's better to allow all sides to have their own.
> I know who I think is more worthy of protection.
People with backing from almost all social major institutions, corporations, and academia?
Who do you think has more power? A group of anonymous internet "trolls" attacking and harassing an individual or the individual who can't do anything to stop it?
Freedom of speech may protect against government consequences but it doesn't protect against social consequences.
> Freedom of speech may protect against government consequences but it doesn't protect against social consequences.
Whenever I see this line, all I can think is this is the exact same reasoning used by racists and homophobes and religious fanatics in the past. Maybe it’s legal for you to be gay now, but we don’t want to welcome you in our community. Maybe it’s legal for black people to buy houses in our neighbourhoods now that doesn’t mean we have to be welcoming. Maybe we can’t kill you know for being an atheist but we’ll banish you from the community.
The reason modern societies are functionally republics ( I am counting constitutional monarchies here as well ) and not direct democracies is to protect against this very phenomenon of changing societal whims.
If you subscribe to this line of thinking, remember one thing. Societal normal are constantly changing. Just as acceptance of homosexuality waxed and waned across time, just as acceptance of foreigners waxed and waned, so to it will in the future. There will come one day, maybe in our life time, maybe far into the future, when all your values will be turned upside down and it will be people like you who will find themselves persecuted. And when that happens, just tell to yourself “Freedom of speech may protect against government consequences but it doesn't protect against social consequences”
Kiwi farms is not being persecuted for holding an identity, it's being held accountable for actions taken against innocent people. Nobody reasonable thinks, e.g., "persons who engage in abusive behavior" should be a protected class shielded from all repercussions.
The homosexuals are not being persecuted for holding an identity, they are being held accountable for actions taken against public decency and innocent children. Nobody reasonable thinks, eg, “persons who engage in degenerate behaviour” should be a protected class shielded from all repercussions.
So, just to be clear here: the position that you're arguing is that there are literally no actions anyone can take that should have social repercussions to them?
The position I am arguing for is actually something the Cloudflare CEO appears to support as well. At least in writing since he did cave under pressure and instituted censorship.
To quote Matthew Price: “it would have been appropriate as an infrastructure provider for us to wait for legal process”
In a civilised society, we do not have mob rule, we have the rule of law.
The reason we have this stems from the observation that societal norms change throughout time. If we do not have rule of law people will find themselves at the mercy of mobs and petty tyrants. We do not let the mob or “gods anointed” dictate who gets rights and who doesn’t, we offer the same rights to everyone and have a system in place to punish those who step outside the boundaries of the law. This is how a civilised society functions.
If you believe kiwifarms did something wrong, the correct steps are to engage with the system, go through the courts and show they have stepped outside the law. The correct steps are not to censor on the whims of a mob.
Let me ask you a question as well. If a gay teenager or a pregnant teenager gets kicked out of their house for being gay or falling pregnant, would you be as callous as to tell them “you may be protected against government consequences but you’re not protected against social consequences”?
You (and Price) are painting yourself into such a bizarre rhetorical corner. You honestly believe that nobody should have consequences for any actions outside of the literal legal system? If I let someone use my house to hold parties while I'm away, and I get a few dozen people telling me that this person is engaging in abusive tirades every time they do, that I can't rescind my offer to let them use my house? That they are owed a literal platform at my own expense because... principle? How does that make any sense? How do you have any friends if you can't resolve disputes with them outside of a courtroom?
>If a gay teenager or a pregnant teenager gets kicked out of their house for being gay or falling pregnant, would you be as callous as to tell them “you may be protected against government consequences but you’re not protected against social consequences”?
Of course not, but I also wouldn't go out of my way to do anything to help the people who kicked out that teenager! There is no equivalence here, and it's utterly dystopian that you and anyone else seem to insist otherwise. What, specifically, is the protected class you think Kiwi Farms is a part of?
The false equivalence is you comparing a business relationship to an interpersonal relationship between two people in real life.
Do you believe stores should be allowed to ban black people from shopping there? Do you believe pharmacies should be allowed to deny medication to jewish people? Perhaps you believe bakeries should not have to sell cakes to gay people?
Are these groups not “owed a literal service at their own expense because... principles”?
To me it seems you’re the one painting yourself a bizarre rhetorical corner. You can’t have it both ways. If we agreed as a society businesses should not discriminate, then they should not discriminate.
So to answer the question you should asked, yes, I honestly believe that nobody should have consequences for any actions outside of the literal legal system when dealing with a business. Business relationships are not the same as interpersonal relationships.
And to answer this one too:
> What, specifically, is the protected class you think Kiwi Farms is a part of?
I don't know if you're being intentionally obtuse or don't realize the argument you're making, but the comparison I was making was to be analagous to yours -- you made an interpersonal analogy, so I followed in kind. My analogy doesn't change significantly at all when brought into business relationships: if a customer in a cafe and starts shouting death threats at other customers, you honestly believe the proprietor has no standing to kick them out without bringing a lawsuit or law enforcement? Do you think bouncers at night clubs and "no shirt, no shoes, no service" signs are also discrimination?
> People who think differently from you.
The issue at hand is not that they "think differently" than me, it's that they did terrible things to innocent people. The mere virtue of them having a different opinion from me doesn't mean they're suddenly off limits for repercussions, again, that's assinine, and nobody reasonable thinks the only time there should be consequences for anything is when they're legal consequences.
I think you’re the one being obtuse. That or you are profoundly ignorant and accepted the mainstream narrative uncritically. Kiwfarms was not driven off the internet because “they did terrible things to innocent people”. The did not. The equivalence with a customer shouting death threats or a no shirt no entry sign is false.
A hate campaign was launched against a minority group wielding no societal power by a socially dominant group backed by governments and corporations alike. A group of people with institutional power used their power, influence and privilege to harass and silence a powerless minority. Because they think different to them. This is why Kiwifarms is no longer on the internet.
A better comparison with what happened is, at some point in the past before civil rights were implemented, a white man overhears a black man talking. The white man doesn’t like what the black man is saying, so he says “that black man there is a murderer!”. So the black man is arrested and executed. And you, a passerby, take the word of the white man and begin telling everyone “oh that black guy was a vicious murderer”.
In any case, I have no further wish to engage. I have expressed my thoughts on the matter. I’ll leave you with an echo of my original post. When you’ll find yourself outside the cathedral, just tell your self “nobody reasonable thinks the only time there should be consequences for anything is when they're legal consequences”
Yeah, but the Cloudflare CEO seems (pretends?) to be downright delusional.
He acts like as if internet outside of Cloudflare doesn’t exist, he pretends that there are no alternatives. Either he’s actually insane or this is just a marketing strategy.
Okay, but how do you propose the victims of Kiwifarms protect themselves from being kicked off the internet?
And remember we’re not talking about their physical ability to connect to the internet (after all, no one has deprived Kiwifarms of that), we’re talking about their ability to access their audience and use their current identity.
Does law enforcement seriously consider tips from random internet users in some other country credible when handling domestic affairs as in swatting scenarios? Sounds like law enforcement is behind the times...
Uh, no. I'm responding to the interpretation that the KW users generally want the people they follow to stop doing the things that make them worthy of being followed. ("Followed" here meaning "being talked about and having the things they do documented".) That's just not true, by-and-large.
Providing information about how to source drugs (and even encouraging people to take them) is not the same as drug trafficking. Erowid is not the Silk Road.
As for the second allegation, I haven’t seen any substantiation. But I do know that in some circles any discussion in any context (eg: school) about sexual identity with teenagers has come to be considered “grooming” so I’m a bit suspect about the choice of words.
I Keffals broke the law, then that is a matter for law enforcement. It's not the purview of an internet hate mob acting as judge, jury, and executioner.
Every defense I've seen of kiwifarms is exactly like yours. Some insinuations about how "distasteful" an individual is, and then an implied "Can you really blame them for going after him/her?"
If Kiwifarms broke the law, then that is a matter for law enforcement. It's not the purview of an internet cartel and hate mob acting as judge, jury, and executioner. Every defense I've seen of censorship is exactly like yours. Some insinuations about how "distasteful" a group is, and then an implied "Can you really blame them for going after it?"
The comparison here is clever, certainly. But the scope matters: KF relentlessly attacks individuals, to the point of suicide. The anti-KF campaign only seeks to take KF offline by making it too expensive for hosting providers.
Nobody is trying to SWAT the guy behind KF. It is a huge, consequential difference.
This is just untrue for the most part. Some users of KF have harassed some people, sure. But the point of the forum has never been that. I will however concede that the nature of the forum tends to attract such people.
Now this I find doubtful considering everything else in this post. If anything the point has been exactly that with the exception of provably illegal things
He has already been swatted multiple times. In the past trans activists have shown up at his house with weapons, looking for him. Keffals doxed his mom on Twitter a few days ago, posting her full face photo and calling for her firing while lying about her links (there are none) to her son's website:
I don't think the goal of KF is to de-platform individuals, but merely to discredit them by publishing demeaning information and rumors about them. So they are categorically different: one side is pro-free-speech, and the other side is pro-censorship.
"Doxxing" doesn't restrict someone else's free speech. It just discourages them from conducting speech under their public identity.
If you ask me, what they ought to do is "counter-dox" the KiwiForum users and give them a taste of their own medicine.
I've seen people make the argument "free speech does not mean free from consequences". This seems to be the same case here. Free speech does not mean free from the consequence of "doxxing"
This argument is patently ridiculous - according to this logic everyone has "free speech" in that they are able to express themselves even if they are attacked for it with physical violence.
Of course exchanging information can be dangerous - e.g. when people decide to run coordinated harrassment campaigns - it can also be a wonderful, magnificent thing (e.g. distributing academic knowledge freely) but it's not all good.
> "Doxxing" doesn't restrict someone else's free speech. It just discourages them from conducting speech under their public identity.
Isn’t this the exact same thing? Discouraging someone from conducting speech under their public identity is taking away their audience and community. It’s not removing their ability to speak, but it’s hard to see how it’s not restricting their free speech.
And in the exact same way, no one has removed the ability to speak of any KiwiFarms member (or indeed of their community as a whole). It’s simply been made harder for them to conduct their speech under their current public identity.
They published the home address of the family of a trans child and their members physically showed up in person to harass and intimidate that family for years for the crime of existing.
> So they are categorically different: one side is pro-free-speech, and the other side is pro-censorship.
The "free speech" angle is an obvious smoke screen for bullying. Their "doxing" is in typical bully style, a whole forum against one person they take a dislike to.
Most normal people don't want to play that game, or even have the resources to do it.
You could conceivably regard almost any comment as "threatening and intimidating".
On a larger, more serious scale, almost every world power uses the internet to distribute propaganda with the effect of "threatening and intimidating" other nations. There is some degree of "threatening and intimidating" in almost every discussion of politics.
The US Gov might consider Wikileaks to be "threatening and intimidating". Ukraine "threatens and intimidates" Russia and vice versa. Corporations "threaten and intimidate" their workers, while unions "threaten and intimidate" corporations.
I don't think that's a justified basis to atomize the entire internet, but I do think that is a basis for partisan censorship
On a small scale, none of this matters because it is just internet gossip between a few deranged individuals. But this is creating a precedent for internet censorship at large.
> You could conceivably regard almost any comment as "threatening and intimidating"
Of course, but I think a threat to kill someone with a bomb is unambiguously threatening and intimidating whereas "I think this person's ideology is terrible and disagree with it" is not.
> The US Gov might consider Wikileaks to be "threatening and intimidating". Ukraine "threatens and intimidates" Russia and vice versa. Corporations "threaten and intimidate" their workers, while unions "threaten and intimidate" corporations.
You're kind of lumping in a bunch of separate concerns - a war between Russia and Ukraine is not the same as a forum of neo Nazis and neither are whistleblowing or labour relations disputes. Could you explain why you think they're related (as I can't personally see how they are)?
>Of course, but I think a threat to kill someone with a bomb is unambiguously threatening and intimidating
The "bomb threat" was posted by a recently-created and otherwise inactive account, immediately flagged by multiple users, and deleted by a moderator within minutes. The user who posted it was immediately banned. It was also clearly unserious.
But if someone comes at you wanting to unplug you from the internet (in every meaningful sense), what possible recourse do you have? These are trolls, they don’t go away just because you ask nicely or try to ignore them.
